Sunday 10:02:11

Which of these two statements applies more to you? "I am a great sinner." "Christ is a great savior” The first statement recognizes how far you and I are from God. It recognizes how sinful we are. The second statement recognizes the deep love that God has for us demonstrated at the cross and how complete Christ’s work at the cross is. We run into trouble when we don’t recognize that both are true. “I am a great sinner, but Christ is a greater savior.” Luke 6:37-42 Judging others forbidden Why do we judge other people? – Tim Keller’s story about good and bad lies. Why are we tempted to remove the speck from our brother’s eye and leave the plank in our own eye? Because we have a tendency to develop for ourselves a standard by which we live. We pick and choose from what the Bible teaches and decide these are important and develop our own system of morality. We ignore the stuff we’re not good at. The natural tendency of the human heart is toward self-justification. Luke 12:1-3 get rid of hypocrisy. Get rid of thoughts that you are good by what you do. The only good in you and me is Jesus Christ. (Romans 7) “I know that nothing good lives in me.” But following your own standards is just as bad as being stuck in sin – both will keep you from the power of the gospel. Both sin and trying to follow your own standards are really ways of avoiding Jesus as savior. Your self-justification is your attempt to avoid being completely reliant on Jesus for your goodness. On one hand, the problem is that your sins have separated you from God. On the other hand, the other problem is that the standards that you set up for yourself that prove that you’re good separate you from God as well. If you strive to be good by your own standards, you are really resisting the gospel and setting yourself up as Savior." To "get the gospel" is turn from both sin and self-justification and rely on Jesus' record for a relationship with God. If you don’t understand that your sin is dark and deep and even your righteousness is like filthy rags to God, then payment of the cross seem trivial and will not transform you. If you don’t understand that the only way to be “good” is to rely on Christ's completely satisfying life and death, then you will try to deny and repress your own sin – which is hypocrisy. Our problems come from a failure to apply the gospel in our lives. We have not thought out the deep implications of the gospel, we have not “used” the gospel in and on all parts of our life. Richard Lovelace says that most people’s problems are just a failure to be oriented to the gospel--a failure to grasp and believe it through and through. Luther says, "The truth of the Gospel is the principle article of all Christian doctrine....Most necessary is it that we know this article well, teach it to others, and beat it into their heads continually." (Gal.2:14f) The gospel is not easily comprehended for us. Paul says that the gospel only does its renewing work in us as we understand it in all its truth. All of us, to some degree live around the truth of the gospel but do not "get" all of it. So the key to continual and deeper spiritual renewal and revival is the continual re-discovery of the gospel. A stage of renewal is always the discovery of a new implication or application of the gospel--seeing more of its truth. This is true for either an individual or a church. Anything you do that makes you feel like a good person or a more acceptable or lovable person – that is self-righteousness. When you hold up these things and think, “I’m a good person and he/she isn’t.” That is when self-righteousness has a grip on you. When you think you have to do certain things or God will not be pleased with you – that is self-righteousness. Get rid of it, it will keep you from the grace and power of the gospel to transform you. When you think of yourself as more spiritual than other people because of what you do – that is self-righteousness. Get rid of it, it will keep you from the grace and power of the gospel to transform you. When you find yourself comparing yourself to other people and discovering that you’re better than they are, that’s self-righteousness. “When they measure themselves by themselves and compare themselves with themselves, they are not wise.” (2 Corinthians 10:12) But, when you see the distance you are from God because of your great sin – and you see another human being in an even worse sin and you say, “there but by the grace of God go I” – that is Gospel. When you see how very far you are from the holiness of God and say, “I am a great sinner.” But you also see the great work of forgiveness that God did on the cross of Jesus Christ, and say, “I am a great sinner, but Christ is a greater savior.” – that is Gospel.