Sunday Sermon - Christians Are NOT Totally Depraved argues that the gospel targets sinners who admit their guilt, unlike self-righteous individuals. The speaker distinguishes justification from sanctification, noting believers still wage spiritual warfare against the flesh despite lacking a sin nature. He outlines three uses of God's law: revealing sin, restraining evil, and guiding gratitude. Critiquing modern churches for ignoring relevant issues like feminism while focusing on outdated ones, he asserts that acknowledging God's holiness widens the chasm of sin, magnifying Christ's forgiveness. Ultimately, right theology drives true worship, echoing Thomas Goodwin's practice of reflecting on past sins before preaching. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: CohereLabs/cohere-transcribe-03-2026, WAV2VEC2_ASR_BASE_960H, sat-12l-sm, script v26.04.01, and large-v3-turbo
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Jesus Came to Save Sinners00:06:41
Our text for today is going to be 1 Timothy 1, verse 12 through 17.
Would you join me now in standing for the reading of God's word in order to show reverence and respect for how God has chosen to reveal himself in Scripture?
I'll read the text.
When I finish reading the text, I'm going to say, This is the word of the Lord, at which point I would appreciate very much if you would respond by saying, Thanks be to God.
One final time, our text for today is 1 Timothy 1, verses 12 through 17.
The Bible says this I thank him.
Who has given me strength, Christ Jesus our Lord, because he judged me faithful, appointing me to his service.
Though formerly I was a blasphemer, persecutor, and insolent opponent, but I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief, and the grace of our Lord overflowed from me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.
The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance that Christ Jesus came into the world.
To save sinners, of whom I am the foremost.
But I received mercy for this reason that in me, as the foremost, Christ Jesus might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life.
To the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever.
Amen.
This is the word of the Lord.
All right, please be seated.
Let's begin.
The first thing that I've written in your notes is the following.
In verse 15 of our text, Paul says, The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost.
The first thing that we must recognize from our text today is this the gospel is for sinners.
If you are not a sinner, Jesus is not for you.
If you are not a sinner, the gospel is not for you.
If you are a basically good person who's made some mistakes along the way, the gospel is not for you.
If you are a victim, that ultimately all of your failures can be tracked back to the sin of someone else, but you yourself, if protected in a vacuum, in a perfect scenario, a perfect context, if it wasn't for all the toxic people around you, you would have done very well.
If that's you, then the gospel is not for you.
Christ died for sinners.
He died for sinners.
It is true that Christ came to save the world.
John 3 16, 17, 18, and following we see, for God so loved the world that he sent his only begotten Son, that whoever should believe in him shall not perish, but have eternal life.
God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.
Jesus came to save the world.
He came to save the world.
To save humanity, to save people.
But throughout Scripture, we find that there is a specific type of person in a particular sense that Jesus came to save.
He came to save people, yes, but He came to save specifically sinners.
Now, the reality is that all people are sinners, all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
If Christ came to save sinners, then there is a sense in which Christ came to save all because all fall into that category of sinners.
But what's unique in our text today, what rises to the top of what Paul's saying, is not only that Paul is a sinner, but what we should glean from the text is that Paul has an acute recognition of his sinfulness.
It's not only that he is objectively sinful, but it is that he is aware of his sinfulness.
The sinners that Christ came to save are not just great sinners, but great sinners who are aware and acknowledge their great sinfulness.
Everyone is a sinner.
The determinative factor between the two, the sinner and the self righteous, is not at the objective level of someone who actually didn't sin.
That person doesn't exist.
Everyone at the objective level is, in fact, a sinner.
The determining factor between two different kinds of people, the sinner and the self righteous, is that the sinner admits his sin.
He acknowledges his sin.
And he looks to Christ as the only savior for his sin.
And this is the gospel that Paul exalts in in our text today.
Stephen J. Cole, in his commentary on this particular passage, says this Christ came to save sinners.
If you're a basically good person, church going person, then Christ did not come to save you.
He came to save sinners only.
If you're a person with a few faults and shortcomings, then Christ did not come to save you.
He came to save sinners only.
If you're a person with too much dignity, Too much self worth, right?
You're just self care, self love, right?
You're just trying to, you know, love yourself so you can better love others, right?
Because you love your neighbor as yourself.
And we know that the proper, you know, exegesis of that text is I need to really focus on myself right now, ultimately, so that I can be more caring towards others.
If that's you, guess what?
Jesus didn't die for you, He's not your Savior.
He's not.
Christ came to die for sinners, not basically good people, not church going people, not victims, and not self care enthusiasts.
Jesus came to die for wretches.
Jesus came to die for sinners.
And this is years, arguably even decades, perhaps 25 years, some biblical historians and commentators would argue, after Paul had been converted.
The Apostle Paul.
And yet he still is remembering, as though it was just yesterday, the severity of his sin.
The severity of his sin.
Confessing the Severity of Sin00:05:32
And this is what it is to confess.
When we confess our sin, we're not informing God of our sin.
God does not need to be informed, He is all knowing, He is omniscient.
We're not bringing new information before the Lord that He previously was not aware of.
To confess our sin is not merely to inform God of our sinfulness.
Confession is not informing God, it's agreeing with God.
It's not informing God of our sin, it is agreeing with God that we are, in fact, sinners, and not only agreeing with God about our sin, that we are sinners, but in regard specifically to the severity of our sin.
That when we confess sin, we are saying, Let God be true, though every man a liar.
There's a sense in which David even says in his great prayer of confession in Psalm 51, he says, So God may be proved blameless in his judgments.
That's part of his prayer of confession.
What David is saying is that as he confesses his sin before the Lord, one of the things that he's doing, one of his aims, his goal in confession of sin is, as it were, in a subjective sense, to exonerate God.
Now, God needs, in the objective sense, no exoneration.
David recognizes that God is just, even if every person on the planet lied about him.
God will remain, in the objective, eternal, and truest sense.
Just in all his judgments.
He is neither harsh, nor cruel, nor petty, nor capricious.
He is just.
And David knows that God remains just whether he acknowledges that God's judgments are fair or not.
But in the subjective sense, David, a man after God's own heart who loves God above all other things, wants to exonerate God, as it were.
You always have to add that phrase, as it were.
Right?
Anytime you talk about the Godhead, And you're getting a little cute, just say, as it were, as it were, as it were, as it were, and you usually can come through unscathed without being deemed a heretic.
All right, so just as it were, that's a pro tip right there.
Jesus, or David rather, is exonerating God by saying he is blameless in his judgments.
That's one of the things that we're doing when we acknowledge our sinfulness, not just that we are sinners, but a step further, acknowledging the degree of our sin, the severity of our sin, is we are saying, In a sense, that God is just.
That God is not petty.
God is not cruel.
He is not capricious.
God is just.
And that all he does is fair.
All he does is right.
All he does is good.
And there are many in the world today, and sadly, even many who would actively participate in churches, they would think of something such as hell.
And they would wrestle with the concept of hell.
They would wrestle and think, How in the world could a good and loving God punish people in such a severe way?
And the reason for this disconnect, this confusion, is quite simple.
It's because we do not fully understand the holiness of God.
And by way of consequence, we fail to grasp the fullness of man's depravity.
God doesn't send people to hell to be cruel.
God sends people to hell in order to uphold his justice.
That if God punished people in some lighter capacity, then he would be compromising his own character.
He would be compromising his own justice.
That part of what it is to be a good king is to uphold equal weights and measures, to exact judgment and punishment.
In proportion to the crime, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, life for life.
And what is the only appropriate judgment for someone who has sinned against an infinitely kind and good God, an infinitely holy God?
We misunderstand, we fail to grasp the fullness of God's holiness, and by way of consequence, the severity of our sin.
Going on in your notes, I've written the following that Paul, the apostle, calls himself the chief of sinners in the King James Version.
He does not say in the past tense that I was the chief of sinners, even though he certainly had a wicked past.
And that's precisely what Paul is calling to people's attention.
He's not speaking of present sin, although he is still a sinner.
He's speaking of past sin.
He's speaking of the worst things that he's ever done over the course of his life.
The fact that he was a blasphemer, persecutor, and an insolent opponent.
That he was persecuting the very church of Jesus Christ.
Paul: Chief Among Sinners00:14:50
And yet, when it comes to categorize himself, to label himself, to give himself a name, he uses the present tense.
Not that I was the chief of sinners, but I am.
And Paul does not make this statement as a new believer.
As I've already said, he makes this statement.
And the dating of this writing, arguably a decade or more after faithfully serving Christ, we can actually trace a chronological progression, and this is interesting to do, of Paul's statements about himself throughout his epistles in the New Testament.
Now, there's some contention with this in the dating of various New Testament books, but I think that this is probably accurate and generally true.
In 1 Corinthians 15, verse 9, Paul says, I'm the least of the apostles.
In Ephesians 3, verse 8, written a few years later, he says, I'm the very least of all the saints.
And then here in 1 Timothy 1, verse 15, written even still later, Paul says, I'm the chief of all sinners.
Notice that Paul begins chronologically by saying, I'm the worst of the best, right?
The least, but of the apostles.
So top shelf, but bottom rung.
I'm the worst of the best.
But then, you know, he's gaining in his humility.
He begins to defend himself or describe himself by saying, Well, I'm not just the least of the best, the least of the apostles, but I'm the least of the Christians, not merely the apostles, but anyone who bears the name of Christ.
All those saints, all those born again by grace and faith in Jesus, not just Peter and James and John, but of all the saints, I'm the least even of them.
But then later on, as he's writing to Timothy, the language shifts from being the worst of the best.
To being the chief of the worst.
He's no longer arguing, I'm the least of the apostles or the least of the saints, but I'm actually the gold medal prize winner of the wretches, of sinners, the worst of the worst.
See, the closer a person walks with God, the more they become aware of God's holiness and, again, the severity, degrees, and depths of their own sinfulness.
C.S. Lewis, in Purging the Poisoned Well Within, writes the following When a man is getting better, he understands more clearly the evil that is still in him.
When a man is getting worse, he understands his own badness less and less.
Let me read that once more.
When a man is getting better, he understands more clearly the evil that is still in him.
When a man is getting worse, he understands his own badness less and less.
I think that perhaps not explicitly, but implicitly, there's an argument.
This very principle could be argued from the particular text of the woman who was caught in the midst of adultery.
That they bring her before Jesus in order to trap him.
It's not about her.
It's not about upholding standards of holiness and being faithful to the law of Moses.
They're simply using her as a pawn in order to trap Jesus because they know that Jesus is abundantly compassionate and merciful.
But they also know that Jesus is righteous and holy.
They're trying to position him in such a way where His sympathy for the woman might tempt him in order to compromise the law of Moses, and then they would be able to prove that he was, in fact, a heretic, that he was a false teacher.
And Jesus kneels down and begins to write in the dirt.
Many people have different speculations in regards to what he was writing.
I'm of the position that it's likely he was writing out the Ten Commandments, or perhaps being God in the flesh, instead of merely writing the Ten Commandments in the general sense, he may have been writing out.
Individual specific sins of the people in the crowd watching.
Maybe in his kindness, just not adding their name to it.
But in either sense, what we see in that particular text is that one by one, the accusers of the women, they turn around and leave.
But what I want to draw out specifically is this that it begins with the older ones and then to the younger ones.
And think about that for a moment, back in light of what.
C.S. Lewis says, I'll read the quote once more.
When a man is getting better, he understands more clearly the evil that is still in him.
When a man is getting worse, he understands his own badness less and less.
Or back to our primary text, the Apostle Paul later in life adopting the language, the label, the name, chief of sinners.
The older men are the ones who turn around and depart first, and then eventually it's the younger men who walk away.
Jesus says, He who is without sin, let him be the one to cast the first stone.
And the younger men are the ones who realize the significance of what Jesus has just said.
It takes them the longest to realize that they're the butt of the joke.
But the older men, they seem to be the ones who realize it much more quickly.
Not just because they're older and they've had more life, more years to actually commit sin.
But likely, part of what's going on in this particular historical event is that these older men not only have more sin to account for because they've lived more years as sinners on the earth, but over the course of time through age, they've not only accrued more sin, but they've become more acutely in tune and aware of their sinfulness.
And this would be a good sign.
We're not called by God to wallow in our sin.
It is an objective fact that if you are in Christ, you are a saint.
You have a new heart.
Even in regards to the doctrine of total depravity within the Reformed tradition, yes, we uphold the doctrine of total depravity, but total depravity does not apply for the Christian.
It doesn't.
The Christian is a new creature in Christ Jesus, he has been born again.
His heart of stone has been removed and has been replaced now with a heart of flesh, a heart that by its very nature is softened and malleable and receptive to the voice of God.
They are now sheep, in a sense, always were, but now sheep that have been found and are in the fold of the shepherd, responding to the shepherd, not only hearing his voice, but loving his voice.
Now, those who are born again, those who have been saved, are still sinners, but not in the same way.
The sin nature has been done away with.
Now, the flesh still remains, and I believe this is precisely what the Apostle Paul addresses in Romans chapter 7.
This sin still resides within the members of my being.
He says, and I believe this is not pre conversion, but this is Paul speaking as a Christian.
He says, So I find this law at work.
That when I want to do good, evil is right there present with me, so that the good that I want to do, this I cannot carry out.
Oh, what a wretched man I am!
Who will save me from this body of death?
And that's key.
He doesn't say, Who will save my soul?
Or Who will replace my heart of stone with a heart of flesh?
No, these things have already occurred, and yet Paul still recognizes that although he has a new heart, although his soul has been justified already, His body is still fallen and in need of redemption.
There is a sense in which Paul is waiting to be saved, although, in the same sense, he recognizes that he has been saved.
Salvation is a big banner.
The simplest way that I could explain it is like this justification, sanctification, glorification.
Justification pertaining to the soul being declared righteous in an instant at the moment of conversion.
Sanctification, the lifelong process in between justification and natural death.
Sanctification is the renewing of the mind.
So, justification speaks to the declaring of righteousness with the soul.
Sanctification, the process of renewing the mind.
And then, glorification is a future salvation and restoration of the body.
Soul, mind, body.
Justification, sanctification, glorification.
And in that sense, we can say, Truthfully, that we have been saved, we are being saved.
Ephesians uses that present tense language being saved, and we will be saved.
And the will be future tense is the way that Paul speaks of salvation in Romans 7 who will save me from this body of death?
He recognizes that his soul has been justified.
His mind, Romans 12, is being no longer conformed to the pattern of this world, but rather transformed, the renewing of his mind daily through the process of sanctification.
And yet, he still recognizes there is still a fullness, a culmination of the salvation that Jesus has purchased for him, that he is yet to receive, that is waiting for him in the future, and that is the glorification of his flesh.
And in the meantime, he recognizes sin still resides within the members of my flesh, that there is, there remains in me, in this life, in this fallen flesh, an inclination, a temptation towards sin, that the flesh has not yet been redeemed.
But the sinful flesh is distinct from the sin nature.
In theological categories, these should not be conflated as one.
The unbeliever has the sinful flesh and the sinful nature.
The believer in this life still has a sinful flesh to make war with, but no longer the sinful nature, but clearly what the Bible teaches a new nature.
And the new nature is not bent on sin.
That's what Paul is speaking to in my inward being.
I delight in the law of God.
Well, that's what David says.
But then Paul arguing, he says, He says that I long to do what is good, but I find this law at work.
That when I want to do good, I genuinely desire to do good, not just a moral, superficial goodness.
But good according to the immutable standard of God, with right intents and right motives, with right heart for God's glory and by His grace.
And yet, even when I want to do that, my flesh is still at war against me.
I want to do good, but cannot carry it out.
Oh, what a wretched man I am who will save me, who will complete my salvation, the fullness, future sense, by redeeming not only my soul, but also my flesh, my body.
If you're in Christ Jesus, you still have.
Sin residing within the members of your flesh.
The three great enemies of the Christian are the world, the devil, and the flesh.
You still have to wage spiritual warfare by the Spirit, walking by the Spirit, that you might not gratify the sinful desires of the flesh.
This is a daily war that the Christian must engage in.
And even though you've been born again and justified and given a new heart, there is still a war against the flesh.
But you do not, if you are in Christ, possess a sin nature.
And so, in that sense, in theological terms, you are not totally depraved.
No longer.
So, when Paul is talking about being the chief of sinners, this is not some masochistic beating of his own flesh, flogging himself.
This is not him saying, Oh, woe is me, I'm as bad as I ever was.
I haven't changed at all.
Of course, he's changed, he was killing Christians.
Now he's a preacher.
It's a substantial change.
Of course, he's changed.
But what he's doing is he's recognizing that although, in objective terms, he has been sanctified and radically improved by the grace of God, in the subjective sense of perception, he is more acutely aware of the severity of his past sin and even the present sin which still remains.
I've used this illustration before, I'll use it once more.
I can't, I'm sure there's a better one, but I've used it so long at this point.
If it ain't broke, you know, don't fix it.
So imagine that following Jesus could be illustrated by Christ in one hand holding a full body mirror and in the other a fire hose.
And you and I, filthy after wallowing in the mud in our sin, are now being closer and closer pulled to Christ.
It's not even just that we're walking towards him.
I think the last time I shared with you guys this illustration, I said maybe, and this illustration, you know, Jesus has a third hand, and with that one, he's got a lasso.
And so he's, you know, fire hose, mirror, and then pulling us in towards him.
And as the Christian born again is getting closer and closer to the Lord, the fire hose, the water of the word is rinsing him, washing him, being washed in the word.
The filth and the grime is actually, in the objective sense, being removed.
You are becoming more Christ like.
Grieved by Remaining Sin00:05:55
You are getting better.
You are being conformed day by day into the image of Christ.
This is true, undeniably true.
But in the very same breath, as you get closer to Jesus and the fire hose, the pressure increases and is blasting away the grime and the filth to where you're actually becoming more, not less, but more clean.
You're also getting closer to the mirror, or you're getting a clearer and clearer view of the filth and the mud that still remains.
And I don't know about you, but that has been my experience in following Jesus year after year after year.
That is actually at times hard to even believe that I'm being sanctified and, in the objective sense, growing, being conformed into the image of Christ's likeness because that second half of the story, the other side of the coin, the subjective sense of perception, I'm becoming so much more aware and not only aware, but grieved.
And burdened by the sin that still remains.
And not only the sin that still remains, but past sins that I know are dead and been buried with Christ and fully forgiven, even the memory of past sins, I'm now aware much more fully of how serious those sins were.
In the moment that I committed those sins, I recognized that they were sins, I recognized that I needed forgiveness, but I didn't realize how serious the sin really was.
And now, later in life, a year later, in some cases, you know, over a decade later, I look back and I'm like, whoa, I knew it was wrong.
I knew I needed forgiveness.
I confessed that sin to the Lord.
I confessed it to saints, to others.
I've been assured of Christ's pardon and forgiveness.
I've repented and, by God's grace, been restored.
That's not the man I am any longer.
And yet, even a past sin grieves me in some ways more today than the day that I committed the sin.
Not because I'm under condemnation, not because it isn't forgiven, and not because I haven't improved, not because I'm still that mayor, but because the softness, by God's grace, the softness of my heart to be pierced and grieved by sin is much more profound at this point of my life than it was when I was younger.
And all that is grieving on the one hand, but on the other, should be a profound and deep encouragement.
Because it is one of the surest fruits of real salvation.
That you have, in fact, been born again.
That you do, in fact, belong to Jesus.
Because you no longer merely acknowledge failure and sin, but you're grieved by it.
And it is, according to 2 Corinthians, godly grief that leads towards repentance and life.
So the Apostle Paul, he begins our text by.
Pointing out not present failures, but past failures.
I'm the least of the apostles, the least of the saints, and in this context, I'm the best of the rebels.
I'm not just the least of the best, the worst of the best.
I'm actually the best of the worst.
I'm the chief of sinners.
But the sin that he recalls to mind are past sins.
That he's a blasphemer, he was a persecutor, an insolent opponent, and yet he uses present tense language.
Not to say that he's actively committing these same sins today.
But to recognize that he is still a sinner saved by grace.
If you're in Christ, you are a saint.
But you're also a sinner.
There is a sense in which we simultaneously hold both of these identities.
This is an age old argument.
All right, are you a sinner?
Is the Christian a sinner or a saint?
Well, I know that the Christian is a saint in terms of forensic justice, in terms of justification by grace alone, through faith alone, and Christ alone, in the courtroom of heaven, that you've been declared righteous.
Not merely innocent, but righteous, clothed in the perfect righteousness of Christ.
So the verdict is saint.
But then you can easily beg the question but do you still sin?
And if so, how often?
Well, yeah, I still sin.
Do you sin every year?
Well, yeah.
Every month?
Yeah.
Every week?
Yeah.
Every day?
Yeah.
I mean, if somebody jogs every day, they're a jogger.
Right?
I mean, I wouldn't want to admit it, you know, but, you know, I jog every day.
I might be a jogger.
Right?
I don't know how you can sin without fail every day and not be a sinner.
But the root of your identity is saint a saint who sins, who still wrestles with the flesh, and the flesh consistently gets the best off.
But here's the irony that I think so many of us miss because of a shallow gospel understanding.
It is precisely the awareness of our sin, both the severity of past sin that is forgiven, not condemnation is forgiven, but the awareness of the severity of past sin and being, in a godly sense, grieved by remaining sin.
The Law Restraints Outward Sin00:09:59
That's what propels us further into sanctification.
That's what drives us to Christ.
And so, here at the end, what I want us to focus on is the first use of the law of God.
We cover this in our liturgy every single Lord's Day.
But we have chosen deliberately to put a specific emphasis on the third use of the law precisely because it's the third use of the law of God that has been so neglected in evangelical churches today.
So, a brief synopsis of the three uses of the law of God.
The first use of the law of God is that the law of God functions as a mirror, it reveals to us the holiness of God, but in seeing God's holiness, by way of consequence, it reveals to us our own sinfulness.
How far we fall short from the holiness of God.
The second use of God's law is that the law of God functions as a shield, that it restrains wickedness.
It works like this in a corporate sense for whole societies and nations, but it also works this way even for the individual.
Romans 1 and particularly Romans 2 speak in this regard that men are created in the image of God.
And though fallen, still there is a vestige of the image of God that remains within the image of God.
Includes rationale, reason, but also the conscience.
Paul, when arguing in Romans chapter 2, says that for the pagan that has not received even a letter or a word of special revelation, a prophet or the scripture, that even for them, their conscience bears testimony against them.
They know instinctively that murder is wrong, that their conscience condemns them because they are an image bearer of the living God.
And so, even at an individual level, the law of God, in its second use as a shield, is it restrains outward manifestations of sin.
It's powerless to change the heart inwardly, but it can restrain the sinful heart from manifesting in terms of outward behavior those sins coming to life.
There are plenty of people that are not born again, they're unregenerate, completely pagan, and actually, in the heart, eagerly desire to murder.
But ultimately, they will not.
On two accounts.
One, the conscience testifying against them, made in the image of God.
Secondly, if they live in a society that has been shaped by God's standards, like ours, the fear of legal punishment will hold that desire at bay.
To where if they could murder and knew for a fact that they would get away with it, perhaps they would.
But because of the standard and the penalties, they're dissuaded.
So that is the law of God, not changing the heart at the inward level, but it is the law of God restraining the outward manifestations of sin, both because of the individual at the level of their conscience, the imago de, and society using the law of God in its legal system to punish those who do evil and reward the righteous.
People are not getting worse in our society today.
Not in the objective inward sense.
The reason that we see more crime is not because people are born in the 2000s with worse hearts than they were in the 1950s.
The heart is just as evil as it ever was, apart from saving grace in Christ alone.
The difference, though, is that now you can walk in with your friends to a store and rob them blind with no consequences.
That's the difference.
It's the erosion of the second use of the law of God, it's not the heart getting worse.
It's the society and its laws being eroded.
So, the law, in its second use as a shield restraining outward manifestations of evil, that shield has a lot of holes in it these days.
Then, the third use of the law of God, which is the one, again, that we emphasize here at Covenant Bible Church, perhaps more than the other two uses combined because it is so neglected in the evangelical church at large today, the third use of God's law is that it is a guide.
First use, mirror.
Second, shield.
Third, compass.
That's perhaps the easiest way that you could remember it.
Mirror, shield, and compass.
The first use of God's law reveals God's holiness by way of consequence, our sinfulness, the need for Christ.
Second use, a shield, not changing the heart inwardly, but outwardly restraining manifestations of evil.
Third, the law of God is a compass, a guide, or as David says in the Psalms, it is a light unto my path, a lamp unto my feet.
That the law of God shows the Christian.
Who has been born again, the way in which to live, the way in which to go, the path that he should take.
And not the path that he should take in order to merit salvation, but the path that he should take, not to salvation, but from salvation.
Having been saved, this is now how I should live, not in order to earn or merit the love of God, but as a response of gratitude for the free grace I've received in Christ alone.
That's the third use of the law.
That even for the Christian, the law still has a use.
That the law still sets the standard.
It's still the compass.
It's still the guide.
It points.
It's the North Star showing us the direction.
Legalism says, obey God's law and you'll be saved.
But the Bible says, obey God's law because you have been saved.
Evangelicals today say, to mention God's law at all is legalism.
No longer under law but grace.
Let's never preach the law at all.
Amen.
Go home.
Be lawless.
And that's why we preach the law, because that is most sermons today.
The law is ridiculed.
But for this morning, Paul's emphasis is not on the third use of the law of God, the way in which we should walk, having been saved by grace through faith in Christ.
And it's not the second use of the law.
All these, by way of implication, could be found, but that's not the emphasis.
The second use of the law as a shield restraining both the individual and societies as a whole from outward manifestations of evil.
No, the emphasis, the headline of our text today, is the first use of the law of God.
That in looking into the law of God, his perfect holiness and righteousness, Paul now sees with abundant clarity his immense and severe sinfulness.
And when we see God's holiness for what it is, and we see by way of contrast our sinfulness for what it truly is, then what we recognize is the infinite chasm that exists between us and God apart from Christ.
See, when the law of God is preached rightly, not watered down, not the standard lowered so that you wouldn't feel bad on your way home.
And it's preached truly and rightly that God is thrice holy.
Holy, holy, holy.
And when the sins, not just sins of old, but the sins of today, are addressed from the scripture, from the pulpit, not just beating the dead horse, right?
Sins are usually preached 50 years after that sin has already been addressed and done.
Have you noticed how peculiar it is that now we want to preach about racism?
That would have been super helpful like a hundred years ago.
But we don't want to preach about feminism.
Right?
And by God's grace, if we win that battle, you know what?
There'll be pastors lining up to preach sermons about how bad feminism is after it's already been slain, once it's safe.
And a lot of pastors like to wield the sword at a dragon that's already been killed.
Right?
They go up to its dead, bloated carcass.
Decades after the dragon was actually killed, and they pretend and jab it in the stomach, you know, and like, look at me, sword fighting, fighting the enemy.
It's like, it's a dead enemy, dude.
Somebody else killed it.
And all the guys who killed it, by the way, you would excommunicate from your churches today.
Talking about how much you like Martin Luther?
Please.
Have you read Martin Luther?
You would have kicked him out of your church.
Oh, you like John Calvin?
You would have excommunicated John Calvin.
But churches that preach the law of God rightly, not minimizing God's holiness and applying the law of God specifically on the sins of the day.
The reason why it matters and the reason why it's good, not only right, but good and loving, is because what it does is it paints a picture of the holiness of God accurately and the sinfulness of man accurately to where the chasm in between God and man widens rather than shrinking, it grows.
Forgiven Much, Love Much00:06:13
And the reason why that's a very loving thing to do is because if the chasm between you and God grows, Well, then the cross which bridges the gap grows.
You have a bigger gospel.
You have a bigger Savior.
And those who have been forgiven, not little, as Jesus said, those who have been forgiven little, they love little, but those who have been forgiven much, loveth much.
Now, the reality is for all those who are in Christ Jesus, you have been forgiven of all your sin.
And in all our cases, our sin is much.
In the objective sense, there's not one Christian who has ever been forgiven little, all have been forgiven much.
But again, Jesus is speaking to the perception, the subjective sense.
Those who recognize, sure, you've all been forgiven much, but not all of us recognize the full depth of that forgiveness.
And the reason why we miss the sheer magnitude of God's grace in the gospel is because we miss how holy God is and how sinful we are.
If you miss God's holiness and you miss man's sinfulness, you miss Christ's forgiveness.
And the irony is that the forgiveness of Christ, his assurance of pardon, the gospel of free grace, is the very wind in our sails that drives us towards obedience to God's law in its third use.
The person who is following the light to their path and the lamp to their feet, that's a person who's radically been changed and impacted by the free grace of Jesus and the forgiveness of sins.
The reason why we always say David was a man after God's own heart despite his sin with Bathsheba.
No.
Now, David was a man after God's own heart precisely because of his sin with Bathsheba.
That sin, along with a litany of others, it's not the only one, but it's profound sins like that that made David cling so closely to Christ.
It's not that he loved God despite his sin, he loved God for his forgiveness in light of his sin.
Like the woman who's using her tears to wash the feet of Jesus and her hair to dry.
She does this, why?
Because her sins are many.
And she knows her sins are many.
But there's something there, there's an application there.
Because that woman, her sins, in one sense, were no more many than the sins of the religious rulers of Jesus' day.
In fact, you could argue, in some sense, perhaps even less, at least she didn't have the sin of self righteousness.
These other guys, Jesus even says, You did nothing for me.
You've exercised no real hospitality.
I came into your house.
You gave me nothing.
You didn't wash my feet.
But since she's entered the room, she has not ceased to weep and wash my feet with her tears and dry them with her hair.
Her sins are many.
Now, Jesus is telling them to their face, So are yours, namely the sin you're committing right now by ignoring the Messiah.
The sin you're committing right now by your arrogance, pride, and self righteousness.
So, there's a very real sense in which these Pharisees and Sadducees are just as sinful as a woman, perhaps even more.
But why is she so profoundly broken by her sin and therefore driven in her worship of the Savior?
Because she had the sins that were despised of the day.
She had the sins that all of society agreed on were sinful.
I'll just make it really clear.
I like to apply this is how I get in trouble.
This one was the equivalent of somebody who got caught on social media saying something that was actually racist.
But then Jesus enters the scene and says, I love racists and I forgive you.
That person stands a high likelihood of washing the feet of Jesus with immense devotion and gratitude for who he is.
Whereas in the meantime, a litany of other professing Christians are worshiping women instead of Christ.
Never engaging in the sin of racism, but drinking the sin of feminism by the bucket load, not driven in a profound sense of humility and contrition of heart, knowing that Christ and His forgiveness alone is the only hope that they have, because even though they are, in the objective sense, just as sinful, if not perhaps even more than the repentant racist, their sin is not the sin of the day.
Their sin isn't the one that's been deemed a pariah.
Paul is acutely aware of his past sin.
And although each passing day puts his past sin further in his past, he becomes, as he's sanctified into the image of Christ, more and more aware of how serious that sin was.
And more and more acutely aware of sin that may be smaller than blaspheming or persecuting the church.
But still, as he becomes more sanctified, even the small sins grieve him more deeply.
And the final thing that we see in our text is this that as Paul is being sanctified, and this is the life of all Christians, indicative of all of us, not just the Apostle Paul, as he's growing in Christ's likeness, becoming more sensitive in his heart, more softened, more grieved by his sin, sins of old and sins of the present.
It all culminates in our text in verse 17.
Right Theology Fuels True Worship00:02:11
To the king of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever.
Amen.
And this isn't just Paul being Paul, because sometimes, you know what?
It's easy to look over these verses.
So, yeah, that's what Paul does.
He's making a really good logical point from the scripture, or he's exegeting some Old Testament text and making sense of it.
And then he has these random verses where he's like, God, God, I love you, God, I love you.
You're very immortal.
You're, you know.
Now, you can't skip over that.
It's not a platitude.
It's not Paul just being, you know, exercising his public piety for altars.
No.
Paul, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, cannot help himself that when he writes a theological truth, particularly a gospel truth that is so profound and so moving, he cannot help but be moved into doxology.
See, write theology.
Particularly, right theology, the holiness of God, the sinfulness of man, and the grace of Christ that bridges the gap, it always leads towards right doxology, that is, worship.
Those who believe rightly should live rightly and worship rightly.
It's not random, it's not a coincidence that churches that have bad theology also tend to have bad doxology.
Churches that have bad theology, weak preaching, usually have weak worship.
The preaching is shallow, the worship is sensual.
But when the preaching is true, when the preaching is right, and when the preaching doesn't just address the things that we're called to do in obedience, but also addresses not just the third use of the law, how then shall we live, having been saved by grace, but also the first use of the law, the sin which still remains, you are a sinner and need of the grace of God, the continual, ongoing grace of God, when sermons are preached like that.
With true biblical theology, it always will fuel right true biblical doxology.
Remembrance Leads to Thanksgiving00:04:20
Nothing motivates the heart to praise and thanksgiving like a fresh realization and remembrance of our sin.
That we were utterly and completely lost and without hope in the world.
That all the things that we see in our society today, as terrible as it is, and such were some of you.
Apart from Jesus and his changing power.
The difference between you and the pagan is not that you made a wise and calculated decision, and it's not the sheer power of the will.
It is not the doctrine of sola bootstrapia and the gritting of your teeth.
It is the grace of God that changes sinners into saints and does so in such a way that the saints do not become proud, but they constantly.
Remember their sinfulness, not that they might wallow in pity, but that it might cause them to exult in God's grace.
Thomas Goodwin, he said it like this.
I think it's applicable for all of us, but it certainly applies for me.
When I was threatening to become cold in my ministry, and when I felt Sabbath morning coming and my heart not filled with amazement at the grace of God, or when I was making ready to dispense the Lord's Supper, do you know what I used to do?
I used to take a turn up and down among the sins of my past life.
And I always came down again with a broken and contrite heart, ready to preach, as I preached in the beginning, the forgiveness of sins.
I do not think I ever went up to the pulpit stair that I did not stop for a moment at the foot of it and take a turn up and down among the sins of my past years.
I do not think that I ever planned a sermon that I did not take a turn around my study table and look back at the sins of my youth.
And all my life down to the present, and many a Sabbath morning when my soul had been cold and dry for the lack of prayer during the week, a turn up and down in my past life before I went into the pulpit always broke my hard heart and made me close with the gospel for my own soul before I began to preach it to others.
Let's pray.
Father, we thank you for the gospel of Jesus Christ.
And we thank you that in the objective sense, there is no record of our sins being held against us.
For those who are in Christ Jesus, there is now, therefore, no more condemnation.
You do not hold our sins against us, they have been nailed to the cross.
But we remember our sins.
And it is good that we remind ourselves of these things from which you have saved us.
That it might propel our hearts into further and further praise and doxology and worship, but also obedience.
Your law reveals our sin, it reveals your holiness and the chasm in between.
The gospel bridges the gap, but then the gospel propels us to go back to your law with newfound vigor, seeking to obey.
Grace and law, grace and law, like two pedals on a bicycle, working perfectly in concert with one another.
Help us to love your law, to love it as a compass guiding us in the way we should live, but never to forget the first use of your law, that it doesn't just tell us how to live, but it reminds us of how we already have lived and we have failed.
But that you were merciful and gracious to us, and that Christ came to save sinners of whom we are the foremost.
Thank you for this gospel.
Use it to motivate us to live the lives that are worthy of the gospel for your glory and for the good of your people.