Romans Chapter 3:10-21

The Ten Commandments can't save you. Doing good can't save you. The law can't save you. Having mostly good behavior can't save you.

Not being as bad as the next guy can't save you. The law of God, as Paul points out, was so we understand we can't be justified by our actions and that the law shows us that we stand guilty. Welcome to Cross the Bridge with David McGee. David is the senior pastor of the bridge in Kernersville, North Carolina. Even the best person stands condemned under the law. Find out more about the hope we have in Jesus today as Pastor David continues in the book of Romans chapter 3. But before we get into today's teaching, from beginning to end, the Bible shows the special nature of God's relationship with the nation of Israel.

But what does that have to do with you today? Romans chapter 11 tells us that God's covenant relationship with Israel has huge implications for you. To help you understand more, Pastor David wants to send you his teaching video recorded in the Holy Land called Israel, the Bible, and You. This powerful resource will encourage and strengthen you as you learn how connected you are with God's chosen people. Israel, the Bible, and You is our gift to thank you for your donation to help more people on this station and beyond cross the bridge from death to life. So visit crossthebridge.com to request your copy.

Again, that's crossthebridge.com. Now here's David McGee with part 3 of his teaching, God is Seeking You. Turn with me to Romans chapter 3.

We've talked about the fact that this has been a life-changing book, altered the course of not only church history but human history through Martin Luther and the fires of the Reformation. And same Holy Spirit, same Word of God is here today to change our lives. So Romans chapter 3, we'll pick it up with verse 10.

That's where we left it off last week. But pick it up with verse 10. It says, as it is written, there is none righteous, no, not one. Verse 11, there is none who understands. There is none who seeks after God. They have all turned aside. They have together become unprofitable.

There is none who does good, no, not one. Verse 13, their throat is an open tomb. With their tongues they have practiced deceit.

The poison of asp is under their lips. Paul is quoting here from different places in the Hebrew Scriptures. Here it's from Psalm chapter 10 verse 7. It says, his mouth is full of cursing, deceit, and oppression, and under his tongue is trouble and iniquity. Another place he's going to quote from is Psalm chapter 5 verse 9. It says, but there is no faithfulness in their mouth.

Their inward part is destruction. Their throat is an open tomb and they flatter with their tongue. And then Psalm chapter 140 verse 3. It says, they sharpen their tongues like a serpent.

The poison of asp is under their lips. Well, let's see if it gets better in verse 14, whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood. Verse 16, destruction and misery are in their ways, and the way of peace they have not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes. He is quoting from the Hebrew Scriptures. Psalm 36 one says, an oracle within my heart concerning the transgression of the wicked.

There is no fear of God before his eyes. Isaiah chapter 59 verse 7 and 8 says, their feet run to evil and they make haste to shed innocent blood. Their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity. Wasting and destruction are in their paths. The way of peace they have not known, and there is no justice in their ways. They have made themselves crooked paths. Whoever takes that way shall not know peace.

Verse 19 says, now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, and here's the key, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. See, this is Paul. He's building this discussion beautifully, masterfully. Brailling this discussion, he says, okay, now you're all guilty.

And then he mentions our mouth, he mentions our bench towards destruction, he mentions all these things, and you're going, oh, man, I'm a mess. Now, the world system, psychology, psychiatry, that's basically, they can only lead you to that point of saying, wow, you're really messed up. Okay, your time's up.

Well, you know, you've got to leave now. They take it to that point, they can't really fix you or heal you. That's not God's intent. God's intent is not for you to sit in front of him and realize how messed up you are and stop there. But, friend, that is part of the process, because once you realize, you know what, I am messed up, then you realize that you need a savior, that it's not actually that you just want Jesus. The fact is you need Jesus.

You don't just want a savior. You need a savior, friend, because without a savior, without that forgiveness, you're in trouble, because we're really, you know, that book came out a few years ago, I'm okay, you're okay. We're not okay. You're not okay. I'm not okay. We're all really being honest. We're all really messed up.

That's the bad news. Now, at this point, don't sit in here and defend yourself. I'm not saying, you know, I'm not walking, I'm not going, well, you guys are really messed up. Me, I'm okay. I'm okay. You're messed up.

I'm coming out with a new book. Now, I'm saying we're, you and I, we're messed up. Now, at this moment, what you can do is you can sit there and go, I'm not messed up. I used to be messed up. I'm not messed up anymore. Yes, you are. You're still messed up.

You're still in need of God. But what happens is the moment we get to this point, oh, it gets a little uncomfortable, doesn't it? To confess, well, I'm messed up.

So what do we do? We say, I'm messed up and I'm responsible. No, we say, well, I'm messed up. And here's a list of the people that are responsible.

It's not me. It was my parents is why I'm so messed up. Because my parents were messed up. Yes, they were messed up. You're messed up. We're all messed up. You're not messed up because they messed you up. You're just messed up.

I just saved some of you thousands of dollars. Because we begin to say, well, it's this, it's that. It's not me. It's this other person. It's this other event that happened in my life. Friend, no, no, no, no.

Right here it says that every mouth may be stopped. See, because maybe bad things did happen to you. Maybe some things did happen that kind of impacted you and shaped you and maybe pointed you in the wrong direction. But you still had the choice. You still chose those things. You still chose to go down that path. You still, like I did, chose bad things, bad decisions. And that leaves you responsible for those decisions. You can't turn to God and go, well, God, you made me this way.

No, no, no. God made you with the gift of choice. So you can choose to do right, unfortunately. Most of us don't exercise that choice, especially in and of ourselves.

We choose bad things. And then we try to blame other people. With somebody else's fault.

Oh, there's a whole industry around that, right? It's so-and-so's fault. It's so-and-so's fault. It's not my fault. This is my parents' fault. Somebody else's. This is my grandparents' fault. This is just not my fault.

Look at the lawsuits that go on in this country. Here's, you know, I came across some actual warning labels that I thought were very interesting, dealing with this blame-shifting thing. Here's one. Caution. Hot beverages are hot. It says that on a coffee cup. Do you know why it says that on a coffee cup? Because somebody burned themselves and sued McDonald's. Because they said, I didn't know the coffee was hot. Hot coffee is on the menu. Oh, it gets better.

Here's another warning label. Cape does not enable where to fly. That's from Batman, the animated series armor set. So do you understand what happened? Some, hopefully a child, hopefully it wasn't an adult who put the cape on and jumped off the roof and then said, I'm suing you guys. You didn't tell me.

I couldn't fly if I put this thing on. It's actually not my problem, not my wrongdoing. It's your wrongdoing. Here's another one. Warning, never iron clothes on the body. These are actual warning labels. Because somewhere, somebody took an iron while they had the shirt on and burned themselves and then said, it's not my fault. I'm suing. Here's another one I'll just throw in.

It's less blame-shifting. It says, warning has been found to cause cancer in laboratory mice. That's a thing of rat poison.

When you use rat poison, you're probably hoping for something a little quicker than causing cancer in the mice over 10 or 20 years, I'm guessing, but anyway. But here's the last one. Caution, never drive with a cover on your windshield. You realize those shade things, they actually say that? Do you know why they say that? Because somewhere, somebody drove their car with that in place and ran into somebody, had an accident, and then what did they do? They didn't say, well, God, that was so silly. I really should have moved that. They said, I'm suing the company.

They should have told me that you're supposed to take that off before you start driving. It's really not my fault. It's their fault. And we find those comicals.

But here's the reality. We all want to do that. We all want to shift blame. Well, it's not me. It's the other person's fault. We do that. We weave that into apologies sometimes, don't we? I taught my children that when they apologize, just apologize and end with a period. But you understand sometimes in apologies, we blame shift? You know, I'm sorry I said that to you, but you really shouldn't have said that to me. Now, is that really an apology?

It's not. Because what I'm saying is, you know, I'm sorry I said that, but the reason I said that is because you said this to me. I really shouldn't have said that, but you really shouldn't have done that. Friend, you can't apologize and use the word but in the same thing.

You can't do it. An apology ends with a period. I'm sorry I said that, period.

Not, I'm sorry I said that because you did this or you did that because while you're doing that, what are you doing? Oh, masterfully, you're blame shifted. It's not really me.

It's really you. You caused me to do that. You caused me to stumble.

You caused me to say that. So we all have to get to the point where our mouths are closed before God and say, God, I'm guilty. I've not done everything right. I've done things wrong.

What do I do now? And the law, the word of God, wants to get us to that point because if you think that you're righteous by yourself and your own actions that you're a do-gooder who mostly does things well and don't mess up, you're not going to realize you need saving. You're not going to realize you need Jesus. So you've got a choice, self-righteous or righteous by Jesus. The question is which one will you choose?

Which one will you choose? To declare yourself righteous or say, Jesus, I need your righteousness? You're listening to Pastor David McGee on Cross the Bridge. He'll be back with more powerful insight from God's Word in just a moment. But first, God's grace and mercy is greater than any of us could ever fathom. That's why he's been so faithful to the nation of Israel throughout the ages.

And he's not finished. He's promised to remain true to them to the end. We want to show you what God's faithfulness toward Israel says about his relationship with you by sending you Pastor David's teaching video, Israel, the Bible and You. In this exciting teaching recorded in the heart of the Holy Land, Pastor David unpacks important truths from God's relationships with Israel that impact your life today. Israel, the Bible and You is our gift to thank you for your donation to help more people on this station and beyond cross the bridge from death to life. So visit crossthebridge.com to request yours. Again, that website is crossthebridge.com. This is Pastor David McGee with Cross the Bridge.

You know, I want to thank you for listening to Cross the Bridge. I also want to tell you about an exciting website. The website is lostlovedones.org and it works very simply like this. You go to the website and you put the first names of up to 10 people that we begin praying that they get saved. Now it takes two things to get saved, presentation and prayer. And what we're offering is prayer and also there's different tools there to help you present the gospel to them. So we're there with you, helping you with the presentation, helping you with the prayer.

There's over 920 people that belong to the prayer team on Lost Loved Ones and you can join the prayer team as well and help us to pray for others who don't yet know Jesus and together we can see a huge revival starting with your lost loved ones. Now, back to today's teaching. Verse 20 continues, it says, Therefore by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in his sight. For by the law is the knowledge of sin. In other words, you can't do something, a good deed, and all of a sudden all is okay. That's not the way it works. If you've ever got a speeding ticket and you went in front of the judge and just, okay, well, you're doing 75 and 55. You can't sit there and go, well, judge, you know what?

There's a lot of times in my life that I've gone the speed limit. So this should be okay. That doesn't make sense, does it?

No, it doesn't. But do you realize that's what we do with the Lord? We say, well, yeah, yeah, I did that wrong, but I'm mostly a good person. I mostly haven't done a lot of bad things. I've done some bad things, but I'm mostly a good person.

So, therefore, you should just forget those things because, you know, I'm mostly good. A lot of times a lot of churches, that's kind of what they teach. Hey, you know what you got to do? You got to hope that your good outweighs your bad. Is that really what the Bible says? It's not what the Bible says. The Bible says, you know what? Your good will never outweigh your bad.

It's not going to happen. See, because once you mess up, the scales are forever tilted. The Bible says if you've messed up in one place, you've broken the law in every place.

And this verse leads us to the place that says, you know what? This is what it's for, for us to recognize we can't be justified in this site. And that whole argument is, well, I've done some things. You know, what if you went in front of the judge being accused of murder? You killed somebody. You're in front of the judge and the judge says, well, you know, what's your defense? And you say, well, yeah, I did kill this guy, but you know what?

There's lots of people I met that I didn't kill. You think that's going to hold water? A judge is going to say, that doesn't matter. You messed up. You stand guilty. If you use this argument, well, God, well, God, look, I didn't do that and I didn't do, oh, yeah, I did all that, but I did some things well. You can't say you're justified in your own actions. That doesn't work.

It doesn't function. It doesn't function in a court of law. And if you will, Paul is kind of setting up this courtroom in this chapter.

And so, you know, us even going, well, I'm mostly good women. What have you, let's keep going to the courtroom thing. What have you got in front of the judge and let's say you're up there and you're accused of going 75 under 55 and you get in front of the judge and you say, judge, you know what? I declare myself innocent and I'm acquitted and I can go home. Judge is going to say, we may need to take a closer look at you. We may have somewhere we need to send you, son, because you can't declare yourself innocent, can you?

You can't. You're not the judge. God's the judge. And just like that wouldn't work in a courtroom, it doesn't work with God. You can't sit in front of God and say, God, well, I'm innocent because I've done some good things and I haven't done every bad thing that I could do.

Paul's leading us to this place, this life lesson. Even the best person stands condemned under the law. Even the best person stands condemned under the law. The Ten Commandments can't save you. Doing good can't save you. The law can't save you. Having mostly good behavior can't save you.

Not being as bad as the next guy can't save you. The law of God, as Paul points out, was so we understand we can't be justified by our actions and that the law shows us that we stand guilty. For by the law is a knowledge of sin. See, anybody that thinks they are justified by their own actions is deceived.

Actually, probably engaging in self-deception, which is probably one of the deeper, darker kinds of deception. Blinded by self-righteousness. Paul is just tearing this apart and saying, you know what? You need a savior. These words leap off the page and remind us we need the savior. Just like the Jewish people couldn't be justified through the words of the Hebrew Scriptures, we can't be justified simply by the words of the New Testament.

No one will be justified by our works. Verse 21, but now the righteousness of God, apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the law and the prophets. Is there a way outside the law to be declared righteous?

Yeah, there is. And it's recorded in the Hebrew Scriptures. It's recorded in the law and the prophets.

It's recorded in the New Testament. Now, see, some people get to this point and say, okay, we've got the bad news. And then they leave before they get the good news. A lot of people in the world realize they've messed up, realize they've sinned, and then they think, well, I'm stuck here.

I can't do anything because I can't be a goody two-shoes like you. I can't pull this Christian thing off. See, some people think that we think, if you follow that, some people think that we think that we now don't mess up anymore. I wonder where they would get an idea like that.

Maybe we gave them that idea. But, see, when you get to this point, and it is. I mean, it's bad news. It's despair. It's hopelessness. It's like I can't earn my way to salvation. I can't be forgiven. I can't do what's right. That's a hopeless place to be. But that's when hope walks into the room in the form of Jesus Christ. When you realize these things and you realize, you know what, I need help.

If I can't do this on my own, how do I do it? If I can't be forgiven through my own actions, where can I go for forgiveness? You go to Jesus.

That's the only way you can be declared innocent. 2 Corinthians says this, Now then we are ambassadors for Christ as though God were pleading through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf to be reconciled to God. And look at verse 21. For he made him, Jesus, who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in him. See, you can't be declared righteous by the law, by the rules, and by doing good, simply because you, well, you can't measure up to that.

And neither can I. And then the Lord says this. Jesus says, I died for you.

And he says, come to me and we'll have this divine transaction, if you will. Imagine every bad thing that you've ever done in your life. I mean the things that maybe nobody else knows about. All the bad things you've ever done were poured into a cup. Who do you think would take that cup from you?

Probably nobody. When I first got married to Nora, she had this habit. It was kind of strange. Because we would travel and come back in and things grow in the refrigerator.

Did you know that? I mean, it's almost like a garden or something in there. You can leave for a week, come back, and there's things growing in there, things you never saw and things you've never seen before. And so she had this habit of, it was kind of strange.

I caught on after a couple of years. And something would go bad and she'd say, hey, smell this. And I don't know what I was thinking. I would go, oh, my gosh, that's horrible.

Yeah, she goes, yeah, I thought so. Well, why did you have me smell it? I was just making sure it was rotten.

It went on for a couple of years until I figured it out. Smell this. No. Rotten. If it's fuzzy, it smells, I don't need to whiff it, okay? I didn't want to smell it. I didn't want to see it. It was bad. It was rotten. It was putrid.

It stank. Well, friend, if things from the fridge do that, think of what your deeds look like and smell like, putting that cup right there. Now, let me ask you a question. Who wants that cup from you? Do you think you could give that cup to somebody?

Now, here's the bizarre answer. Jesus wants it. Oh, and not only is he going to take that cup from you, but then he turns around and gives you righteousness. Friend, it's not just like every sin you ever committed can be forgiven.

Absolutely, that's true, but it's beyond that. You now can be given the righteousness of God. Think of that exchange. You come to God with everything you've done wrong, all your mess-ups, all your sins, all your shame, your embarrassment, all that. You come to him with that and say, okay, God, nobody else wants this, but apparently you say you do. You actually died so that you could get this. I give this to you, and Jesus says, now I give you righteousness. Friend, there is nobody else that wants to enter into that exchange with you, but Jesus does. Friend, do you know for sure that your sins have been forgiven?

You can know right now. I want to lead you in a short, simple prayer, simply telling God you're sorry and asking him to help you to live for him. Please pray this prayer with me out loud right now. Dear Jesus, I believe you died for me that I could be forgiven, and I believe you were raised from the dead that I could have a new life, and I've done wrong things. I have sinned, and I'm sorry. Please forgive me of all those things.

Please give me the power to live for you all of my days. In Jesus' name, amen. Friend, if you prayed that prayer, according to the Bible, you've been forgiven. You've been born again. So congratulations, friend.

You just made the greatest decision that you will ever make. God bless you. If you prayed that prayer with David for the first time, we'd love to hear from you. You can call us toll-free at 877-458-5508 to receive our First Steps package with helpful resources to help you begin your walk with Christ. Before we go, we want to encourage you in your faith so that you can experience more of the grace and love of God for you. That's why we'd like to send you Pastor David's teaching video recorded in the heart of the Holy Land called Israel, the Bible, and You. This encouraging look into the history of Israel and God's covenant faithfulness to His chosen people will help you take bold new steps in your relationship with God. Israel, the Bible, and You is our gift to thank you for your donation to help more people on this station and beyond cross the bridge from death to life.

So visit crossthebridge.com now to request your copy. You know each day comes with its share of stresses. What better way to wake up than with an encouraging word from the Lord? Visit crossthebridge.com and sign up now for David McGee's email devotionals. Each devotion includes scripture and a message from the heart of David McGee. It's easy and it's free. Sign up today at crossthebridge.com. And be sure to join us next time on Cross the Bridge with David McGee to hear more from the Book of Romans. We'll see you then.