Father, we've had lots of difficulties this morning with our sound system and other things.
And Father, we are really very, very glad that we don't have to lean upon and depend
upon things like sound systems, but that we are to lean upon you.
So Father, at this time we ask that you would help us to lean upon you and lean into you.
We ask, Father, that your Holy Spirit would move deeply in our lives as we hear your word.
Lord, bring your word home to us, to the very center of our heart, so we might confess that
Jesus is Lord and that we might, Father, be gripped by the gospel, learning to live for
your glory.
And all this we ask in the name of Jesus.
Amen.
Please be seated.
I'd like to, just sort of as a way of beginning, if you're a guest here, you don't know this,
or maybe if you've been away for a few Sundays.
But this past, last two Sundays, I asked people in the congregation to pray for me.
I like to pray for me all the time, actually.
But on Wednesday, I was the guest speaker at church on Wednesday.
So we're at the University of Ottawa, right in the University Center in a public open spot.
And I ask that you would pray for me because I had to be in the University of Ottawa and
pray on the text, wives, submit to your husbands and slaves, obey your masters, which, as we
all know, is not even remotely controversial in the church or in the University of Ottawa
campus.
And I mean, you know, in heaven, we'll find out what the true fruit of such times are.
But I really want to thank you for your prayers.
God was very kind.
And he was very kind.
There were somewhere between 90 to 100 people who were there throughout all of it, plus different
people wandering by.
And one of the things is, and this comes from your prayers, I was not only, I think, able
to try to bring open the text to people, but to also share the gospel through it, which
sounds counterintuitive to a lot of people that you could take a text like that and use
it to talk about the wonder of Jesus and who he is and what he did for us on the cross.
But I made an attempt to do that, at least, and people were quiet and attentive.
One of the things that they do at church on Wednesday is after the talk is over, the sermon
is over, they, I think they sing a song, they announce that people can ask questions of the
speaker.
And they sing a song, and then we get to, they ask questions.
And I have to answer the questions.
And I think the very, very first question was, why should we trust the authority, why should
we trust or believe the authority of the Bible?
Why should we trust or believe the authority of the Bible?
And I responded, oh, that's easy.
And then I proceeded to give a very brief response.
How I answered that question, that it's easy, and how it is that we would trust the authority
of the Bible and why we should believe it.
Actually, it's not fully explained here, but in the text that we're about to look at, it
will come out as to why it is that Christians should, why not only Christians, but others
can trust the Bible and should believe that it's an authority.
So it'd be a great help to me as we look at this text.
And it's funny, this text is actually talking about something else, but it also helps us to
understand why it is that we can trust the Bible and it as an authority.
So the text is Romans chapter 9, verse 30.
Romans 9, 30.
And if you're one of the people here who's taken one of our free Bibles, it's page 653.
Romans 9, 30.
And this is how it begins.
Romans 9, 30.
And those of you who are listening to Nora speak, if you're not sort of a real keen student
of the Bible, some of it sounds a little bit confusing.
And I'm just going to sort of read a bit.
I'll make a couple of comments as we go, and it starts to get into sort of the big question
or issue today.
And you'll notice, by the way, that one of the things that the Bible is about to do is
to disagree with 95% of Canadians.
In fact, it's going to very specifically reject what 95% of Canadians believe, and which we
Christians, because we breathe Canadian air, are always tempted to want to believe as well.
Here's how it goes.
Romans 9, 30.
What shall we say then?
The Gentiles, here I'm going to use the word pagans, and it's a good word, and it refers
to basically everybody who's not Jewish at the time that this was written, that pagans
who did not pursue righteousness have attained it.
That is, a righteousness that is by faith.
Now, I'm going to pause here, because those of you who are following along, I'm going to
start doing something a little...
I'm not cheating, and I'm not trying to get away from the Bible, but I'm trying to bring
out something that's been established, if you've been here for previous weeks, about
the meaning of these words.
It's not saying that pagans don't try to be good people, and then all of a sudden something's
happened, and now they're good.
It's not trying to say that at all.
And it's also very interesting, if you look at your Bibles, it doesn't say that the Gentiles
are the pagans, because it's not going to say that everybody who's pagan, this has happened.
It's just going to say that for some people, this has happened, who are pagans.
And for the word righteousness here, I'm going to replace it by what it actually means more
literally, which is become or made right with God.
And I haven't talked about being made right with God for a while, but if all of a sudden
you just get this idea of making something right, every time I've talked about it, it's
shocked me how often in movies and in books this concept of making something right is
there.
You know, it could be something if you work at a Starbucks or something or a restaurant,
and you can hear that there's a kerfuffle going on outside, and there's somebody who's
unhappy or a couple of customers who are unhappy.
What you're hoping for if you're the poor person at the cash is that the manager will
come and make it right.
Okay, they'll make it right.
And maybe they'll make it right by firing the customer, getting the customer out of there,
calling the police.
Maybe they'll make it right by giving them a free drink and just, you know, talking and
listening to people.
But you want somebody to make it right.
You know, maybe you've been in a workplace, and there's lots of unhappiness going on.
There's lots of slander and backbiting and discontent.
And people are hoping maybe that at some point in time, the management or higher up in the
organization will come and make it right.
Okay, they'll come and make it right.
And you know, whether that making right is maybe firing somebody or, you know, a lateral
transfer or listening or whatever, it can involve a whole pile of things.
But we have this sort of basic understanding still in our culture of having something made
right.
Okay, and that's what's trying to get communicated here with this word righteousness in this particular
context as a range of meaning.
But that's what it means.
So now I'm going to keep reading.
And I'm going to say that rather than righteousness.
So we're not confused.
Okay, so we'll start again.
What shall we say then?
Verse 30 of chapter 9, that pagans who did not pursue being made right with God have attained
it.
That is, being made right with God that is by faith.
But that Israel, who pursued a law that would lead to being made right with God, did not
succeed in reaching that law.
In other words, they followed a principle and they didn't actually do what they wanted
to accomplish.
Why?
Because they did not pursue it by faith.
I'm going to explain this all in a moment.
But as it were, as if it were based on works.
They have stumbled over the stumbling stone, as it is written, I am laying in Zion a stone
of stumbling and a rock of offense.
And whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.
Now just sort of pause here for a second.
I don't know how many of you watch The Amazing Race.
It's one of my guilty pleasures.
It's, I think, about the only thing I watch on sort of normal network TV.
And it's, I think it's always 11 teams and they go around the world and they have to
complete a series of tasks in foreign cities and follow, you know, they get a direction.
They have to go somewhere and complete a task.
And one of the things which every year, it always happens several times, that the people
are trying to figure out what something means.
And they have it very, very firmly stuck in their mind that they know exactly what they're
being told to do and exactly what it is that they have to see.
And you as a viewer delight in the fact that the camera person will show them constantly
walking by the actual thing they're supposed to find.
And it's very interesting.
Sometimes, I remember this one time, there were these two young men and their self-talk
was about how spectacular they were and how good they were at, they won everything they
always did.
And that was their sort of their self-talk as they were building each other up.
But like complete doofuses, they spent a long time walking right by the thing that they
were supposed to do and the sign that they were supposed to see.
And they were so, in a sense, caught up with how excellent they were and how successful
they were that they couldn't find it.
And it was one of those things of the viewer, in a sense, laughing at them.
Now, Paul, we're going to see here in a moment, says that this just breaks his heart.
But he's talking about that for the Jewish people, that God has provided with them laws.
And that the law, that not only refers to just the books of the first five books of the Old Testament,
but in a sense, the whole Old Testament.
But what's happened, he said, to his brothers and sisters who are Jewish,
is they've gotten in their own head and in their own mind how it is that they're going to sort everything out
by their standards and their criteria.
And the irony is that while they're trying to do that, they literally keep tripping over Jesus,
so to speak.
That they don't recognize that the entire, what we call the Old Testament,
that the entire Old Testament was doing several types of things.
One of them is that it was trying to get people to understand that they couldn't keep it.
That at some point in time, they had to just lay down, in a sense, their Bibles,
lay down their sword and seal, lay down their prayer mats, lay down everything,
and just say, only God.
Only God.
Unless God does something, I'm in big trouble.
And at the same time, what we call the Old Testament was to try to bring people to this
recognition and this realization that unless God does it, we're really in trouble.
At the same time, the entire Old Testament is setting all these clues and hints and riddles
to point to how God is, in fact, going to do this.
That God didn't write the Old Testament as some type of, like, it's not like Kafka's book,
the trial, and some type of evil genius back behind the veil, creating all of these rules,
just trying to see people trying to keep them, and all of them always just fail,
and he's just up there laughing at us and scorn.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no.
That, in fact, in the entire Old Testament, it's constantly giving us hints and riddles,
and that when Jesus comes, that if people had actually come to the point of looking at the Old Testament
and looking at the fact that why is it that I keep having to kill all these animals,
and I just keep messing up, and only God, unless God deals with it,
unless God, in a sense, provides that sacrifice, unless God is the one who sorts these things out,
I'm in big trouble, and then God actually does send the answer to all of these pointers.
But they're so intent on actually trying to accomplish their understanding
because they're so superior and they're so excellent,
and they keep, in a sense, tripping over Jesus.
That's what Paul is trying to communicate.
And then he continues in chapter 10, verse 1.
Brothers and sisters, my heart's desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved.
Now, this is really, really, really important.
You know, one of the views that non-Christians have of Christians is that we don't really care about people.
We think we're better than them.
And a lot of times, non-Christians, they're not being mean and prejudiced when they think that.
Because, in fact, this text is going to continually try to humble us
because the fact of the matter is that a lot of us view,
those of us who are Christians, a lot of us view a lot of the city as a threat.
That a lot of us view people who are same-sex attracted or trans
and living, from our point of view, a life that's not of God.
And rather than our heart being broken for them and loving them,
we find them as a threat.
Or we think of them as our enemies.
And we do that with politics as well.
And we as Christians, and I don't know, you know, I'm not going to pick,
you know, but those of us who, you know, really love Trudeau.
And we view those who like, who supported Harper as a threat.
Those who wanted to vote conservative.
And they view people who vote for Trudeau as a threat, as bad people, as evil people.
And it goes on and on and on.
Our hearts can actually be very, very, very hard to people.
And we like those people who are sort of like us and sort of think our way,
but we're hard-hearted towards other people.
And non-Christians, if they have that perception of Christians, it's not prejudice.
I mean, sometimes maybe it is, and sometimes maybe it's not really fair.
But the fact of the matter is that our hearts are not often broken for our neighbors.
And that we have a real love for them.
And that we want to view that there's nobody in our neighborhood who's our enemy.
And nobody in this city who is our enemy.
There might be people who don't like us, but we don't want,
I don't want to view them as my enemy.
My heart wants to be like Paul's here in verse 1.
We'll read it again in 10.1.
Brothers and sisters, my heart's desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved.
I mean, for many of us, that's the point right now that we have to pause and do some work with God.
To recognize how many people, we don't think that at all.
We'd like to see that person crushed.
Those people who voted for Harper, I'd like to see them crushed.
Those people who voted for Trudeau, I'm just waiting for everything to fall apart.
So that I can just say, look, that's what's going on in our hearts.
Not that our hearts burn with love for them.
Then Paul continues.
And here's now where he's going to be actually quite un-Canadian.
We'll read verse 2, 3, and 4.
But for I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God,
but not according to knowledge.
For being ignorant of the righteousness of God,
in other words, the way that God has provided to make us right with himself,
and seeking to establish their own way of making themselves right with God,
they did not submit to God's way of making people right with himself.
In other words, the way that God was actually going to accomplish it.
For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.
And I'm not going to talk much about this,
but that's something, a constant part of the teaching.
It's what Jesus says himself in Luke 24 after his resurrection,
that every single thing in the Old, what we call the Old Testament,
every single thing in the Bible points to him.
Everything points to him and who he is and what he's accomplished on the cross.
Everything.
Everything in there is moving to its goal,
and in a sense, after Jesus,
we just keep funneling us back to him.
We're going to talk more about that in a moment.
But here, I just want to pause.
Do you notice that un-Canadian thing in verse 2?
Where he says, I have to turn the page,
for being ignorant of the, no, for I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God,
but not according to knowledge.
In other words, they have,
they are deeply committed,
authentically committed,
and sincere.
But they're all wrong.
Now, if you could put the first point up, Andrew,
what is it that most Canadians say?
It does not matter what you believe as long as you're sincere.
And I've added something else.
It only applies to things that are not real and do not matter.
Now, I don't want to offend you if you're here.
I don't mean to offend you.
I just want to consider this is, you know,
is the Bible being judgmental and mean?
Or is it just trying to point out something,
which in fact, we realize,
but we don't want to express it this way.
That it does not matter what you believe as long as you're sincere.
Sincere only applies to things that are real and do not matter.
So, for instance,
just to give a very, very, you know, absurd example,
you're flying in a jet, an Air Canada jet.
You're flying somewhere, it doesn't matter.
I don't know, it has 150 people on it.
And it's at 33,000 feet.
And all of a sudden, over the intercom,
it's announced that the pilot says that
that Joe has a deep and sincere commitment
that he believes he can fly a plane and land it.
And he's never had any lessons,
never flown a plane before,
but he's talked to his inner self.
And both his inner self and him
have really firmly convinced him
that he knows how to fly jets and land them.
And so because the Air Canada pilot is a Canadian,
he wants to respect sincerely held beliefs.
And he's going to come and sit in the plane
while Joe flies the plane without instruments
and lands it.
Now, of course, we would all laugh
and we would all think it was hilarious,
but if we actually came to think that that was happening,
we would all be storming the cockpit.
Because planes are real,
and when they're at 33,000 feet,
landing them matters.
Okay?
So it is, you see,
so for many people when they say
it doesn't matter what you believe
as long as you're sincere,
well, you know what they mean is,
you know,
I keep picking on,
I keep saying,
I'll just use it.
You know, it doesn't really matter that much.
You know,
if somebody just wants to go off
and dance in a little circle at night
out in the bush
and call down the goddesses
and call down the moon
and get in touch with animal spirits,
if they want to do that,
that's completely fine.
Okay?
And if somebody believes,
it really gives them good meaning
to think that,
I don't know,
you know,
that the entire earth
rests on a turtle's back
and everything was created by,
you know,
when ravens talked
and then some seeds
fell out of their mouth
and it fell out,
and that's,
you know,
that's fine.
But if all of a sudden
they actually wanted to change
how biology and chemistry
and physics is taught
and you actually realize
that they actually think
that this is true,
then you'd start to really think
that they were actually psychotic.
But even then,
you'd still maybe just want
to lock them up
because it doesn't matter
as much as landing a plane.
And here's the part
which is hard for Canadians
to understand.
It's why Christians keep getting
in trouble in public.
That for Christians,
we believe it's real.
At least I do.
If you're here as a guest,
earlier on when I began my sermon,
when I closed my eyes and prayed,
I quite literally believe
there is a God that does exist
that I am speaking to.
It doesn't matter
if nobody here believes it,
that's actually what I believe.
And when I ask the Father
to pour out His Holy Spirit,
I literally,
I mean,
I don't know what images I have,
I don't really have any images,
but I literally believe
that I'm asking God
who really does exist
to really do something.
And when I say
that Jesus rose from the dead,
I believe there was
a real historical person
that He really did rise from the dead.
When I,
earlier on in the service,
when I said,
God,
you created all things,
sustain all things,
there's not a square inch
that you don't sustain yourself,
I actually literally believe that.
And if it brings me
into conflict
with the biology faculty,
then that on one hand
is a bit of a daunting
type of thing
to take on,
you know,
40 PhDs,
but at the end of the day,
I would say,
I believe that this is true
and real
and it matters
that when in John chapter 1,
it says,
in the beginning was the Word
and the Word was with God
and the Word was God,
He was with God
in the beginning.
All things were made through Him
and without Him
nothing was made
that was made.
I believe that's literally true.
I believe it's just as true
as being on an airplane
at 33,000 feet
that has to land.
That's the Christian claim.
And so you see,
at first,
when this looks like
it's being very un-Canadian
by saying that it doesn't,
you know,
that being sincere
in fact isn't enough
and it sounds very un-Canadian
as if we're being rude.
Now,
on one hand,
for many Canadians
that we go,
good grief,
you don't accept
naturalistic evolution?
Like,
like,
good grief,
you actually believe
that, like,
there's demons
and angels?
Like,
you,
okay,
but it changes
the conversation,
right?
And that's what
the real,
robust,
historic,
biblical Christianity
is claiming.
We're saying
that we're not like
people who just
go and call down
the dark moon
and have beliefs
about,
you know,
chanting to the great,
that we're,
we're more,
in a sense,
like the chemistry faculty
and the biology faculty.
We're making
those type of claims.
believers.
And now,
what Paul is going
to do,
now that we sort
of grasp the problem,
I'm going to have,
I might have trouble,
anyway,
now that we've sort
of grasped the problem,
the Bible is going
to tell us now
three surprising,
counterintuitive truths.
In fact,
if you could put it up,
the point,
three counterintuitive
truths are taught
by the Bible
in very,
very quick,
summary fashion
in the next three verses.
The first
counterintuitive,
counterintuitive truth,
that's a bit of a tongue
twister for me,
counterintuitive truth
is that all attempts
to be right with God
by rule keeping fail.
This is a great shock
to non-Christians.
It's actually a great shock
to people who have
gone to church
for many,
many years.
Because,
in fact,
many Christians
believe that
rule keeping
is what Christianity
is all about.
But the Bible
is going to,
in fact,
completely reject this.
And the Bible
is going to say
that all attempts
to ascend to God
ascend to God
to know him fail.
I'm going to explain
what that means
in a moment.
And the Bible
is going to say
that all attempts
to descend to God
to know him fail.
And it does it
very,
very briefly.
And it's in
verses 5 to 7.
In a sense here,
there's a basic
rejection
of all of the
philosophies,
spiritualities,
and religions
of the world.
A basic rejection.
Not because
we think
we're smarter.
In fact,
as I'm going to try
to show,
the heart of the
Spurgeon
got it completely
right.
These rejections
are going to
humble us
and bring us
to our knees
and make us
realize
that every
Christian
is merely
one beggar
telling another
beggar
where to get
free bread.
It's going to
be a complete
and utter
rejection
of our
deep-seated
desire
to be a
superhero
and tell us
that we're
beggars.
That's the
deepest,
hardest part
of Christianity
that it
constantly
humbles us
to bring us
to our knees,
to have us
fall flat
on our face,
to acknowledge
that we are
beggars.
Here it is.
I'll read them
first and then
we'll go back
and look at each
very briefly.
Verse 5,
For Moses writes
about the
righteousness
or the way
of being right
with God
that is based
on the law
that the person
who does the
commandment
shall live by them.
And some of you
are saying,
George,
that contradicts
what you just
said,
but we're going
to go back
and look at it
and I'll show
you why that's
not the case.
Verse 6,
But the righteousness
based on faith,
the way of being
right with God
based on faith,
says,
Do not say in your
heart,
who will ascend
into heaven?
That is to bring
Christ down.
Or,
who will descend
into the abyss?
That is to bring
Christ up
from the dead.
So,
the three things,
the three counterintuitive
truths taught
by the Bible,
first,
all attempts
to be right
with God
by rule keeping
fail.
And verse 5,
that's where it
says it,
and it looks at first
as if it's saying
the opposite.
For Moses writes
about the righteousness,
the way of being
right with God
that is based
on the law,
that the person
who does the commandment
shall live by them.
What Paul is doing here,
and it's a little bit hard
if you haven't been
to any of the services,
you haven't heard
any of the sermons,
you haven't read
any of Romans,
but if you have a Bible
like this,
it's sort of very obvious
that Romans starts
over here,
and Romans has done,
he's talked about this,
now he gets to this.
Sometimes I come home
late at night,
and my wife and kids
are watching something
on Netflix,
and maybe they're
two-thirds of the way
through it,
and I just come,
I sit down
or do whatever,
and I come and watch
the movie,
and something said
on the TV
that to me
sounds completely innocuous,
and people,
the others,
chuckle or groan.
You know,
and I think,
wow,
they chuckle or groan,
it just sounds innocuous
to me.
And that's because
in the previous thing
leading up to it,
what they just say
has a context
that makes you
chuckle or groan.
And so what Paul
is doing here,
this is now
in chapter 10,
and if you go through
the book of Romans,
one of the main things
that Paul does
in the book of Romans,
he does it in the last
half of chapter 1,
all of chapter 2,
and most of chapter 3,
is he wants to try
to bring you to the point
of understanding
that if your goal
in life is to keep rules,
and keeping rules
is what's going to
make you right with God,
that you always fail.
You always fail,
everybody fails,
with no exception,
if they're completely
and utterly honest.
And Paul tries to show
that whether you follow
the perfect,
like God's rules,
ones that he wrote
that are in the Bible,
or whether God
will be completely
and utterly just,
and say,
okay, George,
you make your rules.
Okay, George,
you write down the things
that you have to accomplish,
and you write them down,
I'll let you choose.
You write them all down,
and then we'll just
have a video cam
that follows your life,
and we'll just spend
the next month
and seeing how long
it takes before
you can't even keep
the rules that you pick,
that you make for yourself.
And that God is
completely and utterly fair.
And so Paul is just using here
a very, very simple type
of a catchphrase
to remind us of the thing
that he's been saying
over and over and over again
in many, many, many
different forms
throughout the entire
book of Romans
up to this point.
And for many, many,
many, many, many Christians,
they believe that the Christian faith
is all about keeping rules.
Or, for you and I,
we say, oh yeah,
okay, no, no, no, no, no,
I have to get down
on my knees,
I make the sinner's prayer,
I give my life to God.
But then, it's almost
as soon as that's over,
before we know it,
how we evaluate
how we are with God
comes with how good we are
at keeping our standards
and our moral rules.
And how we end up
coming to church
feeling deeply depressed
because, in fact,
this past week
we haven't been very good
at keeping our rules,
and we somehow or another
believe that how we are
with God depends upon
our ability
to keep rules.
But it never does.
It never does.
In fact,
I'm going to share something.
If you're a non-Christian
and you are here today,
one of the things,
I'm going to tell you something
about your Christian friends
that maybe they don't even
know about themselves
or if they know it,
they don't want to share with you,
is that we Christians
sometimes are deeply
intimidated by people
who are very successful
at keeping rules.
That we look at,
you know,
maybe we look at
some Jewish person,
or we look at a Hindu,
or we look at a Buddhist,
or we just look at our neighbor
who's really good
at keeping financial rules,
or another person
who's really good
at just keeping the rules
about how you make promotions,
or how you have
the perfect house,
or how you have
the perfect wife,
or how you have
the perfect kid,
the perfect dog,
all together,
none of the above,
whatever it is.
And we Christians
can be deeply,
deeply,
deeply intimidated
by perfect rule keeping
and feel we have
nothing to say.
See,
this text wants
to humble us.
What should we say?
I'm a beggar.
I'm George.
I'm completely helpless.
I couldn't keep
all those laws
if my life depended upon it.
In fact,
the matter is,
is if you saw
how I ate,
you'd know
that I'm shortening
my life by how bad
I am at keeping rules.
We'd want to say,
you know what,
there's the good news
that being right with God
is never going to be
based on keeping rules.
Never.
And then,
we'll go and look,
and in fact,
here's another thing,
is basically,
all religion and spirituality
is advice about
the rules to keep.
All religion
and all spirituality
is advice about
the rules to keep
and follow.
And the Bible here
is saying,
you follow them
thinking you're going to live.
Nobody will live
because nobody keeps them.
Then verse 6,
but the way of being right
with God
based on faith
says,
it's a rejection.
Do not say in your heart
who will ascend
into heaven.
Now this is a,
that is,
who will ascend
into heaven,
that is to bring Christ down.
And here,
what the Bible
is telling us
is that
all ways of ascending
to know God,
they all fail.
Don't try to follow them.
And there's,
there's historically,
there's been all sorts
of different ways
to ascend to God.
The most common one
is to have a mystical experience.
And by having a mystical experience,
we ascend to God.
And people who have
mystical experiences
and ascend to God,
they're superior
to other people.
Or intellectuals
who are able to,
to think through
great things
and make great distinctions.
And their minds
become a series
of ever higher abstractions
and ever higher distinctions.
And they're just
unbelievably brilliant.
And maybe it's a matter
that there's going to be
these profound
ascetic disciplines
that just,
that their spirituality,
their mantras,
their chanting,
their yoga,
that that is going to be
a type of a way
of ascending
and ascending
until we can actually
reach and grasp God.
And for others,
it's going to be
through aesthetic experiences.
The ability to appreciate
unbelievably great music
and get all of the nuances
out of that music.
And as the aesthetic experience
of the music
or the art
or the poetry
or the sculpture,
as it fills our minds
and our minds move
to higher things
and to higher things
so that we can grasp God.
And the Bible says
none of it works.
None of it works.
If you're a non-Christian
and you were here,
I want to share with you
another thing
about your Christian friend
that you don't realize,
we Christians
are profoundly,
profoundly uncomfortable
in the face
of profound assent
because part of us
wants to be like that ourselves.
We don't want to acknowledge
that we're beggars.
We want to think
we're superheroes too.
And when we come to people
who have finer distinctions
in their minds
and their aesthetic experiences
and their spiritual experience
and their mystical things,
we feel deeply uncomfortable
because part of us,
like fallen human beings,
wants to be a superhero
like that as well.
But the Bible says
none of it works.
One of the things
that constantly,
the people I talk to
in Starbucks,
one of the,
for many of them,
they'll bring up things
about Christopher Hitchens
and the presumption
of thinking that human beings
can know and capture God.
And they tell me that
thinking that they've got me
and I say,
I'm a Christian,
I completely believe,
I accept,
I,
Christopher Hitchens
and I like this,
we're bosom buddies,
we think alike on this one.
You haven't shocked me.
I agree with it.
And they go,
like they don't know
what to do next.
They thought they've got me.
That is presumptuous
to think that any human beings
can attain and grasp
by themselves,
by their minds,
through their aesthetic experiences,
the infinite God.
We accept that.
The Bible rejects it.
And then there's
the way of descent.
Verse 7,
where,
who will descend
into the abyss?
That is to bring Christ
up from the dead.
Now,
we're going to talk about
the second part of it,
but this way of descent,
once again,
that's a very,
very common way.
When I went to do
my master's in counseling,
the supposedly Christian place,
one of the things
that I had to do
in a class
is I had to go deep
within myself
to first of all
find,
not only go from myself,
but to go to my
higher self
and my higher self
and eventually touch
the transcendent
cosmic self.
And it was a journey
deep within.
And there's also people
who go,
in a sense,
a way of descent
as they go into the past.
They'll come and they'll tell us,
well,
you can just follow your God,
but the New Testament
was just written
2,000 years ago.
I follow some scripture
and some practice
that goes back
to 4,000 B.C.
long before Jesus
was even the gleam
in anybody's eyes.
This,
which is old
and far more ancient,
that's the path
that I follow.
Your thing
is just a Johnny
come lately.
Or there's a path
of descent
into that
which is purely physical,
often connected
with sex
because in sexual knowing
there's often something
which feels transcendent
and ecstatic about it.
And so as you enter
into this,
it feels as if
you're somehow
another connecting
to God.
That somehow,
and you think
of people
who believe
that by getting
themselves
into some unbelievable
trance
or some other
unbelievable act
of transgression,
that they're somehow
another connecting
by going down
and getting to that
which is base,
that they are somehow
connecting with that
which is real
and that which is God.
And the Bible said
none of them works.
None of them works.
And non-Christian friends,
I will tell you,
for many of us Christians,
we are profoundly
uncomfortable
in the face of that.
When somebody tells us
that their way
is far more ancient,
often for many of us
we don't quite know
what to say
because we wish
that we could say
that ours was more ancient.
And when people talk
about the experiences
they have through drugs
or through meditation
in their depths
or through profound experiences
of sexual knowing,
and for many of us
we don't know what it is
because we wish
that we could be
doing those things
and we can tell you
of our experiences
and how our experiences
are just as good as yours
and even better.
And once again,
the Bible is completely
and utterly humbling us
and we have to just say,
you know what,
that doesn't work either,
I'm a beggar.
And Canadians,
like most human beings,
don't like to acknowledge that.
And you were intimidated by it.
Before we go to the next verses,
we might go a little bit
over time today, folks.
Hopefully it's all right.
But could you put up
Romans 1, 16 to 17
for me at this time?
The way the book of Romans
is written
is that the first few verses
as Paul describes,
a little bit of
just sort of welcome.
Then he tells them
a little bit about his plans.
And then those of you
who have heard it,
I keep saying it
over and over again.
It's almost like
a modern academic paper
where there's the abstract
at the beginning
where the abstract
gives you the basic content
of the paper.
And Paul does that
in verses 1,
chapter 1,
verses 16 and 17.
And then after that,
he goes into the problem,
he goes into how God
solves the problem,
he goes into different
other things.
But everything in the book
of Romans
sort of unpacks this
or is revealed by this.
So could you help me
and read this with me,
please,
out loud.
for I am not ashamed
of the gospel,
for it is the power
of God for salvation
to everyone who believes,
to the Jew first
and also to the Greek.
For in the gospel,
the righteousness of God
is revealed from faith
to faith.
As it is written,
the righteous shall live
by faith.
So what Paul is saying here
is the gospel
is something completely
and utterly different.
that the gospel
is something completely
and utterly different.
Does rule keeping matter?
Rule keeping does matter.
But the good news is
that you and I
can't keep the rules.
But as Paul has described
up until now,
Jesus perfectly keeps
every rule
and has a life
of unbroken union
with God,
perfect obedience.
And that what happens
on the cross
is that Jesus
takes upon himself
my inability
to keep the rules
and the punishment
I deserve
and he offers me
his perfect keeping
of the rules.
That's what Jesus does
for me on the cross.
And what else
is happening
on the cross
is that God knows
that I,
by my finite,
fallen,
rebellious human mind,
cannot pierce
the heights of God.
That God
breaks into
our created order
in the person
of his son
that Jesus
comes
to us.
and that's
why all
Christian claims
of intellectual
superiority
have to die
because we have
to say that
none of it
came from our
thinking.
That God
comes down.
Jesus
descends.
And at the
same time,
and so that
what in a sense
is happening
when Jesus
dies upon the cross
is we are
observing
the coming
of Jesus
from the
Father's side
and he descends
to come to
our created
order.
He descends
to come
and actually
be within
the womb
of Mary
and then he
lives a normal
human life
and his
descent
continues
to actually
dine upon
the cross
and his
death upon
the cross
is going
to mean
that he's
going to
continue
to descend
and that
there is
no depth
so low
that Jesus
has not
gone lower,
that there
is no
type of
evil
that we
have done
or that we
know about
that has
not fallen
upon the
shoulders
of Jesus
that on
the cross
all of
the
that God
in his
descent
he comes
to us
he takes
upon himself
all that
keeps us
from God
all of
the evil
is going
to come
upon him
he continues
to descend
until he's
descended
and tasted
everything
there is
to taste
of death
everything
there is
to taste
of evil
everything
there is
to taste
of shame
everything
there is
to taste
about
separation
from God
that he
goes
lower
than anything
can possibly
be
to the very
very depths
and then
on the third
day
God
raises him
from the
dead
and he ascends
back into
heaven
that Jesus
is teaching
that comes
from God
that his
death upon
the cross
is a
bearing of
our evil
and the
consequences
of our
evil
upon
himself
Jesus
comes
from above
descends
to the
depths
comes
back up
and as I'm
going to say
in a moment
if we just
put our
hands
in his
he is
the one
who takes
us to
God
that's what
the gospel
is
it's the
power of
God
for salvation
Andrew
can you put
up the
next point
the gospel
is the
good news
that by
the
resurrection
God
has
vindicated
who
Jesus
is
and what
he has
accomplished
the gospel
is the
good news
that by
the
resurrection
God
has
vindicated
who
Jesus
is
and what
he
has
accomplished
why
trust
the
Bible
it's
a coming
together
of
several
things
the
first
thing
it's
coming
together
about
is
that
the
resurrection
is
real
and it
matters
if you
study
history
if you study the historical records, if you study what went on,
I believe that if you study it with even a remotely open mind,
you will come to the conclusion that Jesus really existed, that he really died,
and that the only way to account for what happens on the third day
is that God raised him from the dead.
And that this is not just some isolated type of thing.
It wouldn't be as if all of a sudden Joey died,
and then three days later he came back to life.
That would just be weird.
Nothing personal, Joey, but it would just be weird.
Okay, it could be, ah, that would just be weird, okay?
But that Jesus dies and rises,
and he talked about the fact that he was going to do that.
He talked about the meaning and the significance of his life.
He talked about who he was.
So that the resurrection of Jesus is not just, that's weird,
but it vindicates who he said he was
and what he said he's going to accomplish on the cross,
which is this taking away of our rebellion
and the stowing upon us a righteousness of God.
And that all of this takes place within a rich system of thought found in the Bible,
a rich system of thought, a meta-narrative,
and wisdom within the Bible that makes sense of, well,
of abstract philosophy and of spirituality.
And on Wednesday I tried to show it,
it makes sense of the difference between human beings, of men and women.
And it makes sense in terms of how bosses and workers make,
and how it makes sense of social structures.
And it takes place within the context of arguments for the existence of God.
And it takes place, this life of Jesus and his death and his resurrection
and the vindication of him, it takes place within a rich thing.
And it's because of that that you can trust the authority of the Bible.
I urge you, if you're a non-Christian,
pursue to understand the historical record for who Jesus is
and what he accomplished from the cross.
I am not worried about that.
Search it.
I urge you to look into it for yourself.
Just very briefly in closing,
just before we go, the gospel is the good news, right?
It's not good advice.
It's not good rules.
It's not good yoga techniques.
It's not good community rules.
It's not good rituals.
It's not good institutions.
It's good news that by the resurrection,
God has vindicated who Jesus is and what he's accomplished.
We're just going to read these last verses
because the Bible is going to bring it all home now in a very powerful image.
Verse 8 to 13.
But what does it say?
What does the Bible say?
It's rejected rule keeping.
It's rejected ascending.
It's rejected descending.
But what does it say?
The word is near you in your mouth and in your heart.
That is the word of faith that we proclaim.
Because if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord
and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead,
you will be saved.
This is not George saying this.
This is God saying this.
I have no authority.
I'm a beggar.
You will be saved.
Verse 10.
For with the heart,
and this doesn't mean emotions.
This means the command center of who you are.
It means the very, very underneath your mind,
underneath your will,
underneath your emotions,
the very command center of who you are,
the very center of who you are.
For with the heart one believes and is justified,
that is made right with God.
And with the mouth one confesses and is saved.
For the scripture says,
everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.
For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek.
For the same Lord is Lord of all,
bestowing his riches on all who call on him.
For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.
Andrew, could you put up the next point?
Only God can cross the infinite gap of time and space and being
to come to you where you are,
as you are,
knowing who you are.
Only God can cross the infinite gap of time,
the infinite gap of space,
the infinite gap of being,
because God is so completely other and different than you and me.
To come to you where you are,
as you are,
knowing who you are.
If you could put up the final point, Andrew,
God says to us in verse 9 and 10,
I'm just changing the word slightly to make it,
this is God speaking to you directly and me directly.
If you confess with your mouth,
this is not George speaking,
it's as if God is saying to you and you and you and you.
If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord,
believe in your heart that I raised him from the dead,
I will make you right with me now and forever.
God says to you and you and me,
you're a beggar.
Get over yourself.
You're going to spend your entire Christian life getting over yourself.
I'm going to keep having you read my word,
and if you read my word correctly,
it's going to help you get over yourself.
Get over yourself.
You're a beggar.
If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord
and believe in your heart that I raised him from the dead,
I will make you right with me now and forever.
You know, if you watch Hollywood movies,
this is the closing image I'm going to ask you to stand.
If you watch Hollywood movies,
a very, very regular thing in Hollywood movies is
there's a group of noble people,
and they're fighting the evil overlord,
and then very, very close to the end of the movie,
one of the heroes or the hero's best friend.
Bang, they get shot.
And down they go.
And the other team members are all completely inhorrified.
Not Sally.
Not Fred.
Whatever their name is.
And they rush over to the person who's lying there.
And the very, very next thing you see is
you can just tell that the person's dead.
And two of the people,
they're firing their guns at the bad guys,
keeping them off.
And there's a third person,
and they're on the radio.
They're calling in a helicopter support
or spaceship support to come
so there can be a medic to come and help their friend.
But their friend is dead.
They're not breathing.
And there's another friend on top of them,
and he's pushing on the chest,
and he's doing like this,
but the person's dead.
And there's another two people,
and they're putting their hands
right where all the bullet holes are
because the blood's coming out
because they want to stop it,
but the person's dead.
And then there's another person,
and she or he is saying,
don't go away from me.
Come back to me.
I love you.
I'm your friend.
Come back to me.
But the person's dead.
They are dead, dead, dead.
And then the camera keeps going back and forth,
and you get into the mind of the person who is dead.
And they're just lying there.
Blood's coming out of their bullet holes
or their ray gun holes.
Somebody else is firing to keep all the dead,
all the bad guys.
Somebody else is calling for the medic.
Somebody else is doing the CPR.
Somebody else is putting their hands in the bullet hole.
Somebody else is doing all of that.
They're just lying there dead.
And you see in their mind
that they're starting to go away.
And then the person who's calling them back,
or maybe they have an image of their child at home,
or their mom or something,
their dog.
I don't know.
They have this image,
and the image is right there.
They're not doing anything.
They're just lying there dead.
And they can see this image now in their mind.
And they come back.
And the next thing you know,
as they come back,
because the person,
that has come to them where they are dead.
And the next thing Hollywood shows
is the eyes open.
Take a big breath.
And the people with the guns
are shooting even more now,
and then the helicopter comes,
and they take them away,
and they're all alive.
And then the next thing you know,
they live happily ever after.
That is an image of what Paul is talking about here.
God crosses the infinite distance.
God is the one through his son
who's fighting off the bad guys.
God is the one doing the CPR.
God is the one in the bullet holes.
God is the one calling to you.
He comes to you when you are dead and helpless.
He provides the power to make you right with him.
He provides the power for you to live.
He does it all through the cross
in the person of Jesus.
And this is what Paul proclaimed,
and this is what I am telling you.
And it is for you today.
If you have not done it,
there is, don't wait, don't wait.
If you feel the pressure of the Holy Spirit,
you feel Jesus,
and you know he's been knocking on your door,
there is no better time than now
to with your lips say,
Jesus is Lord.
You see, raised him from the dead,
you know that Jesus is the one vindicated by God,
that he is in fact the power of God for salvation.
And Jesus is Lord.
You're acknowledging not only what he's done,
but who he is,
and what he will be for you for all eternity.
Please stand.
Thank you.
You don't have to scream it out or shout it out,
but even if it's just very quietly under your breath,
there's no better time than right now,
maybe for the very first time in your life,
and you know that Jesus has come to you
to just say,
Jesus, you are Lord.
You are my Lord.
You are the one that God has provided
to make me right with you.
You are Lord.
Father, we confess before you
that we love this idea
that we are redeemed by grace
and by what you've done for us
on the cross through Jesus,
but Father,
you know how quickly we think
that it depends upon
how good we are at keeping rules.
Father,
you know how quickly it is
that we desire
that we'd be a superstar at rule keeping
or a superstar at rule breaking
or a superstar at being brilliant
and thinking brilliant things
and having mystical experiences
or how soon we wish
that we can go into the depths of everything.
Father,
you know how deeply addicted
and divided we are as human beings
even after we've made Jesus as Lord
to somehow think
that it's all about us being superstars.
Father,
you know,
Father,
we thank you so much
that you know every single thing
there is to know about us
when your son died upon the cross
and still he died on the cross for us.
Still he loves us.
Father,
make us disciples of Jesus
who are gripped by the gospel.
Gripped by the gospel
that we, Father,
can humbly say,
I am a beggar
when it comes to rule keeping.
I am a beggar
when it comes to being brilliant.
I am a beggar
when it comes to descending
into the depths.
Father,
please pour out your Holy Spirit upon us.
Make us disciples of Jesus
gripped by the gospel.
So freed up
that we can humbly
with faltering steps
live for your glory.
And this we ask in Jesus' name.
Your son
and our savior
and God's people said,
Amen.