- Both Jews and Greeks are under sin. As it is written, none is righteous, no not one. No one understands, no one seeks for God. All have turned aside, together they have become worthless. No one does good, not even one. Their throat is an open grave, they use their tongues to deceive.

The venom of asp is under their lips. Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood. In their paths are ruin and misery, and the way of peace they have not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes. Now we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped and the whole world may be held accountable to God.

For by works of the law, no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin. Let's pray. We pray, Father God, that your word would speak to us, it would go forth, it would produce fruits that you desire, and it would not return until it has accomplished its purpose.

We pray, Father God, that your living word would be sufficient, that we would not look to the left or to the right, that we would meditate on it and not allow it to depart from us, Lord God, that all the things that we desire to be fruitful in, that we would cling to your word with all our might.

We pray, Father God, that as Paul has written these words by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, that your spirit, again, Lord God, would take these words and convict and guide and lead and feed us. So we entrust this time to you, in Jesus' name we pray, amen. You know, you know what I've been noticing in the last maybe about a year or two that the fashion of the 1980s are starting to come back.

So those of you guys who weren't teenagers at that time may not be familiar, but some of the stuff that you guys are wearing now, I used to wear it, you know. In high school. So I think nothing kills being cool than having your dad say, "I used to wear that." You know what I mean?

Like certain pants or certain glasses, and I remember. So some of these things start to look very familiar. So every year, obviously, there's a cycle of things, and I remember back then, too, and I remember I used to have teachers in junior high school and high school say that, "Oh, those thin ties "are coming back, I used to wear that in the 60s, "you know, or the 50s." And so, you know, fashion has a tendency to kind of like circulate, and it changes.

But every single one of us, when it comes to what we wear and what we don't wear, we have a tendency to wear things that kind of accentuate our strength. You know, there are certain parts of our body that we're not proud to show off, so I always wear a loose jacket 'cause I don't have the figure that I wanna wear, a tight shirt that I used to do back in high school, right?

So some of you guys have certain parts of your body that you want your legs to look a little longer, so you wear certain kind of pants, or you do your hair a certain way 'cause it looks a certain way. So whatever it is that we wear, we have a tendency to wear certain things to accentuate our strength and hide some of our weaknesses, right?

Well, we do that even when it comes to spiritual things. We have a tendency to highlight the things that we're good at, and the things that we're not good at, we kind of keep it under wraps, and then, you know, we get offended when somebody pokes at it 'cause we don't want anybody to see it because those are things that are meant to be in the secret.

And because we have a tendency to do that, you know, we, again, every single one of us is guilty of this. We have a tendency to kind of like, this is how I wanna be perceived, but in reality, behind the scene, we know that, we know our weaknesses, we know our struggles.

You know, I remember years ago, evangelists would say this to kind of motivate people to live a righteous life, and he would say, you know, when you get to heaven, God's gonna have this videotape of everything that you've done, and he's gonna play it, you know, so you better watch out, you know?

Well, I wanna go a step further than that and ask you, what if you think about the most shameful thing that you've ever done in life, okay, and don't say it out loud, okay? What if the most shameful thing that you've ever done in life that you probably may not even have shared with anybody, maybe not even with your wife or with your husband, and you just kind of maybe alluded to it, but you were never really specific?

So there, my guess is, from, again, years of counseling people and talking to people, that every single person has something that they would be ashamed, if we were to have that videotape, and it said that event, that thing that you've been trying so hard to hide, or maybe you even did confess it because you're a righteous person, but it wasn't really focused on, you just kind of alluded to it, but you didn't go into the specifics.

But what if we had a videotape of that particular thing that you did, whether you did that when you were a little kid, or whether that was last year, whatever it may be, and we start playing the video, like what kind of reaction would we have? First thing, obviously, you know, response may be denial, it's like, no, no, that's not me, you know, that video is kind of blurry, you know what I mean?

That's not me, and then you look carefully, and say, how can that not be you? You know, look at that hairstyle, look at that little, you know, spot on your head, that's gotta be you, right? So you go through a period of denial, you know, maybe some shame, because now you're embarrassed, because everybody's watching this, and oh my gosh, you're mortified.

Maybe some anger, like why do you need to do that, why do you expose that, right? I've been trying so hard to keep it under wraps. You might even take some time to justify it, you don't know the circumstance behind it, all you have is that little clip, you don't know what I went through, you don't know what those people did, you don't know why I did this, you don't know what my upbringing was like, and maybe you will go through a period of justification.

And at some point after you've realized that there is just no way for you to deny this, and you know in your heart that you're guilty of this, that you will accept it. And once you accept that you have no other way, no other way to describe this, no other way to describe it or get out of it, eventually it will lead you to silence.

It's true, even in the court of law, you see people who get arrested, and their first response is like, no, that wasn't me, in denial, and then all of a sudden they go into trial, and then one by one, you have witness after witness, videotapes, circumstantial evidence, direct evidence, and all of this is presented, and then through the whole trial it's clear, without a shadow of a doubt, that this guy is guilty.

So by the time the sentencing comes, he sits there and he just takes it, whatever it may be, a life sentence, 'cause he knows that he's absolutely guilty, that he went through denial, shame, anger, justification, and eventually he had to accept it, because it's clear, and then he sits there silently as the judgment and the penalty is read out to him.

Everything that I just described to you is exactly what Paul has been doing for three chapters. And as I mentioned to you last week, that's exactly what God has been doing in human history through the nation of Israel. He's been cutting through every part of the things that they have maybe have been justifying, the shame that they've been hiding, the things that they've been comparing with other nations or other people, and he's just chopping it down.

He's going into every crevice of their life that they feel like, you know what, these are things, you know, I'm not as bad as them. He's just kind of breaking it down. And the reason for all of this is to bring us to silence. Because until we are silent, until we recognize where we stand before God, the good news of salvation really isn't good news.

You know, he said, the text that we just looked at this morning, it says, you know, those who are under the law can never be justified in his sight, since through the law comes the knowledge of sin, right? The reformers, John Calvin, it wasn't started by John Calvin, it was as early as Augustine.

The church fathers put together a systematic understanding of how we are to understand the teaching of the law of the Old Testament. There's a tendency today that we say, well, we talk about the law, immediately get a knee-jerk reaction that that's not meant to be practiced. It's just to expose sin.

But they talk about three specific uses of the law. And I'm gonna go backward. The third use of the law, the ultimate purpose of the law, is actually that God intends that his people obey it. It is what God intended. And that's why Jesus says in John 14, 15, if you love me, you will obey my commandments.

Now, I'm not gonna get too deep into that because that's not the point of this morning's text. There's also what we call the civil law. And that's the second use of the law. And the second purpose of the law is to restrain evil. Where God created a society, or community, where God says, if you commit this evil, these things are gonna happen to you.

And so, even in the New Testament, God says to submit to authority because all authority is established by God. So that's the second use of the law. But the third use of the law, in reality, it's actually the first use of the law, 'cause I read it backwards. Without the first use of the law, which functions as a mirror, it functions as a mirror of God and ultimately mirror of who we are, that the other two use of the law, whether it is a moral law or civil law, it will become absolutely useless.

Because the foundation upon which we build righteousness is first and foremost, is based upon the first use of the law. And that first use of the law is to reveal God's nature, and by doing so, to reveal our sins. Saint Augustine wrote, "The law's orders that we, "after attempting to do what is ordered, "and so feeling our weakness under the law, "may learn to implore the help of grace.

"The law highlights our weaknesses "so that we might seek the strength found in Christ. "Here the law acts as a severe schoolmaster "who drives us to Christ." You guys probably heard this phrase quite a bit from Thomas Watson, where he says, "Until sin is bitter, Christ will not be sweet." Until sin is be bitter, Christ will not be sweet.

No matter how much we highlight the love of Christ, no matter how much we say how awesome his love is and how gracious he is, until we come to a point where we recognize the bitterness of our sin, grace is just words. It's just a description of some theology.

It doesn't move us, it doesn't convict us, and even though we use the same words, justification, sanctification, glorification, these are just theological terms. We don't respond in a way that somebody who has absolutely had no hope and can only find salvation in Christ, in Christ alone. In Romans chapter seven, seven through eight, it says, "What then shall we say, "that the law is sin?

"By no means, yet if it had not been for the law, "I would not have known sin, "for I would not have known what it is to covet "if the law had not said, you shall not covet." Let me stop right there. He said, "If the law did not say you shall not covet, "I would not have known what coveting was." Are Christians the only people who know what coveting is?

If you don't read the Old Testament, you say, "I didn't know that was lying." Adultery, I never read the Old Testament, so I didn't know, you know what I mean? Christian or not, whether you read the Old Testament or not, everybody knows what coveting is. Everybody knows what adultery is.

Everybody knows what murdering and lying is. So what does he mean when he says, "If it wasn't the law, I would not have known "what coveting was?" He's not simply talking about intellectually, because everybody knows intellectually that coveting, what coveting is. Everybody knows it. That's not just a Christian word.

That's just an English word. It has it in every language. What he is talking about is that conviction of that particular sin, and how God views that sin through His holy eyes. He said, "I would not have been convicted about this "if it wasn't for the law." That's exactly what, again, the author of Hebrews says, in Hebrews chapter 4, 12, "For the word of God is living, and it is active, "it is sharper than any two-edged sword, "piercing to the division of soul and spirit, "of joints and marrow, and discerning the thoughts "and intentions of the heart." In NASV, the word for discerning is judging.

That the word of God is sharper than any double-edged sword, and it judges the thoughts and intentions of our hearts. It doesn't simply say, "Hey, this is what sin looks like. "This is what coveting is. "This is what murdering is." Because we all already know that. What Paul is saying in Romans chapter 7 is, he says the word of God comes and convicts, and he reveals to us the depth of that sin, and how hideous that is before his eyes.

Same thing in the book of James, chapter 1, 23, 25, "For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, "he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face "in a mirror, for he looks at himself and goes away, "and at once forgets what he was like." The word of God functions as a mirror.

It reveals his holiness, and it reveals our sinfulness. Every single one of you, before you came to church this morning, stood before a mirror. I'm assuming every one of you. Some of you may have not, and if you haven't, it's very evident. Your hair's not combed, you got eye boogers hanging, you have no idea what you missed.

So everyone, we wanna avoid that embarrassment. I mean, all of you guys have lived long enough to know that the good idea, right, is that you gotta stand before a mirror before you leave, and fix the problems before you come to church. And years ago, when I was a youth pastor, I remember having youth kids come to church, and you could tell right away those who just woke up.

And they didn't stand before a mirror because their hair is all sticking up on one side, right? And you could tell right away that that's the position they were in when they were sleeping, because their hair is all flat that way, right? And they just, basically, they realized they were late to church, they got up, and they just came, right?

They didn't get a chance to look into the mirror. The Bible describes the law of God as a mirror. And an individual who stands before the mirror and doesn't recognize their sin, and just walks away, is like that individual. Who just kinda stand before the mirror, it's like, oh, okay, there you go, and then you just walk away.

So when Paul says, without the law of God, we would not have known what sin was, he's not simply talking about the knowledge. He's talking about the moral conviction over our sinful state. That the word of God comes to convict us of our sins. And so in 2 Timothy 3, 7, it says, in the end times, there's gonna be people who have a form of godliness and yet have no power.

It also describes it as always learning, but never arriving at the knowledge of the truth. Always learning, right? Now we could sit here and think, you know, I go to a Bible church, I attend Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Bible study faithfully. I know what propitiation is, I know justification, sanctification, glorification.

I know about dispensationalism versus covenant theology, about pedo-baptism, believers baptism. I know all of this. I've been a Christian for a while, maybe I even went to school, took some Sunday school classes. What do you mean always learning, but not able to come to the truth? He's not simply talking about somebody who's at church and always, you know, like never attending Bible study and never reading and never having interest.

No, he says he's always learning. He's always learning. He's adding knowledge to knowledge. Information upon information, but yet never coming to the knowledge of truth. So what does he mean by knowledge of truth? 'Cause he's clearly not talking about information. Knowledge of truth, again, is consistent with what he's been saying in Hebrews 4, James chapter one, Romans seven.

Knowledge of truth is the conviction of sin to recognize who he is, not just intellectually, but morally, spiritually. And as a result of that, you are convicted over your own sin. You know, for Christians, for human beings in general, I think the hardest thing to do in life is to humble ourselves.

I know some of you guys are humble by nature, you know, or at least that's what you think, or people have told you that. There's not a single human being who's humble by nature. By nature. Now, some of you guys, you know, are, tend to be more flamboyant, and you're more expressive, you know, you talk more, and so, ah, that guy's not humble.

And then some of you guys are in the background, you know, like, quiet, and you don't talk a lot, so, oh, that person's very humble. Nobody is humble by nature. From the moment that we are born, we are motivated by self-glorification. That's why you stood before a mirror today.

Because you want to make sure that people perceive you a certain way. Even when you talk, it comes through a filter of self-glorification, because if I say this, what are they going to think of me? So you've learned to adjust your language because you don't want to be perceived a certain way.

You're working hard at your work because you want to get better pay, you want to be recognized, you want to move ahead in life. You do certain things, or say things, or don't say things, and a lot of that, if not all of it, is motivated by self-glorification. Humbling ourselves is the hardest thing to do.

You know, lying and stealing, stopping that is a lot easier than humbling ourselves. Okay, let me tell you a secret. If you're lying and stealing, here's what you need to do. Stop it. Stop it. That's a counsel. We don't need to make an appointment, I just dealt with that, right?

Stop it. Some of you have a hard time reading the Bible and praying. There's an easy solution to that. Read your Bible and pray. There's no like this, oh, what's the secret? What, did you read Facebook today? Yes, well do that in front of the Bible, right? Do that in front of the Bible.

It's not a secret, it's not that hard to do, just do it. It's just our problem is we don't have a priority straight, and we get distracted, and it's just not important enough, and all this stuff, but in the end, if you really wanted to do it, you just do it, right?

It's humbling ourselves, like reading the Bible, praying, and disciplining, all this stuff is just a matter of you choosing to do it, and prioritizing it, and doing it. But to humble ourselves before God's throne, it takes everything, because every inclination of who we are is to glorify ourselves. Remember Adam and Eve's primary sin was they wanted to be like God.

The Tower of Babel, they wanted to be like God. And human history, it's like we want a king like all the other nations. We want this because we want to be more glorified. What about us, is the kingdom now? Are you gonna restore the kingdom now? Everything is about self-glorification.

Even in our humility, we want to be recognized. Nobody knows that I'm humble, right? I've been sacrificing so much, so selfless, and nobody recognizes it. Even in our selflessness, we want to be recognized. Even in our humility and gentleness, we want to be recognized. Every inclination that we have, innately, is self-glorification, whether you do it speaking loudly or softly, whether you do it publicly or privately, our inclination is about us.

We pursue righteousness for our own glory. And so to humble ourselves, and that's why we talked about 1 Corinthians 13, one through three, we talked about how even, even if you speak of tongues of men and of angels and prophesy, even if you give everything you have to the poor, even when you are martyred for the name of Jesus Christ, we can do that all for our glory.

It's like, oh, I'm gonna go out in a blaze for name of Jesus, I'm gonna be martyred for Jesus. But even in the context of being martyred, it could be for our glorification. See, what Paul is doing, he's cut through all of that. And the key to understanding our salvation is what he says in verse 19, and he says, "We know that whatever the law says, "it speaks to those who are under the law, "so that every mouth may be stopped, "and the whole world may be held accountable to God." Let me stop right there.

The whole point of what Paul has been doing, what God has been doing in human history, is summarized in verse 19, and I wanna apologize for what I'm about to say, so you don't get offended it's coming off of this pulpit. Basically what he's saying is, shut up. (crickets chirping) That's what he's saying, in a nice way, right, at least in the English version, right?

Basically what he's saying is, after exposing all of our sins, after cutting through all of the justification, all of the anger, all of the excuses, and after cutting through all of that, he said the reason why he did that is to basically say, shut up! Listen, stop making excuses!

See sin as God, see sin, do you recognize where you are before God? Keep your mouth shut, be quiet, I'm about to speak. The greatest hindrance to our relationship with God is our self-justification. Yes, we recognize sin, but we always have a stipulation. Yes, I sin, but what about those people?

Yes, I know I do what I, but isn't that just the way it is? Where do you draw the line? You don't know my circumstance, you don't know what my parents did to me, you don't know the background, you don't know the circumstance, you don't know my children. The greatest hindrance in meeting Christ is self-justification.

You ever wonder the book of Job? Typically when people are suffering, we take them to the book of Job. And we think, well, book of Job is about suffering and how God relieves suffering, how God has the answer for suffering. Is that really the point of the book of Job?

I want you to read book of Job, and on your spare time between break, just read through the book of Job, and see if, forget all the sermons that you heard, forget all the Bible studies, just read the book of Job. If you come out thinking, wow, in suffering, God is with us.

Because it begins with God opening the door to suffering. Satan says, that guy is not, he's only righteous because you're protecting him, if you took away the hedge of protection, see what he does. So he says, okay, and he takes it away, and God allows Satan to do all that he's doing.

But if you read the book of Job, Satan never appears again. He appears in the beginning, and he begins the process, and basically the whole book of Job is three cycles of three friends. Nine separate times, three of his closest companions come to Job and saying, you are suffering because you must have done something wrong.

And each one of them, I mean, and the harder his life gets, the more harsher the criticism. And it's three cycles of this. First, second, third friend, and then you think it's over, and then another, the first guy comes back, and first, second, third friend, and you think it's over.

And all this time, it's getting worse. He loses his kids, his house, his wealth, his flock, his wife, he loses everything. And at the end of it, you think, oh, his young friend Elihu comes, and he's gonna make things right, and he comes spewing, and say, oh, you guys are all wrong, and you gotta listen.

Basically, the accusation is, all this is happening because you must have sinned. You must have been faking it with all of us. There must be something in your life that God is judging you for. So Job responds. In Job chapter 31, verse six and seven, he says, let me weigh in in a just balance, and let God know my integrity.

In other words, you're wrong. And he's gonna defend himself. If my step has turned aside from the way, and my heart has gone after my eyes, and if any spot has stuck to my hands, then let me sow, and another eat, and let what grows for me be rooted out.

In other words, if I really did this, then I deserve this. If what you're saying is true, there's some sin involved, and it was because of my sin I'm being judged, then let me be judged. So in other words, what he's saying is, but that is not right. Because this is not true.

I am just before God. And he's defending himself. And he goes on and on. Again, I only read you a small portion, but for chapters, he's going on and on, defending himself, and how righteous he is, and it is unfair for God to be judging him as he is being judged.

Again, Satan is never mentioned, because from the beginning, they recognize that only reason why all this is happening is because God is allowing it. After he is done, God finally shows up in Job chapter 38, two through three. It says, "Who is this that darkens counsel "by words without knowledge?" In other words, everything that Job's been saying, you have no idea what you're talking about.

"Dress for action like a man." I don't know why, every time I read that, it gets to me. Dress for action, be a man, that's basically what he's saying. "Pull up your skirts, get ready." Get ready, that's not what it says, I just read into that. "Dress like an act, and act like a man." I will question you, and you will make it known to me.

You're questioning me, now I'm gonna question you. Now you answer me. It says, "The Lord said to Job," in Job 41 through five, "Shall a fault finder contend with the Almighty God?" The fault finder basically means, you've been accusing me now, right? All your friends have been accusing you, and then now you're saying that all of them are wrong, and now you're accusing me.

You, fault finder, now you're gonna contend with God, right? You're gonna make me justify myself. He who argues with God, let him answer it. Now you answer, you've been asking me, now I'm gonna ask you. Then Job answered the Lord and said, "Behold, I am a small account, what shall I answer you?

"I lay my hand on my mouth," in other words, I'm silent, now that God shows up, I have nothing to say. How can I possibly contend with God? "I have spoken once, and I will not answer twice, "but I will proceed no further." In other words, okay, I'm gonna shut my mouth, right?

Clearly, you're angry. Clearly, I did something wrong. I'm gonna shut my mouth, I'm gonna let you speak. Then Job answered the Lord and said, "I know what you can do, all things." So I want you to pay attention to this, because after what he says, God shows up and he basically reveals himself.

He says, "This is who I am, who are you?" And there's two, three chapters of this. This is who I am, who are you? Who are you to question God? Do you know who I am? Do you understand how this universe works? Do you understand the ways of the animals and the universe and the creation?

And he just piles it on and on and on and on. And Job, in the presence of the glory of God, responds to him in this way, and I believe that this is the key to the book of Job. Job answered the Lord and said, "I know that you can do all things, "and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted.

"Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge? "Therefore, I have uttered what I did not understand. "Things too wonderful for me, which I did not know. "Hear, and I will speak. "I will question you, and you make it known to me." Instead of questioning you, I'm going to ask you questions.

That's what he's saying. And there's a huge difference between the two. One is a posture of humility. I don't know, will you teach me? Where questioning is, I believe you're wrong, so now I'm questioning you, and that's what he's saying. I've been questioning you, but now I have some questions, and now I will listen to you.

He's humbled. "I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, "but now my eyes see you. "Therefore, I despise myself, "and repent in dust and ashes." This is a man who experienced suffering like no other. In our eyes, we look at it unjustly. He was targeted because he was righteous, more righteous than other people in God's eyes.

But at the end of his life, now after this, at the end, he said, "Oh, all these fortunes were restored and all this that." And we may look at that and say, "Well, God caused him to suffer "so that he can give 10 children instead of five. "Instead of 50 cattle, he got 100 cattle." Oh, that's what the suffering was about.

You know, that's what the health and wealth gospel people will tell you, but would you consider that a blessing? Right, I lost my wife, but I got two! (laughing) Is that the point of the Book of Job? The final point of the Book of Job. This is the last thing that he says.

"Therefore, I despise myself and repent." What is he repenting of? What is he repenting of? Because the last thing he said prior to this was, "God is unjust because I am righteous. "If I had done anything wrong, "yes, I would have deserved all of this. "But he is unjust, and everything you're saying is wrong." But when God shows up, he realized, "I had no idea who you were.

"I've only heard of you, now I have seen you. "I despise myself." And he repents. He repents. At the end of his suffering, the hideous thing that he went through, and there's no apology from God, there's no explanation. Job's the one who repents. You have to ask, when we study the Old Testament, you have to ask this big question.

You have to ask this every time you read the Old Testament. How does this fit into the redemptive history? It's not like, the Bible is not like the chicken soup for the soul. You know what I mean? Where every chapter has its purpose. You can go to chapter 20 or chapter three or whatever.

They all each individually have a purpose. But all 66 books have a theme. It is redemptive history. God, in his sovereignty, is pursuing sinners. So what purpose does Job have in this redemptive history? Is it just, if you suffer, God will be with you? Is that the point of the book of Job?

How does that fit into redemptive history? If you read the book of Job carefully, I think you will agree with me that in the end, and if you see the way that it concludes and what God says and what Job says, God doesn't show up and say, "Oh, you suffered.

"I'm with you." No, he doesn't say that. See, you have no idea what you're talking about. You don't realize who you are because you don't realize who I am. And then he repents. Even a man who is righteous above other men in the eyes of God is deserving of the most hideous punishment.

Everything that Job went through, as hideous and as difficult as that may be, without the blood of Christ, he will deserve that a hundredfold. And that is only a taste of what all people will experience in eternity in hell and damnation. And what he experiences is only a taste of what a sinner deserves without the grace of God.

And so he repents. And isn't that the point of everything that God has been doing in history? The rich young ruler comes and said, "How can I earn eternal life?" Jesus said, "You must obey all the commandments perfectly." And in his arrogance, he says, "I did it." No man obeyed the commandments perfectly.

But in his arrogance, he said, "I did it." Jesus, knowing he's a rich man, knowing he could not do what he was about to ask him, he said, knowing he was rich, "Then sell all your possession and give it to the poor." He didn't say give a tenth. He didn't say be generous.

He said, "No, if you want to be completely righteous, let go of everything," knowing he couldn't do it. And so what was his response? Silence. Silence. For the first time in his life, he ran into something he could not boast about. He could not do. And that's why the disciples look at that and say, "Well, if a righteous man like that, if he can't get into the kingdom, what about tax collectors like us?

What about fishermen who have foul mouths? What about us?" He said, "What man cannot do, God will do." What was his point? Is to bring him to silence. To stop making excuses. Recognize who you are. Recognize the sin. Recognize the sin in our lives that we may come towards the beginning point of salvation.

A beginning point of sanctification is being broken over our own sins. And coming to God in desperation, I can't make it without you. Remember John chapter eight, five through nine? Here's these people who are so angry because Jesus is exposing their sins. He said, "You Pharisees, even in your prayer, you're a hypocrite because you're doing it for other people to see.

Even when you evangelize, you make the converts twice as much sons of the devil as you are." And he's exposing their sins, so they're angry. They gotta get rid of this guy because he keeps pointing sin out. They come to Jesus and they wanna trap him. He says, "Law of Moses says to sown a woman who's caught in adultery." And obviously the reason why they did that is because it was a trap.

If he says to sow her, then he's gonna be guilty in the Roman government and he's gonna be guilty of murder. If he says, "Don't stone her," then all of the Jews are gonna recognize this guy's a lawbreaker. So they thought, "This is it. We have the perfect thing to put him in jail and get rid of him." You know what he says?

He turns around and he says, "Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone." And at once, they became silent, they turned away, and they walked away. When Jesus turned that spotlight, turned it around, and he says, "Yes, she may be deserving of it, but what about you?" When he exposed their sin, they became silent.

Until we recognize who we are before God. The gospel is just knowledge. It's just information. It's just theory, theology that we throw around. We repeat, recite to one another. But until we are broken over our own sins, our sins, my sins, the things that we've been working so hard to cover up, that we've been excusing and saying, "Well, I'm doing all of this.

Of course, I'm not doing good here, but what about all of this?" And we've been silently, quietly, subtly justifying our sins before God. And there's nothing that hinders our walk with God more than self-justification. The only way that we can come before God is to recognize our sins and come before him as a broken sinner.

I need you. It's me. Ephesians 2, eight and nine, it says, "For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not of your own doing. It is the gift of God, not as a result of works, so that no one may boast." Boasting and Christianity are oxymorons.

Pride in our walk with God is an oxymoron. You and I, every single person here, are saved because the son of God chose to walk off his throne and die for us, because there was no other way. And to be saved and to boast about our righteousness, boast about who we are, it is an oxymoron.

First Corinthians 1, 28, it says, "God chose what is low and what is despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God." He deliberately chose the foolish, the greatest of sinners, as Paul says.

He deliberately did that, because he knows that our natural inclination is to glorify ourselves. Even in the context of building church, even in the context of missions, we have a tendency to say, "Look what I am doing. Look what I have done." We have a tendency to glorify ourselves, even in the context of glorifying God.

That's why Paul says, "God deliberately put a thorn on his side to keep him humble, for when I am weak, he is strong." It is when I am weak that he is strong. That is the beginning of our salvation. It is the beginning of our sanctification. You see, when David confessed his sin, I don't know if he was justifying, but he suppressed it, because who could challenge David for what he did?

Finally, it's kind of like what I mentioned in the beginning, he shows a videotape, and Nathan illustrates, "Now here's this guy who took his sheep, and he said, 'How dare he?'" And then he says, "No, you're that man." And he's convicted. But if you look at his confession, his confession goes far beyond just the act of what he did.

In Psalm 51, three to five, it says, "For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against you and you only have I sinned, and I've done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words, and blameless in your judgment." So in other words, you are the only one who is just.

And then he says, "Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me." Why bring your mother into it? I mean, leave your mom out of it. You did it, right? Why, why, why? My mother's womb, like it was partially my mom's fault too.

You know? Why does he bring his mother into it? Because David recognizes that his sin is more than just that act. He doesn't sin, he's not a sinner because he sinned. He sins because he's a sinner. He recognized the corruption that is at the core of his heart, that causes him, and that causes him to desire to do these things, that he is corrupt to the core.

So his repentance wasn't, "I shouldn't have done that." That's true. He needed to repent of that. But his repentance goes far deeper than that. This is who I am. That's the beginning of salvation. That's the beginning of maturity. Even in our righteousness, even in our hard work, and in our discipline, if it doesn't begin with our brokenness over our own sins, it tends to be for our own glorification.

That's why Paul's been laying this foundation for three chapters over and over again. No, you are guilty, you are guilty with the law. You are guilty without the law. You are guilty by creation. You are guilty by morality. You are guilty by the law. You are guilty in your heritage.

You are guilty from birth. You are guilty, you are guilty, guilty. So that you may stay quiet. Because he's about to introduce to us the answer to all of this sin. He's about to get to the gospel of Jesus Christ. But if this is gonna make any sense to you, you have to first be quiet and listen.

The irony of all of this is that in the previous passage that we looked at, he mentions, no, none is righteous, no, not one. No one understand, no one seeks God. All have turned this way together. They have become worthless. No one does good, not even one. And then verse 13 and 14, he says, all of this corruption is expressed by our tongue.

Their throat is an open grave. They use their tongues to deceive. The venom of asthma is under their lips. Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness. And so here's these sinners, like justifying, condemning others, slandering. The sinners who really should be quiet and just listen. And yet there's only one person, one person who's ever walked this earth who had the right to speak.

There's only one person who could have spoken and he could have easily justified himself. One person, you know who I'm talking about. There's only one man who lived a perfect life. One man who could stand before the Father and say, I am innocent. And yet in Isaiah 53, seven, it says, he was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth.

Like a lamb that is led to the slaughter and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth. Do you not see the irony of sins? The sinners who's trying so hard to justify, nullify, to minimize our sins and yet the one who is perfect and holy chooses to stay silent so that he may be led to the cross, so that he may speak on our behalf before the Father.

How can we not worship this God? How can this not change us? How can this not break us? All of this was a foundation upon which he is going to build of why we need Jesus. But first and foremost, to bring us to the point where every single person in this room, whether you have been disciplined or undisciplined, whether you've been distracted or not distracted, wherever you are, all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

Every single one of us, that we come before his throne of grace, seeking mercy because we have a high priest who sympathizes with our weaknesses. So we pray that again, as we continue to study, that our exposure to the word of God is not just simply adding more knowledge, that you and I would come to a deep conviction of who he is and who we are in the light of that.

Let's take a few minutes to pray as we seek the Lord together.