Latest / Reformed Thinking / None Righteous, No, Not One: The Necessity of God’s Righteousness in Christ (Romans 3:10–12)

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None Righteous, No, Not One: The Necessity of God’s Righteousness in Christ (Romans 3:10–12) · Reformed Thinking

• 0:00
  Welcome back to Reform Thinking. I am honestly a little nervous
• 0:04
  about today's session. We usually tackle some pretty
• 0:06
  heavy stuff, but the stack of notes I have in front of me
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  today isn't just heavy. It is, well, it's functionally
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  an indictment of the entire human race, including me.
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  Including you. It is good to be with you and
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  yes, indictment is absolutely the correct legal term.
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  We are not dealing with a self help seminar today.
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  We are dealing with a criminal charge.
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  Right off the bat, I want to set the stage for everyone
• 0:29
  listening. I want you to visualize
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  something. You are not in your car or at
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  the gym or washing dishes. You are walking into a
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  courtroom. But this isn't the local County
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  Courthouse with the, you know, the flickering fluorescent
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  lights and the sticky floors. This is the High Court, the
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  Supreme Court of Heaven, the divine.
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  Council is in session, the judges on the bench got
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  almighty, and the prosecuting attorney has just stood up to
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  deliver his closing argument. It is a terrifying scene.
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  If you really take it seriously, it is.
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  The prosecutor is the Apostle Paul.
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  He has been building his case for two whole chapters,
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  methodically calling witnesses, presenting evidence, and just
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  shutting down every possible objection.
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  And now we are opening the file on Romans chapter 3,
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  specifically verses 10 through 12.
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  And the opening line of this closing argument is just brutal.
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  None is righteous. No, not one.
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  It leaves no wiggle room, not at all.
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  That is what we are here to unpack.
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  Our mission today is to figure out why the Bible makes such a
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  sweeping, universal claim. Because let's be honest, if you
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  walk down the street and ask 10 people, are people basically
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  good? Yeah, Nine of them will say,
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  yeah, I think so. Or.
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  You will say I'm good. It's those other people who are
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  the problem. Right, of course.
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  So we have this massive clash between modern culture, which
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  says we are basically good, but maybe, you know, damaged by our
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  environment, and the Bible, which says, as we'll see, that
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  we are worthless. And I have to tell you, when I
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  saw that word in the Greek notes worthless, I bristled a bit.
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  It feels insulting. It is insulting.
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  It is meant to be. It attacks human pride at the
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  very root. But here is the thing.
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  This bad news, this absolute devastation of the human ego, is
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  the only way you ever get to the good news.
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  You cannot appreciate the cure if you are in denial about the
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  cancer. That's it.
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  That's the whole point in a nutshell.
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  So we're going to do a forensic analysis of these 3 verses.
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  We are going to look at the sour milk analogy, which is frankly
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  kind of gross, but very accurate.
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  It is. We are going to look at why the
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  seeker movement in churches might be based on a translation
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  error. And we're going to talk about
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  something called the Covenant of Works.
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  Which sounds very dry and theological, but it's actually
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  the key to understanding why the world is broken in the first
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  place. OK, let's not get ahead of
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  ourselves. We need to establish the
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  context. You mentioned Paul has been
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  building a case. He didn't just wake up in
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  chapter 3 and start yelling at everyone.
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  No, not at all. Paul is a master logician.
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  He is orderly. If you look at Romans one
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  starting in verse 18, he brings his first defendant to the
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  stand. We usually call this group the
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  Pagans or the Gentiles. This is the group that the
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  religious people have always loved to hate.
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  Historically yes. In the 1st century context this
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  was the entire non Jewish world and the charge against them is
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  that they suppress the truth. Suppress.
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  That's a very active verb. Very active.
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  The image that comes to mind is holding a beach ball underwater.
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  You know the truth is there. God's power, His deity, because
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  creation is just screaming it at you, but you hold it down, you
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  fight to keep it submerged. And you exchange the glory of
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  the immortal God for images resembling mortal man or birds
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  or animals. That's the text.
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  So this is open idolatry. This is the person who says I
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  don't care what God says. I'm going to worship money or
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  sex or a statue or, you know, myself.
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  And if you are a religious person or just a moral person,
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  reading Romans 1 is actually kind of fun, isn't it?
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  You sit there in the jury box thinking get him Paul, look at
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  those heathens they are just out of.
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  Control. It feels good.
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  It confirms your own sense of being on the right side.
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  I think we all have that moralist inside us.
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  We we doom scroll the news and look at the chaos in the world
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  and think, well, at least I'm not doing that.
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  And that is exactly the trap Paul sets.
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  He baits the trap in Chapter 1, and he springs it in Chapter 2.
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  He turns from the defendant on the stand, and he looks right at
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  the jury box, at the moralist, specifically the Jew in his
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  context, and he says, therefore you have no excuse, O man, every
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  one of you who judges for in passing judgement on another,
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  you condemn yourself because you, the judge, practice the
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  very same things. That is the record scratch
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  moment in the courtroom. It absolutely silences the room
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  because the moral thinks I am safe.
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  I'm safe because I have the law, I have the Bible, I go to
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  church, I have the heritage. I have the badges all the right
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  identity markers. Right, I have the badges, but
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  Paul says look, having the rule book isn't the same as obeying
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  it. If you have the law but you
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  break it, you are just a better educated law breaker.
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  You are arguably worse off than the pagans because you knew
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  better, you had the light, and you still chose the dark.
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  Precisely. So you have the Pagan who openly
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  ignores God, and you have the moralist who tries to use God or
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  the things of God. Do you prop up his own self
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  righteousness? And by the time we get to
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  chapter 3, verse 9, Paul issues the preliminary verdict for both
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  groups. He says we have already charge
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  that all both Jews and Greeks are under sin.
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  Under sin, and I want to pause on that preposition just like
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  you did under it doesn't say they commit sins occasionally
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  like it's a mistake or a slip up.
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  It says they are under sin. Think of it spatially.
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  Think of it as a jurisdiction. If you are under the
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  jurisdiction of the United States, you are subject to its
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  laws, its culture, its power. It's your operating system.
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  Yes, that's a great way to put it.
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  Paul is saying that every human being, regardless of background,
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  is living under the dominating authority of sin.
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  Sin is treated here almost like a king, a tyrant, a power.
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  So it's not just something we do, it's a place we live, it's a
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  regime we are stuck in. We are occupied territory.
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  That sets the scene perfectly. The Pagan is guilty, the
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  moralist is guilty. The whole world is standing
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  there looking at their shoes, realizing there is no exit.
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  And then Paul does something really interesting in verse 10.
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  The notes call this a Cortana. Yes, a Cortana.
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  It is Latin for a chain, specifically a chain of pearls,
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  or in this case a chain of quotes.
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  Right, a string of citations. Why does he do that?
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  Why does he switch from his own argument to just quoting stuff?
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  Why doesn't he just keep riffing?
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  Because Paul knows his audience, he knows the moralist, the
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  religious person is going to object.
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  They are going to say, Paul, this is just your opinion.
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  You're a little cynical. You're being too harsh.
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  So Paul says fine, don't listen to me.
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  Listen to your own Bible. He calls witnesses to the stair.
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  He calls King David to the stand.
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  He calls the prophets. He quotes from Psalm 14 and
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  Psalm 53. He is showing that this verdict,
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  that humanity is corrupt from top to bottom isn't some new
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  idea he invented. It is the consistent testimony
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  of God regarding man from the beginning.
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  The notes mentioned the phrase stop the mouth.
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  That sounds really aggressive. It is.
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  It comes directly from Romans 3.19.
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  Now we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who
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  are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped.
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  So that everyone will shut up. Effectively, yes.
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  The purpose of the law isn't to show you how good you are, It is
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  to strip you of every single excuse.
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  You know how we are. We always have a Yeah, but
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  ready. Yeah, but I didn't mean to.
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  Yeah, but I had a rough childhood.
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  Yeah, but I'm better than my neighbor.
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  The law is a relentless prosecutor that dismantles every
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  single Yeah, but until you are left standing in absolute dead
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  silence before the judge. And that silence is necessary.
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  It's actually a mercy. Why is it a mercy?
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  Because as long as you are defending yourself, you cannot
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  be saved. As long as your mouth is moving,
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  your ears aren't open. You have to be silenced by the
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  Law before you can hear the whisper of the gospel.
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  That is a powerful thought, the mercy of being shut up.
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  OK, let's look at the charges. The prosecutor has the floor.
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  Verse 10. None is righteous.
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  No, not one. This is the first charge, the
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  charge of legal standard. Now I have to push back here on
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  behalf of the listener. None is righteous, really.
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  I mean, I know plenty of people who are righteous in the sense
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  that they are decent, law abiding folks.
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  They pay their taxes, they volunteer, they don't kick
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  puppies. Is Paul using a different
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  definition of righteous? He is.
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  He's using the strict forensic definition.
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  The Greek word is de chios de chios, and in a courtroom
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  context which Paul has painstakingly set up, it means
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  someone who conforms perfectly to the standard of the law.
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  Perfectly not mostly. That is the key.
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  The standard is not better than average.
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  The standard is not grading on a curve.
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  The standard is the absolute holiness of God.
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  So if God is the standard. Then any deviation, no matter
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  how small, in our eyes renders you unrighteous.
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  It's like a binary switch. You are either 100% compliant or
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  you are non compliant. There is no 99.9%.
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  That's a perfect analogy. It's pass fail and the only
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  passing grade is a perfect score.
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  And just look at the grammar poll uses.
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  It is devastating. The Greek phrase is UK astin,
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  which means it is an absolute negation.
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  It means there does not exist. And then, as if that weren't
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  enough, he adds ude. What does ude do?
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  It means not even 1. He is anticipating our
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  objection. He knows we will try to find an
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  exception. We will say, OK, OK, most people
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  are bad, but surely the Pope, surely Billy Graham, surely my
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  sweet grandmother who knits blankets for orphans.
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  And Paul says. Not even 1.
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  He closes every possible loophole for human pride.
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  That is just so hard to swallow. We love our resume of
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  righteousness, don't we? I mean, I have a mentalist of
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  all the things I do that I think make me a good person.
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  I hold doors open for people. I tip 20%.
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  We all do. We carry that resume around in
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  our back pocket and we're always ready to pull it out.
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  God, look at this list. Look at my civic duties.
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  Look at my charitable donations. Look how patient I was in
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  traffic today. And Paul doesn't just ignore the
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  resume, he rips it up. He doesn't just RIP it up, he
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  says it is inadmissible evidence in this court.
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  You are trying to prove you are a good swimmer by showing you
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  can dog paddle for 30 seconds, but the requirement is to swim
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  across the Atlantic Ocean. The gap is infinite.
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  That is the good neighbor objection.
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  You can be a wonderful neighbor. You could be a great citizen.
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  You can be a loving father. Those are good things.
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  We aren't saying they're bad things, but in the court of
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  heaven, regarding your legal standing before a holy God, they
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  do not make you de Chios. They do not make you righteous.
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  Because the standard isn't my neighbor.
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  The standard is perfection. Because the standard is God
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  himself. OK, so legally we are bankrupt.
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  That's charge one. Now Paul moves from our legal
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  standing to our mental state. Verse 11.
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  No one understands. This is charge 2, the corruption
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  of the mind. Theologians have a term for
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  this. They call it the noetic effects
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  of sin. Break that down, Noetic.
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  It comes from the Greek word nuss, which means mind.
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  It means that sin isn't just a behavior problem, it is a
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  cognitive problem. It is damaged our intellectual
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  equipment. The specific word in the verse
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  is sinning. Yes, seen.
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  It comes from a verb that means to put together.
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  It is the ability to assemble facts into a coherent, truthful
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  picture of reality. It's about comprehension, not
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  just apprehension. So it's not about raw
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  intelligence, it's not about IQ points.
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  Not at all. You can have an IQ of one in 60.
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  You can be a Nobel Prize winner in physics.
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  Yeah, you can understand the mechanics of how the universe
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  works, gravity, electromagnetism, quantum
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  mechanics, but you can fail to put together the most basic
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  reality that this universe belongs to God and you owe him
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  your allegiance. So you can be a genius and be
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  spiritually insane. Moral insanity.
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  That is a good way to describe it.
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  It is like a man who understands the chemical composition of
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  paint, the properties of canvas, the physics of light, but denies
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  the existence of the painter while standing in front of the
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  Mona Lisa. He has all the data, but he
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  doesn't have the understanding. And the grammar suggests this is
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  a permanent state of being. It is a present participle in
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  the Greek. It describes A continuous
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  characteristic state of the human race.
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  We are constantly suppressing, constantly misunderstanding
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  spiritual reality because deep down we don't want it to be
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  true. That leads right into the next
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  phrase in verse 11. No one seeks for God.
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  This is where we have to deal with the will.
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  If the mind is dark, the will is in bondage.
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  Now, this is the part where I think a lot of people check out.
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  This might be the most counterintuitive line in the
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  whole passage because we look around and we see people seeking
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  all the time. I mean, bookstores are full of
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  spirituality sections. People go on yoga retreats,
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  people go on pilgrimages, people go to church.
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  How can Paul possibly say no one seeks for God?
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  We have to look at the word he chooses.
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  The Greek is exutic. The rude is zutic, which just
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  means to seek. But that prefix eek means out.
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  It intensifies the verb dramatically means to crave, to
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  hunt diligently, to strive after something with every fiber of
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  your being. And Paul says no one does that
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  for the true God, naturally. Correct.
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  And this brings us right up against the myth of the Seeker.
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  This is a huge deal because we have entire church models, whole
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  philosophies of ministry built on being seeker sensitive.
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  The idea is that there are all these people out there earnestly
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  looking for God, and if we just play cool music and have good
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  coffee and don't say anything too offensive, they'll come in.
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  The source material we're looking at is very firm on this,
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  based on Romans 3. There is no such thing as a
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  natural seeker of the biblical God.
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  But what are they doing then when someone who isn't a
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  Christian walks into a church? What are they looking for if not
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  God? They are seeking, but they
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  aren't seeking God on His terms. They are seeking relief from
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  guilt. They are seeking community
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  because they're lonely. They are seeking a spiritual
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  experience, a feeling. They are seeking a God who will
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  bless their business and fix their marriage.
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  So they are seeking the benefits of God without God Himself.
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  Exactly. They want the gifts, not the
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  giver. They want a God they can manage,
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  a God who serves them, a divine Butler, the holy God, the God
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  who demands you take up your cross and die to yourself.
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  The God who is a consuming fire. The natural man runs from that
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  God. Like Adam in the garden.
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  It always goes back to Adam. He is the prototype.
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  When Adam sinned, what was his first instinct?
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  He didn't run to God saying, Father, I messed up, forgive me.
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  He ran to the bushes. He hid.
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  That is our native impulse. So if we see someone actually
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  seeking God, I mean really seeking him, repenting of sin,
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  wanting the truth no matter the cost, what is happening there?
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  You are watching a miracle. You're seeing the supernatural.
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  If someone is seeking God, it is the ironclad evidence that God
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  has already sought them. The Holy Spirit is already gone
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  into the bushes. Grab them by the collar and turn
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  them around. The seeking is the effect of
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  grace, not the cause of it. Precisely.
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  We don't find God, He finds us. We are not seekers, we are the
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  sought. Wow, that really changes how you
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  view evangelism. It takes all the pressure off
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  the marketing department and puts it squarely on the Holy
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  Spirit. It does.
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  You can't market a dead man into life.
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  But we will. We'll get to that later.
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  OK, so that brings us to charge 3, verse 12.
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  All have turned aside. Together they have become
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  worthless. Let's take the first part turned
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  aside. The Greek is equineu.
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  It means to deviate, to lean away.
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  Imagine a wheel on a car that's out of alignment.
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  If you let go of the steering wheel, it doesn't just keep
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  going straight, it consistently pulls to one side.
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  So we have a bent nature, we have a trajectory problem, a
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  built in bias. Settled bias against God-given
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  1000 choices. The natural human heart will
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  always drift away from God, not towards for Him.
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  It's our default setting. And then we get to the word that
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  made me mad earlier. Worthless.
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  Akrish Daison, thank you. It is a harsh word, there's no
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  way around it, but we have to understand the metaphor behind
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  it. In extra biblical Greek, this
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  word was used to describe milk that had turned sour or meat
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  that had rotted and gone bad. OK, let's talk about sour milk,
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  because this answers the dignity objection.
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  When I say a carton of milk is sour or worthless, am I saying
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  it doesn't exist? No, of course not.
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  It is still physically there. It still has mass, it still has
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  atoms. It's still chemically milk.
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  Am I saying it has no properties?
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  No, but I am saying it is unfit for its designed purpose.
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  It's just to be drunk, to nourish someone, to be useful.
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  Exactly. You don't drink sour mills, you
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  don't make a cake with it, you pour it down the drain.
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  It has become useless for the primary purpose for which it was
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  created. So when Paul says humans are
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  worthless, he isn't saying we aren't human.
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  He isn't saying a doctor can't perform a brilliant surgery or
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  an artist can't paint a beautiful picture.
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  He isn't saying we are trash in a material sense.
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  He is saying that regarding our primary created purpose, which
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  is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever, we have become rancid.
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  We are sour milk. We cannot please God.
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  We cannot satisfy the requirement of worship.
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  We are unfit for the masters table.
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  We are unfit and the grammar is really interesting here.
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  It's an aorist passive indicative.
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  You are getting technical again. Why does that matter?
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  Why should we care? Because the aorist tense often
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  points to a specific event in the past when this happened and
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  it's passive meaning it happened to us the fall, fall fall.
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  We weren't created sour, we became sour.
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  This isn't a case where we just slowly went bad over time.
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  We were born sour. The whole batch was spoiled in
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  our representative Adam. That is that's heavy, but it
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  leads right to the final nail in the coffin in verse 12.
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  No one does good, not even 1. And here we absolutely have to
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  define good because again, the listener is screaming, I do good
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  things. I help old ladies across the
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  street. I coach Little League.
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  I gave blood last week. My company matches my
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  charitable. And that is good.
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  That is what the Reformed tradition calls civil good or
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  civic righteousness. The doctrine of common grace is
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  so helpful here. God, in His common grace,
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  restrains the full expression of evil in the world.
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  He allows unbelievers to do kind, brave, beautiful and
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  helpful things. A firefighter running into a
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  burning building to save a child is doing a civil good.
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  So Paul isn't denying that those things happen.
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  He isn't denying civil good, he's denying spiritual good.
• 18:28
  What is the difference between the two?
• 18:30
  For a deed to be spiritually good in God's eyes, meaning a
• 18:34
  deed that merits reward or pleases him as an act of
• 18:36
  worship, it must meet 3 criteria.
• 18:39
  OK, what are they? One, it must arise from a heart
• 18:41
  of faith in him. Two, it must conform to God's
• 18:44
  revealed law. And three, its ultimate
• 18:48
  motivation must be for God's glory.
• 18:51
  It's the motivation, the why behind the what.
• 18:53
  It is the motivation. If I help the old lady across
• 18:57
  the street because I want to feel good about myself, or
• 18:59
  because I want my neighbor to see me and think I'm a great
• 19:01
  guy, or just because I have a natural, unthinking instinct of
• 19:05
  empathy that is civilly nice, it's a good thing for society.
• 19:08
  But if I do it without any thought of God, without any
• 19:11
  desire to honor Him as my Creator, it is, as Augustine
• 19:15
  famously called it, a splendid vice.
• 19:18
  A splendid vice. That is a great phrase.
• 19:22
  It looks shiny and impressive on the outside, but the core is
• 19:25
  hollow because God is left out of the equation.
• 19:27
  Right. Hebrews 11.6 says without faith
• 19:31
  it is impossible to please him. So if you don't have faith, even
• 19:34
  your best deeds are just sour milk in a fancy glass.
• 19:37
  They can't please God. This brings us to the doctrine
• 19:40
  of total depravity. That's a really scary term for a
• 19:42
  lot of people. They hear total and they think
• 19:44
  utterly, as in I am as bad as I could possibly be at all times.
• 19:48
  That is the common mistake, and it's a big one.
• 19:50
  Total depravity doesn't mean you are Hitler.
• 19:52
  It doesn't mean you are as wicked as you could possibly be.
• 19:54
  Common grace prevents that, thankfully.
• 19:56
  So what does total mean in this context?
• 19:58
  It means the corruption of sin is total in its extent.
• 20:02
  It affects every part of you, your mind, your will, your
• 20:05
  emotions, your body, your motives.
• 20:07
  There is no island of righteousness inside you that is
• 20:11
  untouched by sin. There's no clean spot in the
• 20:13
  carton of sour milk. Exactly.
• 20:15
  You can't just scoop out the good part and use that.
• 20:17
  The whole carton is compromised. OK, so we have laid out the
• 20:20
  indictment. Legal standing zero
• 20:23
  understanding 0. Seeking 0 utility, Worthless
• 20:28
  good deeds nullified by motive. We are in a hole so deep we
• 20:33
  can't even see the sky. And that is where we need to
• 20:36
  zoom out for a second and look at the theological framework.
• 20:38
  Why is the case? Why is the standard so
• 20:40
  impossibly high? The notes talk about the
• 20:42
  Covenant of works. This feels like the back story
• 20:44
  to the whole trial. It is the back story.
• 20:46
  In the Garden of Eden, God entered into a covenant, a
• 20:49
  binding legal agreement with Adam, who acted as the
• 20:52
  representatives for the entire human race.
• 20:54
  It was sort of like an employment contract with terms
• 20:56
  and conditions. In a way, yes.
• 20:58
  The terms are simple. Do this and live perfect.
• 21:02
  Personal, perpetual obedience would lead to eternal life.
• 21:04
  And if you breach the contract, what's the penalty clause?
• 21:07
  In the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die.
• 21:10
  And Adam ate. He breached the contract for all
• 21:13
  of us. Romans 3.1012 is effectively the
• 21:17
  divine audit of that field covenant.
• 21:19
  Paul is looking at the entire human race, all of Adam's
• 21:22
  descendants and stamping contract breached on every
• 21:26
  single file. So the position of perfect
• 21:28
  human, the one who could fulfill the covenant, is vacant, yes.
• 21:31
  I like the analogy of a high security biometric scanner.
• 21:34
  OK. Paint that picture for us.
• 21:36
  Imagine the door to eternal life is locked by a biometric
• 21:39
  scanner. It requires the handprint of a
• 21:41
  perfectly righteous human. Adam, our representative, walked
• 21:44
  up to the scanner, placed his hand on it, and the alarm went
• 21:47
  off, red lights flashing, access denied.
• 21:50
  And now we all line up behind him.
• 21:51
  We all line up. You step up to the plate, you
• 21:53
  put your hand on it. Access denied.
• 21:55
  Mother Teresa steps up, puts her hand on it.
• 21:57
  Access denied. The scanner is looking for a
• 22:00
  specific, perfect set of prints. Perfect righteousness.
• 22:03
  Perfect understanding, Perfect seeking, and no human hand
• 22:07
  matches the template. So there is a job opening in the
• 22:10
  universe. A massive vacancy.
• 22:12
  Wanted a human who is righteous, unlike what verse 10 says.
• 22:17
  Wanted a human who understands God perfectly, unlike verse 11.
• 22:21
  Wanted a human who seeks God with all his heart, unlike verse
• 22:25
  11. And this really just demolishes
• 22:27
  all the other religious options, doesn't it?
• 22:29
  I mean, think about all the isms.
• 22:30
  It completely destroys pelagianism, the idea that we
• 22:33
  are basically well and can save ourselves if we just try hard
• 22:37
  enough, The text says we aren't well, we are spiritually dead,
• 22:40
  we are sour milk. It also destroys semi
• 22:42
  plagianism, the idea that we start the process, we take the
• 22:45
  first step toward God, and then God helps us finish.
• 22:47
  But the text says no one seeks, so we can't even take that first
• 22:51
  step. We're not just lost.
• 22:52
  We're not even looking for the way home.
• 22:54
  And it demolishes the modern secular idea of education as
• 22:57
  salvation, the belief that if we just teach people better, if
• 23:01
  they have more information, they will be good.
• 23:03
  But the mind is broken, the understanding is corrupted.
• 23:06
  You can't teach a blind man to see by giving him a textbook on
• 23:08
  the physics of optics. He needs new eyes, not just new
• 23:11
  information. You can't teach a blind man to
• 23:14
  see with a textbook that is a mic drop line.
• 23:17
  It brings us to the end of the prosecution's case.
• 23:20
  The defendant, you, me, everyone is standing there in the dock.
• 23:24
  The evidence is overwhelming. The resume of righteousness is
• 23:27
  shredded on the floor. The milk is sour.
• 23:30
  The scanner is just screaming. Access denied.
• 23:32
  And the court goes silent. And in that silence, that
• 23:35
  hopeless silence. In that silence we get the two
• 23:38
  most important words in the entire Bible, Romans 3, verse
• 23:41
  21. But now.
• 23:43
  But now. The Gospel term.
• 23:45
  The great pivot. It is the hinge of all of human
• 23:48
  history. But now the righteousness of God
• 23:51
  has been manifested apart from the Law.
• 23:53
  Explain this concept of alien righteousness, because that
• 23:56
  sounds like something out of a sci-fi movie.
• 23:57
  It just means foreign or from outside of us.
• 24:00
  Martin Luther called it is dishy aliana.
• 24:03
  It is a righteousness that we do not produce.
• 24:05
  We cannot produce it. It has to be imported from
• 24:08
  another source and credited to our account.
• 24:11
  Go back to the biometric scanner analogy.
• 24:13
  We were all standing there. The alarms are blaring, access
• 24:15
  denied. We've all failed the test.
• 24:18
  And then a man steps forward from the crowd.
• 24:22
  The second Adam. Jesus Christ.
• 24:24
  He steps up to the scanner. He places his hand on the plate
• 24:28
  and what happens? Green light a chime.
• 24:30
  Access granted. Why?
• 24:32
  Because he is the perfect answer to every single charge in verses
• 24:36
  10 through 12. 1st 10 said none is righteous.
• 24:39
  Christ is the righteous. 1 He kept the covenant of works
• 24:41
  perfectly for US. Verse 11 said no one
• 24:44
  understands. Christ is the understanding. 1
• 24:47
  He knew the Father perfectly. He never suppressed the truth
• 24:50
  for a single second. Verse 11 said no one seeks.
• 24:52
  Christ is the seeking shepherd, he said.
• 24:54
  The Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.
• 24:57
  He is the hunter who entered the bushes to find us hiding in our
• 25:00
  shame. And verse 12 said we were
• 25:02
  worthless sour milk fit to be thrown out.
• 25:05
  And this is the part that should just break your heart.
• 25:08
  He took our worthlessness upon himself on the cross.
• 25:11
  He allowed himself to be poured out like sour milk.
• 25:14
  He became a curse for us. He took the access denied that
• 25:17
  we deserved so that we could receive the access granted that
• 25:21
  he deserved. That is the great exchange.
• 25:24
  That is the doctrine of justification.
• 25:25
  It is God. The judge looks at us, the
• 25:28
  guilty Sinner, and instead of seeing our sour milk, he sees
• 25:31
  the perfect new wine of Christ, life and death.
• 25:34
  He declares us righteous not because we are righteous in
• 25:37
  ourselves, but because we are clothed in the righteousness of
• 25:40
  Christ. So it's not that God lowers the
• 25:42
  standard to let us in, it's that Christ met the impossibly high
• 25:46
  standard on our behalf. Exactly.
• 25:48
  The law is honored, justice is fully satisfied, and because of
• 25:52
  that, mercy can be released to us freely.
• 25:54
  That is, it's just breathtaking. But it only works if you accept
• 25:58
  the bad news. First, you have to hear the
• 26:00
  guilty verdict, right? If you still think you can pass
• 26:03
  the scan yourself, if you're still clutching your resume, you
• 26:05
  won't care about Christ's perfect handprint.
• 26:08
  You have to be hopeless in yourself to be hopeful in Him.
• 26:10
  So let's try to land the plane. Practical application.
• 26:13
  We always talk about head, heart and hands.
• 26:16
  Let's start with the head, the intellect.
• 26:18
  We have to consciously, actively change how we think about human
• 26:22
  nature. We have to reject the cultural
• 26:24
  narrative, the default setting that says everyone is basically
• 26:28
  good. That is so hard because it is in
• 26:31
  every movie, every Disney song. Follow your heart, look inside
• 26:35
  yourself. And Jeremiah 17 says the heart
• 26:37
  is deceitful above all things and desperately sick who can
• 26:41
  understand it. Do not follow your heart.
• 26:43
  Preach to your heart. Tell your heart the truth of
• 26:45
  Romans 3 and the truth of Christ.
• 26:47
  We have to be unflinching realists about sin.
• 26:49
  OK, now the heart, the emotions. This seems paradoxical, but you
• 26:53
  said earlier that for the Christian, this doctrine of our
• 26:56
  own worthlessness is actually comforting.
• 26:59
  How can that be? Think about the daily struggle
• 27:01
  with sin. If you were listening to this
• 27:03
  and you are a believer, you know the war inside.
• 27:06
  You do things you hate. You have thoughts you're ashamed
• 27:09
  of. You stumble.
• 27:10
  And we beat ourselves up. We think, if I was a real
• 27:12
  Christian, I wouldn't struggle like this.
• 27:13
  I should be better by now. Exactly.
• 27:16
  But Romans 3 tells us that the natural man, the unregenerate
• 27:19
  person, doesn't struggle against sin.
• 27:21
  He swims with the current. He loves the fact that you are
• 27:24
  fighting, the fact that you grieve your sin, the fact that
• 27:27
  you hate it and want to be better.
• 27:29
  That is the definitive proof of spiritual life.
• 27:32
  Dead men don't struggle. Dead men don't struggle.
• 27:34
  The corpse doesn't complain about the coffin, so if you are
• 27:37
  struggling today, take heart it means the Holy Spirit is alive
• 27:41
  and it work in you. That is huge.
• 27:43
  What about for the leader, the CEO, the pastor, the dad or mom?
• 27:48
  Humility, it just destroys arrogance at the root.
• 27:51
  If you really believe Romans 3 you can never look down on
• 27:54
  anyone. You can never say I'm better
• 27:56
  than that criminal on the news or I'm more righteous than my Co
• 27:59
  worker. Because you know you are made of
• 28:01
  the exact same stuff. You are the same sour milk, just
• 28:04
  in a nicer container. Maybe the only difference is
• 28:06
  grace. It creates a deep solidarity
• 28:08
  with the broken and the messy. Now hands ministry and
• 28:11
  evangelism. We talked about the seeker myth.
• 28:14
  How does this change how we do church?
• 28:16
  It kills pragmatism. If people are spiritually dead,
• 28:20
  blind, and not seeking, then entertainment is not the
• 28:23
  solution. You can't entertain a corpse
• 28:25
  back to life. We try though.
• 28:27
  We try really hard. Fog machines, lights, cool
• 28:30
  graphics, better coffee. And those things aren't
• 28:32
  necessarily bad in themselves, but they have 0 power to convert
• 28:37
  a human soul. If the problem is no one
• 28:39
  understands and no one seeks, then the solution must be
• 28:43
  supernatural. We are completely dependent on
• 28:46
  the Spirit. Completely.
• 28:47
  We have to preach the Word, the Law to show the disease, the
• 28:51
  gospel to show the cure, and we have to pray desperately for the
• 28:54
  Spirit to do the miracle of regeneration.
• 28:56
  We are not trying to attract customers.
• 28:59
  We are prophesying to a valley of dry bones and waiting for God
• 29:03
  to breathe life into them. And what about the religious
• 29:05
  person, The one who's been sitting in the Pew for 20 years
• 29:08
  and thinks they're? Fine, this is the hardest
• 29:10
  application of all we have to call religious people to repent.
• 29:13
  Repent of their sins. No, we have to call them to
• 29:16
  repent of their righteousness. Explain that.
• 29:19
  We have to repent to the idea that our good deeds, our church
• 29:22
  attendance, our Bible reading are buying us leverage with God.
• 29:25
  We have to turn away from our resume just as much as our rap
• 29:28
  sheet. We have to come to God and say,
• 29:30
  Lord, forgive me for my pride, for myself, reliance for
• 29:34
  thinking I could earn even a tiny piece of this.
• 29:36
  That is the hardest repentance of all, to let go of your own
• 29:39
  goodness. It is, but it is the gateway to
• 29:43
  true freedom and rest. Finally, what about liturgical
• 29:47
  implications? How does this change a Sunday
• 29:49
  morning church service? It should make our confession of
• 29:51
  sin much more robust. In many churches, confession is
• 29:55
  too shallow. Sorry, yelled at kids this week.
• 29:57
  It's just behavior management, right?
• 29:59
  Romans 3 demands a confession of nature.
• 30:01
  Lord, forgive me not just for what I did, but for what I am.
• 30:05
  I am a Sinner by nature. My heart is bent, my mind is
• 30:08
  dark. It needs to be deep and honest.
• 30:11
  And what about communion? You mentioned fencing the table.
• 30:13
  Fencing the table is the historic practice of giving a
• 30:16
  warning before we eat the bread and drink the cup.
• 30:19
  Usually we warn the open, unrepentant Sinner not to
• 30:22
  partake. If you are living in unrepentant
• 30:25
  sin, don't eat, lest you bring judgment on yourself.
• 30:28
  Right, but based on Romans 3, we should also fence the table
• 30:32
  against the self-righteous, the. Proud, the one who thinks they
• 30:35
  belong there. We should say, if you think you
• 30:38
  are good enough to be here on your own merits, stay in your
• 30:41
  seat. This table is not for the
• 30:43
  healthy. It is a hospital for the sick.
• 30:46
  It is a feast for the worthless who know they need to be made
• 30:49
  worthy by Christ alone. That turns the table into a
• 30:52
  welcome mat for the humble. And a fortress against the proud
• 30:55
  man. We have covered a lot of ground.
• 30:58
  We started in the courtroom, stripped of all our defenses,
• 31:01
  declared legally and morally bankrupt, and then rescued by
• 31:04
  the alien righteousness of Christ.
• 31:06
  It is the journey of the gospel from the silence of judgement to
• 31:09
  the song of grace. I want to go back to that sour
• 31:11
  milk analogy one last time, please.
• 31:13
  The big take away for me is this stop trying to add sugar to the
• 31:17
  sour milk, stop trying to stir it really fast or add some
• 31:20
  vanilla to mask the taste. You can't sweeten it up.
• 31:23
  No, it's a fool's errand. You have to pour it out.
• 31:26
  You have to agree with God's verdict that it is ruined.
• 31:29
  You have to die to yourself, and only then can you receive the
• 31:32
  new wine of the Spirit. You receive a new nature.
• 31:35
  And the irony of the seeker just keeps hitting me.
• 31:38
  It's the great beautiful irony of the faith.
• 31:40
  We spend our lives thinking we are the protagonists of our own
• 31:43
  story, looking for God, but the truth is we are the ones hiding
• 31:46
  in the bushes and the only reason any of us are ever found
• 31:49
  is because He is the great hunter.
• 31:51
  The Hound of Heaven, as the poet said.
• 31:53
  He haunted us down. He found us in our rebellion and
• 31:56
  our foolishness and our sourness, and he loved us
• 32:00
  anyway. Well, I don't know about you,
• 32:01
  but my mouth has stopped. I have no defense left and I am
• 32:04
  so grateful for that. I mean, until next time, keep
• 32:07
  thinking.