WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:15.599 Hi, my name is George Sinclair. I'm the lead pastor of Church of the Messiah. 00:00:15.599 --> 00:00:20.480 ! It is wonderful that you would like to check out some of the sermons done by Church of the Messiah, 00:00:20.480 --> 00:00:25.679 either by myself or some of the others. Listen, just a couple of things. First of all, would you pray for us 00:00:25.679 --> 00:00:32.159 that we will open God's Word well to His glory and for the good of people like yourself? 00:00:32.159 --> 00:00:37.359 The second thing is, if you aren't connected to a church and if you are a Christian, 00:00:37.359 --> 00:00:42.159 we really, I would really like to encourage you to find a good local church where they believe the 00:00:42.159 --> 00:00:48.799 Bible, they preach the gospel, and if you have some trouble finding that, send us an email. We will do 00:00:48.799 --> 00:00:55.120 what we can to help connect you with a good local church wherever you are. And if you're a non-Christian, 00:00:55.119 --> 00:01:00.320 checking us out, we're really, really, really glad you're doing that. Don't hesitate to send us 00:01:00.320 --> 00:01:05.280 questions. It helps me actually to know, as I'm preaching, how to deal with the types of things 00:01:05.280 --> 00:01:07.759 that you're really struggling with. So God bless. 00:01:07.760 --> 00:01:08.960 Thank you. 00:01:08.960 --> 00:01:08.960 00:01:08.960 --> 00:01:10.960 Thank you. 00:01:10.960 --> 00:01:12.160 Thank you. 00:01:12.160 --> 00:01:14.960 And bow your heads in prayer for a moment. Father, 00:01:17.520 --> 00:01:24.159 Father, we give you thanks and praise that you don't desire your children just to walk by themselves 00:01:24.159 --> 00:01:29.920 all the time, but that you call us into local churches, and that you call us into local churches, 00:01:29.920 --> 00:01:38.000 communities where we can read the Bible together and puzzle over difficult texts to get the beauty 00:01:38.000 --> 00:01:43.599 and the glory and the wonder and the true food which is there. So Father, we ask that your Holy 00:01:43.599 --> 00:01:49.280 Spirit would move deeply amongst us and bring all the truths of Romans 4, such important truths, and 00:01:49.280 --> 00:01:56.159 bring them home to our heart, Father, that we might rest secure in your love, in union with Christ, 00:01:56.159 --> 00:02:01.119 to your glory. And we ask this in Jesus' name. Amen. Please be seated. 00:02:05.599 --> 00:02:13.759 So quite a few years ago when I was in my former church, I began to have these troubling heart symptoms, 00:02:14.639 --> 00:02:21.280 and eventually my wife said I had to go see a doctor, and my doctor said I had to go see a specialist. 00:02:21.280 --> 00:02:27.360 The specialist diagnosed me with potentially very serious, serious heart conditions, and 00:02:28.240 --> 00:02:33.920 I eventually saw a better specialist or a more specialized specialist at the Ottawa Heart Institute, 00:02:34.479 --> 00:02:40.639 and he ended up saying that I didn't have a serious heart condition at all. But I did have a heart 00:02:40.639 --> 00:02:45.759 condition that would mean that for the rest of my life, if I started to experience those symptoms, 00:02:45.759 --> 00:02:52.319 it meant that I had accumulated too much stress in my life. At the time I was living in Eganville, 00:02:52.319 --> 00:02:57.599 and he jokingly said that if that starts to happen to you again, you just have to tell your congregation 00:02:57.599 --> 00:03:04.879 that you need a month off to go fishing. And just sit and relax and fish and take the month off and let 00:03:04.879 --> 00:03:11.199 some of that stress go down. But the funny thing about it is I would have said that I wasn't 00:03:11.199 --> 00:03:17.280 an, I wasn't experiencing stress, and I would have said that I wasn't an anxious person, because stress 00:03:17.280 --> 00:03:22.959 and anxiety often go together. And that's part of the problem with anxiety and with stress. We can 00:03:22.959 --> 00:03:29.759 actually be quite bowed down and weighed down with it without being consciously aware of it. We live in 00:03:29.759 --> 00:03:36.479 an anxious age, like we really do. And in fact social media, and this isn't going to be a tirade against 00:03:36.479 --> 00:03:43.199 social media. But in some ways social media has taken something which is very common in human, anxiety 00:03:43.199 --> 00:03:51.759 around performance, and where you fit, and what people think of you. And that's a very common human 00:03:51.759 --> 00:03:58.399 set of anxieties. And then social media has made it even harder, because of course people have gotten 00:03:58.399 --> 00:04:04.399 very good at picking the right picture to make them look like they're having a very wonderful and marvelous life. 00:04:04.400 --> 00:04:12.400 And even those of us who say that we're not actually particularly anxious, or doing that type of 00:04:12.400 --> 00:04:19.759 comparative thing, we just don't realize we are. It comes out if you're with a group of people, and one 00:04:19.759 --> 00:04:28.079 of them says, oh by the way, you know, I was visiting Sue the other day, and gosh, she has such good style. I 00:04:28.079 --> 00:04:33.920 don't know anybody who has style like her. And you think, one moment, what about my style? 00:04:33.920 --> 00:04:41.280 In fact, you think, I've been to her house. Like I have better style than her. Why isn't she saying I 00:04:41.280 --> 00:04:48.960 have good style? Or it comes out with a promotion. It comes out all sorts of things. Style, dress, diet, 00:04:48.960 --> 00:04:55.759 exercise, looks, finances, all sorts of things. We might not realize that we're always doing this 00:04:55.759 --> 00:05:01.840 bit of a comparative dance that makes us a bit anxious, constantly carrying it, until something 00:05:01.839 --> 00:05:07.679 like that slips out. And even then, we might still not think it. We just think, no, no, like I'm just 00:05:07.679 --> 00:05:14.159 correct. Like I really do have more style than her. Meanwhile, for that other person, if they had been 00:05:14.159 --> 00:05:18.879 praised, if you had been praised rather than them, they're thinking, oh by I've been at her house. Like 00:05:19.439 --> 00:05:26.719 my house, I have way better style. So we live in an anxious age. We inherently compare ourselves with each 00:05:26.720 --> 00:05:34.880 other. And most of us would like to move beyond that when we become aware of it. Most of us would 00:05:34.880 --> 00:05:42.800 like to live, be able to handle stress well. And most of us rather not have anxiety. We would like 00:05:42.800 --> 00:05:48.720 to have less anxiety in our lives. So the Bible text that we're looking at today, which I, those of you 00:05:48.720 --> 00:05:55.520 who are just listening to this, not live or watching it live, but listening to it, before I, after it was 00:05:55.520 --> 00:06:00.480 read by Chris earlier, I said, this is, if you didn't find you could understand the text, you're in good 00:06:00.480 --> 00:06:06.080 company, because most people have a hard time understanding this text. It does seem incomprehensible. 00:06:06.080 --> 00:06:11.280 But if we press through the incomprehensibility and try to comprehend what Paul is talking about, 00:06:11.279 --> 00:06:19.919 it actually has very helpful message about how it is that Jesus and the gospel helps us deal with this 00:06:19.919 --> 00:06:26.399 whole drive to comparison and the anxiety and stress that goes along with it. So I'm going to be 00:06:26.399 --> 00:06:32.399 looking at Romans chapter 4, verses 1 to following. And you might want to turn in your Bibles to that, 00:06:32.399 --> 00:06:40.319 Romans chapter 4. But before I start to read it, I need to give you a bit of a picture of what's 00:06:40.319 --> 00:06:46.879 going on behind, why is it that Paul is using this language? And what is it that he's talking about? 00:06:46.879 --> 00:06:51.439 And what he's talking about is something that if we think about it a little bit, we'll see that he's 00:06:51.439 --> 00:06:57.279 talking about something that really is a feature of human existence. We just might not always be 00:06:57.279 --> 00:07:02.399 conscious of it. Because one of the things that's going to come up in the text, and I think it's in verse 00:07:02.399 --> 00:07:10.799 3, verse 4, verse 5, verse 6, verse 8, verse 9, verse 10, and verse 11. So in, because I'm going to read up to 00:07:10.799 --> 00:07:17.599 verse 12. So in 12 verses eight times, the same idea comes up. So that's normally a clue that that 00:07:17.599 --> 00:07:21.279 word's important, and you have to figure out that word if you're going to understand what's going on. 00:07:21.279 --> 00:07:26.719 That's like a general how to interpret the Bible. If the same word idea shows up eight times, 00:07:26.719 --> 00:07:31.279 very briefly, you've got to figure out what it is. And in our version, it's the word count. 00:07:32.319 --> 00:07:35.199 Actually, if you just skip down to verse 3, you'll see it for the first time. 00:07:35.919 --> 00:07:42.079 For what does the scripture say? Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness. 00:07:42.079 --> 00:07:47.919 And so some versions translate this idea as counted, some translate it as credited, 00:07:47.919 --> 00:07:54.319 and some translations use reckoned. So what's going on here? Well, what's going on here is Paul is 00:07:54.319 --> 00:08:02.639 dealing with, I think, the natural human way to think of religion, to think of spirituality, 00:08:03.279 --> 00:08:09.120 and even to think about yourself being a good person. What is the natural, unconscious, 00:08:09.120 --> 00:08:15.519 default way that people just, the criteria that they use, that they would just say, 00:08:15.519 --> 00:08:21.040 well, this is exactly how it works. Like, it's so basic, they're not even conscious of it. 00:08:21.040 --> 00:08:28.639 And I think what happens is that most people use a type of accounting model. And they picture that 00:08:28.639 --> 00:08:36.399 whether it's God, or the force, or karma, or the universe, it's as if as you go through your day, 00:08:36.399 --> 00:08:43.279 you do a good deed, and it's as if the universe has a big account, Excel spreadsheet. But the Excel 00:08:43.279 --> 00:08:50.000 spreadsheet basically is divided into things which are in your favor, and then things which go against 00:08:50.000 --> 00:08:55.919 you. So pluses and minuses. And so you go through your day, and I don't know, you compliment, 00:08:56.799 --> 00:09:02.879 you compliment the barista on the shade of purple in her hair. Well, that gives you some good points, 00:09:02.879 --> 00:09:07.439 right? And then you come across somebody else, and you tell your boss how much you like working 00:09:07.439 --> 00:09:12.080 for them. There you go, a couple of good points there. And then, you know, maybe you're a bit rude, 00:09:12.080 --> 00:09:16.480 or you ignore somebody, and that's a little bit of a negative. But as you go through every day, 00:09:16.480 --> 00:09:21.840 and every week, and throughout your entire life, it's as if the universe is constantly keeping track 00:09:21.840 --> 00:09:28.000 of the positive things you've done with a number or score, and the bad things you've done with a 00:09:28.000 --> 00:09:34.799 negative score. And what makes you either to be able to go to the next life, or to merge with God, 00:09:35.120 --> 00:09:44.080 or to be in heaven, or to be in paradise with Allah, is that when you die, the universe, 00:09:44.480 --> 00:09:52.559 or the force, or God, opens up the book, and counts up all of the positives, and then looks at all the 00:09:52.559 --> 00:09:57.679 negatives, and compares the positive to the negative. And if you have more positives and negatives, 00:09:58.719 --> 00:10:06.959 two thumbs up. If you don't, you're going the other way. And in fact, one of the things which might 00:10:06.959 --> 00:10:13.519 differ with people is that if you're very, very easygoing, loosey-goosey, very liberal, very tolerant, 00:10:13.519 --> 00:10:20.399 the score to pass might be very tiny. And if you come and grown up, and you're really judgmental, 00:10:20.399 --> 00:10:26.480 and really legalistic, the score to pass is going to be really, really high. But you both have this 00:10:26.480 --> 00:10:33.039 idea that there's some type of score or mark that determines whether you're a good person, 00:10:33.759 --> 00:10:38.639 whether you're going to go to the afterlife, whether, you know, when you die, and people say to you, 00:10:38.639 --> 00:10:42.240 you know, they say about, you know, don't be sad about, you know, grandma dying, 00:10:42.240 --> 00:10:46.080 she's looking down on heaven from you. Well, why is grandma up there? Well, grandma's up there because 00:10:46.080 --> 00:10:50.879 when the universe counted up her good things and her bad things, she came up with a positive score. 00:10:51.360 --> 00:10:56.799 You know, unlike her ex-husband, who's definitely down there, you know, or whatever. You know how this 00:10:56.799 --> 00:11:01.360 thing goes, right? Because he's a real, I almost said a word I shouldn't say in the church service, 00:11:01.360 --> 00:11:07.039 you know, but that's why he's down there, and grandma is up there looking down on us. And I'm not 00:11:07.039 --> 00:11:10.799 being flippant when I'm saying it, I'm just trying to communicate to you. There's an old, 00:11:10.799 --> 00:11:15.839 a couple of people in the congregation are ancient enough to remember something called evangelism 00:11:15.839 --> 00:11:22.799 explosion. And evangelism explosion, people would go door to door and they'd ask a question. If 00:11:22.799 --> 00:11:29.279 tonight, it turned out tonight, you die tonight, and it turns out there really is a heaven, and 00:11:29.279 --> 00:11:34.959 you appear before God at the gate of heaven, and he says, why should I let you in? What would you say? 00:11:34.960 --> 00:11:41.120 Now, most people, including most people who go to church would say, well, I've lived a pretty good 00:11:41.120 --> 00:11:47.920 life. Well, as soon as you say, well, I've lived a pretty good life, what have you done? You've said, 00:11:47.920 --> 00:11:54.160 you've kept track, and God just sort of puts all the positives, and he takes the negatives, and my 00:11:54.160 --> 00:12:00.639 positives outweigh my negatives. And that's why I am going to go to whatever the next thing is. 00:12:00.639 --> 00:12:06.159 Now, this, I think, is true of all mindsets and throughout all human history. Obviously, 00:12:06.559 --> 00:12:11.840 in ancient paganism, some of the things that would, like it's, Tim Keller has this really, 00:12:11.840 --> 00:12:18.840 really funny thing about how cultural changes are, that he was saying that in Manhattan, 00:12:19.620 --> 00:12:27.279 or he's comparing the ancient Norse people to the, to a young man in ancient Norse culture and young 00:12:27.279 --> 00:12:32.639 men in Manhattan. And he said, in ancient Norse culture, they think that it's great virtue that 00:12:32.639 --> 00:12:37.839 you can go on, you can sail ships and cut people's heads off. And it would be a great shame if you 00:12:37.839 --> 00:12:43.919 slept with another man. In Manhattan, it's a good virtue to sleep with another man. And it's a terrible 00:12:43.919 --> 00:12:49.199 shame if you cut somebody's head off. But that's just the cultural differences over time, right? 00:12:49.199 --> 00:12:54.000 They're just, you know, so, but, you know, whatever the culture is, you know, you get extra points for 00:12:54.000 --> 00:12:58.240 doing this. And certain types of things, like sacrificing your children, gives you big bonus 00:12:58.240 --> 00:13:03.440 points. Other ones, caring for your children, gets you big bonus points. How you, how you fill it in 00:13:03.440 --> 00:13:09.519 might be different, whether you're Muslim or a Buddhist or a Hindu or an ancient pagan or, you know, 00:13:09.519 --> 00:13:14.639 a, you know, Roman Catholic or an Anglican. But that same mindset is there in all of it. 00:13:16.080 --> 00:13:19.120 And that's the mindset behind the text. 00:13:19.120 --> 00:13:24.799 That's why the word counted or credited is there so many times in so few verses. 00:13:25.440 --> 00:13:32.960 And it's because we actually accept that mindset that we find the text incomprehensible. 00:13:35.679 --> 00:13:41.759 We accept that text. I mean, I guess Christians, for those of you who are watching or those of you 00:13:41.759 --> 00:13:48.080 who are here, we're in a sense trying to learn to not think that way. But it's a really hard struggle. 00:13:48.080 --> 00:13:53.360 And we easily slip back into it. Like, I'll just share with you, one of the constant problems with 00:13:53.360 --> 00:14:00.639 ministers is this. I can get up and preach salvation by faith in Christ, grace. It's by grace alone, 00:14:00.639 --> 00:14:05.680 through faith alone, in Christ alone, that I am made right with God. But functionally, 00:14:05.680 --> 00:14:09.120 I can actually think that I'm made right with God by how big my church is. 00:14:09.120 --> 00:14:16.320 I forget all about that grace stuff. And I'm back into trying to keep score. And for me, 00:14:16.320 --> 00:14:21.279 maybe the big score is the size of my congregation, or who's in my congregation. It wouldn't matter that 00:14:21.279 --> 00:14:26.399 we're small, but we have the right people. None of the bad people, just the right, whatever it is, 00:14:26.399 --> 00:14:30.000 right? And you could go on and on with all of it. You know, a couple might think, 00:14:30.000 --> 00:14:33.840 yeah, I believe all of those things. But if their wife is really grumpy with them, all of a sudden, 00:14:33.840 --> 00:14:37.840 it's as if that determines whether or not they're right with God, or their husband is grumpy with 00:14:37.840 --> 00:14:44.960 them, or whatever. We constantly are falling back into this natural, human, religious, and spiritual 00:14:45.519 --> 00:14:52.960 imagination. And that's what Paul is going at here. So let's look at the text. That's been a long 00:14:52.960 --> 00:15:00.720 introduction. Now let's look at the text, and we'll see how it is that it makes that natural way of 00:15:00.720 --> 00:15:06.320 accounting makes it difficult to understand the text. So it's Roman chapter 4, verses 1 to 12. 00:15:06.800 --> 00:15:13.040 And Paul has just before that talked about how, you know, God makes us right as a matter of grace, 00:15:13.040 --> 00:15:18.080 that everyone has sinned, we're made right with him by an act of Jesus dying on the cross, 00:15:18.639 --> 00:15:24.720 that Jesus is dying on the cross is like a ransom being paid. Jesus is dying on the cross is what sets 00:15:24.720 --> 00:15:29.920 aside the punishment they deserve. And this is this wonderful, profound thing that God has done. 00:15:29.919 --> 00:15:37.759 And now he's trying to put, not, he's trying to get us to really start to have it, have us realize, 00:15:37.759 --> 00:15:41.279 we're not just supposed to say, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, I can tick that off my list, 00:15:41.279 --> 00:15:45.199 let's move on to the next thing. He's going to say, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, 00:15:45.199 --> 00:15:47.839 no, no, no, no. You never get away from that. 00:15:50.559 --> 00:15:52.479 And I'm going to show you the different ways that we 00:15:53.360 --> 00:15:58.559 forget it and live as if it's not true and live by some other thing. But here's how we don't understand. 00:15:58.559 --> 00:16:05.759 Look how it begins. Romans 4, verses 1 to, we'll just, here's how it goes. What then shall we say was 00:16:05.759 --> 00:16:13.199 gained, or some translations say discovered, by Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh, 00:16:13.199 --> 00:16:20.319 that's by lineage. For if Abraham was justified, that is made right with God, by works, I'll just read 00:16:20.320 --> 00:16:26.640 that again. If Abraham was made right with God by doing good things, he has something to boast about, 00:16:27.280 --> 00:16:32.000 but not before God. Now, just sort of pause here. This is going to be one of the first things. 00:16:33.520 --> 00:16:38.000 If you think about it for a second, maybe think about what you were like before, maybe think about 00:16:38.000 --> 00:16:43.760 what you're like now, maybe think about other people that you know, that consciously and unconsciously 00:16:43.759 --> 00:16:52.000 sort of evaluate the world in terms of, I'm adding up these good things, and I'm avoiding these bad 00:16:52.000 --> 00:16:59.679 things. Oh, I had a bad thing. I was just watching, I was watching The Pit, an interesting TV show, 00:16:59.679 --> 00:17:05.519 and it just comes up in a very casual way. He wants to find something, so he does a good deed for a person, 00:17:05.519 --> 00:17:13.039 because he says, I'm not making this up, I need some karmic help to find this thing. So he does a good 00:17:13.039 --> 00:17:18.559 thing, thinking this will give him some karmic help. Now the universe owes him to find this thing that he 00:17:18.559 --> 00:17:24.720 wants. It's a very common thing, but here's the feature. There's two features here which Paul already 00:17:24.720 --> 00:17:29.680 is starting to bring out, and the first one is this, that if you have this mindset of accounting, 00:17:29.680 --> 00:17:38.880 you almost always have superstars or gurus or examples. You almost always have them. 00:17:40.560 --> 00:17:46.400 You know, maybe it's Brene Brown, something like that. I can't remember. Like maybe it's a particular, 00:17:46.400 --> 00:17:51.519 yeah, Brene Brown, maybe it's Brene Brown is really influential. Maybe you got completely captivated by 00:17:51.519 --> 00:17:59.039 the book Eat, Pray, Love. You know, maybe it's Muhammad. You know, maybe it's the Virgin Mary. Maybe it's 00:17:59.039 --> 00:18:06.159 Jesus. Maybe it's Krishna. Maybe it's Robbins. But you have some type of person that you look at as 00:18:06.159 --> 00:18:12.639 being the exemplar of what it is that you'd like to be like, and they're your type of hero. And that's 00:18:12.639 --> 00:18:22.639 an aspect of this way of accounting. And so what Paul says is he's going right at that. He's revealing 00:18:22.639 --> 00:18:26.720 that that's how we think. So a lot of people in our culture, if I was to go to, you know, 00:18:26.720 --> 00:18:30.640 a coffee shop after this and say, we talked about Abraham, they'd say, who on earth would ever talk 00:18:30.640 --> 00:18:34.480 about Abraham? So it might not be one that makes a lot of sense to our culture. Although, 00:18:35.200 --> 00:18:42.160 Abraham is the superhero for Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. So it's actually historically not a bad 00:18:42.160 --> 00:18:47.360 choice. That's over half the population of the planet. But the same principle is going to be there. 00:18:47.360 --> 00:18:53.519 He's going to try to show that there's always a guru or an exemplar. And part of our boasting, 00:18:53.519 --> 00:18:57.680 our confidence is that that's who we're following. Like, why is my life going to get better and better 00:18:57.680 --> 00:19:02.319 and better? Well, because I'm listening to this Robbins guy or this woman by the name of Brown. 00:19:02.319 --> 00:19:09.759 That's who I'm listening to. Or I'm trying to be like Muhammad. You know, we're more like Mary. 00:19:09.759 --> 00:19:18.480 Or the different versions of this accounting. And the second thing about it is that it always inherently 00:19:18.480 --> 00:19:25.039 involves boasting. Now, we don't like boasting. Somebody was just telling me about a Christmas 00:19:25.039 --> 00:19:29.440 celebration they had. And there was somebody who was at it and spent a good part of his time boasting 00:19:29.440 --> 00:19:34.640 in a loud voice. And nobody likes it. Okay. But that's just because it's our culture. 00:19:36.000 --> 00:19:41.120 There's many, many cultures that think it's actually dumb to not let everybody know that you're the best. 00:19:41.119 --> 00:19:48.559 And the richest and the smartest. It's just our culture. It's a bit of a Christian hang-up still in our culture 00:19:48.559 --> 00:19:54.000 that you wouldn't want to do it. But you have to, if you think about it for a second, because you see, 00:19:54.000 --> 00:19:59.839 if in fact the reason that I'm going to go to that better place when I die is because I've done more good 00:19:59.839 --> 00:20:06.079 things than bad. And if you'd say, well, obviously not everybody's going to a better place. Like, Hitler doesn't go. 00:20:06.079 --> 00:20:16.639 I.D. Amin doesn't go. Like, Stalin doesn't go. Sorry. Okay. This is a weird thing. I don't understand 00:20:16.639 --> 00:20:21.359 anybody. There's a communist club at University of Ottawa. I don't understand how anybody who knows 00:20:21.359 --> 00:20:28.480 anything about history could be part of a communist club. That's a complete aside. I just think that's, 00:20:28.480 --> 00:20:36.279 really? Killed tens of millions of people? Anyway, sorry, that's, I shouldn't have said that. I've lost you now. 00:20:36.660 --> 00:20:41.680 But, but the point is, if you've actually accomplished more than others, inherently there's a type of boasting. 00:20:42.759 --> 00:20:48.720 And yet, on the other hand, we don't like boasting. And on the other hand, some of you might say, really, 00:20:48.819 --> 00:20:55.000 Brene Brown's your superhero? Like, really? And others are saying, like, really, Trump's your superhero? Really? 00:20:55.000 --> 00:21:00.400 Really? See, that's the whole thing about boasting. We realize how foolish it is when we look at others' 00:21:00.539 --> 00:21:08.380 heroes. Muhammad is your hero? And you, you know, because you're good Canadians, you try not to have 00:21:08.380 --> 00:21:14.880 the scorn, like, and the incredulity, like, when you hear about it. So there's a, Paul is already showing 00:21:14.880 --> 00:21:21.420 there's a bit of a problem with it. But he's, he's walking into it. And, and so we might not choose 00:21:21.420 --> 00:21:26.720 Abraham as the hero that we would use. But Paul wants to show something, because at the end of the 00:21:26.720 --> 00:21:32.180 day, we're carrying what God has done. And so this is a very convenient thing that way God has set up 00:21:32.180 --> 00:21:37.900 to reveal a human problem and how we think. So here, here's what it goes on to say. And here's now 00:21:37.900 --> 00:21:44.100 where it starts to get a bit complicated. And we, we start to realize we have problems with the idea. 00:21:44.100 --> 00:21:50.800 Look at verse 3. For what does the scripture say? What does the Bible say? It says that Abraham believed 00:21:50.799 --> 00:21:58.099 God, and it was counted to him as righteousness. And we go, this doesn't make any sense. 00:22:00.240 --> 00:22:05.839 Like, well, first of all, like, who cares what the Bible says? That's what most people in Canada 00:22:05.839 --> 00:22:10.700 would say. But even if you did, if you're just accepting it, they say, okay, George, you're 00:22:10.700 --> 00:22:19.180 beginning to get to why Christianity actually doesn't make any sense to me. So you're just saying 00:22:19.180 --> 00:22:26.580 that you believe God, and you get some special credit? Like, that's what Abraham did? He believed 00:22:26.580 --> 00:22:34.320 God, and he got some special type of credit? Really? I can't understand how that even works. 00:22:34.600 --> 00:22:41.279 Like, just because you have a particular emotion, you, you get right with God right away? Or just 00:22:41.279 --> 00:22:47.220 because you have certain ideas in your head, you get right with God right away? Like, is it, 00:22:47.220 --> 00:22:53.460 is like having belief in God, is that like a get out of jail free card in Monopoly? Is it like 00:22:53.460 --> 00:23:00.279 a superpower? Is, is it, it, and it doesn't even make any sense. I can sort of understand that if 00:23:00.279 --> 00:23:10.079 you did one unbelievably massively good deed, hugely good deed, that over, outweighs all the bad things 00:23:10.079 --> 00:23:14.259 you've done, and then you go right to heaven. But gosh, like, just believing, that makes no sense that 00:23:14.259 --> 00:23:19.400 that would actually get you made right with God. Because, George, you've said before, that's what 00:23:19.400 --> 00:23:25.539 righteousness means. It, it, it means you're right with God. It means, and, and how could it even be, 00:23:25.619 --> 00:23:31.160 George? How could it be that Abraham or any Christian could just sort of believe God, have faith in God, 00:23:31.160 --> 00:23:36.839 and then you know that when you die, you're going to go to be right with him and be with God? That 00:23:36.839 --> 00:23:40.799 doesn't make any sense. Like, you have all this rest of your life to live. Who knows how many bad things 00:23:40.799 --> 00:23:44.200 you're going to do, or how many good things you're going to do? That doesn't make any sense to me. 00:23:46.559 --> 00:23:54.559 Like, how does that even fit in? Is it a, like, it's very wrong-headed. And, and this begins to show 00:23:54.559 --> 00:23:59.399 us a little bit on some of the big problems. Like, I'll read the text again. What does the Bible say? 00:23:59.539 --> 00:24:05.079 Abraham believed God, or had faith in God, and was counted to him, or credited to him, as righteousness. 00:24:05.259 --> 00:24:09.759 In other words, as a standing that means he's going to go to heaven. But you see, here's the problem. 00:24:09.759 --> 00:24:17.859 What the Bible has done here is made very explicit what is hidden to our own consciousness. 00:24:18.660 --> 00:24:23.720 You see, because what, what goes on in our own consciousness is this, all sorts of complications 00:24:23.720 --> 00:24:29.799 with counting the good acts in this. So, just to be completely honest, you know, when I do a kind act, 00:24:30.039 --> 00:24:37.400 I get a hundred scores. When you do a good act, sorry, that's just one. But for me, it's a hundred. 00:24:37.400 --> 00:24:44.759 And that's how we unconsciously think. And then, you know, the other things is, oh, I did a bad thing, 00:24:44.860 --> 00:24:48.360 but I get a mulligan for that. You know what a mulligan is? You know, you hit the ball where it 00:24:48.360 --> 00:24:52.720 shouldn't be, you hit in the water, and all your friends just say, oh, just, just throw it back on 00:24:52.720 --> 00:24:56.920 the land, and we'll, we'll count it as if it's good. And, and we all give ourselves mulligans, we count 00:24:56.920 --> 00:25:03.640 differently. Some of us say, well, actually, you know, in, in Laurie and Andrea's case, God just adds up 00:25:03.640 --> 00:25:08.960 their good deeds. God multiplies mine, you know, by the way. And so my score is a lot higher than 00:25:08.960 --> 00:25:13.220 other people. Obviously, we're not so crass, but that's how we end up. See, that's why you can have 00:25:13.220 --> 00:25:18.340 a situation in a workplace where the person who's the most hated person in the office might say they're 00:25:18.340 --> 00:25:23.800 the most competent person in the office and the best person in the office. And we all know offices 00:25:23.800 --> 00:25:29.020 and, and, and, and workplaces where that goes on. Well, why is that? It's because in their, 00:25:29.019 --> 00:25:33.680 their mind, they're multiplying, they're giving themselves mulligans. Or there's a little bit like 00:25:33.680 --> 00:25:38.839 snakes and ladders, you know, that old kids games, you know, and, uh, you know, you, you look at other 00:25:38.839 --> 00:25:44.119 people, and they did that bad thing. Whoa, they go right down to the bottom, right? But somebody else 00:25:44.119 --> 00:25:48.400 does this good thing, and they, oh, they go right up to the top. They got a ladder, right? And, and that's 00:25:48.400 --> 00:25:53.740 how we tend to think of it. And, and so when you see that this Christian claim that just believing in God 00:25:53.740 --> 00:25:58.240 makes you right with God, they think, like, what? But you start to realize that if you're complaining 00:25:58.240 --> 00:26:02.759 about it, it's actually just making, even though I'm going to say in a moment, you don't understand 00:26:02.759 --> 00:26:08.660 what the Bible's saying, but it's revealing that when we hear how other people keep the score, 00:26:08.779 --> 00:26:13.079 we think it's nuts, and it doesn't make any type of sense. And then, of course, we all know that 00:26:13.079 --> 00:26:17.259 when we're accounting for how we're good and better than others, I mean, for many people, 00:26:17.359 --> 00:26:22.140 you vote liberal, you get an extra thousand points. And other people are saying, no, no, you vote liberal, 00:26:22.259 --> 00:26:27.720 you get the 10,000 points deducted. You have to vote for Pierre or Polyev to get extra points. 00:26:27.720 --> 00:26:31.799 Or you're in the right race, or you're the right language, or you're the right class, or you have 00:26:31.799 --> 00:26:36.720 the right social look, or you have the right political views. You have all of these types of 00:26:36.720 --> 00:26:46.660 things, and, and that's how you keep your points. So it doesn't seem to make any sense, but maybe you 00:26:46.660 --> 00:26:51.440 think, well, maybe if they go on, they'll clarify it. But actually, the next verse makes it even worse. 00:26:51.440 --> 00:26:59.279 Look at what it says in verse four. Verse four. He says, now to the one who works, his wages, 00:26:59.539 --> 00:27:03.100 in other words, by here works, now to the one who does good things, that's what works means, 00:27:03.600 --> 00:27:08.960 now to the one who does good deeds, his, his wages are not counted as a gift, but as his due. 00:27:10.279 --> 00:27:15.000 And, and this shows you another type of a, of a problem with this whole accounting model. 00:27:15.000 --> 00:27:22.839 Like, so we don't think that makes any sense. You know, if we say, well, okay, we do, we do think, 00:27:22.880 --> 00:27:27.700 sorry, that's the one we do think that makes sense. But now you think about it for a second, 00:27:27.700 --> 00:27:35.759 there's a real problem with this. So I do good things, and that means God is keeping track of 00:27:35.759 --> 00:27:41.740 my score, and I have all these good things, and not many bad things, so I'm going to be made right 00:27:41.740 --> 00:27:46.799 with God and go to heaven. But now, you know, you're now living in a universe where there's 00:27:46.799 --> 00:27:53.059 absolutely no grace and mercy. All there is is obligation. And here's the other problem. Think 00:27:53.059 --> 00:27:59.559 about it for a second. Why worship a God that can be bought off by doing good things? 00:28:01.799 --> 00:28:09.019 Like, why bother? How is he worthy of being praised? I mean, now you'll start to understand why a lot 00:28:09.019 --> 00:28:14.059 of people in our culture now to say they're nuns. They're actually start to think along this process. 00:28:14.319 --> 00:28:18.400 And in some ways, what they've done is they've taken steps towards what the gospel reveals, 00:28:18.500 --> 00:28:24.319 but haven't gone far enough. Because Christians should also be saying, yeah, you need to die to 00:28:24.319 --> 00:28:28.180 all of that stuff. That's the message that Paul's giving. And now he makes it, 00:28:28.180 --> 00:28:35.660 now he's going to make it. Oh, and by the way, this whole accounting thing that, you know, so my good 00:28:35.660 --> 00:28:40.680 things, so what happens to me at the end of my life, it's really not that God's been any grace to me or 00:28:40.680 --> 00:28:49.060 mercy. It's an obligation. This is a source of so much unhappiness in life. So much happiness in life. 00:28:49.480 --> 00:28:55.360 Unhappiness in life. Not happiness, but unhappiness. It's, you might think you're happy because you're 00:28:55.359 --> 00:28:58.699 living a really good life, but other people see that you have that attitude and they think you're 00:28:58.699 --> 00:29:04.099 stuck up and they don't like you, which causes unhappiness for you. But even for yourself, 00:29:04.219 --> 00:29:08.139 because when every life is going to have setbacks and you have setbacks and you say, 00:29:08.399 --> 00:29:14.279 I don't understand why I've had this setback. And implicit in that is thinking, look at the good 00:29:14.279 --> 00:29:18.919 things I've done. Look how I've cared for my mother. Look how I've worked hard. Look how I've 00:29:18.919 --> 00:29:24.579 worked harder than other people and I don't get this promotion. Like there's something wrong with this. 00:29:24.579 --> 00:29:31.879 Now on one hand, there is something wrong with having accomplishments not recognized. That, 00:29:32.879 --> 00:29:40.679 there is something. And that's why good management and good leadership is trying to keep good performers 00:29:40.679 --> 00:29:48.359 and reward people to do it and dealing with not perceiving things correctly. But this is more of an 00:29:48.359 --> 00:29:53.819 existential issue that people find that makes them unhappy. Like I've done everything right and I 00:29:53.819 --> 00:29:58.079 didn't get married. I've done everything right and I didn't have children. I've did everything right 00:29:58.079 --> 00:30:03.559 and I don't own a house. I've done everything right and this. It's a source of a lot of unhappiness. 00:30:04.839 --> 00:30:09.700 And that the Bible then, rather than, it's actually going to make it even worse in terms of us 00:30:09.700 --> 00:30:16.079 understanding things if you look at what it says in verse 5. Look at verse 5. And to the one who does not 00:30:16.079 --> 00:30:25.039 work, the one who doesn't work, doesn't do good things, but instead believes in or believes into 00:30:25.039 --> 00:30:33.139 him who justifies, that is, makes you right, him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as 00:30:33.139 --> 00:30:40.419 righteousness. And we just go, that makes absolutely no sense. The one who doesn't attempt to make any 00:30:40.420 --> 00:30:48.680 good things, but believes instead, and believes in God, and God is going to justify the ungodly 00:30:48.680 --> 00:30:55.279 and count that as righteousness. Like, how on earth does this make any sense? 00:30:57.620 --> 00:31:04.360 If you do not work, that's not a virtue. I mean, what are the differences between the left and the right? 00:31:04.359 --> 00:31:14.159 Sorry. The left wing doesn't like welfare bums. Sorry, the right wing doesn't like welfare bums, 00:31:14.279 --> 00:31:20.159 but they like rent seekers. Those of you know economic terminology, which is just rent seeking 00:31:20.159 --> 00:31:26.240 is welfare for rich people, where you have some special laws set aside to make sure you can contain 00:31:26.240 --> 00:31:30.479 your market, right? But generally speaking, you know, we might disagree over what it is, but we don't 00:31:30.480 --> 00:31:34.720 think that people who don't do any work, unless there's a problem with them, should be rewarded, 00:31:35.039 --> 00:31:41.460 and not to, to not attempt any virtue whatsoever. It just doesn't make any sense. You need to do good 00:31:41.460 --> 00:31:47.220 things. Like, you can't not do good things if you're going to make it into heaven. And it's, it's, 00:31:47.440 --> 00:31:51.740 and it doesn't even sound any fair there. It says he justifies the ungodly. Does that mean that God 00:31:51.740 --> 00:31:57.400 changes, if I do murder, he turns it into a good thing? If I do something, if I defraud a whole pile of 00:31:57.400 --> 00:32:01.820 people, he turns that into a good thing? How does that make any sense? Bad stuff has to stay bad, 00:32:02.040 --> 00:32:08.540 and be marked as bad, and even preferably punished. And, and, and, and you have to be doing good things 00:32:08.540 --> 00:32:14.160 to stay good. And, and this doesn't make any, any type of sense. And it makes faith look like a, 00:32:14.280 --> 00:32:20.060 some type of a superpower or ability to hypnotize God so that he won't see the bad things that you've 00:32:20.060 --> 00:32:25.460 done. But who wants to worship a God like that? Bad things should get you punished. Look at karma 00:32:25.460 --> 00:32:31.840 and, and, and faith. This, just to say that you just somehow have belief in God, and, and then you 00:32:31.840 --> 00:32:35.900 don't get punished. That just means there's some type of favoritism, and, and that's not good. And 00:32:35.900 --> 00:32:42.360 who wants to have a God that's not good? And then you look at verses 6 and 8, and now Paul looks at a 00:32:42.360 --> 00:32:48.140 second hero. Look how it goes, verse 6 to 8. Just as David, that's King David, also speaks of the 00:32:48.140 --> 00:32:55.120 blessing of the one whom God counts righteous apart from works. God makes it look like he's right with 00:32:55.119 --> 00:33:00.699 himself, not even looking at the good things he's done. And then he quotes David from Psalm 32. 00:33:00.859 --> 00:33:08.599 Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven. God forgives lawless deeds, like just acts of sheer, 00:33:09.059 --> 00:33:16.399 just sheer willful doing wrong. And then, and whose sins are covered. What God covers up sins. Like, 00:33:16.399 --> 00:33:22.399 that's why we have newspapers and, and, and investigative journalists and, and everything to find up 00:33:22.400 --> 00:33:27.360 cover-ups because that's not good. And then to say, blessed is the man or the woman against whom the 00:33:27.360 --> 00:33:38.920 Lord will not count his sin. Like, none of this seems to make any sense. Now, really, here's the thing. 00:33:39.360 --> 00:33:45.740 All of these reactions to the Bible are really showing that on one hand, we believe this idea of 00:33:45.740 --> 00:33:50.539 the accounting model. On the other hand, we don't actually like it or think it's fair. 00:33:51.200 --> 00:33:58.940 And we only see this when we think about somebody else, not ourselves. You know, maybe you find out 00:33:58.940 --> 00:34:05.240 that, you know, you're divorced and, and your, and your ex-husband or your ex-wife and, and they've died 00:34:05.240 --> 00:34:09.639 and, and, and you know what they were really like, how terrible person they were. That's why you divorce 00:34:09.639 --> 00:34:14.400 them. And yet at their funeral, everybody sings their praises and talks about how wonderful they are. 00:34:14.400 --> 00:34:19.559 And you just think, no, that, that whole accounting model does not work. It works for me, but not for 00:34:19.559 --> 00:34:25.920 other people. But no, no, if it, that's not, that, that doesn't make any sense. So most of us when we 00:34:25.920 --> 00:34:30.860 read this text aren't thinking about it and in effect holding a mirror to how we normally think 00:34:30.860 --> 00:34:35.780 and revealing that what we think actually isn't very just and we cut ourselves corners and we make 00:34:35.780 --> 00:34:42.400 ourselves more special and we're legends in our own mind. But that's sort of why we need church to help 00:34:42.400 --> 00:34:47.619 us understand that that's what's actually happening here in the text. Our criticisms of this text is 00:34:47.619 --> 00:34:55.660 actually not a criticism of the text as to what Paul is saying. It's a criticism of how we unconsciously 00:34:55.660 --> 00:35:03.639 think. And by the way, it's a, it's how Christians, when we forget the gospel, start to think. 00:35:03.639 --> 00:35:12.299 So what's going on in the text? Very briefly. Remember, first of all, what is the gospel? The 00:35:12.299 --> 00:35:18.619 gospel is good news from God about what God has done. It's not good advice. It's not a good accounting 00:35:18.619 --> 00:35:27.400 system. It's not a good multiplier. It's not a good eraser. It's not a good way to hypnotize God. It is 00:35:27.400 --> 00:35:33.720 good news of something that God has done in and through the person of his son, in the life of his 00:35:33.720 --> 00:35:38.900 son, the death of his son upon the cross, and the resurrection. It's good news from God about what God 00:35:38.900 --> 00:35:47.800 has done. It's news. It's news. And secondly, at the center of what God has done is the bloody death 00:35:47.800 --> 00:35:55.000 of Jesus upon the cross. Those of you who are here, you can't see this, but to my, my right, your left, 00:35:55.000 --> 00:36:01.619 if you're listening to this as an audio sermon, there's three pictures of Jesus, his birth, his 00:36:01.619 --> 00:36:08.460 crucifixion, and his resurrection. And it all centers on the bloody death of Jesus upon the cross. 00:36:08.960 --> 00:36:15.119 And the question is that the claim by God is that God has done something for human beings 00:36:15.119 --> 00:36:22.840 in this bloody death. And then the question is, how do you get into whatever it is that God has done 00:36:22.840 --> 00:36:31.940 in the person of his son? How do you get into him? And how do you get him into you? And what God has 00:36:31.940 --> 00:36:38.980 done for us in the person of his son is such a profound mystery that God uses a variety of words 00:36:38.980 --> 00:36:45.740 and images and languages. He'll talk about propitiation and ransom and rescue and revelation 00:36:45.739 --> 00:36:52.219 and expiation and expiation and propitiation, a whole range of different words, all trying to explain 00:36:52.219 --> 00:36:59.500 at a level that makes sense to us humanly what it is that God has done in the person of his son, 00:36:59.879 --> 00:37:05.879 in the son's bloody death upon the cross, and in his resurrection. And the question is, 00:37:06.159 --> 00:37:11.659 how do you get into whatever it is that has been accomplished? And how do you get that which was 00:37:11.659 --> 00:37:21.539 accomplished into you? And the Bible always says it's faith. But faith is something completely 00:37:21.539 --> 00:37:28.059 separate from this whole system of counting positive things and negative things. It's completely separate. 00:37:28.059 --> 00:37:40.659 You see, if you look, it's faith into Jesus. It's talking about union with Jesus. It's saying that 00:37:40.659 --> 00:37:49.079 it's a normal part of human beings that if you trust and love another person and they open themselves to 00:37:49.079 --> 00:37:56.119 you and you open yourself to them and there's in a sense, a real sense that you begin to enter into 00:37:56.119 --> 00:38:04.319 their life and their life enters into you, which is why a couple who is deeply in love when their loved 00:38:04.320 --> 00:38:12.380 one dies. They often describe it as if there is a big hole in the center of them that didn't used to 00:38:12.380 --> 00:38:19.240 be there before, as if something has been yanked out of them. People will talk as if their life has left 00:38:19.240 --> 00:38:26.559 them because that's the nature of faith, trust, a personal relationship of entering into another person 00:38:26.559 --> 00:38:34.059 and that person entering into you. And it's this very human capability that is at the heart of what 00:38:34.059 --> 00:38:40.460 Jesus accomplishes for us on the cross and what this text is talking about. And here's where I hope the 00:38:40.460 --> 00:38:51.059 analogy will be helpful. Imagine there is a woman and her and her husband, her husband gets very sick 00:38:51.059 --> 00:38:57.880 and this is in an age where there's no Medicaid and you have to pay for all of your medical treatment. 00:38:58.920 --> 00:39:05.440 And because of the husband and the husband's sickness, the couple can't work. Their business 00:39:05.440 --> 00:39:10.219 starts to get into more and more and more trouble. They're accumulating debts that they cannot pay. 00:39:10.960 --> 00:39:14.900 Every one of their medical treatments costs them lots and lots of money and they're very, 00:39:15.059 --> 00:39:20.139 very committed to trying to get well. And they go to doctor after doctor. Their business goes downhill 00:39:20.139 --> 00:39:27.139 and they accumulate a massive medical debt and then the husband dies anyway. But at the same time that 00:39:27.139 --> 00:39:33.000 this is all going on, they've never paid off all of the university debts. And then maybe if in a country 00:39:33.000 --> 00:39:39.819 like Canada, you say something wrong, like you say something like dead name a person and before you 00:39:39.819 --> 00:39:46.779 know it, there's this huge other legal penalty against you and on and on and on. And then the man dies 00:39:46.780 --> 00:39:54.540 and the wife was left with just humongous debts. Humongous, humongous, humongous debts. 00:39:55.460 --> 00:39:58.460 And no possible way that she could ever repay it. 00:39:59.740 --> 00:40:06.720 But she meets a fellow and he's quiet and unassuming and there's nothing in his appearance that would make 00:40:06.719 --> 00:40:14.339 you think that he's anything special. And she falls in love with him. And she's terrified to tell him 00:40:14.339 --> 00:40:19.959 about the fact that she has this millions and millions and millions of dollars of debt and she's 00:40:19.959 --> 00:40:27.639 living under tension of the creditors that are after her. And then he asked her to marry him and she says, 00:40:27.639 --> 00:40:35.839 yes. Before that, she tells him about all the debts. And he said not to worry about it. Will you marry me? 00:40:36.259 --> 00:40:41.480 And she says, yes. She can't believe that somebody would marry someone like her with so much debt. 00:40:41.599 --> 00:40:51.859 And then she discovers he's a billionaire. A billionaire. Her million dollars, two million dollars of debt 00:40:51.860 --> 00:40:56.420 debt is a rounding error for his wealth. 00:40:59.860 --> 00:41:07.860 So her saying yes to him and him to her, that's not all part of the counting and making additions and all 00:41:07.860 --> 00:41:14.720 to good life and bad life. This is something completely different. She enters into union with him. And once she 00:41:14.720 --> 00:41:21.559 enters into union with him, all of her debts can be paid out of his wealth. 00:41:21.860 --> 00:41:30.720 And not only is all of her debt paid, but she now has his wealth. 00:41:33.220 --> 00:41:36.180 Because he doesn't sign a nuptial agreement with her. 00:41:38.980 --> 00:41:48.059 That's what faith is. Faith is into Christ and what he has accomplished. That's what it is, 00:41:48.059 --> 00:41:50.139 into what he has accomplished. 00:41:52.139 --> 00:41:59.420 And in that sense, all of the debt is paid. All of the sin is forgiven. All of the punishment is 00:41:59.420 --> 00:42:05.679 dealt with. All of those images are completely and utterly dealt with by God, the Son of God, 00:42:05.980 --> 00:42:13.960 his perfect life and his death upon the cross. And you now have his standing before God as you're 00:42:13.960 --> 00:42:21.380 standing. That's what this is talking about. It's saying, you know what, trying to just live your life 00:42:21.380 --> 00:42:27.000 and all of that, trying to deal with, you know, all of these accomplishments. It's just, you know, 00:42:27.099 --> 00:42:31.880 it's a yoke that just keeps crushing you. You've got to realize that God is doing something completely 00:42:31.880 --> 00:42:34.599 and utterly different for you to make you right with him. 00:42:38.740 --> 00:42:43.740 And so it creates this, as the gospel becomes more real to you, it starts to create these odd 00:42:43.740 --> 00:42:45.480 psychological things within you. 00:42:47.360 --> 00:42:52.019 I met, last Sunday, there was a chocolate Easter egg hunt for the children after the church 00:42:52.019 --> 00:42:57.480 service. And if one of the kids came up and said, obviously, I'm the best because, look, 00:42:57.480 --> 00:43:01.300 I got more eggs than anybody else. Now, like, my parents are going to really love me. The church 00:43:01.300 --> 00:43:06.019 is going to really love me because, actually, look how many eggs I got. They'd say, well, first of all, 00:43:06.460 --> 00:43:13.820 the church provided the eggs. And the church providing the eggs is a sign that they love you. 00:43:16.380 --> 00:43:23.059 It's out of their love for you that you have the eggs. The eggs don't make you more lovable to them. 00:43:23.059 --> 00:43:31.639 God has provided his son. And that's why this, see, on one hand, it strips you, as this truth becomes 00:43:31.639 --> 00:43:38.380 more and more real to you, your requirement and need to accomplish and compete with other people, 00:43:38.759 --> 00:43:43.579 on one hand, it completely and utterly goes away. But it doesn't go away in the sense that when you 00:43:43.579 --> 00:43:48.719 live with an accounting model, to have all of your accomplishments go away means that you're naked 00:43:48.719 --> 00:43:57.319 and pitiable and poor and blind. But no, what this model does is to get rid of your accomplishments. 00:43:57.319 --> 00:44:03.539 It's not to just get rid of your accomplishments and make you naked. It's all of these supposed 00:44:03.539 --> 00:44:10.839 accomplishments are gone, and it's, but I'm loved. It's love that takes it away. 00:44:10.840 --> 00:44:18.400 You have this odd dynamic as the gospel becomes more real to you, that as it becomes more real to you, 00:44:18.440 --> 00:44:25.760 you realize you are loved by God vastly more than you can ever possibly imagine. And when he declares 00:44:25.760 --> 00:44:31.079 that you now, all of your debts, even the ones in the future, have all been paid in Christ, 00:44:31.079 --> 00:44:41.759 it means on one hand that the need to accomplish to prove your worth is gone. 00:44:43.920 --> 00:44:50.139 But not because of arrogance, but because it becomes more and more real to you just how much 00:44:50.139 --> 00:44:55.940 God actually loves you, how valuable and precious you actually are to him. 00:44:55.940 --> 00:45:03.619 And so you can start to take yourself less seriously, because you're taking grace seriously. 00:45:04.780 --> 00:45:10.159 You can start to laugh, and not laugh at the expense of others, but just because there's so 00:45:10.159 --> 00:45:17.159 many things in this universe that are just funny and beautiful and delightful and should make you 00:45:17.159 --> 00:45:24.780 chuckle. You can live out of gratitude, not out of accomplishment. You can live knowing that there's 00:45:24.780 --> 00:45:29.680 never going to be a secret revealed about you that will make God turn his face away, because he knows 00:45:29.680 --> 00:45:37.500 everything on that accounting list, and he covered it in his Son. And when you have faith into him, 00:45:38.220 --> 00:45:49.980 all of it's taken away, and all of his favor is now on you. I invite you to stand. 00:45:54.780 --> 00:46:07.140 Father, we give you thanks and praise that Jesus isn't our superhero. He's our Savior. He isn't the 00:46:07.140 --> 00:46:12.200 one that we sort of have to live up to and be as kind as he is, or you're not going to like us, or as 00:46:12.200 --> 00:46:17.340 forgiving as he is, or you're not going to like us. He's the one who sees us perfectly as we are, 00:46:17.880 --> 00:46:24.000 knows all the bad things that we've done, and he died for us and paid all that had to be paid, 00:46:24.000 --> 00:46:31.320 that that is now dealt with in him. Father, we give you thanks and praise that you desire us to be 00:46:31.320 --> 00:46:37.900 light, to not be weighed down by taking ourselves so seriously, but to be light as we take your 00:46:37.900 --> 00:46:42.920 great love that you are our Father in heaven, to take grace more seriously, that we can be 00:46:42.920 --> 00:46:49.880 light, that we can live and accomplish things, not, Father, out of some attempt to show others that we 00:46:49.880 --> 00:46:54.900 really are good or we really have value, but that we can live out of gratitude, Father, rather than 00:46:54.900 --> 00:47:00.200 insecurities. We give you thanks and praise, Father, for all of these benefits that come from 00:47:00.200 --> 00:47:06.039 knowing Jesus and knowing the gospel. And so, Father, we ask that you help to have the gospel be 00:47:06.039 --> 00:47:12.160 more and more real to our hearts, and that when we slip into a performance mindset and an accomplishment 00:47:12.160 --> 00:47:16.720 mindset and white-knuckling it and all of that type of stuff, Father, that time and time again, 00:47:16.719 --> 00:47:22.399 your word would call us back to the gospel, that we might know the lightness and the freedom, 00:47:22.859 --> 00:47:28.639 but the profound depth and dignity that are given to us when we put our faith and trust in Jesus. 00:47:28.839 --> 00:47:36.239 And we ask these things in the name of Jesus, your only Son and the only Savior, and we all say, 00:47:36.719 --> 00:47:36.980 Amen. 00:47:46.719 --> 00:47:48.719 Amen. 00:47:48.719 --> 00:47:48.719 00:47:48.719 --> 00:47:48.719 00:47:48.719 --> 00:47:48.719 00:47:48.719 --> 00:47:48.719 00:47:48.719 --> 00:47:48.719