Don't Be Too Christian

[0:00] The following message is given by Walt Alexander, lead pastor of Trinity Grace Church in Athens, Tennessee.! For more information about Trinity Grace, please visit us at TrinityGraceAthens.com.

[0:14] Don't be too righteous, the preacher says. Now, can there be such a thing? God is perfect. All His ways are just and righteous. We're called to be like Him. Surely there's no way we can be too righteous.

[0:28] Then he adds, don't be too wise either. So don't be too righteous. While I'm at it, don't be too wise either. But Proverbs says nothing's more valuable than wisdom. Then he says, don't be too wicked.

[0:44] So, Solomon, how much wickedness is too much? What does all this mean?

[0:55] Well, if we'll listen, Solomon's unveiling the only way through the crookedness of this world. Solomon is actually telling us there's ditches on either side.

[1:14] He's warning us against the extremes. He's warning us about going too far. The way through the crookedness of this world will not be found in buttoning down all that is black and white.

[1:25] It won't be found in reading all the books or answering all the questions. It won't be found in keeping yourself unstained from the world. And it won't be found in tasting everything the world has to offer.

[1:38] Solomon's a wise teacher in seeking to lay—not seeking to lay down a few rules, but seeking to point us to a guiding principle, an attitude of life for every thought, every season, every decision.

[1:49] And a word where we're going is, the only way through the crookedness of this world is fearing God. The only way through the crookedness of this world is fearing God.

[2:01] Forgive me. Point one, don't be too righteous. Don't be too righteous. Solomon begins by observing—before he gets to this command—he begins by observing one of the greatest challenges to faith in Jesus Christ.

[2:17] Look at verse 15. It says, In my vain life I've seen everything, a righteous man who perishes in his righteousness, a wicked man who prolongs his life in evil doing. Solomon's telling us the world does not often—or does not always work in the way we think it ought.

[2:34] We assume life boils down to a simple formula. Be a good boy. Get good grades. You get good grades, you get a good job. You get a good job, you'll get good pay. You get a good pay, you'll get a good wife.

[2:47] Get a good wife, you'll get 2.4 good kids. You get all that good and you'll live a good life. That's the formula. That's life. Right? I love the way the cartoon Peanuts sums it up well.

[2:59] Lucy said to Charlie Brown, There's one thing you're going to have to learn, Charlie Brown. You reap what you sow. You get out of life what you put in. No more and no less.

[3:12] Snoopy mutters to himself in the corner, I'd kind of like to see a little margin for error. The Bible agrees. You reap what you sow.

[3:24] Galatians 6. You're judged by what you do. Matthew 24. If you're righteous, Proverbs, you prosper. If you're diligent, you gain power.

[3:35] If you're wise, you live a long life. If you're wicked, you suffer. That's what Ecclesiastes says. But Solomon says, Not by what I've seen. Sometimes the righteous die in their righteousness, and the wicked thrive in their wickedness.

[3:54] Now, we often see a word like righteous, and we come to it with the wrong things in our heads. Righteous here does not mean religious. It doesn't mean prudish. It doesn't mean like a whitewashed person who's no fun to be around.

[4:07] Righteous here, it doesn't refer to someone who just does the right thing. It refers to a genuine believer. It refers to someone who has sincere faith in God. So this is a sincere person, this sincere believer, and yet dying in his righteousness.

[4:22] So here it is. The sincere, genuine believer suffers sudden tragedy and death while the scumbag neighbor lives a long life preying on lonely women and dodging child support.

[4:33] That's the nub of the matter. We rightly ask, How could this be, preacher? How could bad things happen to genuinely good people? How could a good God allow such nonsense?

[4:45] It's the greatest challenge to the Christian faith. It is the nub of the matter behind the book of Job and Psalm 73 and other places. But Solomon does not entertain that question.

[4:59] He observes the reality. But then he says, This is how you got to live in this world. Look at verse 16. He says, Be not overly righteous.

[5:12] The message Bible says, Don't knock yourself out doing good. Jesus said, You must be perfect that your heavenly Father is perfect. The preacher says, Chill out, man.

[5:25] Let's not take all this too far. We must see what's going on here. Solomon's confronting one of the most common ways we respond to the crookedness of life.

[5:37] We assume that if we're good enough, we will escape the crookedness of life. We assume that if we're good enough, we will escape the crookedness of life. Now, crookedness of life. Now, none of us walk around saying, I'm just going to try to be good enough and I'll escape all this stuff.

[5:50] But we all believe it. We believe this. You reap what you sow all the way down. You harvest what you plant. You get out what you put in. We believe that God helps those who help themselves.

[6:01] We believe that if we put our kids in Christian school, they'll never sleep around. We believe that if we read our Bible, we'll never be dry. We believe that if we keep our heart pure, God will keep a husband waiting for us.

[6:11] We assume that that's the way you stay out of trouble. That's the formula. That's what life boils down to. And so we focus on being good. But often we don't stop there.

[6:22] We focus on being very good, overly good, overly righteous. And so what does this mean? Be not overly righteous. In the Bible, God actually gives very few commands.

[6:38] The Bible's long. Somebody told me that yesterday. It's a long book. 66 books. But the rules boil down to a little more than 10 commandments.

[6:50] But for those who are trying to be over the top good, 10 won't work. We add rules to God's rules. We add rules about alcohol, movies, tobacco, dancing, dating, clothing, politics, debt, and so much more.

[7:07] We assume we're doing a good thing. We're being spiritual. We're being righteous. We're devoting more of our life to God. Listen, there's a person Solomon is confronting in these verses who finds himself comfortably in the pews of most churches.

[7:25] As Solomon puts it, the nice Christian. As Doug Wilson puts it, the nice Christian. The sanctimonious Christian. The tight shoes Christian. The purse lips Christian.

[7:36] The stickler Christian. The insufferable Christian. The prudish Christian. The doctrinally correct Christian. The know-it-all Christian. The quiet time every day or I'll go to hell Christian. The conceited Christian.

[7:47] The orthodox Christian. The un-Christian Christian. Solomon's saying, you can't escape the crookedness of this world by being righteous.

[8:03] Here's the deal. This is where the problem enters. We treat God like a slot machine. We put in goodness, we expect blessing. We put in righteous, expecting to fork over prosperity.

[8:16] That's what's behind the whole goody-two-shoes, too-good-for-you Christianity. Solomon's saying, you can't do it. It doesn't work. I can't tell you how many times I've sat with people who throw their hands up and forsake God when the crookedness of life strikes.

[8:33] It's a hard word. If you really understand what Solomon's saying, it's a hard word. All your church attendance may not keep your child from running. All your Bible reading may not hold your marriage together.

[8:46] All your faithful serving may not prevent tragedy from wrecking your life. You cannot become so righteous. You can't become so Christian that you escape the brokenness of this world.

[9:00] It's not if but when. Solomon's also helping us see something, though. Trying to become so righteous prevents you from enjoying the life you've been given.

[9:12] If you're trying to be so good and so spiritual, you can't even enjoy a good meal. You can't enjoy a day of rest.

[9:24] You can't enjoy a day off. You can't go on vacation. You're too worried about sinning. You're too worried about not keeping up the performance.

[9:37] You're too worried about messing up. That's why he says, look at verse 17. He says, be not overly wicked. Don't be a fool. Why would you die before your time?

[9:50] Now, what's that mean? Solomon's saying, you are wicked. You can't help it. Don't try to stop it. Later, look in verse 20.

[10:00] He says, surely there's not a righteous man on earth who does good and never sins. Now, obviously, I mean, you know, all of sin and fall short of the glory of God. But that's not exactly what Solomon's saying.

[10:13] Solomon's saying there's a righteous man who's a sincere believer. But there's lots of righteous men on the earth that are sincere believers, and yet even them still sin.

[10:24] Even the righteous, sincere, genuine believers still sin. So in 21, he says, don't take to heart what people say about you behind your back because you say things about other people behind your back, behind their back.

[10:39] Here's what he's saying. The goal of Christianity is not to get you to stop sinning. The goal of Christianity is to teach you, or is for you to know what to do with your sin.

[10:52] I'll never forget years ago, I was converted 21 years ago Tuesday. And so the Lord rearranged a lot of furniture really quick in my life and changed so many things.

[11:06] But one of the things, one of the messages I listened to, I remember listening to Dr. John Piper preach through Romans. He only spent eight years in it. I didn't make it all the way through the series.

[11:19] But I listened to his messages on Romans 8, 28. Greatest promise in the Bible. Paul, God works all things for good for those who love him and are called according to his purpose.

[11:31] And he said in there something that totally changed my life. He said, so y'all wonder, what does it mean to love God? What are the, who are those who love God?

[11:44] And he said, those who love God are not those who are always in the act of loving and worshiping God. Now that may not clarify anything for you, but I lived in this, what he's saying is, saying to love God, to be one who loves God doesn't mean you're always loving and worshiping God.

[12:05] To love God means he loves you, called you into his family knowing that you're going to continue to struggle with wickedness. And so, so what my life was, was always like, man, I don't love and worship God all day long, play guitar.

[12:18] So I did that all, you know, so no time for study because there's no time, only time for worshiping God. And so there's got a lot of weakness and fear and trembling. But after that message, it was suddenly I was set free.

[12:29] I was free to, to live and free to love and free to serve God. I don't know if that helps you, but it helped me. Martin Luther comes upon a similar thing when he says, be a sinner and sin boldly.

[12:45] Go ahead. That's your takeaway for the week. But believe, but believe in rejoicing Christ even more boldly for he is victorious over your sin death in the world.

[12:57] I love the way he says this. As long as we're here in this world, we have to sin. The point is, and what Solomon's getting at, he's not, he wants to wrestle, or rescue us from this walking on eggshells, always being afraid of falling out of God's favor, Christianity.

[13:18] He wants to set us completely free to live for him with all our heart, soul, and strength. You have to sin, so stop being so uptight.

[13:31] In verse 18, he says, it's good that you take hold of this and from that withhold not your hand. So it's good that you take hold of be not overly righteous. It's good that you withhold not your hand from being not overly wicked, for the one who fears God shall come out of them both.

[13:47] So don't be righteous. Don't be, don't be too righteous. Don't be too wicked. Fear God. Point two, don't be too wise. Don't be too wise.

[14:00] Solomon continues telling us how to live in this crooked world. 16b. 16b. Be not overly righteous and do not make yourself too wise.

[14:14] Do not be overly wise. Message again says, don't go overboard being wise. Again, this is a shocking statement. Proverbs says, again and again, there's nothing more valuable than wisdom.

[14:26] Wisdom is the pearl of great price. Wisdom is what we live for. And yet, Solomon is confronting another way we respond to the crookedness of life. We assume that if we, if we're wise enough, we'll understand the crookedness of life.

[14:42] We assume that if we're wise enough, we'll understand the crookedness of life. Now you don't need to travel the world to know that life is brutal. Life is harsh.

[14:53] A mother endures a long pregnancy and finally gives birth to a baby girl. True story. The delivery of this baby girl brings more joy than this mother's heart can handle.

[15:06] Within days though, this fragile baby girl gets an infection and dies. A couple works hard all their days taking care of children and taking care of others. All the while, they have a dream of owning a mountain house.

[15:19] So they work and save, plan and build, decorate and arrange their simple mountain home. When they're finally done, when they nail the last nail down and are sitting on the porch enjoying the sun, the midday sun turns into dark storm clouds.

[15:34] Lightning strikes a nearby tree and the house is soon on fire. Before they had time to apply for insurance, no one can prepare a parent to walk in and realize their son or their daughter has committed suicide.

[15:50] Likewise, few soldiers are prepared for returning home. After fighting a war, defending freedom, returning home as true heroes. Few soldiers are prepared for the nightmares and harsh flashbacks of all the carnage they have seen.

[16:04] Life is brutal and harsh. It's crooked. So naturally, we think we have to make sense of this.

[16:16] Right? That's the number one thing we have to do. Of course, we should. To a degree, there's tremendous value in making sense of this. Tremendous value in wisdom.

[16:27] That's what he says in verse 19. Wisdom gives strength to the wise men more than ten rulers who are in a city. There's nothing more important than wisdom from one angle.

[16:38] A wise leader is better than a rich leader. Better than a gifted leader. Better than a strong leader. I love the story of Joab. You know, the Old Testament is filled with fun stories.

[16:50] I remember working in the dairy section at Walmart and I was reading through the Old Testament for the very first time. And this guy that I was stocking yogurt with every day, I was telling the stories.

[17:01] He's like, that is not in the Bible. I said, oh yes it is. You get in Judges, you see all sorts of sideways stuff. You know? And I was like, bro, it is in there. This is, yes, this is Game of Thrones craziness going on right in our Bibles.

[17:15] Well, the story of Joab and the wise woman in 2 Samuel is like that. Joab is David's military leader and is a bull in a china shop sort of guy. There's a man named Sheba, that's unfortunate, who rose up against David and fled to a city named Abel.

[17:36] Now David is the king. He was hiding in their city gates, so big gates around the city. And Joab bangs on the gates ready to burn the place down.

[17:47] That's what those bull in a china shop kind of guys do. That's why he's a military general. A wise woman stops him and says, hey, this city's been a mother to Israel.

[18:01] You don't need to do that. Now this is paraphrasing. I got another way. for long, she had him throw Mr. Sheba's head over the wall.

[18:21] Wisdom is better than burning the place down. Makes all the difference, but we will never have access to all the wisdom we need to understand the crookedness of life. There's a wonderful rebalancing of things going on in these verses.

[18:38] Wisdom gives strength to the wise men more than ten rulers. Yet, look in verse 23, all this I've tested by wisdom. I said I'll be wise, but it was very far from me, that which was far off, deep, very deep.

[18:53] Who can find it out? So wisdom gives strength to the wise men more than ten rulers, and yet, who can find it? All this, I tested, everything I tested, I tried it all.

[19:06] I couldn't, I couldn't find it. I couldn't find the wisdom. I couldn't find the key. Wisdom is far, far off, it's deep. Who can find it? The assumption is, that's a rhetorical question, to say, no.

[19:22] That's what he just said. Look at verse 14. In the days of prosperity, be joyful. In the days of adversity, consider God's made one as well as the other, so that man may not find out anything that will be after him.

[19:35] There's some things God won't let you find out. But Solomon doesn't back down. Look at verse 25. He says, I turn my heart to know, and to search, and to seek wisdom, and the scheme of things, and know the wickedness of folly, and the foolishness that is madness.

[19:48] Now Solomon's resuming his search for wisdom. There's so many parallels in that little verse with the beginning of the book, in chapter 1. And chapter 2, the similarities, I turn my heart to know, to search, and seek wisdom, folly, foolishness.

[20:05] When life slams down on Solomon, he keeps searching for answers. Three times, he said, you notice when I read it, that he's searching for the scheme of things.

[20:16] That's the first time that phrase has emerged in this book. What is the scheme of things? Well, the idea is, Solomon's not just trying to find pearls of wisdom. He's trying to find, he's trying to get behind the curtain.

[20:29] He's trying to find the levers that run the world. He's trying to understand what makes everything work. What does it all mean? He's searching for answers, seeking to understand how the world works so that he can make sense of all the crookedness of life.

[20:44] He's on a mad search now. Desperately finding. Several months ago, I read about a deceased man named Forrest Flynn.

[20:58] I wonder if anybody knows about Forrest Flynn. My wife does. Forrest Flynn was an art dealer somewhere in the Midwest. In 2010, he gathered a chest.

[21:12] 19th century coins, gold nuggets, rare jewels, all sorts of rare items, placed them in a small bronze chest. This is a true story. And he hid it.

[21:25] The only hints he gave, Mr. Flynn, there's all sorts of podcasts on this. I'm not recommending or endorsing them all, but the only hints he gave is that it was between 5,000 and 10,000 feet in elevation, located near trees, and that he hauled it up there.

[21:43] He also says there's at least 10 more clues hidden in a poem at the end of his autobiography called The Thrill of the Chase.

[21:56] Many believe the treasure was somewhere north of Santa Fe, south of Canada, in the Rocky Mountain. Now that, if you haven't looked at your map in a while, that would be a stretch, you know?

[22:10] That's the, that's good. Well, people just poured in to find this treasure. People spent years deciphering the poem.

[22:20] I, I did talk to one of the treasure hunters. Literally, that's what he called himself. You know, hashtag treasure hunter. You know, and he's, he's talking about, he memorized the poem.

[22:31] He's constantly going through the poem to think of all the clues and discover if he's got the clues. He's, you know, these people spent months and months on the ground searching. They're literally consumed with a search, consumed with finding this treasure, consumed with getting this bronze chest.

[22:49] Just so you know, it was already found in 2020. So, you know, you can't go search for it. But, my point is, we sometimes do the same things when it comes to the crookedness of life. Rather than live, we spend the vast majority of our days searching for answers.

[23:16] Rather than serve God, we spend the vast majority of our days trying to understand what happened. Solomon's saying, you'll never become so wise that you understand the crookedness of life.

[23:34] There's no end to the bottomless pit. Now, that's not the vast metaphor, but there's no end to this search. It's good to seek understanding. It's good.

[23:45] It's good to ask good questions, but it's bad to try to understand everything. It's good to seek to be wise, but it's bad to be consumed with finding an explanation with everything crooked, for everything crooked in your life.

[23:57] Watch out. Don't become too wise. Don't do it. Sometimes, the enemy of your faith is not a lack of understanding. Sometimes, the enemy of your faith is desperately seeking to understand what you will never be able to understand.

[24:14] there are some things God won't let you find out. He doesn't want you to find out. Proverbs 25, 2, it is the glory of God to conceal things.

[24:30] I wonder if they sell that at Cracker Barrel. You know, probably not. You know, it's the glory of God to conceal things. A man's steps are from the Lord. How can he understand his way? Okay. So, what do we do?

[24:48] We're not talking about, like, place. This is not, we're playing for real here. This is not theoretical. What do you do with your limp?

[25:00] What do you do with the scars? What do you do with the empty seat at the table? What do you do with the hard holidays? What do you do with the things you've been praying for for too many years to count?

[25:16] Search more for purpose than for understanding. Search more for purpose than for understanding. Christopher Ashe says, it is not suffering that destroys a person, but suffering without a purpose.

[25:36] Now, that'll do it. That's a, that's a quote that'll do it. Look for understanding. Look, looking for understanding means you consume yourself with asking why. Looking for purpose, you, means you direct yourself to ask what now?

[25:50] What for? To look, search for purpose more than understanding. Search for reasons to rejoice more than understanding.

[26:01] One of the great dangers with trying to be, become overly wise is we fail to enjoy the life we've been given. That's a recurring theme in the book.

[26:14] Johnny Erickson Tata, one of my heroes, says it like this. Pain is a brute. Now, Johnny was in a diving accident when she was 17 years old.

[26:26] she was paralyzed from the neck down. I think she's over five decades, maybe even longer, well into her sixth decade, or well into her fifth decade of being a quadriplegic.

[26:45] So she knows. Pain is a bruising of a blessing. It is a blessing, nevertheless. It is a strange, dark companion, but a companion.

[27:02] If only because it is passed through God's inspecting hand. It's an unwelcome guest, but still a guest. I know that it drives me to a nearer, more intimate place of fellowship with Jesus.

[27:18] And so I take pain as though I were taking the left hand of God. These afflictions of mine, this very season of multiplied pain is the background against which God has commanded me to show forth His praise.

[27:38] God bids me that I not only seek to accept it, but to embrace it, knowing full well that somewhere way down deep sounds like the preacher.

[27:53] In a secret place I have yet to see lies my highest good. She gave up the search.

[28:06] She threw away the shovel. She burned the mat.

[28:19] I'm not playing that game anymore. She said, whatever it is, I must view this paralysis in the wheelchair as what God has commanded for me to show forth His praise, not to accept it, but to embrace it.

[28:36] I don't know what it is for you. I don't know what you can't understand. I don't know what you can't get your mind around. I don't know what keeps you up at night and keeps you agonizing, pacing around the room.

[28:47] Why you were born into a family that failed to provide for you and left you desperately trying to keep up. Why you were abused as a preteen. Why your first husband left. Why the job never seems to be the right fit.

[28:59] Why your child has denied the faith. I don't know why cancer has invaded your house. I don't know why tragedy has left you gasping for air and haunted through the night. I don't know why your daily life is spent doing so many things you never would have imagined.

[29:13] But I want to tell you, you don't need to know why to live. you don't need to understand to move forward. That's not always a privilege that you have.

[29:28] Sometimes it's deep, it's very deep, it's very deep. So don't be too overly wise. it's still passed through his inspecting hand.

[29:51] Like an assembly line where each thing is examined one final time by quality control, so too this one passed his inspected hand for a purpose that you might not know fully until the end.

[30:08] Point three, don't be a fool. Don't be too wise. Don't be too righteous.

[30:20] By all means, don't be a fool. Solomon continues telling us how to live in a crooked world. As we've seen, he's back to that search, searching, seeking, finding, not finding, but what he finds is shocking.

[30:34] Now this is one of those verses, in fact, I talked to somebody who's very smart this week, and he said, whenever I'm looking at these Ecclesiastes, one of the verses I go to to see if I agree with the commentator is this very verse, because it's so perplexing.

[30:48] Look at verse 26, I find something more bitter than death, a woman whose heart is snares and nets and whose hands are feathers. Now that does not sound like a good time. You know, Solomon's been afraid of death, but he's saying right here, death is not the worst thing that can happen to you.

[31:03] Getting entangled with this woman whose heart is snares and nets and whose hands are feathers is the worst. That's what the worst is. Now, who is this woman whose hands are feathers and whose heart is snares and nets?

[31:21] Who is this girl? Now this is where the smart guys disagree. You know, this woman, some say this woman represents a specific type of woman. You know, adulterous prostitute.

[31:36] Others say it represents a specific woman, a specific historical woman that Solomon must have met. Still others say it represents all women in general. Now, I don't think I agree with that.

[31:51] It seems to me that the best explanation is that this woman represents foolishness. In the book of Proverbs, if you remember, wisdom is personified as a woman who gives the blessing of prosperity and blessing and long life and also foolishness is personified as a woman who brings destruction and death.

[32:14] Proverbs 23, which we have for you, 26 through 28, Solomon says, my son, give me your heart. Let your eyes observe my ways, for a prostitute is a deep pit, an adulteress is a narrow well.

[32:28] She lies in wait like a robber and increases the traitors among mankind. You see the pit, the snares that she brings. There's a woman whose lips drip, drip, and whose speech is smoother than honey and she leaves many men away.

[32:43] But Solomon is not just suddenly telling us to avoid certain women. You know, there's certain clubs you shouldn't go to. Avoid certain women.

[32:53] That's not, he's calling us to flee foolishness. The rest of the passage continues. Look in verse 27. This is what I've found. While adding one thing to another, which my soul has sought repeatedly, have not found.

[33:06] One man among a thousand I found, and a woman among all the I have found. Now what in the world are you talking about now? Well, I think the idea is not a slight against women.

[33:18] He's saying, I've been searching for wisdom all this time. I've been trying to understand wisdom. I'm trying to find wisdom. That's what this book is all about. Seeking to locate wisdom and locate someone who is wise.

[33:29] And all I've found is one man in a thousand and no women. Everyone else is foolish. It's not a slight on women. It's a statement about how the world is mostly foolish.

[33:45] 999 to a thousand foolish. 999 to one foolish. most people are fools. Reminds me of the Lord's conversation with Abraham.

[33:58] I'll save the city if you find 50 righteous. 45 righteous. 40, 35, 30, 25, 20, 15, 10, 5, anyone.

[34:12] He continues, why is there so much foolishness in this world? Look in verse 29. This alone I found, that God has made man upright, but they have sought out many schemes.

[34:26] Why is there so much foolishness? This alone. So at the end of his search, this is what I've found. God made man upright, but they've sought out many schemes.

[34:37] What he's saying is that our deepest problem is not a lack of righteousness, a lack of goodness, a lack of spiritualness. Our deepest problem is not a lack of wisdom, a lack of understanding, a lack of knowledge.

[34:48] Our deepest problem is something else. Our deepest problem is moral. Our deepest problem is sin, not just that we do various sins, but that we are by nature sinners.

[34:59] That's what he's after. That's what he's getting at. We're told in the world that if we just had the right situation, man would be okay. If we just had the right circumstance, man would be okay. If we just had the right information, we could succeed in life.

[35:13] We could be wise, but Solomon says not so. Because crookedness is not out there, it's right there. As Dostoevsky famously said, the line between good and evil runs not through humanity, but through the human heart.

[35:29] And so, sin overtakes us, not like a choice we selected, the supermarket, but like a slave driver who moves in and takes over, like a forbidden woman who entices us and then enchains us.

[35:47] Ray Orland says, sin is as unchosen as hunger, as comfortable as sleep, as inevitable, as gravity, as lethal, as poison. Sin offers itself as an option, but it takes over as a master.

[35:59] Solomon is alerting us to something we know, but where are we becoming comfortable with sin? We're being seduced by sin, loathed to sleep by sin, making compromises.

[36:12] God has made man upright. But they've sought out many schemes. Genesis 6, evil, or the intent of their heart is evil always.

[36:29] If we see that our biggest problem, our greatest problem is sin, not merely sins we commit, but our sinful nature that we cannot prevent, then we'll come to Jesus to find rest, to find forgiveness, to find life.

[36:45] That's what I offer to you, the truth of the gospel, that he who knew no sin became sin, so that in him you might become the righteousness of God. Because your problem is so great that God can't offer you a cheap solution.

[37:08] instead he offers himself to stand in your place, to endure the wrath that you deserve, so that you might receive, be welcomed into the fellowship that he has always enjoyed.

[37:24] The way through the crookedness of life is the fear of God. We need to fear God. Now Solomon's going to pick up this theme more and more as we get towards the end.

[37:36] Fearing God is not a cringing dread. We just sang it. It was grace that taught my heart to fear. Grace my fears relieved.

[37:48] The grace of the gospel doesn't take away all your fears. It actually teaches you how to fear. It teaches you who to fear. It gives you a life where fear in God is more important than anything else.

[38:01] It's the only way out of life. It's the only way to live. Let us pray. Father in heaven, we thank you for the privilege of gathering an assembly like this without any earthly fears.

[38:24] We thank you. You've been listening to a message given by Walt Alexander, lead pastor of Trinity Grace Church in Athens, Tennessee. For more information about Trinity Grace, please visit us at trinitygraceathens.com.