We're going to be reading Romans chapter 7 verse 7 through 12 Okay and but as you're turning your Bible there one of the questions that I asked you on Facebook if you guys were able to look at that before you came and read it is Who is Paul referring to?

Okay, so I'm gonna read it again, and I'm gonna Ask you guys to just kind of think through and then we'll deal with that before we jump in but when Paul says 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 And then he says once I was I was once alive verse 9 apart from the law But when the commandment came sin came alive and died so is Paul talking about his personal experience of conversion Is he talking about the Jewish community?

The nation of Israel before and after the Mosaic Law or is he referring to mankind? representing himself in the context of mankind like Adam and Eve and how they were alive before the law came and how they fell and How death came as a result of that? So is he talking about Adam and Eve representing mankind?

Is he talking about the nation of Israel or is he talking about his personal experience because based on how? Strictly you interpret that you may have a different understanding of what Paul is gonna say Not only in this text, but for the rest of the book of Rome the chapter 7 So what we're gonna be talking about this morning about that I'm just gonna mention it briefly and then hopefully that'll help us carry on and understand the text next few weeks as well Okay, so having said that let's read this passage verse 7 through 12 What then shall we say that the law is sin by no means?

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 said not Have not said you shall not covet but sin seizing an opportunity through the commandment produced to me all kinds of covetousness For apart from the law sin lies dead I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came sin came alive and I died The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me for sin seizing an opportunity through the commandment Deceived me and through it killed me.

So the law is holy and the commandment is holy and righteous and good Let's pray Lord we offer this time to you Just asking father God that your Holy Spirit would do what we are not able to do by our own strength or will That you would use these words to illuminate our hearts our minds our lives That we may be surrendered Lord God not with just lip service that we may be changed Lord not just in mind But our very hearts and lives and wills as well So we ask Lord God that you would be gracious to us as you are always gracious Bless this time Lord in Jesus name.

We pray. Amen I'm gonna give you a quick answer to that before we jump into What Paul is saying here the quick answer to what I the question I asked is yes all of them Okay, he's referring to in my opinion all of them and I think Douglas Moo and John Stott agrees with this and again There's various opinions on this but I go I believe according to the text and again I've wrestled through this text so many times and the best interpretation that I find is that Paul obviously is speaking in the first person referring to The Jewish community and and how they viewed the law and how he's trying to correct them in the way that they saw the law Him himself saying he was Pharisee among Pharisees uses himself as a first person, right?

So if you remember the text the context that Paul is talking about he says in earlier in chapter 6 I am talking to you who have the law specific to the Jews the larger context from chapter 1 all the way to chapter 7 He's talking to Jews Because they had a hard time believing that the law did not save them and Paul is trying to argue with them all have sinned And fall short of the glory of God So the whole context Paul has been talking to the Jews a correct understanding of the law which brings condemnation Him being a Jew among Jews before he was converted uses himself as a first person But having said that that doesn't limit it to the nation of Israel Because how a Jew understood the law was no different than how a Christian would understand a Bible when we hear the word law we ask the question is he talking about the Mosaic law the ceremonial law the moral law the civil law and We compartmentalize different parts of the law and we're trying to identify what specifically it is But a Jew when he heard the word law he to him.

It was the Bible Instructions giving in the given in the Bible on how you ought to please God and worship God So even in the New Testament we can divide it into civil law how we ought to behave in society we can divide it into ceremonial law how we have Communion and baptisms and the teachings about the church or moral laws that are repeated in the New Testament about you know Honoring your father and mother and not to covet and not to steal But just like you and I would understand when we read the scripture Then we say well What does the scripture mean the old in the Old Testament the Jews when they heard the word law to him?

It just meant the Word of God Right the Word of God and how they understood God's Word. So when he Paul's talking about here he's he I believe the application is really to all mankind even though he's speaking in the first person as a representative of the nation of Israel Israel is a smaller illustration of the larger picture of mankind.

So the reason why I think this is important I don't want you guys to read this and study this and say well, okay That's relevant to the Jews because the Jews struggled with this The problem that he's dealing with is a struggle with mankind Both old and a New Testament So I want to place that so that the next few weeks when we are studying through the book The Romans in particular chapter 7 that nobody sits in here thinking like oh, okay That's that's the problem that the Jews have it is very much relevant to us So let's jump into the text You know, how many guys know who Jim Jones is?

Jim Jones Wow, even less than the first server first service. We had three. Okay. Now we have one Thank you Lee and wife. All right Jim Jones was a cult leader in the 1970s or 1950 60s and 70s and he took a bunch of Disenfranchised Christians who fell out of the church and joined his church and eventually this man was so charismatic He sold himself as the Messiah.

And so he was a very charismatic leader And so he began to gather to himself thousands of people And then their rumors started to come out that within his church that he established in 1956 The name of it was people's temple and there was a lot of stories of abuse That sometimes that even in his worship service He would make men and women strip naked and dance around and he was just asserting his authority and when this news came out He sold himself as being persecuted and he took over more than a thousand people moved all the way to Guiana And he established a commune there Well people were so concerned about what was happening to this cult they went after him even the government US governments went after him and there was a lot of Lot of persecution or or beating and abuse that was taking place and when they found out that the government was coming all the way over there to shut them down and possibly Extra died him and take him into prison because of the abuse he decided that he was going to have everybody commit suicide so he gave over 918 people to and commanded them to drink cyanide in the form of a fruit punch and 918 people committed suicide and 276 of them being children So again this happened in the 1970s and and I think people who lived in the 70s 80s I mean everybody knows who Jim Jones is because it was such a horrific story Can you imagine all those people who committed suicide?

realizing that at the end when they wake up and They're gonna face a holy judge and realize that the Messiah that they thought was the Messiah was the wrong Messiah They're absolutely instead of finding life that there was gonna be condemnation for what they did You see the nation of Israel as a whole Was misled for over a thousand years The law was given to the nation of Israel in Deuteronomy 27 verse 6 Moses stood and he said cursed be anyone who does not confirm The words of the law by doing them and all the people shall say amen and they cried out.

Amen when they received the law is that if you do not obey this command let them be cursed and The whole congregation of Israelites said amen So we can understand why the Pharisees of the time of Jesus took the took the commandments so seriously They had over six hundred and thirteen laws that every faithful Jew was to follow meticulously out of the six hundred and thirteen laws two hundred and forty-eight were commands of things that they ought to do and 365 were things not to do But you can understand why they were so meticulous in in obeying this command because the whole nation of Israel Received the law saying if we do not obey let us be cursed.

Amen. Amen and Yet when we come to the time of Christ Paul says in Galatians 3 10 and 11 for all who rely on the works of the law are under a curse For it is written curse be everyone who does not abide by all things Written in the book of the law and do them now It is evident that no one is justified before God by the law.

The righteous shall live by faith We come to the time 1,500 years after they receive the commandment in Deuteronomy 27 26 Paul now says 1,500 years later Everyone who thinks that by keeping the law that somehow you're gonna live he is already under a curse He is not and does not get justified by the law for 1,500 years they were led astray and especially in the time of Christ You can understand before we jump and and condemn the Israelites You see how difficult of a task for a possible Paul For not just one not a small group not just one generation for generation after generation after generation They believe this lie That if we just keep this command if we keep the meticulous see we will be saved So we can understand why they had such a hard time and even those who converted Wouldn't fully convert They accept Christ and his grace and faith and it's a wall.

That's true. We believe that we've seen eyewitnesses We had our brothers and sisters healed so we can't deny the fact that he was the Messiah and he was raised from the dead We can't deny that there's too many people who know who've seen it Yet even then they wouldn't let go of the Judaistic law So the big question is If the law brings condemnation then what was the law given for you mean for all these years not just me my parent my great Grandparents the high priest the Pharisees the scribes for generations.

They were all wrong Then what was the law for? That's the question that Paul's been trying to answer in the last chapter Then what is the law for if we're not saved by the law? Then what is the law for so in verse 7 through 12 Paul is going to be discussing again.

It's It's not limited to these 12 verses but for this morning for 7 through 12 He's going to be discussing what the purpose of the law was for If it is not for salvation Let's look at verse 7 Yet if it had not been for the law again 7b Okay in the middle yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said you shall not covet So the first and most important thing that Paul says that the law was given for is to reveal sin first and foremost When he says that the law came to reveal sin he's not saying that the law somehow made them of made them Made them a better whatever like again as an illustration if those of you took CPA exams or board exam for medical for medical school Or to become a doctor or or lawyers who had to take the bar.

Those are very intense tests But the test doesn't make you a good lawyer Right. The test doesn't make you a good attorney or a doctor or or or an accountant They only reveal what you already know or don't know So the first thing that the Bible says that that the Word of God came and does the first thing Is to reveal What is it already in us it reveals sin?

See James chapter 1 22 Likens the Word of God as a mirror Somebody who look who hears the Word of God and does not practice them It's like somebody who stands before a mirror and he walks away and he forgets what he looks like Right. I mean we have all kinds of different purposes for having a mirror at home But the primary reason is so that you can do your hair before you come to church, right?

Make sure your socks match that you don't have toothpaste on your nose That whatever you ate this morning, you don't have green things sticking in the middle of your teeth so you can present yourself Well, I mean the primary reason is to see yourself in the mirror and to see what you need to fix James says an Individual who looks into the Word of God the mirror and keeps looking at it And he doesn't see his own sin is an individual just walks away.

It's like, okay See in a time of the Prophet Amos and Isaiah It was a period when the Israelites were very religious They weren't in any kind of political battle Financially, they were doing well because of periods of peace. So there was a lot of sacrifices being made at the temple But yet God sends prophets and keeps warning them that the judgment is coming.

And so they were they were confused Why would God be angry with us? Look how busy we are at the temple. Look how many sacrifices that we're making I Can understand his hatred toward the Assyrians and the pagans? But that's behind us. We're worshipping Yahweh at the temple. Why would he be angry with us?

Yet at the book of Amos God says he was going to bring a plumb line and measure to see to show them Where they have gone wrong and the plumb line that he was referring to was the Word of God It was like a modern-day leveler that on the surface you may look like is that I looks alright But God's gonna bring the plumb line and show you just how crooked the temple is and just how crooked the Nation of Israel is So the scripture says first and foremost was given to reveal sin That we can identify the sin in our own hearts See where God has primarily placed his glory.

The scripture says it's in his word He he's represented his glory in his word His very breath is in his word Every time we see people who are encountering God the first Response that we see from them is a sense of awe and terror Because they recognize sin that they didn't see before Do you remember Isaiah when he saw a glimpse of the throne of these creatures?

Flying around. Holy. Holy. Holy. The first thing he recognizes is not the sin of his nation The first thing he recognizes is his own sin In the presence of this Holy God And he falls down and he says woe is me. Woe is me I am a man of unclean lips from a people of unclean lips.

He recognizes his own sin Not only his own sin, but in light of that he says I'm from all these people who are also unclean The first and most important word for worship is Proskuneo in the Greek and the word literally means to bow down to prostrate to fall down in honor and in terror That is the most common word in the New Testament translated for worship most common word that is also translated from the Hebrew word worship translated in the Septuagint is Proskuneo worship to be prostrated in fear Every instance those of you who are with us in Wednesday Bible study a few weeks ago We talked about the holiness of God and every instance whether it's Ezekiel in chapter 128 in the presence of this Holy God He falls down in terror proskuneo Matthew chapter 17 verse 5 and 6 when the disciples at the Transfiguration hear the voice of God They fall down in terror and proskuneo In Revelations 1 17 when Apostle John sees a vision of his throne same response He recognizes his own sin in proskuneo and he falls face down Revelations 5 14 the four beasts and the 24 elders in the presence of this Holy God Recognize their own sin and they fall down prostrated in terror in every instance in Scripture When God's glory is revealed the first thing that happens is recognition of their own sin See the scripture first and foremost was given to us To reveal our sin our sinful state Now again as we said in the very beginning if you take the law of God's that well, we're not under the Mosaic Law We don't preach the Mosaic Law So we don't have that issue as I mentioned that Paul is not simply talking about Jews.

He's talking about the Word of God all the commandments of God First and foremost is to reveal who we are See when Jesus came The nation of Israel did not reject him because he wasn't handsome enough. He didn't give enough food or he didn't heal enough They were angry with him Because he kept on revealing their sins and they didn't want to hear it if you remember in the early part of Jesus's ministries The scribes and the Pharisees and the leaders of Israel heard about Jesus Maybe he is the Messiah That they've been preaching the Pharisees and the Sadducees and the scribe They were the ones teaching the nation of Israel that the Messiah is coming Messiah is coming and when he comes Everything that we lost to the pagans are going to be restored So they're the ones who've been preaching to wait for the Messiah to look for the Messiah So when they started hearing that maybe Jesus is the Messiah Initially, they were very intrigued.

They didn't reject him right away. They went all the way to Galilee I mean, these are very wealthy prominent men That that went all the way up to Galilee a several days journey just to see who he is Even when John the Baptist came out and all these people were going out to the wilderness to hear could he be the Messiah?

What did they say when they saw these Pharisees coming? You fruit of vipers Who told you to come? Bear fruit in accordance with your repentance. He called them out That's exactly what Jesus said repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand So the very first message that he gave was exactly the opposite was probably what the Pharisees were thinking because if anybody kept the law by the by the Standard of righteousness that anybody would use at that time and probably even today the Pharisees were righteous They prayed more than anybody else They gave more than anybody else.

They weren't stingy people They knew the law more than anybody else They even made disciples and proselytize they travel far distances to make disciples more than anybody else So by any human standard they were the righteous ones. They knew the scriptures. They were the PhDs in theologies But when they came to Jesus First thing Jesus did was reveal their sin And that's why they didn't like him if Jesus embraced him and so okay now you follow me and made them his disciples He wouldn't had that problem But he flipped the switch Instead he took tax collectors.

He took sinners common people How could he use them as disciples and just completely bypass us he can't be the Messiah If that was the Messiah, he would recognize who we are And because he doesn't recognize our righteousness He clearly can't be the Messiah because to say he's the Messiah means Everything that they were thinking about where they stood before God was wrong And they just could not accept that see first and foremost The Word of God was given to us to reveal sin The rich young ruler that came to Jesus in Mark chapter 10 said what do I do good teacher?

to have eternal life Jesus knows exactly what he was thinking. He said you must obey all the commandments perfectly and he says in arrogance I did And I'll bet you he was probably more moral than the average person. I bet you in his mind. He did he kept everything in comparison Yet knowing exactly what he was thinking he pinpoints and it wasn't a challenge to him It was basically Jesus shutting the door in his face Knowing he was rich Sell everything that you have give it to the poor and come after me To tell a rich young ruler to sell everything basically means to die It basically means to die Give up everything give up your house Give up your wealth your prestige that maybe the money that your parents earned your grandparents earned And maybe you earn give it all away and start over if you want to enter the kingdom in that way And that's exactly what he told Nicodemus Expert of the law who kept the law meticulously How do I get saved you must be born again?

How do you do that? You can't Jesus was shutting the door if you think that that's how somehow you're gonna be saved. That's how you measure righteousness. You're wrong Because first and foremost the Word of God comes and judges the thoughts and intentions of our hearts Not the heart of our nation Not the heart of our brothers and sisters in Christ Not the heart of the other church Or other people around us first and foremost when we read the Word of God the initial intention of encountering God is to reveal sin in us in us and If it is not revealed in us you missed the whole point of the Word of God George Whitfield in training young pastors to become preachers would often say you must wound them before you heal them Until they are wounded the healing will be superficial And that's exactly what Paul is trying to say here in this passage that the law was given to reveal your sin first and foremost Spurgeon Speaking of a superficial revival that was taking place during his generation says this Sometimes we are inclined to think a great portion of modern revival revivalism has been more a curse than a blessing Because it has led thousands to a kind of peace before they have known their misery Restoring the prodigal to the father's love and never making him say father.

I have sinned Unhumbled they come into the church on humble. They remain in it and on humble they go from it Unless the law of God and the Word of God first convicts us and humbles us it has missed the mark See the Jews their problem was they thought that God created righteousness on a curve No Jew would ever stand before God and say I am perfect They're not fools But they thought God created righteousness on a curve That they were maybe B students and they were looking down on C students and these tax collectors were F students Not realizing that they were all F students just in different degrees See they thought God created on a curve not realizing that even one sin even one sin Would make them unrighteous and deserving of death because Adam and Eve The condemnation that came into their life and to all mankind as a result of their sin was one sin Genesis chapter 3 in chapter 2 does not describe years and generations of depravity It describes one sin They ate the fruit one event They broke one command and as a result of that one command that one sin was so hideous before this.

Holy. Holy. Holy God that mankind deserve condemnation for eternity one sin See the problem is we see sin in light of other people's sins So as long as we are not as sinful as the people who are around us We feel safe and that's exactly what the Pharisees were doing that God was grading them on a curve and on a curve Yes, they were much more righteous.

Of course, they're more righteous than a tax collector Tax collector was cheating people out of money poor people. I Mean a zealot was ready to kill people They weren't adulterers. They weren't prostitutes these guys their mistake was they were serving at the temple. Maybe not with the right heart How can they be greater sinners if so, if God created them on a curve they would have been on the top of the list But that was their blindness They didn't recognize their sin before God See Jesus during the 40 years of test of 40 days of testing Satan was trying to tempt in and if he fell even in one sin, it would have disqualified him to be our Savior Because the sacrifice had to be perfect and just have Adam with one sin brought condemnation to the world Jesus with one sin could have been disqualified to save us one sin See Matthew 5 48.

It says you therefore must be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect Again in Matthew 5 20 and it says for I tell you unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees You will never enter the kingdom of heaven. How can you exceed the righteousness of the Pharisees who kept?

613 laws meticulously day in and day out How can their righteousness be exceed the scribes in other words you can't That does not bring life In fact in John chapter 8 when Jesus says he will bides in my word and my words abide to him He is my disciple.

He shall know the truth and true shall set you free When we hear that we say wow, that's that's awesome God came to bring us freedom But when the Jews heard this they became angry What do you mean set free? We've never been slaves. We're children of Abraham How can you tell us that we need freedom?

and so the argument goes back and forth with Jesus in John chapter 8 and They would not back down Jesus what you're saying does not make any sense Clearly, you're not an average prophet. Maybe you are the Messiah, but if you are how do you not recognize who we are?

the righteousness the obedience The meticulous way we sacrifice to stay righteous and clean how can you not recognize that and say like with any other sinner that we need to be set free and They just could not accept that and as a result of that Jesus calls them out in John chapter 8 44 You do not understand me because you are not from where I am He said where are where are we from then?

Who is our father? Your father's the devil? That's why so you see the first thing that Jesus distinguished between a Christian and a non-christian a Christian is the one who comes before God in his word and recognizes and is humbled and is convicted by his own guilt And he said that's the first and foremost thing that the Word of God was given for There is no sin that is more dangerous in our lives than a sin that we we are not aware of There's no sin that is more dangerous in a church and a sin that we are not aware of or we just kind of swept It under the rug Or we dismissed it or we compared it with other people and say it's not as bad Of course, no one's perfect, but I'm not as bad as them.

There is no sin that is more dangerous and more Destructive in a life of an individual or a church or a generation than the sin that he does not see clearly So the first and foremost the Word of God is given to expose sin and that was what it was intended to do That when we come before the Word of God It judges the thoughts and intentions of my heart It recognizes that there's adultery in me That there's hatred and murderous thoughts in me That there's coveting in me not just them in me There's self-righteousness dwelling in me There's hatred and divisiveness in me.

There's slandering it coming out of my mouth There's disobedience in me So first and foremost if we want to draw near to God the Word of God exposes all of that And the reason why is pretty obvious He who does not recognize his sin will not repent First step of justification is recognizing and owning up to his sin But the second third fourth and every other step is no different Not only does it reveal sin in verse 8 it said aggravates in But sin seizing an opportunity through the commandment produced in me all kinds of covetousness Apart from the law sin lies dead when he says here it produced in me It kind of has a wrong understanding at least in the English.

We think it was created but the word there It means to stir up passion To stir it up. I think the best way for us to understand it is if you've ever seen a You know a bucket of water or something and it was dirty and you let it sit for a while You know how the dirt kind of sinks to the bottom and then the good water is up on the top and you look at it So it looks clean Until you kick it Until you stir it up and all of a sudden the dirt gets all stirred up and you realize oh my god is filthy So that's a description that Paul is giving when the law came sin was dormant But when the law came it stirred up in me all kinds of passion to reveal this in Augustine if you've never read this book, I highly recommend those of you who are theologically astute and you you want to get into it if you haven't read that I highly recommend because It really helped me to understand This in this particular subject of sin and grace Augustine was a man who was very honest with his sin, you know And I think that's what made him such a great theologian and a Christian because he never excused his sin He was he was very open and honest.

That's why the book is called confession. It's basically his testimony This is a man who lived in order debauchery He had sex. I mean adultery. I mean drugs, whatever I mean you could think of any kind of debauchery could think of he practiced it to the fullest He had the resources to do it, but he says in his book the second book of confession The sin that bothered him the most was a sin when him and his friends went to his neighbor's yard to steal some peaches He said of all the sins that bothered him that's in bothered him the most Which kind of sounds strange?

considering who he is This is like a drug dealer, you know, only thing he didn't do was murder somebody he might have done that I don't remember, you know, but he said of all the sins and this is why he doesn't he he describes why that's in in particular Bothered him more than any other sin.

This is what he says It was not the pairs that my unhappy soul desired I had plenty of my own better than those and I picked them so that I might steal For no sooner had I picked them then I threw them away and tasted nothing in them But my own sin which I relished and enjoyed He says he had better peaches in his own house And it wasn't because he wanted peaches.

It was just a thrill with his friends In another passage that since I had no real power to break God's natural law meaning that he recognizes his limitation He can't fly, you know, he can't hold his breath underwater. He can't do what God does. He can't break God's natural law Was it that I enjoyed at least a pretense of doing so?

Like a prisoner who creates for himself the illusion of liberty by doing something wrong when he has no fear of punishment under a feeble hallucination of power He's examining his own heart. Why did I do that? And he's just contemplating possibly could it be the feeling of power? And then he finally says I must have gotten pleasure from the crime itself from the thrill of having partners in sin This was a friendship of most unfriendly sort bewitching my mind in an inexplicable way for the sake of laugh a little sport I was glad to do harm and anxious to damage another all because we are We are ashamed to hold back when others say come on, let's do it His Confession is the reason why that's in bothered him more than anything else is that sin more than any other sin revealed his nature It revealed a corrupt nature See Paul is saying not only did sin reveal it that when sin when the law came it stirred up and in me all kinds of Passion why does when God says not to do something does it cause us want to do it?

Anybody who's raised children know exactly what I'm talking about. It doesn't work all the time But it works a lot of the time you're trying to feed them peace They don't like it, but you know the health benefits of peace and you try to shove it in their mouth They spit it out And all of a sudden you you you become an expert parent and he said, okay, you can't have it Your brother's gonna have it you can have any of it.

It's like oh, no, no, no No, you can't have it. Your brother's gonna have it and the brother eats. It's like do you like it? Yes, I Like it right just to show the younger brother and as soon as he sees his brother enjoying it and he can't have it What happens?

I Want some Why does he all of a sudden desire something that he can't have but when we ask him to have it he doesn't want it Did somebody teach him that? Did he go to some hard school was he in prison for a while and that's where he picked up these bad habits No It's in us We're born with it Original sin is deeply embedded in us And that's why the scripture says the law was given first and foremost to reveal what was in us Because until we recognize the sin in our own hearts not in our nation not in our neighbor not in our husband and wife our kids but in us There's no repentance Repentance is shallow superficial And always thinking that I will be a better person if other people were better around me And the Word of God all it does is it feeds me to better see the sins of other people First and foremost the law was given to reveal sin When Paul met Christ for three days, can you imagine he was blind at Damascus and he was thinking all his life People think that he met Christ in his early 30s all his life He tried to keep the law perfectly and by his own definition.

He said in comparison to other Jews he said he was perfect when it came to the law a Pharisee among Pharisees a Benjamite and Yet his eyes become open When Jesus throws him off of his horse and all of a sudden he sees the glory of the gospel of Jesus Christ And what was his confession in Philippians 3 in?

light of seeing Christ Every righteous thing that I pursued became dumb Every measure that I measured righteousness in was dumb What I thought was giving me life actually was condemning me that's what Paul means here I Pursued it thinking there was life there, but I was deceived and all it did was bring death First and foremost Are we under when we open up the Word of God when the Word of God is taught Does it function the way God intended it to To bring us to our knees Not like the Pharisees thank God.

I'm not like those people I paid tithes and I go to the temple and I give worship Thank God. I'm not like those sinners First and foremost the Word of God comes to make us like that tax collector beating his chest I'm a sinner I'm a sinner. I Can't come to you by my own strength utterly desperate before God Understanding the condemnation that I deserve for 1,500 years the Jews piled up condemnation after condemnation Year after year decade after decade century after century.

They said amen to this curse and They didn't recognize it And that's why when Jesus said Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. He can't be talking about me I Can see why he's saying to those people but not me If the Word of God does not humble us you've missed the whole point If the Word of God does not break us you've missed the whole point It brings us to our knees so the natural question is Then it's the law evil Did God give us the law does that mean that God doesn't expect us to keep the law if that all the law did was to reveal sins Does that mean that we just thank God that you say this by grace and you just kind of go on and living?

By no means Romans 3 31 do we then overthrow the law by this faith by no means on the contrary we uphold the law It wasn't the law All the law did was reveal what was dormant in us if the law is not sin In fact, what does he say?

The law is holy the commandment is holy and righteous and good Does God desire to live righteously? Absolutely Should we be holy? Absolutely. The problem with the Jews was that they thought that somehow they were going to be righteous through the law It is not the law. That was the problem It was a sin that was dormant in them that they did not recognize through the law Let me wrap up this morning with this Because I want us to see How Paul is trying so hard to change the paradigm of a Jew who had one way of thinking about righteousness And then now he's flipping the table.

I Mean think about that in the early church These Pharisees who lived hundreds of years generation after generation Thinking that they were righteous and all of a sudden the church is established and you have tax collectors teaching them about righteousness You have fishermen who are deacons and elders in the church leading the church while these ex-pharisees and even Sadducees are sitting there Listening to these fishermen exposit the scripture to them the scripture that they had PhDs in and all of a sudden They flipped the script And how difficult it must have been for them See it wasn't the law It was that the law didn't humble them So all didn't break them it made them self-righteous and it deceived them thinking that there was life no the law is good It is righteous Let me describe What I believe the scripture teaches and how do we measure spiritual maturity someone who's near to God First the sign of spiritual maturity is a brokenness over his own sins Not someone who's broken over the sin of our generation our nation our church or anybody around us not even over our husband and wife or children first and foremost a maturing Christian is a Christian who is broken over his own sins because he is in front of the Word of God and It's constantly revealing The corruption in his own heart and so he's broken over it And not only is he broken over it as a result He is humble He is humble because he knows That because of his brokenness that the only way that he could have been saved was by the grace of God and he recognizes That he is where he is because by grace and gross grace alone, so it humbles him see pride in the gospel is a contradiction a Man who's been saved by the grace of God cannot be proud By very definition you got what you didn't deserve So it humbles him but thirdly He has compassion and not disdain for those who are not yet delivered a man who's been drowning and a lifeboat comes and grabs him from the shoulder and Yanks him on the boat does not sit on that boat pointing at other people who are not saved and say you fools Why couldn't you be saved like me See that's a contradiction you would automatically think that that guy doesn't recognize what just happened we were dead in our trespasses and Christ the Son of God came and yanked us from our death and made us alive So how can we be sitting on the boat and looking at other sinners and condemning them?

Instead if we really recognize what it is in us It will lead to compassion True spiritual maturity is brokenness humility and compassion which compels us to holiness Which compels us to holiness? See the whole system that the Pharisees created was flipped upside down Now We can look at that and say well, we're not Jews we don't have the Mosaic law We don't have the temple so that doesn't apply to us.

No it applies to us Think of the way that we measure righteousness Think of the way that we pursue God When you read the scriptures do quiet times I did quite I Pray I evangelized I gave And yet very purpose of quiet time is to break us Humble us to humiliate us a Growing Christian is a Christian who is constantly repenting and celebrating Because of his life he's given to us Amen It's such a simple truth It's such a simple truth and it's so foundational to everything that we know of Christianity And yet if we get this wrong, we miss the whole point Let's take some time to pray as we come before the Lord Every single one of us is susceptible to Pharisees When we're filled with self-righteousness When we see other people's sin is more hideous than ours We're guilty Let the Word of God reveal the thoughts and intentions of your heart The passages that you've read the quiet times that you've done the Bible study What has that revealed about where you stand before God?

And if you're convicted, we are not without hope The point of it is not simply to condemn us But in our condemnation to remind us that we have hope in Christ and Christ alone So let's take this time as we come before the Lord and as we are convicted to come before the Lord and thank him For his salvation.

Let's pray (sizzling)