From Self-Deception to Repentance

MPT: Paul wanted the Roman church to know that Jews had many spiritual advantages, but their faithlessness condemned them in spite of their advantages.

MPS: I want you to see that our spiritual advantages mean nothing if they don’t lead us to humble repentance and genuine faith in Christ.

Three ways to move from self-deception to repentance.

INTRODUCTION

Let’s continue worshipping the Lord this morning. If you have your Bibles, I ask that you go ahead and start making your way to Romans chapter three, we will be looking at verses 1-20. If you are unfamiliar with the Bible, Romans isn’t that hard to find. Flip to the New Testament you will see the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke & John. The book of Acts then the book of Romans. If you did not bring a Bible that is okay, there is a copy in the back of the pew in front of you, and if you do not own a Bible, please, keep that Bible, take it home, read it and learn about the God who loves you and desires a relationship with you. If you know someone who needs a Bible, please, take one of those Bibles and give it to them as a gift, Romans chapter 3 verses 1-20.

Many of you know my love for guitars. I may have mentioned it once or twice. I started playing the guitar when I was 13 years old, almost 25 years ago. I am mostly self taught but there were a couple of times I took lessons. It took a few months for my parents to sign me up for guitar lessons because they wanted to make sure I was serious about it before spending that kind of money. So I took lessons for almost a year than my guitar teacher moved and I continued being self taught. Fast forward a couple of years now I’m in high school, we started attending a different church and the electric guitarist they had at that church was really good. So my mom asked if he gave lessons and sure enough he did. So I began getting lessons from him. Well, it turns out, that this guy was a former member of the Marshall Tucker Band. Many of you may know who they are, they were a very popular band from the 70’s and 80’s and they are from South Carolina. Now this guy wasn’t a founding member, but he did take over for Toy Caldwell at some point after his death, and man, this guy was good. Once I started my lessons with him, I couldn’t wait to brag to my friends about it. They were all jealous, I mean, who gets to take lessons from a genuine rock star? Not only was he a phenomenal player, but he was a gifted teacher. But, here is the problem, it didn’t take long for me to start to take that advantage of getting guitar lessons from him for granted. I found myself not practicing the homework he gave me, instead, I figured I could learn enough from him in our once a week sessions because he is so good, that I didn’t need to practice. When I got home from school or work, I would lock myself in my room to play guitar but it was just me trying to mimic what I heard on records, not the drills and scales I was assigned. Eventually, my progression as a player slowed down, now, me bragging about taking lessons from a rock star wasn’t impressive because I wasn’t getting better. My poor progression started to reflect poorly on my guitar teacher, but he wasn’t the problem, I was. I know what y’all are thinking, Kevin what are you talking about? You are the best guitarist I’ve ever heard. I know I know. But the reality is, I didn’t take the time to learn the fundamentals, instead, I just tried to copy what I heard on records, and the problem with that is I don’t know the technique that’s being used on the records, or understand why they played what they did. I should have realized the advantage I had with my guitar teacher instead of taking it for granted.

What we see in Romans, is Paul is dealing with a similar situation. We have Jewish Christians returning to Rome and mingling with Gentile Christians, but the Jewish Christians have taken for granted their advantage of being God’s chosen people. We have done the same thing. Many of you have grown up in the church, but you are still spiritually immature. And those of you new to faith might see that. Our society sees the spiritual immaturity in our churches and they blame God. When the problem isn’t God, it’s us. When people are church hurt, they feel it’s a reflection of God’s character flaws, not ours. In today’s passage Paul wanted the Roman church to know that the Jews had many spiritual advantages, but their faithlessness condemned them in spite of their advantages. So today, we are going to see Three ways to move from self-deception to repentance.

I ask if you are able to rise to your feet as we read out of God’s Word this morning.

CONTEXT

We are getting back into the book of Romans after taking last week off. To remind us of what’s going on, this is a real letter, written by a real person, to a real church, struggling with real issues, at a real point in history. The author, the Apostle Paul, wrote to the church in Rome, a church he’s never visited, to explicitly teach them the Gospel. The overall purpose of this is letter is, Jesus is the true Son of Abraham who keeps all of God’s promises. Because we belong to Him, we get to share in those promises—especially the hope of a new world where God’s Spirit helps us love Him and love others as we live for Him today.

So, the first way to move from self-deception to repentance is…

RECOGNIZE YOUR FALSE CONFIDENCE IN SPIRITUAL ADVANTAGE

(V1-2) Coming fresh off of chapter 2, where Paul said being a true Jew is inward, not outward, the audience of this letter, and us too I’m sure, were expecting Paul to answer verse one with none. But instead, he says that there is an advantage to being Jewish, that they’ve been entrusted with God’s Word. God provided His chosen people with the Torah, and in the Torah sit the 10 commandments. God gave His chosen people the rules in which to live by. They didn’t have to figure it out on their own, it was given to them. Talk about an advantage. The creator of the heavens and the earth, chose a people and gave them ten laws to live by, it doesn’t get any better than that. But we see throughout Scripture that they couldn’t live by those commands. In fact before that, Adam and Eve couldn’t even live by one command. God’s chosen people proved to be unfaithful.

We see that the Jews had a spiritual advantage, but that didn’t guarantee their salvation. So recognize your false confidence in spiritual advantage because your spiritual advantage means nothing if you fail to live obediently to Christ.

How are you living obediently to Christ right now? What steps are you taking to grow closer to Him? Have you worked up the courage to share the Gospel yet? These are questions I truly want you to think about. Don’t take for granted the spiritual advantage you have. For those of you seasoned in the faith, take up the responsibility of discipling those who are new to the faith. Let them see how a true Christ follower lives. For those of you young in the faith, do not be afraid to ask questions, and seek someone to disciple you.

Devote more time to Scripture. You can’t live obediently to Christ if you aren’t familiar with this book that is all about Him. Spend time in Scripture and in prayer. Pray while you read Scripture. Use the advantage you have to get as familiar with Scripture as possible.

(V3-4) Remember, Paul is anticipating objections to chapter 2 when he’s writing these verses in chapter 3. So basically, the objection is well, if God’s chosen people are unfaithful, they represent God, so then clearly God is unfaithful. Paul answers with Absolutely not. Just because we fail it doesn’t mean God fails. He goes further to say if everyone on earth is a liar, then God’s Word still hold true. So, if everyone on earth 100% agreed on one lie, let’s say for example that is onions are delicious. Hypothetically, if 100% of people on earth unanimously agree that onions are delicious, it doesn’t change the truth that onions are in fact disgusting. What we see here is Paul quoting the second half of Psalm 51:4. Psalm 51 was written by king David after he was confronted by Nathan about his sin with Bathsheba. The first half of verse 4 is “against you alone I have sinned and done this evil in your sight”. When we look back on what David did, he not only sinned against God, but sinned against Bathsheba and Uriah. But I think the point of him saying he sinned against God alone is because God is the only one who can truly judge us for sin. We need to understand the weight of our sin, because sin is outright disobedience against God and God alone possesses righteous judgment. So it makes sense that David would say “So you are right when you pass sentence; you are blameless when you judge.”

(5-8) Again, Paul is having a conversation in his head while writing this letter. Basically his hypothetical argument is saying well, if my sin only highlights God’s righteousness, then my sin is a good thing, and God is wrong for punishing us. And Paul answers with WRONG. God has every right to judge us for our sins. If Paul’s hypothetical argument were true, then God wouldn’t be a fair judge. If God didn’t judge those who sinned against Him, then he would be an impartial judge, and if He were an impartial judge, then He wouldn’t be God. If God was unfair for punishing those who sin, then why did He send Jesus to die for us. Why did Jesus suffer and die on the cross for our sins if God didn’t have to punish sinners? If you try to take away God’s right to judge, then you saying Christ’s atoning sacrifice was for nothing. Christ’s death and resurrection is fundamental to our faith and necessary for salvation.

So recognize your false confidence in spiritual advantage because your spiritual advantage should lead you to a humble heart.

Be humble knowing that no matter what you do, you cannot earn favor with God. If you have sinned just once in our life, you have already condemned yourself, and there is nothing you can do to fix it. That’s pretty humbling right? How often do you hear people say, “I hope my good outweighs my bad” or, my relative is in heaven because “they were a good person”. We can’t fall for that lie. It is only through Christ that God spares His judgement on us. God doesn’t owe us anything except judgement, and Jesus took that on for us. So humble yourself before God.

The second way to move from self-deception to repentance is…

RECOGNIZE THE SINFULNESS OF YOUR HEART

(V9) Paul just went from saying that the Jews had an advantage, then asked but are they better off? He answered no! No matter what your spiritual advantage is, you are still guilty of sin, and deserve judgement. What Paul is saying is that sin is universal, and everyone is guilty of it. Even the Jews, God’s chosen people to whom he entrusted His Scriptures to. Even they, are charged with sin. So Recognize the sinfulness of your heart by confessing your sin daily and regularly.

How will you start recognizing the sinfulness of your heart unless you open up to God about your sin? You probably sin more than you think you do. When you go to prayer and start laying it all out to God, what you thought might take five minutes may take an hour. Look, I’m not up here trying to roast y’all, because I’m guilty of that too. But once you start regularly confessing to God your sin, the Holy Spirit will convict you, and He will guide you to repentance.

Sometimes we still don’t catch all of our sin, someone else may need to recognize it for you, so find someone to hold you accountable. The reality is, we as a church should be doing that for each other, I know that is difficult, and awkward, but we all need it. We all need someone checking in on us, or calling us out when our sin is obvious. We all have the tendency to be prideful or even in denial of our sin. We don’t like being confronted because it makes us feel bad or judged. Finding someone to keep you accountable isn’t about them shaming you, because guess what, they need someone to keep them accountable too. That’s what Paul is getting at here, we are all on the same playing field.

We went to the SC Baptist Convention on Monday and Tuesday, and Mark Clifton preached on Tuesday and he said, “it takes the same about of Jesus’s blood to save the 6 year old as it does the 60 year old.” We are all guilty, and Jesus shed His blood for all of us, you just have to recognize it. We are all guilty of sin, and we have all been charged. One day you’ll stand before God, the eternal Judge. The question is will you be standing there alone, or resting safely because Jesus stands there for you?

(V10-18) In these nine verses, Paul quotes from six old testament passages, five of them from the Psalms and one from Isaiah. Why does he do that? Remember, he has been primarily targeting the Jews for the past two chapters. Jews who are notorious for hiding behind their religion and the law. We see evidence of that throughout the Gospels. Legalistic Jews who hid behind religion and the law who refused to see Jesus for who He is and then had Him murdered.

We do the same thing, we hide behind being religious and judge those who aren’t like us. So recognize the sinfulness of your heart and stop hiding behind religion. What do we see Paul doing here? He is using Scripture to expose the religious. I wonder how many of the members of that church have quoted these same verses not out of edifying one another, but out of spite to judge others. And Paul has turned around and gives them scripture to say “look in the mirror”! You don’t seek God, you have turned away, you are a viper, your feet are quick to shed blood, you don’t fear God. I bet that was convicting for them, and it should be convicting for us too. Do you hide behind this book, or are you letting it transform your life?

I’m sure most of you are like me when I first read verse 11, “no one seeks God”. What do you mean no one seeks God, I know plenty of lost people who are looking for truth but just haven’t recognized it yet. I don’t think that is what Paul is talking about here. Paul has been speaking about righteousness and how we are all guilty of sin and are owed punishment. I think he means we don’t seek God for who He truly is. To seek God for who He truly is is to seek a just and righteous judge to enact his perfect punishment on you. To truly seek God is to say God, I have sinned against you, punish me accordingly, I will take it. We don’t seek our deserved punishment. That is what I think Paul means when he says no one seeks God. If we truly understand the weight of our sin, and what we deserve because of it, then no one will seek God, who is the perfect judge. Our sinful heart prevents us from seeking the justice we deserve. When Paul says no one, he means those created by God. So while we don’t seek out our deserved judgement from God, there was someone who did that on our behalf.

Jesus, came to earth to seek God’s judgement for us. He lived the full human experience, from conception to death, and lived it perfectly. Even though we are all sinners, and deserve an eternity experiencing God’s wrath, Jesus, bore all of our sins and died the death we deserve on the cross, he rose again three days later defeating sin, defeating death, and those who put their faith in Him, will not spend eternity experiencing God’s wrath, but will spend eternity experiencing God’s love.

So now that you’ve recognized the sinfulness of your heart…

RECOGNIZE GOD’S JUST VERDICT AND YOUR NEED FOR GRACE

(19-20) What Paul is saying here is that everyone is subject to God’s law. Because God’s law is perfect and we are not, none of us have a defense, there is nothing we can say to get out of it, we are all subject to punishment. No one is justified through the law because none of us are capable of obeying the law. Even our simple laws here are hard to obey. Last Tuesday Pastor Buck, Lindsey, and I were at the SC Baptist Convention. I’m about to walk in to the meeting when I get a call from Ariana telling me that she’s been pulled over. Here I am, trying to perform my duty as a pastor by attending our state convention, and my wife sees that as an opportunity to run wild and do whatever she wants. Ok, I figured y’all wouldn’t buy that. The real story here is that I forgot to pay the taxes on our van so the registration was expired. To be even more transparent, the registration expired in June, we’ve been breaking the law for 5 months! I’m shocked they didn’t haul her away in handcuffs. Boy would I have loved to tell that story.

The point is, our laws here are simple to follow, and we are capable of following them. But our laws are based on simple action. God’s laws are based on the heart. So recognize God’s just verdict and your need for grace and stop trying to justify yourself before God.

I heard RC Sproul one time say that our brains actually store all of our memories even though we can’t always retrieve them. He said to picture this, we die and stand before God. God takes our brain and plugs it up to a monitor, and hits play. We then have to sit there and see every single thought, word, and action we have ever done. After it’s finished, how can we possibly look at God and say “let me in Heaven”? We can’t. We can’t justify to God that He owe’s us anything. That’s why we rely on God’s grace. So stop trying to justify yourself before God, and accept the grace of God that Jesus secured for you.

Jesus has done it all for you. He sought God’s punishment on your behalf and suffered it for you. It is up to you to accept that grace and then share it with others. Our prayer for this church while we are going through Romans is to see everyone share the Gospel. A big part of that is helping people understand that they need a savior, that no one has earned the right to Heaven, it is only by the Grace of God through Jesus that salvation for us is possible. But you have to surrender your life to Him. You have to repent, and repentance is more than just saying sorry. Repentance is understanding that you are a broken sinner in need of a savior, and that you want turn your life around and follow Christ. So move from self-deception to repentance. Let’s pray.

INVITATION

The praise and worship team are going to make their way back up. For the believer in this room. I hope today’s passage helps you see more clearly that your spiritual advantages can help you make disciples. Don’t waste them. God wants to use you where you are to expand His kingdom. For the non-believer in this room, I want you to know that the hard work has been done for you. Jesus paid the ultimate price for you. He wants you to repent and follow him. Don’t let another moment pass by with you separated from him. Like I said, we are going to have a time of invitation. If you need prayer or want to place your faith in Chirst, I’ll be down front however you need to respond.