God's Wrath and Our Only Hope

Dan and we thank you that there are these libraries and we the people that have given their time Lord for these to be established and maintained and cared for Lord we pray that the literature there would be a blessing that it would be used as a tool to teach the people and the children there about you and about your word and about your world that you would be glorified there.

We pray, Lord, even for the folks in our own midst who are suffering. We pray for Dick Hoisington and pray, Lord, that you would give him healing mercies from the recent surgery that he had. We pray that you would give him joy in the midst of suffering and that you would give the doctors wisdom and skill as they walk with him through the path of recovery. We pray for others in our midst who are grieving, who are hurting, who are ill. Lord, we pray that you would be near to them and that you would upbind those who are downcast in their hearts.

Lord, that you would heal those who need healing. And Lord, that you would give a sense of your presence to them. Lord, now we come to meet with you and we pray that you would give us a sense of your presence. Lord, a joyfulness to be glad in God and to give you the praise that you are worthy of. We ask it all in Jesus name. Amen. Let's continue worshiping the Lord by singing together Psalm 14, Selection A. Please stand and we'll sing together Psalm 14, Selection A as an apple.

Within his heart the fool spoke and said there is no God. Destructed in their mild deeds, not one of them does good. The Lord looks down from heaven upon the human race. Has anyone shown wisdom? Does any speak God's word? they're corrupted, they all have turned aside. Not one for good has labored, not even one has strived. Have all of them no knowledge? whose deeds are so abhorred.

Like bread they eat my people, and fall not on the Lord. There they will be in terror, for God is with the just. Though you would shame the wretched, the Lord remains his trust. From Zion send salvation and help to Israel bring. The Lord restores his captives, let Jacob Israel sing. Amen.

Will you please turn in your Bibles with me to Romans chapter 3. Romans chapter 3. If you're using the New King James Pew Bibles, you'll find that on page 1001. I say we are making quick speed. We started at 999 and we're at 1001. This is great. Romans chapter 3. This morning we're going to be looking at verses 9 through 20. Brothers and sisters, this is God's perfect word.

Let's pay careful attention. What then? Are we better than they? Not at all. For we have previously charged both Jews and Greeks They are all under sin. As it is written, there is none righteous. No, not one. There is none who understands. There is none who seeks after God. They have all turned aside. They have together become unprofitable. There is none who does good. No, not one.

Their throat is an open tomb. With their tongues they have practiced deceit. The poison of asps is under their lips, whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood. Destruction and misery are in their ways, and the way of peace they have not known.

There is no fear of God before their eyes. Now, we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. Therefore, by the deeds of the law, no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin." When the portion of reading of God's Word is there, the grass withers and the flower fades, but the Word of our God will endure forever.

Prayer for Illumination

Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your word. It is true and perfect altogether. A discerner of the thoughts and intents of our hearts, able to cut to the joint in the marrow. So Father, we pray that you would send your spirit this morning and do a heart surgery this morning. Father, where there is the cancer of complacency, the malignant tumor of self-justification. We pray that you might take it out, that we might have health, life, and peace in Christ. Lord, please care for us, we pray in Jesus' name, amen.

Sermon

You go back my parents' decades, There was a time where we often think about President Nixon as he was embroiled in the Watergate scandal, as he was bugging the opponent side's offices to try to get different information. And he was trying to defend his freedom, that he didn't know anything, that he was perfectly OK. And there was a point at which he sat in a conference room surrounded by news editors. And he was trying to defend himself. And somebody asked, not about Watergate, but they said, Mr. President, What about your financial affairs? The answer he gave was, the American people need to know that their president is not a crook, and I'm not a crook.

And everybody's eyebrows went up. It's not the way an innocent person normally answers themselves. And I think sometimes we're like that, too. We want to say, I'm not guilty. I'm not the problem. I'm not a crook. I'm not the angry one in the relationship. I'm not the lazy one in this family. I'm not the one who's got the covetousness. I'm not the, I'm not the, I'm not the.

And here in Romans chapter three, God says, yeah, you are. And so today's call is for us to stop Stop justifying ourselves. Rest God's case against you. And admit that you're a sinner. Because we all are. But not just to admit that you're a sinner, but also to look to Jesus as the one, the only one who can justify you. Jesus died and rose again from the dead for sinners. like you and me. And so as we go through Romans chapter 3 verses 9 through 20, we're going to have three different points I hope that you will see.

Second Point

The first is that God is going to lay a charge against people in verses 9 through 12. There's a universal condemnation and Christ is the only exception. And point two, we're going to look at the proof of that charge in verses 13 through 18. And it's going to show us the evidence of human depravity.

Third Point

But indeed, it is Christ alone who is tested in every way as we are yet without sin. And then finally, we'll look at point three with Romans chapter three, verses 19 through 20, with the verdict, God's verdict against us. And there is no self-justification possible. Jesus is the only answer before the judgment seat of God. So first, let's look at the charge, the universal condemnation that we find in Romans chapter three, verses nine through 12.

Look at that passage with me, please. And then, are we better than they? Paul has just gone through this whole section of speaking of Jewish people and what benefit is the circumcision. And he's saying, so are we Jewish people any better than them, the Gentiles? And what's his answer?

Not at all. For we have previously charged both Jews and Greeks that they are all under sin, under the condemnation of sin, under the slavery of sin, under the tyranny of sin. And then it goes on, with this charge, this condemnation, there is none righteous, no, not one. There is no one who understands. There is none who seeks after God. They have all turned aside. They have together become unprofitable. There is none who does good, no, not one.

Paul brings a whole world underneath this charge of sin. Every single person, doesn't matter if you're a Jewish person or a Gentile person, all are under sin. No group has moral superiority before God. Jewish people can't rest in their circumcision, and Gentile people can't rest in their ignorance of God's law. Paul removes every hiding place here.

I mean, Paul, this whole scene is a legal scene, which is why I put the three points the way they are, because this whole section is filled with legal language. And it's God who's on the throne judging, but it's Paul who is his prosecuting attorney. And here he's just, it's like a boxing match, and he is just pummeling us into a corner.

Our back is against the ropes, we have nowhere to turn, and it's just exhausting. He's already charged that both Jews and Greeks are under sin. And the issue isn't merely that people commit sin, but that people are under sin. It's not just that we do bad things, but it's that by our very human nature we're failing people. We're under its guilt, we're under sin's power, we're under sin's condemnation. This is why he says there are none righteous. There's no one who understands, there's no one who seeks after God. The charge is universal, it's everyone, everywhere, period. Together they have become worthless, no one does good, not even one. The echoes of Genesis chapter six ring in our ears that God looked upon all humanity and he saw that the thoughts and intents of their hearts were only evil continually. It's still us today. It's amazing what people will do. One of my favorite evangelists. He goes out to the pier outside of Santa Monica in California, right by the ocean.

Ray Comfort will kind of take bystanders just by surprise and will confront them in a pretty adversarial way that I wouldn't be comfortable with, and I wouldn't want to answer his questions, to be honest with you. But he'll just ask people, do you think you're a good person? And they'll say, well, yeah. And he says, well, why do you think you're a good person? And they'll say, well, you know, I haven't killed anybody, and I work a good job, and I'm pretty nice to people. I even give a charity from time to time. He says, oh, that's interesting. Can I ask you some questions? They'll say, yeah, sure, go ahead.

They'll say, have you ever told a lie? Even a white lie? Well, yeah. Have you ever stolen anything, even something small? Well, yeah. Sure, I have. Everybody has. Have you ever taken God's name in vain? Well, yeah, I've done that before. Have you ever looked lustfully upon a woman? Well, yeah, hasn't everyone?

So by your own words, you're saying you're a liar, a blasphemer, a thief, and an adulterer. Why are you saying you're a good person? See, it's easy. We often want to justify ourselves and make ourselves on the sliding scale. Well, I'm not as bad as that guy over there. I'm not as sinful as that person over there. I'm decently a good human being.

And the Lord here is saying, no. No, stop softening sin. Stop making it sound better than it is. Can't name sin as just weakness, or personalities, stress, tiredness, misunderstanding somebody else's fault. Right now, those all might be circumstances that tempt you to sin, But one of the blessings we have is, as biblical Christians, be able to, by the Holy Spirit, look at these things and go, you know what? I am a sinner. I can give up the fight of self-justification.

God's not asking you to compare yourself to somebody else. Indeed, he's asking, he's saying something quite differently. when he says that he's the one who will judge the world. He won't judge you by somebody else's righteousness, he'll judge you by his own righteousness. So be honest, where have you failed God? Where are you still trying to defend yourself? Where are you just excusing away sin?

But thanks be to God, there's one exception to this, there is none righteous, no, not one. And his name is Jesus. Who humbled himself and took on the likeness and the form of a man, and he was tempted and tried in every way as we are, and yet, without sin. He never thought a sinful thought. He never did a sinful deed. He never spoke a sinful word. But he did all that his father sent him to do.

And so it's Jesus that we look to for righteousness. It's Jesus who always understood and always sought the Father and always did good. And so the only exception to the charges that are laid here in verses nine through 12 is Jesus. And then there's a proof that happens from this. If the charge is that there is none righteous, no, not one, what's the proof of it?

Well, that's where he goes in verses 13 through 18. By the way, what Paul is doing here, as these Jewish authors talked about, is stringing together pearls. As we go through verses 10 through, yeah, verses 10 through 18, it's a series of different passages from Ecclesiastes and the Psalms and Isaiah and then back to the Psalms. It goes through these different verses and I want you to look with me at verses 13 through 18 as he continues to string together Old Testament passages.

What is the charge or the evidence of our depravity? Their throat is an open tomb. With their tongues they have practiced deceit. The poison of asps is under their lips. That's a weird one. That's like poisonous vipers from Egypt. Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood. Destruction and misery are in their ways, and the way of peace they have not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes. Their throat, their throat is an open grave.

And this is what Jesus was getting at when he said, it's not what goes into you that makes you unclean, but it's what comes out of you. He talked to the Pharisees and he said, you whitewashed tombs. He's saying that it's like when they opened their mouths, the putrid stench of death came out. They thought they were righteous. They thought in all their law-keeping, somehow they were the smell of roses. And Jesus says, you're nothing more than a rotting zombie in your heart. It's no longer a question. This is God's declaration of condemnation. And the evidence is what comes out of their throats. And he says, he doesn't leave it there.

Poison are with the tongues they have practiced deceit. You see, from your throat as an open grave to your tongue practicing deceit, to your lips being like the sting of a viper with poison that kills. With our tongues that were made to bring God glory and encourage others, We tear people down, ruin their reputations, speak poorly against God, complain, complain, complain. We wound in ways that slowly kill our victims with our words. With your mouth full of curses and bitterness, not imparting grace, not building people up. How often is this our default mode? He continues on, he says, your feet, in verse 15, their feet are swift to shed blood. Destruction and misery are in their ways.

He's going to Isaiah here, and he's not even talking about Gentile people anymore. He's talking about Jewish people, Jewish people who had the temple, Jewish people who had the law, Jewish people who had the kings, Jewish people who had all the rights and the ceremonies and all the privileges of the covenant people of God. And yet, when he evaluated them, he said, everywhere I look, I see a trail of blood. That's how he's evaluating his own people. And then in verse 18, he moves from the feet back to the head. There is no fear of God before their eyes. No reverence. No Isaiah chapter six. Woe is me for I'm an unclean man. No shaking before the Lord.

And the root of this rebellion, underneath all of it is our own sinfulness. Some of the words here when it talks about being bent this way is, we get our idea for depravity from this, but it's like spoiled milk. Sometimes that's, we were created good and healthy and it was supposed to be nourishing and then yet we sat outside in the sun and curdled and stink. Every time we sin, we say with the fool, there is no God.

It's practical atheism. That's where he got that from in Psalm 14. We just sang Psalm 14. Did you notice how the beginning starts out? The fool says in his heart, there is no God. And then how does it show in their life? Sinful living. It's only God who can save. And so we say, in effect, I can be like God. I can do whatever I want. I can decide what's good for myself. And this is exactly why we can't just blame our sin on our personalities or on our circumstances. Sinful, I was conceived within, David says in Psalm 51. So what about your throat? What about your lips? What about your feet? What about your eyes? Can you really stand before God and say, I'm innocent, Lord. I've always used my mouth, every syllable, every breath for your glory.

If we haven't, The evidence is against us. There is none righteous. No, not one. What hope do we have? If the verdict is that bad, the evidence is that thorough, what hope do we have? Our hope doesn't come from inside of us, our hope comes from Jesus.

Because every syllable, every breath was for his Father's glory. It's not our righteousness, it's not our law keeping, it's not our trying to justify ourselves, it is looking to Jesus. It is Jesus' mouth who is always filled with grace and truth. It was Jesus who went toe to toe with the devil and endured temptation and didn't sin. It was Jesus who stood under the full pressure and temptation and came out righteous. It is Jesus who is the only righteous one in this story. And so we don't have to hold our own justification.

I'm telling you, it's exhausting. It must be exhausting. I know it in my own heart. You know how it ruins your relationships and how it ruins in your heart the weight of trying to act like you have it all together, act like you're the right one in all the situations of life. When you bring that to the Lord, you know it's worthless.

Third Point

So we don't have to come. We don't come with our own self-defense. We looked at Jesus. Who is our righteousness? Because the verdict's in. That's our third and final point. The verdict is in. There's no self-justification that's possible. Look with me at verses 19 and 20.

Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped. And all the world may become guilty before God. Therefore, by the deeds of the law, no flesh will be justified in his sight. For by the law is the knowledge of sin. God's law condemns us of sin. And it silences our mouths.

We cannot justify ourselves by pointing to the Ten Commandments or to any of the ceremonial laws. or to any of the civil laws. We can't look to the law to justify us, because what the law does is we look at the Torah, then we look at the full broad scope of the law and the prophets and the writings, and we go, man, I do not measure up.

And so what the Lord has done here, and this is the courtroom scene, And as Paul is writing to each and every person in the church of Rome, some of them Jews and some of them Gentiles, he's saying the Lord is the one on the throne and he's the one who's judging perfectly, righteously. And you are the one sitting on the witness bench and Paul is going at you. As the prosecuting lawyer, he's just this charge, this charge, this charge, this charge, this charge, this charge.

And the point isn't to break you down where you go, oh man, just give me the death sentence. I admit all of it. The whole point here is that as we're on the witness stand, we're able to say, I don't have a defense. I don't have an answer. The only thing that ever gives me any hope in any of this I'm not gonna find it in me, but judge, please look to my advocate.

Look to Jesus. That what he did on that cross was sufficient for taking my punishment. The judgment that Jesus endured on that cross The pain and the anguish of his soul is why he cried out, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? But make no doubt about it, Jesus did that with you in mind if you are resting in Jesus.

The law will never be able to justify us. No human being will ever be justified in God's sight by keeping the law. And it's not because the law is defective, it's because we are. The law does exactly what it's supposed to do. It reveals our sin. It exposes our sin. And it shuts our mouth.

We don't have an answer other than Jesus. And so it's exactly here with our mouths stopped from a place of weakness and not a place of strength that we look outside of ourselves. This is why we call Jesus our Lord and Savior. We look to the Righteous One, in Psalm 24 we'll talk of Him, the King of Righteousness. We go to that one, we remember Jesus, we hope in Jesus our righteousness. So we look at the law and all of our self-righteousness washes away and we realize we're just there pauper's filthy rags. But when we look to Jesus, we see one robed in pure regalia, a royal robe of righteousness unspotted by the world. And when we cry out to him in our weakness, Jesus takes off his robe of righteousness and puts it on us.

A father doesn't look at you and say, you filthy sinner, he looks upon you and he sees the righteousness of his son, Jesus. And that's how you are justified. Because you're not wearing your own filthy rags, you're wearing the righteous robes of Jesus. So tomorrow, Monday's gonna come fast, and the kids will be loud, or your co-workers will be annoying, and your nerves are going to get rubbed raw, and when you get angry, and you may sin in your attitude or in your words, and then you may feel guilty because of it. Do not. Here's a beautiful thing. Do not whitewash away your sin. Call it for what it is. And the freedom that God has purchased for you, run to Christ and find newness of life.

When Tuesday comes and you find the poison of gossip on your lips, you don't have to self-justify. But you can accept for what you've done, failing with your lips, And you can go to Jesus for forgiveness and reform. And if that wasn't enough, Wednesday's gonna come. And your mind's gonna linger too long on somebody else's stuff. And you'll covet somebody else's stuff in your heart. You don't have to justify yourself. You can just call it for the idolatry it is.

Confess it to the Lord and find forgiveness for your soul. There's goodness to be found in what happens and the fruit that happens from Romans chapter three. See, the Christian doesn't fear confessing sin because we accept what God says about us, that we are sinners.

So maybe you've spent your whole life Acting like Richard Nixon. Trying to convince everyone else and yourself that you're no crook. Let down the act. I pray that the Holy Spirit's piercing eyes might be upon your soul and you might be able to say, Lord, you judge the secret parts of my heart and you know that I'm not righteous, so give me a righteousness from Jesus. Today, God is calling you to stop justifying yourself, to rest the case against you, admit you're a sinner, and run to Jesus. Brothers and sisters, Christ is offering you freedom today. You can stop. We get to stop. justifying ourselves or acting like we are more righteous than we are. God is inviting us today to the freedom of looking to Jesus and not to ourselves.

No more exhausting burdens of self-righteousness, no more exhausting weight of trying to carry the law upon your own shoulders which neither the Pharisees nor their fathers nor anyone else before them could ever bear. You don't have to explain all your sin away anymore to try to preserve whatever's left of your reputation.

You're free to confess because there's safety. Because God demonstrated his great love for us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Rest in the finished work of Christ. Rest in his righteousness. You no longer have to justify yourself. Rest in Jesus.

Closing Prayer

Let's pray. God, we thank you that we can accept the guilty verdict against us. that we are sinners. We also thank you for the work of your Holy Spirit that you turn our feet from bloodshed and turn us to fleeing to Jesus, our only righteous one. Father, thank you for the peace of Christ that surpasses all understanding and for the hope of our salvation that doesn't look at our own cleanness but looks to the spotless Lamb of God. Thank you for giving us our Savior.