Good News for Lawbreakers (Part 2 of 2)

Why would God establish laws that are impossible for a us to keep?

That's what we're going to explore today on Truth for Life with Alistair Begg. Let's dive right in as Alistair concludes our study of the Ten Commandments. That the law of God was never given to save us.

The Ten Commandments were not given as a stepladder up which we were to climb into heaven. Rather, what we've discovered is that the law of God has been given to pinpoint sin, to define it, to bring it out of its hiding place, as it were, and to show us the immensity of our problem. The reason why some of us this morning sit in this congregation still in our sins is because we have never been brought by the Spirit of God to face our true condition before God's righteous standard.

Some of us who are wondering about where we are in relationship to spiritual things are nowhere because we have never been truly converted by the Spirit of God. We have exchanged one set of external circumstances for another. We once didn't go to church, and now we go. We once weren't interested in religious things, and now we are. We once didn't really care, and we didn't have a conscience, and now we do.

And so we add all of that together, and we say, Well, therefore, I must be in. I wanted to have a friend, and somebody told me Jesus is a friend. I wanted to have purpose, and somebody told me Jesus gave me purpose. I wanted to be free from anxiety, and somebody told me Jesus gave me freedom from anxiety. But did you ever once hear Jesus say, I have come in order that you might have purpose?

He said, I have come in order that you might have life. Now, why would he want to give life to people who have life? Because the life we have is not life.

It's actually death. We are spiritually dead. But nobody's going to put up their hand and say, Jesus, give me some of that life! Until first the Spirit of God says, You're a dead man. It doesn't matter how moral we appear. It doesn't matter how philanthropic we are. It doesn't matter how idealistic we may be or how apparent our righteousness is.

None of that stuff transfers in the currency of God's kingdom. The whole object of the Ten Commandments, then, is to show us that we must be saved, and secondly, to show us that we cannot save ourselves. So we do the Ten Commandments and we go, This is a message that says we need somebody to do for us what we cannot do for ourselves. Now, if we have truly come to faith in Christ, this is a reassuring thing.

If we never have, then it is a nerve-jangling thing. Because what Paul has said is that, irrespective of our background, whether we're a clueless pagan or whether we are a religious person, all of us has missed the mark. You'll notice there in verse 22, there's no difference. Verse 23, For all have sinned, and all fall short of the glory of God. We all flunked. We all flunked. The test papers came back, and nobody got anything other than an F. So he says, Oh, I got a high F. I was really close to a D. I mean, I got a better F than you got. Yeah, but you got an F. It's all Fs. Everyone got an F. The only person who ever got an A was Jesus. And he got an A so that our F may go down the tubes and he may put his A in our place and that God may accept us because of his A irrespective of our F. But do you know how many people in this church Sunday by Sunday go out of here assuming that the message is, I gotta bring my grade up? I've gotta bring my grade up. I'm sure I'm getting an F, and I need to get it at least to a D or a C or a good B. I've got to get my grade up. Hear me this morning if you've never heard me before. If you work from now to the day you die, you cannot do one thing to get anything else other than an F. There is not one religious thing I can do, not one philanthropic thing I can do.

There is not a thing I can do to alter my grade. Now, until I understand that, I am in the most perilous condition, because I will then be living with the potential for considering that all these things that I am able to do or all these things that I trust in will somehow or another change my condition before God. And it's okay for the pagan, and it's okay for somebody else, but this isn't a message for me. We've got a dreadful problem in our culture. Yeah, look in the mirror.

Yeah, look in the mirror. Okay, you got it? Is that a good enough expression of the bad news? It's the best I can do at the time I have. Let's go from the bad news to the good news. The condition to be faced, the provision to be found. Now, I had to spend time putting the velvet down so that when I bring the diamond out, you can see how wonderful it is.

This is one of the great problems—this is why people don't come to faith in Jesus Christ—that people are walking around up here holding up diamonds. Holding up A's, as it were. And the person said, What do I need an A for?

I'm very happy with the B+. And they didn't realize they had an F. Okay? So what it's saying here, we got F's. And we can't get it any higher. Well, then, we'd better have some good news for this story, or we're all in deep trouble. We do.

Verse 21, two fantastic words, two of my favorite words in the New Testament, but now. But now. That's what we're waiting for. But now. But now what? Well, but now, here's the good news. What I, by my own endeavor, am unable to accomplish, God on the basis of his great grace, has provided.

All of my attempts to keep the law perfectly have been a failure. I know that. You know that.

You keep coming to me going. We've only done five, and I flunked in all five. And I look as though I'm going for, basically, I've got one out of ten, a possibility. And even that I'm not sure of. So we know we're lawbreakers. So unless there is a contribution made that is nothing to do, that is apart from our ability to contribute by our works of the law, that's verse 21, the little phrase, apart from the law, unless there is that kind of contribution from another source, we are dead and lost in our sins. Now, you see, what happens is this, that only those who have come to cease to rely upon their own endeavors and their own deeds and their own morality and their own religion will ever enter into the benefit of this provision.

If this righteousness, which is so necessary, does not become ours as a result of our endeavor, then how do you get it? That's what I want to know. Here is heaven. How do I get there? That's what I want to know.

What do I have to do? Nothing. Hey, don't tell me nothing. I don't like nothing.

Because nothing means that I'm going to have to accept what someone else has done. You got it dead clear. Well, then I won't have any reason to boast. You got that clear.

That's what he says. Where, then, is boasting? Verse 27. Verse 27.

It is excluded. Anybody on the road to heaven to say, how come you're on the road to heaven? Say, hey, I'm a smart guy. I'm a smart person. I'm smart enough to exercise faith.

No, you're not. There's none that seeketh after God. No, not one. There's none that doeth righteousness.

No, not one. Well, the whole world is accountable before God. So on what basis, then, are we made acceptable in God's sight because of something he did in Jesus and by his grace at work in our lives, opened our eyes to see it, unstopped our ears to hear it, and suddenly we said, this is it.

This is good news. Have you ever said that? You see, faith—because this righteousness comes from God through faith in Christ Jesus—faith is not the cause.

It's the conduit. It's a big difference. It is not by our faith that we cause ourselves to be saved. It is that faith is the conduit through which God's grace is ministered to us.

We are simply… The only thing that I bring to getting saved is my sin. When I come to Jesus to get saved, the only thing I've got in my pocket is an F. A big F. What do you have to show for yourself, Al? Nothing.

Well, here, give me your F. I'll give you my A. There's something not right about that. There's something glorious about that. That's the glory of the cross. That's the blood of Jesus Christ. At great cost to Jesus, the free bestowal to us.

You see, this is the great mystery of what we read here. Then we will discover, verse 26, that God is just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus. Because God is just, sin must be punished.

Because God is a God of grace, he punishes his own Son, who is in himself sinless, in order that we who are the bearers of the F may be put in a position and declared to have an A. The man or the woman of faith has committed themselves to the truth of Jesus, has ascended to that truth, is no longer looking to himself or at himself, but rather looking away from himself, looking to Christ. The man or the woman of faith has been justified, put in a right standing before God. Justified freely by his grace, verse 24.

I could keep you all afternoon talking to you about this. What does this phrase mean? It means that justification is not something that results from what we do, but it is something which may be ours on account of what another has done. And he goes on to explain what the other has done. Justified freely by his grace, how come? Through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.

How did that work? Well, he says, God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement through faith in his blood. And all the Jewish people understood that. They understood. They remember the Exodus from Egypt. They knew they were held in captivity there. And they remember the angel of death flying over. They remember the instruction to put the blood around the lintels of the door. And when the angel of death came seeing the blood, he would pass over them.

And those who were in bondage in Egypt were liberated on account of the blood that was shed. And that was looking forward to the great redemption that would come when he, the Messiah, would be the atoning sacrifice for sin. The suffering servant would die in order that those who rebelled against God and couldn't care less may be declared righteous in his sight.

That the scum of the earth may become the kings of heaven. That proud, arrogant, middle-class, British and American, snobby, self-assertive, independent, highly educated sinners may be brought to see their absolute folly. And until they are, the message of the gospel is a joke to them. It is an affront to them.

It is an irrelevance to them. "'God has not saved us,' Paul says to Timothy, on account of righteous things that we have done, but according to his own purpose and grace." Now, there's something I need to say to you before I move to my final point here in these dying moments, and it is this. To be justified freely by God's grace is not to be made righteous. To be justified freely by God's grace is to be declared righteous. It's to be regarded as righteous. It is to be set in a right standing before God. You see, many of us who are trusting in our own righteousness are hoping that our behavior will eventually prove good enough to merit the approval and acceptance of God. The problem with that is that even when we do our best, our best doesn't even come close to the perfect standard of God's righteousness declared in the Ten Commandments. In contrast to that, if God, in his sheer grace, showering upon us his mercy and clothing us in his righteousness, accepts us as we are, and we gladly embrace what he offers us in Jesus, we can then go on and do his will without constantly worrying whether we're doing it adequately or not.

And I'm going to tell you something this morning. If you live your life all the time wondering whether you are getting a good enough grade, you have never understood justification. I'm not saying you aren't saved. I'm just telling you, you've never understood justification. If you get on an aircraft and the wheels and the wheels start to turn and the engines roar and you think, this may be my last flight, which I usually do, and you find yourself saying, but I'm okay, you know, because I never, I didn't watch that thing on TV. And I remember I threw the garbage out. I kissed my wife goodbye. I was at church, and I did read my Bible this morning. The individual who's thinking like that has never understood justification, because the fact of the matter is, as difficult as it is for us to understand and accept, if we kicked the dog, threw the garbage out, fell over on the way out, forgot to say goodbye to our wife and left in a rage, we may still go down the runway into eternity, confident of our salvation.

Why? Because he justifies freely by his grace. Here's the mystery of it. F. F. Bruce does it perfectly. Bruce says this, God pronounces a man righteous at the beginning of his course, not at the end of it. You sign up for the course, and he gives you an A. Before you even begin the first class, he says, you got an A. You say, well, wait a minute, you haven't seen my program, you haven't seen what I'm going to do, you haven't read any of my reports. He says, that's another point.

I'll be reading them, I'll be looking at them, I'll be working with you on them, but right now today, I want you to know, you got an A. Before ever they do any righteous deeds, therefore, God's justification cannot be on the basis of works which a man or woman is still to do. Justification is an act of God's grace, his free grace, whereby he pardons all our sins and he accepts us as righteous in his sight.

You get an A straight off. Isn't that what the thief on the cross discovered? What was he going to do to make himself acceptable for heaven? He didn't have a chance. He's up there bleeding to death, asphyxiating. His life is running away from him. His friend over on the other side is giving Jesus grief. Hey, you think you're the son of God? Why don't you get down from there and get me down from there? The thief on the other side says, I don't think you should be talking like this. After all, he said, you and I, we're up here, because we should be up here.

From what I understand, the guy in the middle, he didn't do anything. Lord, will you remember me when you come into your kingdom? Today, you get an A. Today, you will be with me in paradise. That's the gospel. That's why no sinner is too much of a sinner. That's why none of us can boast about our condition in Christ. Augustus, top lady in the great hymn, Rock of Ages, puts it perfectly, Nothing in my hand I bring, Simply to thy cross I cling, Naked come to thee for dress, And helpless come to thee for rest. I, the foul one, to your fountain fly, Wash me, Jesus, or I die. So there is a condition to face, there's a provision to be found, and finally, in a phrase, there is a decision to be made.

There is a decision to be made. This is the message of the gospel to all who believe. If you've lived to this point in your life believing that because Jesus Christ died on the cross, therefore all people are automatically forgiven and all that we have to do is realize it and get on and live a good life, somebody has been teaching us from an empty head and a closed Bible. We dare not seek to rush people to Christ.

We dare not seek to get them there any way, anyhow. We need to allow the Scripture not only to control our message, but also to control our methodology. And here in Romans 3, 19 and following, you have not only the message but the methodology. You have it clear. Here's the message.

This is the only message that saves. Number one, the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against godlessness and wickedness. Therefore, I need to come to see my godless, wicked life. Until I do, what follows is irrelevant to me.

When I do, when I recognize that I do not deserve one thing, then I find myself saying, Amazing love! How can it be that thou, my God, would die for me? You see, when we start with John 3.16—"For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son," there is something in us that says, I understand that. I mean, because my wife loves me, and my kids love me, and I'm a fairly lovable guy. So the fact that God loves me is not a big surprise. But when I realize that I'm a wretch, when I realize that all my best-evers are like dirty, filthy rags, that every good thing that I've ever rested in, that every service I attended, every cup of coffee I gave, every offering that I gave, every time I went downtown and gave stuff out to poor people, none of that translates into currency that works in the kingdom of heaven.

When I realize my condition and I realize that God would love somebody like that, see, that's why it says it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Because a rich guy thinks he can buy himself in everywhere, by and large. He can drive the right car, live in the right house, attend the right clubs, go to the right functions, and do the right things. So he thinks, he figures, hey, I'll be able to do it. Jesus says it's easier for a camel, a camel, to go through the eye of a lady's needle than it is for a rich guy to go into the kingdom of heaven.

Why? Because a rich man is going to have to bow down flat on his face with the guy who was the thief on the cross and say, I got an F too, buddy. And since he's unprepared to, he doesn't bow, so he remains in his sense. To believe in Jesus means to quit believing in myself. It means to quit believing in my religion. It means to quit believing in my good deeds. It means to quit relying on anything that I believe would make me acceptable before God. And it means to come to him and say, just as I am, without one plea in my defense, accept that Jesus' blood was shed for me. And that you have bid me come to you. Lord Jesus Christ, I'm going to come to you.

And when a man or a woman comes like that, the assurance of the gospel is that they will be saved. Can I ask you this morning, we've finished these Ten Commandments, have you faced your condition? Has your mouth been stopped before God? Have you understood the wonder of his provision? And if so, have you ever decided to accept the A and give up the F?

And if you have, have you ever done it? I urge you to today. Now is the accepted time. Now is the day of salvation. Our best efforts cannot win God's approval.

In Christ, however, we are accepted just as we are. You're listening to Truth for Life with Alistair Begg. If today's message helped you realize your need for a Savior, if you'd like to know more, I want to suggest that you take a minute and visit our website. Listen to a short six-minute video that explains God's plan of salvation for you.

The video is called The Story, and you can find it at truthforlife.org. If you have benefited from this study of the Ten Commandments, remember you can own all 12 messages on a convenient USB drive for just $5. And for just a couple dollars more, you can get the companion Pathway to Freedom study guide. The Ten Commandments are important for us to revisit often to remind ourselves of our human condition and that our only hope is in Jesus.

You can find the Pathway to Freedom USB and the study guide at truthforlife.org. Here at Truth for Life, we teach from the Bible every day. The reason is we believe in the power of God's Word to save us and to sanctify us. And that's why we've selected today's book. The book is called Spurgeon on the Power of Scripture. Some people may be biblically knowledgeable or particularly gifted at Bible verse memorization, but is that what reading the Bible is all about? When you read Spurgeon on the Power of Scripture, you'll find out what the Bible means when it exhorts us to let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly. Discover how a deeper understanding of Scripture will glorify God, bless you, and benefit others. Request Spurgeon on the Power of Scripture when you make a donation today at truthforlife.org slash donate. Or if you'd prefer, you can call us at 888-588-7884. I'm Bob Lapine.

Thanks for listening. What makes the Bible so special? How can such an ancient book have any real relevance in today's culture? We'll hear the answer tomorrow as we begin a new series called Why Bother with the Bible. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life where the Learning is for Living.