So what then is the purpose of God giving us over to our idols, to the things we choose instead of him? Remember, this is an expression of his loving wrath. We need to understand that God’s wrath is not something that is out there to eliminate us, to destroy us. to torment us. It is a loving action of God in a tough kind of way to help us to see that what we have chosen instead of him is bringing us to nothingness. What God is doing in his loving wrath in handing us over is not to send us to perdition, but to bring us to an awareness of what’s happening to us so that we may call upon him for mercy. Now, you may look at your life and say, I don’t understand it. It has come to nothing. All my goals have been thwarted. Nothing I have attempted has been fulfilled. I’m disappointed with all the dreams I had. They didn’t come to fruition. And on and on you could go. My health is shattered or my finances are in the bin.
SPEAKER 01 :
What is left? And the answer, of course, is Jesus.
SPEAKER 02 :
The message in the book of Romans chapter 1 about God handing us over is not about abandoning us. It is about engaging with us, as I said the other day, to bring us to our senses. And so you may come to God and rather than stay away from him, believing that you are under his judgment and his wrath, and that therefore there’s no hope for you, you may come to him and say, Lord God, I’m looking at my life, and it’s a mound of ashes. I have not seen the dreams and the longings that I had fulfilled. Dear God, I feel your judgment is upon me. You don’t just feel that. It is upon you. It’s upon the whole human race. But it is not a judgment to extinction and to torment and to hell. It is a judgment to lead you to Christ. How do we know that? I’m going to jump ahead. We’re going to look at chapter 2 in a bit. But I’ll jump ahead and say this. Paul concludes from all of this wrath, this loving wrath that God has laid upon us, he concludes, we know that whatever the law, that is whatever good we’ve attempted to do, whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law. Now that’s an expression which we’ll talk about a bit later, but it means under the condemnation of the law, under the judgment of the law. that every mouth may be stopped and the whole world may become guilty before God. Is that God’s end goal, though? Does God simply want us to be guilty? No, he wants the guilt to lead to something else. Let’s read on. Therefore, by the deeds of the law, no flesh will be justified. That is, by all your attempts to make life beautiful and fulfilling and meaningful— all of those attempts, by the deeds of the law, no flesh will be justified. No flesh, no humanity will sense a satisfaction, a completion, a having accomplished all that life is designed for. No, whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law that every mouth may be stopped and the whole world may become guilty before God. Therefore, by the deeds of the law, no flesh shall be justified, for by the law is the knowledge of sin. Now, don’t just look at that as the Ten Commandments, because I’m not talking about Christians at the moment. I’m talking to that person listening who has no particular faith, may even be an atheist, but finds that his humanity is broken, finds that his goals and dreams and the history of his life is a disappointment. 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 our life history with all its sense of right and wrong brings us a knowledge of sin and brokenness. Our life history does not bring us a sense of righteousness. Those people who strut about with a sense of accomplishment over their lives, very proud of their existence and what they have done, are under a delusion. And it will come to them in time that they have misread what the results of their life are.
SPEAKER 01 :
So then, what is God bringing us to?
SPEAKER 02 :
He’s not bringing us to judgment. Well, let me restate that. He’s not bringing us to judgment unto death. He’s not bringing us into a judgment that will send us into perdition and eternal hell.
SPEAKER 01 :
He’s bringing us to an awareness that life outside of God is empty.
SPEAKER 02 :
Because then, you see, he says this, but now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed. Now, that doesn’t mean that God is showing you his righteousness as opposed to yours and saying, by contrast, look how bad you are based upon how good I am. God’s righteousness, as you trace this word through the Old Testament particularly, means God’s deliverance, God’s help, God’s mercy. God in his righteousness is merciful to those who’ve come to the end of themselves. And so, when you experience this whole history of yours, where God has handed you over to the very things that you have chosen as an alternative to him, he’s exposing your folly, but not for the purpose of utterly breaking you, but rather for the purpose of revealing the necessity and the urgency of Jesus Christ. But now, the righteousness of God, apart from the law, that means apart from all human history’s attempts to find God’s acceptance by their behavior, by their work, by their performance, the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, and what is it? Even the righteousness of God through the faithfulness of Jesus Christ to all and on all who believe.
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So, let’s suppose your life is chaos.
SPEAKER 02 :
It just doesn’t make sense to you. You had many goals in your twenties, you went to college at eighteen or whatever, and you had great dreams, and you’ve graduated, and you have not found a job, and you have a great indebtedness to the college financially, and you simply can’t see your way ahead except being in debt for the next 30 or 40 years.
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What are you to do with that?
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Do you say, God has judged me, God hates me, God’s not helping me? Or do you say, Father, I need you. Dear God, I don’t know where you are. I don’t know why you’ve brought me to this position, this place. But I have heard your word. I heard it from that guy, Colin, on the radio. And he basically told me that when all the chips are down, That’s because you, dear God, are seeking after my soul, and you are bringing me to yourself. You are showing me that you gave me everything I wanted instead of you, and it has brought me to nothing.
SPEAKER 01 :
Our goals, our dreams, will always come crashing down without God.
SPEAKER 02 :
And that is what we have to learn. It’s a very, very difficult thing to learn. But it is the loving wrath of God. God is trying to teach us that this humanity will not enter the kingdom of heaven. This fallen humanity of ours has to go. How does it go? We can’t eliminate it. We can’t discipline ourselves to die to every single desire and urge we have within us. No, it has to go by substitution. That is, by God Sending his Son and taking our life by proxy, by substitution, on the cross and being executed for it. Jesus died for the humanity that couldn’t live by itself. And so we come to Christ and we say, Father, have mercy upon my soul. I accept Jesus because I have no humanity in myself that makes any sense anymore. Now, when we come to believe in Jesus Christ, this is what happens. Look at verse 21 again and 22. But now the righteousness of God has been revealed. Well, exactly what is this righteousness? We talked about his character as being merciful and good and so on, but there’s something more specific here. But now the righteousness of God has been revealed, apart from the law, even the righteousness of God through the faithfulness of Jesus Christ to all and on all who believe. Ah, there’s something to do with believing here. Believing is trusting. Trusting in whom? In God. In what about God? In his love for me, in his mercy for me, in his forgiveness of me, in his reconciliation of me to himself. We become reconciled through the life and death of Jesus Christ. So we take on a totally other life. It’s a life of faith, and it is a statement that says, I’ve come to give up on the ability of my life, my human life, to have any standing before you, dear God, or even any standing before myself. I’ve come to accept that Jesus Christ is my righteousness before you. Your righteousness has been revealed in your Son on my behalf. Even the righteousness of God through the faithfulness of Jesus Christ to all and on all who believe. For there’s no difference, he says in verse 22 and 23, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified freely. While we have failed and taken all these alternative religions, alternative gods upon ourselves, nevertheless, as we look to Jesus Christ as our new humanity, We are being declared innocent, justified, even while we have fallen short and been sinners, we are declared innocent freely by God’s mercy to us. So I want you to notice this leap. It’s an unexpected leap. We have been handed over in the loving wrath of God to the alternative gods, our idols, and they have brought us to nothing but But instead of expecting judgment coming next, we find a gift at our feet coming next. And it is the gift of our Savior Jesus Christ who was slain for us. And therefore, you lift up your heart and say, Lord God, I thank you for my emptiness. I thank you for my life having come to nothing, because through it I have been led to lift up my soul and call upon you for mercy. And you were right there, dear God. You were right there with Jesus. And please consider a donation. This is listener-supported radio. It’s in its 27th or 8th year. I’ve forgotten for a minute. Anyway, you can make your donation online at faithquestradio.com or send it to Faith Quest, P.O. Box 366, Littleton, Colorado, 80160. I’ll see you next time. Cheerio and God bless.
