The Rescue [Part 2]

Pastor, author, and Bible teacher, Alan Wright. I think the important thing here is that there's a distinction between seeking answers and seeking God.

There's a distinction, a difference between seeking blessing for our lives and seeking out the person of God, a difference between seeking God and seeking what He might do for you. That's Pastor Alan Wright. Welcome to another message of good news that will help you see your life in a whole new light.

I am Daniel Britt, excited for you to hear the teaching today in the series we call, O Bologna, a study of Romans chapters one through three, as presented at Reynolda Church in North Carolina. Now, if you're not able to stay with us throughout the entire program, we sure want to make sure you know how to get our special resource right now. It can be yours for your donation this month to Alan Wright Ministries. So as you listen to today's message, go deeper as we send you today's special offer, and you can contact us at PastorAlan.org. That's PastorAlan.org, or call 877-544-4860.

That's 877-544-4860. More on that later in the program. But now let's get started with today's teaching.

Here is Alan Wright. You put a baby in a crib, and when the baby wakes up and the baby is hungry, there's only one way the baby will be fed, and that is that someone comes to her rescue. So in a real sense, every single one of us has been rescued a thousand times, because if someone had not come to you and fed you and changed you and cared for you, then you would have never, ever made it. We're all in the same predicament naturally, and what we see in Romans chapter 3 is Paul building his argument. This logical and beautiful flow of thought that is going to carry us on to Romans 8 and then carry us on to chapters about how then we shall live. When we discover how freeing it is that there's no condemnation for Christ and the power of a Spirit-filled life. But now in Romans 3, he's taking what he has taught at the end of Romans 1 and throughout Romans 2, and he's putting this together, and he's beginning to coalesce, he's beginning to see this as we begin to understand that all have sinned, that all are in a predicament. In a sense, what he's saying is that we're very much like those trapped boys in that cave. In a spiritual sense, that our sin has caused us to have such a massive separation from God and that none of us, none of us can make our way back to God.

None of us can save ourselves, and we need a rescue. Let's pick this up and look at it paragraph by paragraph, starting at verse 1. Then what advantage has the Jew, or what is the value of circumcision, much in every way? To begin with, the Jews were entrusted with the oracles of God.

So Paul has previously talked about the outward sign of the covenant, circumcision, as something that some of his Jewish readers may have put trust in, that the outward and the external is some kind of guarantee of my relationship with God. And he's made the point, he said, no, it's not the outside, it's the inside, and it's the work of God inside of us. And so now he turns it essentially, he said, well, is there an advantage if you were in the people, the Hebrew people? He said, yes, he says there is, because they were given the very revelation of God of the Torah and the prophets. They were given wisdom. So there's nothing bad, he says, about being given the good gift of God's word, and there's nothing bad about God. And so God never gives bad gifts.

And so the fact that the Jewish people had the law, it was a good gift. And this is important if you're going to understand everything he has to say in Romans by the time we get into chapters 5 and 6 and 7. Romans chapter 3, verse 3. What if some were unfaithful? Does their faithlessness nullify the faithfulness of God?

By no means. Let God be true, though everyone were a liar, as it's written, that you may be justified in your words and prevail when you're judged. So what Paul's saying here, if God was good and faithful in giving his word, given his law, but people were unfaithful to the law, does that mean that God's gift wasn't faithful and good? Does in fact the unfaithfulness of the people mean that God somehow is unfaithful?

And Paul says, no. In fact, the unfaithfulness of the people is actually accentuating the faithfulness of God. There's a way in which the sin of the people is making God's truth shine all the more. Verse 5. But if our unrighteousness serves to show the righteousness of God, what shall we say? That God is unrighteous to inflict wrath on us? I speak in a human way.

By no means. For then how could God judge the world? But if through my lie God's truth abounds to his glory, why am I still being condemned as a sinner?

And why not do evil that good may come, as some slanderously charge us with saying that their condemnation is just? So here Paul is saying, if you say that my unfaithfulness puts God's faithfulness on display, that in a sense my sin actually makes God's glory shine all the more, then God shouldn't judge me because of my sin because it's actually serving to glorify God. And Paul says, no, that's nonsense. It's utterly illogical to say that. So it's illogical to say that because God's word was righteous, but some people were unfaithful, that there's something unfaithful about God. And it's equally illogical to say that because your unfaithfulness puts God's faithfulness on display, that somehow you shouldn't need to be judged. Verse nine, what then? Are we Jews any better off?

No, not at all. For we have already charged that all both Jews and Greeks are under sin as it's written. None is righteous. No, not one. No one understands. No one seeks God. All have turned aside together. They've become worthless. No one does good.

Not even one. So what Paul is saying is to the Jewish people that if you think that you're under somehow a different relationship with God because you had the law or because you had circumcision, you say no, here's what he's been leading to in chapter 2 also. Every single person, he says, is under sin. All. It means that they're not some that have the capacity to in some way save themselves because they are better than other people. He's saying we're all in the exact same predicament. All are lost and need to be found. All are trapped and can't escape on their own.

All are stuck with their own selfishness and their own blinders and cannot escape except they have a rescuer. So what we're seeing here is that there really are two categories of person. There are those that are under sin and those that are under grace. And to be under sin is not really talking about the individual sins. Yes, some people commit more heinous sins than other people. That's true. Not everybody lives an equally moral or immoral life.

That's true. But what Paul is saying here is this condition of sin, which you can think of is separation from God because of spiritual deadness on the inside of us. Spiritual blindness.

Can't see. We're all, he says, under sin. We're all in that condition.

And this goes far to explain, therefore, why in a deep sense, though we don't all live the same morally equivalent life, we're all in the same condition. So like these boys, 12 of them and a coach, and they were under a monsoon. They were under a flood. They were entrapped. It was dark. It was completely flooded. They had no oxygen mask.

They had no food. Now, I don't know if any of these boys were good swimmers. I don't know if some of them couldn't swim at all. But let's just say that they had varying abilities to swim. And maybe there's one boy who he can't swim. And so if he starts to try to swim through the murky, heavy currents of the flood waters in the cave, then he might not make it 10 feet before he drowns because he can't swim. And let's say there's another boy, and he is a pretty good swimmer. He's spent time swimming in the surf and in the lakes, and he knows how to manage himself. And maybe he could probably swim 100 yards without being too exhausted if it was still water. But this is two and a half miles. And so he tries to swim and can't make it more than 100 yards before he drowns. But let's say that there is a boy, maybe the oldest one in there, 16-year-old, was an excellent swimmer, national caliber, potential Olympian swimmer, who is the kind of swimmer that could swim as well as anybody in the world, perhaps.

And he could, on a calm day in good waters where he can catch his breath and has air to lift his head up, he could swim for miles. But this isn't that situation. to be more like Jesus ultimately fail for the same reason that pledging to keep the law never works. There is no gospel power in our self-striving. But what if the secret to personal transformation and victorious living isn't found in doing as much as in seeing? Anyone who has ever had an aha moment or has suddenly discovered the truth of a situation knows that fresh vision changes everything. In his eye-opening new book, Alan Wright invites readers into a new, simple spiritual practice, a little breath prayer that can be prayed throughout the day. Jesus, how do you see this?

It's a prayer that the Savior loves to answer because after all, Christ came to be the light of the world. Clear away confusion, win over the darkness, and open your heart to wonder and joy by getting your copy of the book right away. When you make a gift to Alan Wright Ministries today, we'll send you Pastor Alan's new, beautiful hardcover book. And as an additional thank you for your support, you'll also receive a free six-week Seeing as Jesus Sees companion video series from Pastor Alan, along with a study guide and a daily reading plan. Let Jesus take you by the hand and show you a whole new perspective for your life. As you learn how to ask Christ for his eyes, you'll start seeing as Jesus sees.

And you're going to love the view. The gospel is shared when you give to Alan Wright Ministries. This broadcast is only possible because of listener financial support.

When you give today, we will send you today's special offer. We are happy to send this to you as our thanks from Alan Wright Ministries. Call us at 877-544-4860. That's 877-544-4860. Or come to our website, PastorAlan.org.

Today's teaching now continues. Here once again is Alan Wright. This is a situation where there is no air. This is a situation two and a half miles of complete darkness through waters that you can't navigate. So even the best swimmer, if he swam, maybe he could make it a half a mile before he would drown. But the point being is they were all in the same predicament. No matter the good swimmer, the poor swimmer, or that in between, they had the same predicament. They can't make it out.

They would all drown if they try to get out by their own effort. I think this is what Paul's saying. It may be some people you see, and they do a lot of good things with their life.

And morally, they ethically seem to be far better than other people who do horrible things with their life. But in the end, because the gulf of separation between us and God, because the spiritual poverty of every single person, and because we are without God's grace spiritually dead on the inside, and we can't make ourselves alive, it's too great. No one can be as holy as God, and no one can meet the perfect standards of the law. And so all are under sin, he says.

It doesn't matter how good one is. So Jew and Gentile are in the same predicament. And then at verse 11, look at this, because it is at first shocking, he says this, no one understands, no one seeks for God. It's such a strong statement to say that no one's seeking, seeking, because don't we know people are seeking? Isn't this why people dabble in all the different religions and things and have different ideologies? Aren't people seeking? And don't we sometimes just call them seekers? I think the important thing here is that there's a distinction between seeking answers and seeking God.

There's a distinction, a difference between seeking blessing for our lives and seeking out the person of God, a difference between seeking God and seeking what he might do for you. The Prince of Preachers, Charles Spurgeon, once told a story of a king, a farmer, and a nobleman that once upon a time, this king ruled over everything, had a humble gardener. And that gardener grew an enormous carrot and was so proud of the carrot that he took it to the king and he said, my Lord, this is the greatest carrot I've ever grown or ever will grow. And I want to present it to you as a token of my love and respect for you, my king. And the king was so touched by what this humble gardener on his property did that the king said, you're such a good steward.

And I'm so proud of you. And I'm so thankful that I want to give you your own plot of land to farm as freely as you want and provide for you and for your family and for your descendants. And so the gardener was amazed and delighted and went home rejoicing. There was a nobleman in the king's court who overheard this whole matter. And so he thought, wow, if that's what you get for a carrot, what might you get for the king if you brought him something bigger? And so he brought to the king his finest horse and presented the big stallion to the king and said, I breed horses and this is the best horse I've ever bred.

Take it as a token of my love and respect for you. And the king said, well, thank you. And he dismissed the nobleman. The nobleman was perplexed and the king realized what was going on. So he explained, he said, the farmer, the gardener was giving me a carrot, but you were giving yourself a horse.

There's a huge difference. I think what Paul's saying between knowing God and loving God for who God is and merely seeking benefits from God. So to say, no one seeks God is not to say that no one's looking for answers, but it's to say that there's a way in which the spiritual blinders of our lives prevent us in our sin from actually knowing God, how can you seek that which you have not seen or know about? Verse 13, their throat is an open grave. They use their tongues to deceive.

The venom of asps is under their lips. Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood and their paths are ruined and misery and the way of peace they've not known. Tongues and lips and mouths and curses and bitterness and violence and wrong path and no peace. This is Paul talking about what theologians call total depravity. It doesn't mean that everything that we do is sinful, but it means that every part of our being has been tainted by sin. Every part of ourselves, the way we think, the way we speak, where we do with our lives, all of it has been clouded. John Calvin said, it's as if we are born in sin and we're wearing these sin tainted spectacles. That everything that you see, you look at it through the lens of your own selfishness. You look at it through the lens of sin and you can't see therefore accurately. How could you see God? How could you see anything accurately if it's all being filtered through your own sin?

That's what total depravity means. It means therefore that something has to happen miraculous. It means you need some new lenses. It means that somebody has got to open up your eyes.

It means that you need rescuing. And at verse 18, we read, there is no fear of God before their eyes. We know the Proverbs says, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Always like what my uncle Stanley said, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, but not the end. And it's not fear in the sense of being afraid of God, in the sense of you are concerned that He is bad and that therefore He cannot be trusted.

And that therefore He cannot be trusted. It is much more related to amazement that your soul is in such reverence for God and all of His sovereignty and goodness. Psalm 130, verse three, if you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? But with you, there's forgiveness that you may be feared. So to have the fear of God is to respect so much that God is the giver of life, and that it's only through Him that forgiveness can come, that it turns you away from every lesser priority. John Gerstner said that we're too much like a thirsting man in a desert who has begun to see mirages and imagines an oasis, imagines water sources that do not exist, and is pursuing the mirage, not knowing that there is real water close by.

The mirage keeps you from the real. And this is part of what Paul is saying and building up here in Romans 3, is that therefore if you realize what is a mirage, you then have a happy day. Alan Wright, our Good News message, the rescue from the series, O Bologna.

It's a study of Romans chapters one through three, the first few chapters. Hey, stay with us. Pastor Alan is back joining me in the studio, sharing his part in Good News Thought for the day in just a moment. But what if the secret to personal transformation and victorious living isn't found in doing as much as in seeing? Anyone who has ever had an aha moment or has suddenly discovered the truth of a situation knows that fresh vision changes everything. In his eye-opening new book, Alan Wright invites readers into a new, simple spiritual practice, a little breath prayer that can be prayed throughout the day. Jesus, how do you see this?

It's a prayer that the Savior loves to answer because after all, Christ came to be the light of the world. Clear away confusion, win over the darkness and open your heart to wonder and joy by getting your copy of the book right away. When you make a gift to Alan Wright Ministries today, we'll send you Pastor Alan's new beautiful hardcover book. And as an additional thank you for your support, you'll also receive a free six weeks seeing as Jesus sees companion video series from Pastor Alan, along with a study guide and a daily reading plan. Let Jesus take you by the hand and show you a whole new perspective for your life.

As you learn how to ask Christ for his eyes, you'll start seeing as Jesus sees, and you're going to love the view. The gospel is shared when you give to Alan Wright Ministries. This broadcast is only possible because of listener financial support.

When you give today, we will send you today's special offer. We are happy to send this to you as our thanks from Alan Wright Ministries. Call us at 877-544-4860.

That's 877-544-4860. Or come to our website, PastorAlan.org. Back here in the studio to share Pastor Alan's parting good news thought for the day. And you know, it's probably the plot of every good adventure movie. You got to have a good rescue. Well, life's certainly no movie.

And in that sense, we do need a real rescue. And that's what Paul's talking about here. Every single person Paul's talking about, no one understands, no one seeks for God. That's what he says in Romans 3.

He's saying just because you're Jewish or just because you're a Gentile, it doesn't put you in a different category. Every single person has fallen short of the glory of God. Every single person is in the same predicament. And so like those boys in the cave that they finally had to realize, we can't make it out of here by ourselves. And to try would be certain death.

And that's a beginning point. That's a beginning point is just to say, God, I need you. And if you've never done that before, you could tell them today, God, I need you to rescue me. And if you have, and you're a child of God, still you live with a sense of unbelievable gratitude for the rescue that's taken place, for the salvation of your soul, and for all that Jesus has done.

And you still live that way. God, I can't do it on my own. I need you.

And it's a beautiful image to keep in mind. We once were trapped, but he gave his all to deliver us. Thanks for listening today. Visit us online at pastorallen.org or call 877-544-4860.

That's 877-544-4860. If you only caught part of today's teaching, not only can you listen again online, but also get a daily email devotional that matches today's teaching delivered right to your email inbox free. Find out more about these and other resources at pastorallen.org. That's pastorallen.org. Today's good news message is a listener supported production of Allen Wright Ministries.