Romans 3:5–8Scripture
We are slowly, it seems, beginning to move towards the introduction of the more redemptive part of the last three chapters.
And so here in this section, the first maybe 20 verses, he begins to set up kind of a shift from our depravity, or the depravity of man, to the redemption of God through Jesus Christ. And this is encouraging, not only for those who are believers but is encouraging for those who hear the gospel proclaimed and turn their hearts to the Lord. As he begins to set this up, really at the beginning of chapter 3, verse 5, by speaking to not just the characteristics of God or the character of God, but rather his immutable personhood, who he is from the core of his heart: he is righteous. Now, in case you have any questions about what that means, because we tend to take divine things and put human trappings on it to such a degree, in fact, that we no longer understand the full measure of what a word means any longer.
And so we do this to his nature. When we try to describe him, we humanize his nature. We begin to see our righteous deeds and we compare God and his righteousness based on the good things we do here on earth, and we really diminish or dilute who he is. And really, it is the work of a Christian or a believer to look through the human aspects of what we put on him and begin to see him for who he is. Even here in this section we see Paul kind of talking about the tension that exists between people viewing God through human flesh. We put flesh on divine terms and it destroys its meaning.
Let's just read it. There is a wealth of information here. Funny enough, I only have half a page of notes here, mainly because I couldn't figure out how to structure it, so we're just going to go verse by verse and I'm just going to look at some things that stood out to me, right? And I kind of wish it was discussion because I think it would be a great, well, I'm going to have one tonight, well, for that's for next week, you guys have, we've already done the discussion, but I would just love to do the discussion again. I missed small group last Sunday. Where was I at? What was I doing? I was sick. Yeah, that's right.
So I was sick last week, so I missed small groups, so I really missed out on the opportunity of talking about some of these things, so I'm just going to kind of do it, even though you're not, I'm not really creating a platform for us to have discussion, but I'm going to kind of approach it that way. Romans 3:5–8 says this: "But if our unrighteousness serves to show the righteousness of God, what shall we say? But if our unrighteousness serves to show
Point 1God's righteousness never depends on ours
The righteousness of God," I want to just stop right here and say his righteousness is never dependent on us.
So if you read this from the aspect or the perspective of thinking that because I'm unrighteous it makes his righteousness look even more glorious, that's the wrong way to look at it, because then that would make his righteousness dependent on your unrighteousness, and then that would also put you in a place where you have to remain unrighteous so that he stays righteous. Much of our life now, that seems simple enough, right? Let me just kind of state that. Today you're kind of thinking to yourself, maybe, "Why do you have the mic? I could have said that. What are you up there for?" Well, no duh, those are some things you might be thinking, but you'd be shocked if you would take inventory of your life and consider how you function and weigh that against us kind of believing subconsciously that what we do determines what God does. Think about that. Listen, how many of you here today believe that God has the power to heal? Okay, that's good, that's good. Your prayer does not cinch it.
Prayer changes you so you can change things.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 5:07
The point of prayer is to have a relationship with God. It is not to twist his arm to get him to heal you, because if God's going to heal you, he's going to heal you. Does that mean we don't go to God in prayer? By no means. We should go to God in prayer. But what we like in our life is we want to have motivation to do something. "Shawn, motivate me to pray. Shawn, you can probably get me to pray if you tell me that my prayer will bring healing in my life." That's the wrong reason to pray.
We pray because we love God. We seek him because we love to talk to him.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 5:56
We spend time with him because we have a relationship with him.
We don't need to be told to do something because we get something in return. That's American, that's not spiritual. And so what we have to understand is, if we are only motivated by an idea that we can change him if we do something a certain way, this is not how God wants us to approach him. What God longs for, and the Apostle Paul longs to teach, is that we need to begin to discover who God is and listen and be grateful for who he is. Listen, everything about relationship is about discovery. When you're dating, I remember the first time I met Brook, we were playing volleyball. I knew she liked volleyball because she was there playing. I knew she enjoyed it, probably not, and then I really knew she enjoyed it because I went three nights in a row and she was still there playing sand volleyball. But when we went on our first date, I remember our experience at college was every day we found time to get together and discover who one another is or was. It is discovery. Discovery is fun.
Discoveries work, but just so you know, the work you do in discovery does not make God do what you want.
I think that's important. We don't have to stay unrighteous for him to stay righteous. "But if our unrighteousness serves to show the righteousness of God, what shall we say? That God is unrighteous to inflict wrath upon us?" You know, he just shifted, like, really hard there.
He just shifted really hard. He went straight to the wrath of God, talking about God's righteousness and our unrighteousness and should we stay unrighteous so that God's righteousness can be even more glorious. Then he just shifts, just takes a right-hand turn: "That God is unrighteous to inflict wrath on us?"
If we're unrighteous, does it make God unrighteous because he's punishing us for being unrighteous? Listen, God's nature is what it is.
It does not change. "By no means! For then how could God judge the world? But if through my lie God's truth abounds to his glory, why am I still being condemned as a sinner?" You see this tension that exists, it's back and forth, really at the heart of this back and forth that the Apostle Paul is talking about, that happens in the hearts of men, specifically in the men that he's talking to, is that what I do controls what God does. It's that tension, and notice at the heart of the tension that exists there is this desire to live as one pleases, to be justified in wrong living, not to be justified by God through Christ, but to be justified in what I do,
Point 2Grace saves us from sin's penalty and power
Because what I do makes God look even better. Listen, I am a grace preacher because the gospel is a grace message, and I believe that grace, we are saved by grace alone through faith in Christ alone, and it is not anything that we should do. It is not a work we should do that any man should boast. It is a gift. It's a gift. But grace does not just save us from the penalty of sin, it changes us and saves us from the power of sin. That's really what the conversation is about here. It doesn't just save us from the penalty of sin, but it saves us from the power of sin. There is a message today that you can be saved and redeemed and saved from the penalty of sin but you will never be saved from the power of sin, so just don't worry about how you live, don't worry about obeying the law of God, don't worry about that, just be grateful for Jesus. Listen, Paul is refuting that idea hard here, hard. "But if through my lie," our lie, "God's truth abounds to his glory, why am I still being condemned as a sinner? And why not do evil that good may come?—as some people slanderously charge us with saying." So let's be clear, Paul is not, he is saying, I am not a grace preacher that says you can just continue to be unrighteous because it makes God look even better. He does not say that, he is refuting that. He says they say we're preaching that because we preach grace so strong, but that is not the grace we are preaching. We are not preaching a type of message that says you can be saved from the penalty but never freed from the power of sin. We are not preaching that gospel. We are not preaching that gospel. They condemn us for saying it, but we're not saying that. Now, I have actually had a few doctors in my life. The one I had here recently was Dr. Verdut in Lee's Summit. I really, he was great. He retired, that's a bummer. I don't even know how hard it is to find a doctor that you like. It's not like it's a popularity contest, but that you just feel comfortable with, it's difficult, and you have to build a relationship with that doctor and it takes time. And so you finally build a relationship and then he retired, and let me tell you, I just don't, guys just don't, a lot of guys just don't go to the doctor until they have to, and then sometimes it's too late. Like, you should have gone a long time ago, you should be on top of that. And so I was comfortable to call him and I really liked him, but he was the type of doctor that had no problem telling me the changes I need to make to be healthy. He had no problem doing that. I've had other doctors, however, that would look at me and they would mask the consequences if I continued with a certain behavior. Almost like they wouldn't tell me the full truth, they would just kind of say, "Well, you could do this and this might happen, and maybe this will happen, and I don't really know, you know," and they would mask it. They would give the things that might happen or the consequences that might come, but they would mask the consequences behind a bunch of language that almost gave me permission to continue my behavior that was making me sick.
I've known two types of doctors, and I've found that this type of doctor, Dr. Verdut, who will tell me clearly what I need to change so that I can be well, that's the doctor I want. It's not the doctor I enjoy, but it is the doctor I want, because at the end of the day I want to be healthy.
I found that much like doctors, there are pastors. There are those who will mask the consequences behind the subject of grace to such a degree that no change ever comes in the hearts of men. That doesn't help us. The Apostle Paul is saying the last thing we need to be doing, people, is making excuses for our behavior and never changing. That's the last thing we need to be doing, because the only thing that waits at our door is death. It is amazing to me, today I was reading an article, actually it was a year back, a year ago, the article, I wish I had the percentages before me today, but the percentages were crazy, that if somebody sat down, they did a study, they don't know how they did the study, because I'd be really mad if somebody told me that I was going to die and it was terminal and I had six weeks to live unless I made these changes and then I would live till old age. They did this study, and out of this, it was over 80 percent of the people didn't make the changes knowing death was on the line. Sorry, I think of The Princess Bride right there, when that is on the line, you know. Anyway, if you haven't seen that movie, you should see it's great. But every time I say "death alone," I think of that. You can know that the results of your lack of change will be death, and it is amazing how people will continue on in what is killing them, right? Because many of us are hooked in a behavior and in a cycle that has become so a part of our life that we can no longer distinguish what we do from who we are in Christ.
There are two types of doctors. I want the one who calls me to make change. I believe Paul is the second doctor, or the first doctor. I believe Paul is saying change is inevitable when you're a believer in Christ. Now, I went recently, this is probably more personal stories than I have told in a while, but I think this, I'm this is where I'm going and I think this is really important, it sets up kind of the way, the rest of this, I promise I'm talking about this Scripture here, just hang with me, this is going to make sense. I hurt my shoulder. I'm like nine months past shoulder surgery, and I hurt it from lifting too much.
News flash, I'm not as old as some of you in here, but 45, a 45-year-old body ain't the same as a 20-year-old body, and so try as you may to go lift the way you did when you were 20 and you will break yourself. And so I began to work out quite extensively, and over the years, particularly my later years, I didn't have the best form and I lifted too much, or, you know, lifted too much, and that was awesome, but it shattered my clavicle to the point where there were these bone fractures that were sticking out, or spurs, from the shatter, and so I couldn't even really move my arm. It just felt like it was just turning my shoulder to just hamburger meat, and so I tried to keep working through it. I kept playing basketball, I kept hurting it was terrible, you know, and I just refused to go to the doctor. I was like, "Eventually it will get better and go away." Ladies and gentlemen, let me just stop right here and say, when you're damaged, it does not go away unless you go to have it healed. Now let me just stop for a second and say, Paul is going through huge measures for the first two chapters, till now, to help us understand just how damaged and unwell we are.
We are unwell, and I'm talking about the type of unwell that goes beyond having a shattered clavicle, or, it's worse than that.
We are broken in every part of who we are. So I went to the doctor eventually, because it was just unbearable, I just could not, it was unbearable, and so they had surgery. They actually cut a chunk, an inch and a half, out of my clavicle, I don't even know where it touches right here, you know, and they cut a chunk of that out of there, and what's crazy is that they didn't reattach the bone. Scar tissue grows back in, or reattaches, the bone grows back in there, that's just insane to me. And so it took probably about seven months to get to where I could go back to working out, but in the time of that they have what is called rehabilitation. Now, what you're supposed to do, now I didn't do this, I had exercises I was supposed to do, I didn't do the paid rehabilitation, but I had exercises I was supposed to do, and I did them. How many of you know that I did them perfectly? I did them all the time when they told me to do them, and, right, I did everything just like they said, right? Do you believe that? No, I didn't. But I did a lot of the exercises, but not enough, and what I've noticed though now, over the last seven to eight months, I have adjusted.
All right, because I haven't stretched, right, because I've held my shoulder a certain way during healing, I have tightened up and can't move this shoulder like I can move the other shoulder. Now listen, that's not because of surgery, that's because I developed a pattern to protect this shoulder that affected the rest of my body.
Point 3Sin leaves patterns that outlast salvation
When we are unwell, listen, this is so important, when we are unwell, we develop patterns that cause us to not function the way we should.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 20:27
We then cater, listen, because of our illness, because of our brokenness, we cater to our wounded spots and we weaken our strong spots.
We develop patterns of movement in our life, much like I did for my shoulder, to adjust to our sin condition.
We develop patterns of movement to avoid pain, when sometimes pain is required to be well.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 21:07
And I'm just going to stop here for a second. We create patterns of movement to avoid pain. Let's just stop and think about that in terms of the church today. In America, people want to come, they don't want to feel pain on Sunday, because many of us have our own burdens and pain we deal with through the week.
We don't want pain on Sunday, but ladies and gentlemen, every Sunday it's not about feeling good. If you don't feel some pain on Sunday ever, you'll never come out of your patterns. The Apostle Paul was never fearful of preaching the gospel so strong that it was painful to hearts, because he knew that creating patterns to avoid pain really helps no one. It cripples you even more.
So be encouraged today, or be encouraged if you think back over the last few weeks, or be encouraged as you open your Bible and you read your devotions and God begins to strike straight to the heart of an issue you're dealing with and wrestling with and calling you out of, and you feel judged and you feel unrighteous and you feel sinful and you feel horrible. Maybe, instead of steering away from the pain, maybe the pain helps you get back to healthy.
We develop patterns of movement to avoid pain, and I did that, and it stayed with me after I was actually healed.
So now when I'm working out, there are certain movements that I do to avoid pain although the pain is no longer there, and I've found, I've found even just recently, that the certain way that I hold the bench, right, almost kind of like this, to help the pain, that the pain is not there. It's not there, it's gone, it's no longer there, but I find myself doing this, and Brook was saying the other day, "You're all crooked when you do the bench," and i'm like, maybe that's why I hurt over here now. And I noticed that I had developed a pattern to avoid the pain that is affecting and hurting the healthy parts of me, and listen, and all of that, not because I actually have pain, but because I used to have pain.
This is a problem. And so what I believe is really important for us to understand is that sin creates patterns in our life that don't just disappear when you get saved.
Now, does that mean you should just go on doing that because it makes God look more righteous? No. You see where I'm going with this now.
So the excuse is not, no. So let me just say this: the patterns are there because of sin. You've been in sin a long time, and when you come to life in Christ, you are freed from the penalty of sin and he begins to free you from the power of sin. It's called sanctification. Sanctification begins at salvation and continues out through our death and we have a new body. And just so you know, the body doesn't go away, we're made a new creation, but we still got this flesh hanging on us that has problems, that has longings, that has issues, and that has, honestly, given itself over to a pattern that is unhealthy.
And those patterns stick with us, but listen, just because they stick with us after salvation doesn't mean God wants them to stay with us forever. He has grace for that.
Now, we don't know where that grace runs out where he says enough's enough. We don't know that. We don't know the measure of that. We don't understand how long God tarries with us on that. We don't understand that there does come a point where God has had enough of us continuing in patterns beyond being set free from sin.
But there are patterns, there are patterns. I want to just say this, just kind of moving on, talking about this, I believe the way we look to God matters, specifically in this. But "if our unrighteousness serves to show the righteousness of God, what shall we say?" Notice that here that he is speaking to a people, and I don't think he's saying this is the way we should look at it, but he's saying they start with their unrighteousness and they view God through that. They view what God is doing, how God moves, and how God should move through who they are. That's a dangerous way to look at God.
Point 4See God through his goodness, not ours
You're making the way you see God dependent on your nature.
God's nature is never dependent on your nature.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 26:36
If you see God through your righteousness, you will see him as unrighteous. If you see God through his righteousness, you will see yourself as unrighteous. Now let's work that out for a second. If you see God through your righteousness, your goodness, you will see him as unrighteous. How many of you have heard this phrase, "How could a good God allow"? Let me tell you what kind of person that is. That is the kind of person that sees God through your goodness. We never want to look at God through our goodness.
We want to look at God for his goodness, and when you do that properly, when you see God as good, you will see you as bad. That's the way it is.
If you're good, you don't need God. If you're good, you don't need a Savior.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 27:55
Now, some of you might be thinking to yourself, because we have some glorious optimists in here today, and I love you, I think you help me not run off to the deep end, I live with one in my home, I live with two in my home, if you know my kids you can probably figure out who the optimists are and who, but I'll just tell you, Brook and Ashton are the eternal optimists.
Now, some of you don't know Ashton very well because he doesn't talk in public, but if you get him alone he'll say a lot, and you will discover about him, and what I found about people is they'll discover he's a great communicator, and then the second thing they'll say is he is a really positive person. Yeah, like, I know, it's annoying, I live with two of them. I have this natural proclivity to see the dark side of life, you know, and I don't, listen, I'm not saying I'm a bad person because of that. I think we're wired, I actually call it a realist, I call myself a realist, but it's just really a pessimist, actually. I'm just trying to put a positive spin on a negative attribute, kind of. But the reality is I will tend to see the negative things before and miss, I will see the negative so much I will completely miss the good. In times like this, then, when I begin to say things like, "When we see God through our goodness, we see him as not good, and when we see him as good, we see ourselves as not good," we go, "Shawn, do we have to be negative about how we see ourselves all the time? Does this have to then move us into despair? I mean, do we just have to sit around and talk about how horrible we are?" No. I will just go ahead and put a little earmark here and say the Apostle Paul has been going on for quite some time, extensively, about how horrible things are and people are, and he is taking no short route to get there. In case you didn't know, he's got more work to do on that, because people, let me tell you why people have a tendency of thinking they're good when they're not. This is why I believe believers stay in pattern longer than pleases God, because they think they're good when they're not. There's a reason why we are hidden in Christ for the day of judgment. We're hidden in him. You know why? Because we're only good because we're in him.
We're only good because the blood covers us.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 30:53
We're only good because when God looks at us, he can't get through seeing his Son's righteousness and holiness and sacrifice. Are you with me today? So the goal is not that we see ourselves as good but we see ourselves as we are, that way we might be even more dependent on his goodness. So you cannot look on the goodness of God and go, "He's good, I'm good." You look on the goodness of God and he is so good, when you truly see him you fall to your feet. I mean, you see how many times in the Bible people come into the presence of God and they fall to their feet and they say, "I am a sinner." When you truly see him, you truly see yourself. Don't miss this.
That's what Paul's saying. However, knowing this, knowing we're unrighteous, knowing we're sinners, knowing that in light of his righteousness and his goodness and his glory and his love and his patience and his peace and his long-suffering and all of those things, when we see that none of those things are really present to the magnitude that they're present in Christ, this should not be cause for us to go on to despair, because despair leads to abandonment, and the last thing we need to be doing is abandoning our relationship with the Lord, our walk with the Lord, our conversation with the Lord, our prayer with the Lord, our time in the Word. It is good to have a right perspective of who we are, but it is not good to move on to despair, because if you know the gospel,
Jesus paid the ultimate price for your brokenness, and despair is not what he was going for.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 32:51
We are to be a realist about who we are, but we are not allowed, we are not, God does not want us to move on to despair, because it affects how we walk with him. Listen to me today, there's some people in here today that need to hear this. Listen to me today, this time in Romans has made everyone, a lot of people, not everyone, a lot of people in this fellowship question, "Am I saved?"
And the Bible says we should test our salvation. We should ask, we should be constantly looking, we should be evaluating. The apostles always did this with people, even people in the church who were believers, to make sure, because just because someone claims to be a Christian doesn't make it so. But the goal of the church is not to then take a moment where we test our salvation that we might have assurance and then constantly live our life in despair that we are not saved by Christ. That's not his purpose.
That's not the purpose, and there's not either the purpose for us to just not worry about how we live because it makes God look more holy, so we'll just live however we want. That's not the purpose either. All right, we are forgiven and released from the power of sin over our lives, and this is continual. We have been saved, we are saved, and we are being saved.
When it says in the Bible that you are saved by grace, that word "saved" is present active indicative. It was, is, and will be. There is still saving going on. We are saved entirely from the penalty of sin, and we are being saved day by day from the power of sin. Are you with me today? Day by day.
One is justification, that's the penalty of sin. We are justified when we come and we believe in Christ and he becomes our, he's always Lord but our Lord and Savior. We're justified in that moment. You're justified completely, meaning you're safe from the penalty of sin, and at salvation the Holy Spirit begins the sanctification process in you. That's the word, justification, sanctification, where he begins to release you from the power of sin that you look more like Christ. Are you with me today? That takes time. It's like when Lazarus comes out with the grave clothes on, it isn't something outward that God is trying to deal with, it's something a part of us that he's trying to deal with. It takes time for that to come off. All right, it just takes time.
I asked this question because I believe that this is the question Paul poses here: What good is it to be forgiven and to never change?
And then I wrote this, and you can do what you want with this, go home and think about it, but I think it's maybe good for us to think about. Listen, I personally believe that true forgiveness demands change, not overnight necessarily, but change. I mean, when we sin, we have a new, we have a new nature, right? He's given, he's made us a new creation, and now we don't long to sin. We still sin, but we don't long to, and when we do, we feel bad about it. We just don't feel good about it no more, right? We're uncomfortable with it. The Holy Spirit is trying to shape us to look more like Christ, and forgiveness demands change. And here's my summary, what I believe Paul is getting to the heart of: to grant forgiveness of sin without God empowering us to change our conduct is to make the grace of God an accomplice of evil. Are you with me today?
Think about that for a second. Did you get it? You want me to say it again? Okay. Forgiveness demands change. If God were to grant forgiveness of sin without him then empowering us to change our conduct, then this makes the grace of God an accomplice of evil. Or you could say it this way, it makes God an accomplice of evil. Paul is saying do not treat grace this way. They accuse us of treating grace this way, that conduct doesn't matter, in a matter of fact, the worse conduct you have, the more it makes God look good. Salvation isn't necessarily about change of conduct, it is about just grace.
Grace is not an accomplice to evil. The grace that saves you changes you.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 38:27
We are saved by grace alone, but you need to know the change comes through grace, not through human will. This is why we go to his Word, because when we read his Word we see the truth, and the truth sets us free. Last thing: it is not unloving and unrighteous for God to punish people. It is not unloving and unrighteous for God to punish people. Romans 3:5: "But if our unrighteousness serves to show the righteousness of God, what shall we say? That God is unrighteous to inflict wrath on us? By no means! For then how could God judge the world?"
We have no problem with, listen to me, we have no problem with God dealing with other people who have dealt harshly with us. We just have a problem with God dealing the same way he does with our enemies with us. We're game. Matter of fact, matter of fact, we might even drive by certain places where we know people are and pray down spiritual curses on them, and then in our prayer life pray that God would extend grace and mercy when it comes to us. Ha. It don't work that way.
It does not work that way. Okay, can we just have a super transparent moment here, please? Don't, please don't, please don't email me for other stuff, don't email me for this, please. Just an honest moment. I drove by a place, it's all an honest moment, I'm not lying to you about everything except for this. It's all an anonymous moment, but I just want to be real transparent. I need to use different words, okay? I drove by a place the other day where somebody was, I knew somebody was at, and I said in the car, after Christmas shopping, I sat in the car, it was super spiritual, I said, "I want to make sure I say this just right, you know, you can help me, you can help me if I say it wrong. I pray that the Lord helps them reap tenfold, a hundredfold, what they've sown over other people in their life." And Brook, optimist Brook, probably loves God more than me, Brook, right, more holy, Brook looks over at me and she doesn't correct me, she just goes, "Oh."
She stared at me and she goes, "Oh no, oh my, oh." I mean, what do you say to that? Like, if she were to correct me, I'd be like, "Well, actually the Bible says that we should." I want him to reap a wonderful, I think I actually said, "I want him to reap the hundredfold, not the 30 or 60, just 100 fold. I want him to reap the hundredfold." Judgment today, not even just today, we have no problem with God's judgment.
Point 5God is judge of all: he judges, Jesus pays
We only have a problem with God's judgment when it pertains to us.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 42:16
But see, God is judge, and no one escapes his judgment. So the Apostle Paul is saying you're going to end up being judged by God, everyone, and you'll either be saved or you'll be guilty. You'll either be innocent because you're hidden in Christ or you'll be guilty. The innocent, because they're hidden in Christ, go to heaven. The guilty go to hell. Simple. It's simple. And just in case you didn't know, just in case you didn't know, we need to get some perspective about God being judge of all people, because when we don't have a perspective that God is judge of all people, we begin to put ourselves in his place to be judge of all people. Today, listen, let me tell you what's beautiful about grace: it helps idiots, of which we are the chief.
It is amazing, my comment had showed more about some not-so-great places in my heart, I'm just being honest with you, that I really had to wrestle with the last several days in private, because I didn't want Brook to know she was right. Private, right, wrestling with it, just not talking to her about it, but just wrestling with it, her, oh, just that, and I realized that I think I'm good and I think they're bad, and why is that a problem? That's a problem because we're all bad. We're all bad. Let me just remind you who the Apostle Paul is talking to. He's talking to the Jews who thought they were good because they had the Word, they did the stuff, and they thought they were better than the Gentiles. Listen, there are many people in the church today, and the longer you've been in church and the longer you walk with God and the longer you've done and been a part of religious activity, the longer you read the Bible and the longer you've been faithful and the longer you've sacrificed and the longer you've done those things, the more you think you're better than everybody else.
But let me just go ahead and remind you, it's all level ground at the foot of the cross.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 45:03
And Paul is speaking really to the heart of this issue. Listen, it's in us, guys, it's in there, and what I realized is I was looking at God through my goodness and questioning why they hadn't been punished and saying, "Isn't that unjust? Make your Word come true," because when we see God through our goodness, we see him as not good, not faithful, not doing what we want, not caring about us as much as he cares about them. You see it, the goal is to see God for righteous, that way we can see that we have as much problems as them. That's the goal.
"That God is unrighteous to inflict wrath on us?" That's how we'll see it. "By no means! For then how could God judge the world?" I'm going to say this and I'm going to close, because I thought about this and I'll just throw this in there. What does this other stuff say? Yeah, that's pretty good. I just want to throw this in there: "for then how could God judge the world?" So what is God? What is he? How will God judge the world? So what is he? I couldn't hear somebody down here.
Righteous judge. That's what he is. Now, we want God to function like we function, meaning we have no problem setting down our role and sacrificing our role at all, so then we expect God to do the same. Let me break this down for you: parents who want to be friends rather than be parents. Are you with me today?
And you'd be shocked today, no, you wouldn't be shocked, you shouldn't be shocked today to know that parents aren't parenting and parents aren't correcting and parents aren't disciplining, and parents have set down their role and handed their children over to devices so they don't have to do their role because they're busy and everything in our life. We function with the title but never really doing and functioning as the title demands. Are you with me today?
So I want the title of parent but I don't want the responsibility of being a parent. With God, who he is what he does. They are the same.
There is no shadow of turning with him. He is the same. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. If he's a judge, he will judge. He will judge everyone. Are you with me today? So it's hard for us to go, "Well, with me, God, you know, we're tight, you know, I know you like me a lot, I know, like, I make you laugh, I mean I'm pretty funny, a pretty funny, you know, I'm your comic relief in heaven, and, you know, you're welcome." And so when it comes to judgment, I get a pass but everybody else doesn't. We think that, actually we actually believe somewhere subconsciously, and I think this happens more subconsciously than logically, I think subconsciously we believe that God will set down his role as judge for us, like our parent, like we do as a parent to our kids. I'm just going to abandon my judgingness with Shawn because I want him to be my friend. Listen, God isn't you, and God does not, he is not, he doesn't function that way. He is a judge and he will judge. That's it. He gives grace not just to you, he gives grace to everyone, even those who hurt you. That's what makes it grace. That's what makes it grace. That's what makes it grace. I want you to deal with them but not me. That is not a part of who God is, because he's judge, he deals with everyone.
And here they are, here's the way this breaks down:
God judges, Jesus pays, and if Jesus doesn't pay for your sin, you will pay for it in hell. That's the gospel.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 50:10
That's the gospel.
This is why John the Baptist and many other apostles were constantly telling people to repent, turn from their wicked ways, and place their faith in Christ, because Christ is the only thing that saves you on judgment day. It's the only thing, it's the only thing. If you're tired of the patterns you've built because of sin, if you're tired of living a double life, if you're tired of expecting God to treat you one way and other people another, if you're tired of being angry, if you want to truly be set free by the grace of God, repent, turn to him, place your belief in him, confess your sins, and he will be faithful and just to cleanse you of your sins.
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