The Depravity of Man
Tom Shrader examines the biblical doctrine of human depravity from Romans 1-3, explaining that all people are born spiritually dead and separated from God. He demonstrates that God looks at the heart rather than outward behavior, revealing that even morally good and religious people are sinners in need of salvation. The teaching concludes with hope in Christ's substitutionary death as the only solution to humanity's hopeless condition.
“We are not sinners because we sin, we sin because we're sinners.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: Christianity 101 (2014)
Recorded: May 01, 2014
Duration: 39 min
Themes: sin, depravity, salvation, judgment, grace, heart, righteousness, redemption, struggling with guilt, feeling morally superior, new believer, doubting salvation, religious person, seeking purpose, questioning faith, parent teaching children
Scripture: Romans 3:10-12, Romans 3:23, Romans 1:21-22, Romans 1:24-28, Romans 3:24, 1 Corinthians 2:14, Ephesians 2, Matthew 23:27-29, 2 Chronicles 6:36, Ecclesiastes 7:20, John 6:44, 2 Corinthians 5:21, Acts 2
Theological Themes: total depravity, human nature, original sin, substitutionary atonement, spiritual death, justification, anthropology, soteriology
Full Transcript
We are today in session 6. You have outlines in front of you. Session 6 of our series titled Christianity 101. The idea is these are the foundations, the basics, the fundamentals of the faith. So it's so important for us to go back to them again and again and again.
Here's what we said the first week: it really matters what you believe, because what you believe is going to affect how you behave. There's a direct linkage there. Then the next week we took 45 minutes to say, "OK, if what we believe is important, where do we go to get those beliefs?" And here's what we said, absolutely crucial: the Bible is the Word of God. So this is true.
Very important distinction. You all know it. Let's reinforce it. It's not that the Bible contains the Word of God. It's that the Bible is the Word of God. There's a huge difference. So it's very simple. In our life there has to be some sort of final authority or some place where we go, and that becomes the basis upon which we get our beliefs. We find the tenets of our faith. And that's the Bible.
Now we go, "OK, now I want to figure out God." So when we go to the Bible, we discover that there is one God, monotheist, who manifests Himself. This is very important. Somebody the other day was saying three different personalities. No, three different persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
So we just took a week on each one of those, understanding that we're talking about an infinite subject with all sorts of volumes written about it. The objective here is not to answer every question, but to simply point you and say, now you need to go and begin to unpack this. You need to understand who God the Father is and how He works. You need to understand the Son, Jesus. And then last week, where the power comes, you'll receive the power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you.
Shifting from God to Man
Now we turn just a little bit today, and we talk not about God, but we talk about man. Now, this is huge right here. And that is how God sees man.
Let's do a little exercise. I've done this many times, so you can come along and you can help here. Why don't you take a second and think of five really good people. You don't even have to know them. It could be somebody you don't know. You could say, "I don't know, Frank Cush, I don't know." Think of five really good people.
Now, here's something a lot easier: think of five really bad people. This one's always easier for me. Now, what you did, whether you realized it or not, is somehow you developed an inventory list, generally speaking of externals, meaning behavior, and then applied it to those people.
So you saw five really good people, and basically you ascribed to them these wonderful attributes that they do. It may be something very simple. They mow your grass for you. It may be something huge. They're out to eliminate poverty. Five really bad people, and you say, "Well, there's always an icon for this." This is a Hitler type of guy or a Jeffrey Dahmer type of guy. They're a really bad guy.
What we need to do, and our goal here in the next 35 minutes, is to shift our thinking to understand that from God's perspective, the value is not on the action but on the heart of the actor. It's a huge shift.
Understanding Different Perspectives
Again, I feel like I'm saying this a lot, and I probably am. For some of you, you're going to go, "Oh, my gosh, I've got this figured out. Why don't you get on to the real meat?" Well, let me tell you something. This is the real meat, and if you haven't figured it out, it's because you've been in the right environments and God's opened your eyes to see it.
For some of you, you're going, "I'm kind of grappling with this right now. Help me figure it out." Then for others of you, you're going to go, "I don't buy that at all," and I'm all right with that. I'm not asking you to buy it. I'm just asking you to look at it and go, "This is what the Bible teaches," and there's something very clever then at that point. Your argument's not with me, it's with God, and generally speaking, you aren't going to win a lot of those. So it would be good for you to get your arms around what we're trying to talk about here.
The Biblical Conclusion
Let me give you the conclusion that we have. Romans, let's turn to the book of Romans, and you've got your outlines in front of you. We're generally going to follow that pretty closely today. I'm going to give you the conclusion up front. It's Romans 3, verse 10. We're going to go back and then build back up to this passage.
Paul's writing in Romans 3, verse 10: "There's none righteous, not even one. There's none who understands. There's none who seeks God. All have turned aside. Together they have become useless. There is none who does good, not even one."
When I said to you, think of five good people, you had a list. When I said, think of five bad people, you had a list. God's list has no good people on it. Only bad people. Only evil people. You see that? See the language? There is none good, not even one.
How did we arrive at this point? You have a list of good people, and God has this list that says, "No, there aren't any good there." Here's the difference. You're looking at the action. He's looking at the heart of the actor. He's looking at man.
Key Terms and Definitions
Now, I'm going to give you some terms, and we're going to use these today. And even though they might be familiar to you, I want to make sure we understand what we're saying.
So, we're going to talk today about man, or mankind. Meaning, this is the condition when we come into the world. Or natural man. Speaking of any of us apart from God. So, we're going to talk about the condition of man. And that's what you have here, in Romans 3, verse 10.
And so, with that, the word that I want to use, real quickly, is that word, saved. And we use it because the Bible uses it. Or delivered, or rescued. So, what the Bible says is that we, natural man, are lost. We only get to dead in our sins and trespasses. That no one does good, not any. And we need to be rescued or delivered from that condition, because the consequence...
of that, remaining in that condition, is eternity separated from God in a place called hell. I need to be saved from that. Rescued, or delivered. And that's a scary proposition.
For me, one of the driving forces in my life was to understand, is there this thing called hell? Is there this thing called heaven? How do I avoid one and get to the other? Now, I understand that's not the most pure motive in the world, but that was a driving motive to me. How can I be delivered or rescued from that?
What's really tragic, and if you're in this condition today, I hope we move you at least out of this condition. What's really tragic is to not understand that you're in jeopardy. I don't like scary movies. I don't need to be scared. I can read the paper if I want to be scared. I don't want to be scared.
The Stalker Illustration
Well, the other night, I'm on and I'm flipping. So somebody will say, they'll always start a sentence like this: "Hey, did you see the commercial?" And I'll always interrupt and say, "No, I didn't see the commercial because I haven't seen a commercial since Carter was president." I'm flipping around going, I don't know, why would I watch a commercial?
Well, I'm flipping the other night, so somebody comes on and they're selling. Boom, I flip. And I come into this movie, right kind of at the beginning of it, and I quickly figure out that this girl's made a phone call. She got the wrong number, and now this guy's calling her back. I said, "Ew, that's creepy." And I went back to the show.
And then I thought, "Well, I wonder what he did when he called back." I'm upstairs at a house. The people are downstairs. They're about to die. Flip back over to the other thing. I'm there a while, and I thought, "I wonder if they died." Flip back over. I'm doing this dance back and forth, and finally he goes, "I'm at your mother's house." "Ah, this is too creepy now." I flip back over. An hour later of going back and forth, he said, "I'm in your apartment." "Oh, my God, okay, I'm done. I'm done. I'm not coming back for any more. I don't care what happens now."
Those are really scary. The ones that I find scariest are not that, because she understands she's in jeopardy. The ones that are scariest is when the guy's there and the victim doesn't even know it. Those are the really scary ones. A filmmaker will give you a shot kind of through the guy's eyes, and you'll be looking out like the stalker's eyes, and you'll hear that. Those are the scary ones. I've got to go back to the other show now. I don't want to watch it.
Well, if you're here today, and until this moment you didn't realize it, you've been in a really scary position, and that is that you're being stalked, and if you stay in that condition, you'll die. You'd probably be separated from God forever. You need to be saved, and that absolutely is an absolutely fair requirement.
What We Need to Be Saved From
Saved from what? Saved from sin. The consequence of sin, the wage of sin is death. Not just physical death, but eternal death. The word death means separation. So saved from the consequence of sin, and then from the bondage of sin, that you don't have to live in this condition anymore.
Peter says it this way. He delivers this incredible sermon in Acts 2. He said Jesus died, was buried, rose again, and put an end to the agony of death. Well, that's clearly not the physical agony, right? We still experience that. It's this uncertainty of knowing what happens after I die. How does all of this begin to unfold? Is there a heaven? Is there a hell? What does all this work? And this is compelling.
And yet, I'm talking to a guy, his dad's dying. He goes to the hospital. He goes to share his faith with him. And he starts talking about his faith, and here's what's going on. And you know, you're dying. You're all hooked up. Beep, beep, beep, beep. All this stuff's going on. You'd think there'd be some receptivity at this point. And finally, his dad, after about 10 minutes, he said, "Get that stuff out of here." Now you gotta pull a tube out of your mouth to say that. You would think that this would be a compelling moment. You would think at that moment, you'd go, "You know, I gotta give this a little bit of thought." Yet we don't.
Why? Well, Ephesians chapter two says this: We are dead in our sins and trespasses.
The Condition of Man: Depravity
So I'm going to work through the outline, and we'll unpack it. When we talk about, and we're going to use the word depravity. What we're talking about is not the conduct of man, important distinction here, but the condition of man. It's not our conduct that's depraved, though it is, but what's deeper is it's a preexisting condition. If we had a salvation like an insurance company that didn't cover preexisting conditions, none of you could ever be saved. There's a preexisting condition.
All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Second Chronicles 6:36, "There is no man who does not sin." Ecclesiastes 7:20, "For there is not a just man on earth who does good and does not sin." That's the condition of man. Romans chapter three, verse 23, "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God."
Now, I'm not trying to play with words here, but this phrase is really important. You need to get it. I'm going to just tell you, if you get this today, theologically, your world is about to get rocked big time. Here you go, here it is: We are not sinners because we sin. Let me back up. We do not, let me say it one right way. We are not sinners because we sin, we sin because we're sinners. See that? We're not sinners because we sin, we sin because we're sinners.
Our preexisting condition is that I'm a sinner separated from God. That's the way I'm born into this world. One author writes this: "The view one takes concerning salvation will be determined to a large extent by the view one takes concerning sin and its effect on human nature." In other words, what does God need to do? How do I respond to that? A lot of it's going to flow from this whole idea here.
In fact, one theologian says, "It cannot be said too often that a false theology..."
The Source of False Teaching
As a result of Adam's sin, all mankind is spiritually dead, unable to either comprehend or believe spiritual truths. Man is blind and deaf to the message of salvation. That's really important. I believe many errors in teaching and preaching find their source in an inadequate view of depravity or the condition of man.
There are some passages that we end up coming to again and again. We talked about it last week - 1 Corinthians 2, verse 14: natural man doesn't understand spiritual things. He cannot comprehend them. Why? They're spiritually ascertained. And man is naturally dead.
Evidence from Secular Sources
Years ago, I remember when Larry was teaching and he read a conclusion from the Minnesota Crime Commission. The other day I was thinking I wish I could find that quote. One of the wonderful things about the internet is you can just start to Google stuff and it doesn't take long. Here's this obscure quote that Larry used a quarter of a century ago, and within 15 seconds, I've got it.
Let me give you the conclusion, not of some theological study group, but of the Minnesota Crime Commission as they wrote decades ago about juvenile delinquency. Here's their conclusion: "Every baby starts life as a little savage. He is completely selfish and self-centered. He wants what he wants when he wants it - his bottle, his mother's attention, his playmate's toys, his uncle's watch, whatever. Deny him these and he seethes with rage and aggressiveness, which would be murderous were he not so helpless. He's dirty, has no morals, no knowledge, no developed skills. This means all children, not just certain children, are born delinquents. If permitted to continue in their self-centered world of infancy, given free rein to their impulsive actions to satisfy what each wants, every child would grow up to be a criminal, a thief, a killer, a rapist."
No, that's just Romans three. We didn't need to - I don't know how much they spent on this study group, but we could have helped them a lot with that one. We could have taken the money and gone out and had fun. That's just what it says. That's just who we are.
The Dark Side of Humanity
Years ago, there was a movie called Runaway Jury with Gene Hackman and John Cusack. The story is that Cusack's a juror, and Hackman is trying to pollute the jury pool. He's instructing all his guys to go in and just find out what he can do to control and pollute this pool. There's this one scene where Hackman's got everybody standing around, and he said, "We need this jury." And he said this: "Every person has a secret." Of course the answer was, find out what that secret is, and then we'll blackmail him with it.
Mark Twain said it this way: "Every person is a moon which has a dark side he never shows to anybody." Well, that's what the Bible says - that we have this dark side.
Understanding Total Depravity
Now this is really important, so we're taking some time to work through it, following your outline. Here's the condition of man: It's not that he's as bad as he can possibly be, but he's as bad off as he can possibly be. Even Adolf Hitler didn't kill his mother. So it's not that he's as bad - he could be doing more things that are sinful - but he's as bad off as he can possibly be because we're all sinners and separated from God.
Let's work through the outline. We're going to Romans one, driving to that conclusion that's in Romans three. Paul's kind of looking at segments of the population. He's looking at man, just natural man as he comes into the world. And he's going to talk about guys that are just morally good guys. And then he's going to talk about religious guys. And that leads to that conclusion that there's none righteous, no not one.
Paul's Analysis of Different Groups
Whatever group you're in, you might say, "I don't care," or "I'm a religious fellow," or "I'm neither of those, but I'm really a good guy. I'm very philanthropic." There's an ad the other day - where do they make this stuff up? This ad I watched because Susan had the remote and I didn't have the flipper. We're in the middle of a thing and an ad comes on for a car. There's an actress - which is inappropriate to say, but there's an actress - and she comes on. Under it, it goes her name and then under it, it says "Actor, Humanitarian." So it's not actress - actor, humanitarian. What are you, humanitarian? What is that? But that's her distinction now, that's her title - humanitarian.
Well, if you're a humanitarian and think you have to save the world and everything in it, or you're a religious person, or you don't care, Paul ultimately is going to say you're all in the same situation.
The Futility of Human Thinking
In Romans chapter one, verse 21, he writes this: "For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks to Him. They became futile in their speculation and their foolish hearts were darkened." It's this ignorance of man, the condition of man.
One night through a prearranged meeting - this was put together by someone other than me, put together by this guy with his spiritual advisor - he wants me to debate this guy about theology, which doesn't matter to me. If you're going to have a discussion like that, it's important that you were in a spiritual environment. So we're at the teepee. He's got his beer and his burrito, and I've got my diet coke and four burritos.
So we're having this discussion, and it's going nowhere, and I'm thinking, well, he needs a drink more, and then it'll get a little more free-flowing. So finally, I go, "Well, what do you have to do to go to heaven?" And he...
Even know, I couldn't even unpack what he said. It was just gobbledygook. I said, "Well, let's do this. What do I need to do to go to hell?" He said, "Oh, I don't want to think about that. That's a negative vibe." And I said, "Okay, I got it's a negative vibe. I'm trying to get to something here."
The Path to Hell: Doing Nothing
The answer to that question is right here in verse 21. What do I need to do to go to hell? What's the answer? Nothing. That's what they did. You see it? Even though they knew God, they did not honor Him, they didn't do anything, and they didn't give Him thanks. That's all you need to do. If you've got somebody who says, "You know what, I want to go to hell," it's an easy deal. Don't do anything. Just keep going.
By the way, that's the condition of all of you. You're headed—me too—we're headed this way, and something has to derail this train. What we're going to show you, and we're going to build this case, is that it isn't you because you can't do it. 1 Corinthians 2:14, John 6:44. You don't have the ability to do it.
So natural man doesn't give thanks, he doesn't honor God, and he becomes futile in his speculation. In fact, verse 22 says, "professing to be wise, they became fools." I'll talk all the time to guys that are so much smarter than I am—PhD, more degrees than a thermometer, all the stuff that they got, way smarter than me, they can out-think me and everything else—but they will say the dumbest thing. They talk about spontaneous regeneration, blah, blah, blah. What is that? They've become so smart they can build you a car, but they don't have the foggiest idea where the keys are. They don't have any clue to any of this stuff.
Well, how do I get that way? Don't do anything. Now, if I want to flip it around, there are about five or six really great nuggets in here today. Here's one of them, and this is a side comment: If what they're doing is nothing in terms of giving thanks and praise, then as followers of Christ, it's probably pretty important that we're giving Him thanks and praise.
God Gives Them Over
What starts now is a downward cycle. If you look at verse 24, verse 26, and verse 28, you'll see the same phrase: "God gave them over to the lusts of their heart," "God gave them over to their passion," "God gave them over to a depraved mind." That's natural man.
You'll hear this: "Oh, I don't know, Jeffrey Dahmer. I don't know how a Jeffrey Dahmer exists. I don't know." Here's my question: I don't know why there aren't more of them. Because that's who we really are. When you say, "By the grace of God, there goes I," what you're saying is God's intervened in your life and removed you or exchanged you from that.
It's very dangerous. I look at some things and I'm going, "I don't think I could do that. I don't think I could take little boys, have sex with them, cut them up and eat them. I don't think I could." But I don't know. I don't know. I know this: I'm capable of just about anything if you put me in the right environment. That's my heart. And unrestrained, I'll demonstrate.
Now I'm restrained, not just by society. By the way, that's why even though you can't legislate morality, you need laws to restrain that heart so at least you can now reinforce that aberrant behavior when you see it. But the other restraint that I now have in my life and you have in yours is the Holy Spirit who begins to change my wanter and the things that I want to do. Natural man just begins to down cycle.
Without Excuse
Now, let's go back to verses 18, 19, and 20 because they're really important. Paul is going to make this point: "The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all ungodliness, unrighteousness, and men who suppress the truth because that which is known about God is evident within them, for God made it evident to them. For since the creation of the world, His invisible attributes and His eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made so they're without excuse."
This weekend, I was at Wild Horse Pass, which I always thought was just a casino. Didn't even have a clue. Have you ever been down there to that hotel, any of you? What an—it's a beautiful place, really a cool place. The Campus Crusade guys, the Jesus film guys were in town. The Jesus film, I don't know if you're familiar with this, but it's the story of Jesus on film, done in hundreds of native languages, so that you can go into any city or any tribal village and show this film and people can hear the gospel and see the gospel. Sixty percent of the world's learners right now are oral learners, meaning they don't read, or if they read, they choose not to read, but they want to hear orally. By the way, the culture is becoming more and more that way too. The literacy rate in the state of Massachusetts was higher during John Adams' time than it is today.
So they come in and they do this marvelous thing. They go around the world and spread the gospel. I was trying to make some points to them. Because what Paul says here is that everybody is without excuse. What about the people that never heard? Well, the people that never heard are going to hell.
Now, if you don't believe that, why in the world would you support the Jesus film? If you think they can get to heaven without the Jesus film, why would you screw them up with the Jesus film? Isn't that true? Think with me for a second. If people can go to heaven apart from Christ, why would you ever share your faith? If you've got somebody around you and they can go to heaven without Christ, the best evangelism you could do is shut up, don't tell anybody, they're alright. Right? Isn't it really important to think this through?
Paul says they're without excuse. Why? Because the creation itself screams of a creator. When you begin to contemplate the universe and you begin to see the massive power and energy and order and...
all that goes with it, you go, oh my golly, this just happened? That doesn't seem likely.
You and I are sitting in this incredible building. I love this building. I love the way this building feels. The existence of this building points me to a construction company. We don't for a second think that there were bricks over here and doors over there and lights over there and the beams and ceilings and concrete and clocks and all that goes with it and then all of a sudden one day, it just happened. We don't think that. That would be stupid. Who could think that? Well, of course not. It took billions of years. Well, that's just as stupid.
And here's what's really interesting. This building was constructed or manufactured. God did not construct. He created. We construct. We take existing things and put them together and make this beautiful building. God started with nothing and said, let there be light and there was light. Paul's point is that points me to God and who He is. That shows me there's a Creator. But they don't want it.
The Wrath of God
See what he says? The wrath of God is being revealed from Heaven. I want you to get this now. God is angry and judges sin. Here's another nugget. Think about hell. Who's raising hell in hell? It's not Satan. Hell is God's wrath, not Satan's wrath. It's God's wrath poured out on these people. I'm saved by God, from God, from His wrath, from His anger. That'll jar your preserves the more you unpack that.
That's the wrath of God. That's the natural man when the terrorists struck. I was trying to think because Barry Goldwater was still alive and they asked him what they should do with the terrorists. He said they should cut out their eyes. Then they should start cutting off limbs. Then they should cut off their private parts until they're dead. There's a sense of retribution in it. We go, yeah! Isn't that how you are? Yeah, God! Get them, God!
He looks at you and me because that's an easy one. He looks at you and me and says, My wrath's going to be poured out on your sin. And then what Paul does in the balance of this is simply now do a subtle shift to people who are kind of basically good and religious. He says, I know better off than these other people, though you've perhaps learned to mask behavior a little bit.
Religious People Under God's Judgment
In Matthew 23, Jesus is dealing with the Pharisees. And this is kind of the counterbalance to Matthew 5 is the Beatitudes. Blessed are, blessed, blessed. These are the woe tos. So he starts unpacking these woe tos. There's eight of them. Woe to you, woe to you, woe to you.
As he does this, he writes, verse 27, "Woe to you, scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs which on the outside appear beautiful, but inside are filled with dead man's bones and all sorts of uncleanliness." That's His view of religious people. You look really good. Clean yourself up, put on a robe, sing a song, burn a candle, go to church, stand pretty, do nice things. You look really good on the outside. And you can fool these other people. Remember, we started with a list of people you thought were good. But you can't fool me. Because I'm not distracted by your good deeds. I'm looking at your heart.
That was again the revolutionary teaching that Jesus brought in Matthew 5, 6 and 7 in the Sermon on the Mount. You've heard it said, but I say to you. And then He goes through these things. You've heard it said you shouldn't commit adultery. And you're all thinking you're doing pretty well. But He said I want to take it to a different dimension. I want to take it away from the physical action. I want to say, have you ever looked upon some woman in lust? You said you shouldn't commit murder. And you're all thinking you're doing pretty well. But He says if you say to your brother, you idiot. See what He does? All He does is reveal the heart. That's what Paul's doing in this entire section. He's trying to get us to say, I'm not okay. And I do deserve judgment.
All Have Sinned
I'm going to go to Romans 3. And I want to do two things. I want you to feel incredibly helpless. And then I want to give you a little bit of hope. So in Romans 3, verse 23, he said, "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." So when you unpack all this, you go away and you think about it, you come to the conclusion, rightly so, that you are dead in your sins and trespasses.
Let me make one more point. I love this illustration in trying to drive this point out of dealing with the kind of totally pagan guy, the kind of good guy, and then the religious guy. Because Paul's assessment is we're all dead.
I was talking to a guy and he said to me, I have a lot of weird conversations. And this guy said to me, I want to die in my sleep. I said, really? He said, that's how I want to die. I want to go to sleep and not wake up. I want to die in my sleep.
Imagine that you go into a funeral home today and there's three slabs there. On the first slab is the guy who dies in his sleep. The second slab is a guy who's trying to get over 24th and Camelback and doesn't want to walk through a tunnel like a mouse and decides that he's going to sprint across the street, gets halfway across the street, gets hit by a car, but he's agile. So as he's hit, he's kind of rolling, but he rolls and he dies. And when you see him there, he's on slab two, he's kind of beat up a little bit puffy and swollen. You can see there's been some bleeding, but he's there. The third guy is a guy who's riding his motorcycle up in Payson, he gets hit by a truck, they get a spatula and he's on the third one. So you're looking at these three slabs.
Here's the question, it's a profound question. Which one of these three guys is deadest? Now, Paul's point is, here's the religious guy that looked really good. Here's the guy that wasn't religious, but a humanitarian. And here's the totally pagan guy. And they're all in the same condition.
It's so important. We want to sort that out, don't we? And God says, why are you messing around with that? They all fit in this same boat. That's His whole point.
The Hope in a Hopeless Condition
Look at the hope, because it is a hopeless condition if I just leave it this way. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus, whom God displayed publicly. Who is God displaying publicly here? Christ, as a propitiation. Now what propitiation means, to satisfy the wrath of the anger.
So here's the two things I want you to feel. I want you to feel absolutely helpless to redeem yourself because you can, but not hopeless because Jesus died.
Who Killed Jesus?
Who killed Jesus? We got to get into this every Easter. Who killed Jesus? This is really, who killed Jesus? God did. Jesus killed Himself. He voluntarily climbed on that cross. That's who killed Jesus. You get that? Nobody takes my life, Jesus said. I lay it down voluntarily.
Why did He do that? Moved by love for His people, He endured the cross so that you and I would be justified, legal term, declared righteous, and the propitiation, the wrath of God would be satisfied against you and me.
The True Agony of the Cross
When Christ died on that cross, I, the other day, made a mental note. Next time I'm at Best Buy or something, I got to pick up a copy of The Passion of the Christ. And you know, like I said, I don't like scary movies. I don't like bloody movies. But I was compelled in that, though I'm certain it only captured a fraction of the suffering of Jesus.
Being there would be totally different because you'd have the sights and the sounds and the smells of what that had to be. When I looked at it, I have to admit, it just took me deeper and deeper and deeper into the physical suffering of Christ, which still doesn't get me to the agony of the cross, which was not the physical suffering, but that experience when He said, My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?
And Jesus, who loves the Father more than anything and with a perfect love, is separated from God's love for that moment and poured out on Him is the wrath that you and I deserve. Paul says it this way in 2 Corinthians 5:21. He, that's God, made Him Jesus, who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. There's the hope.
Our Universal Condition
Now, you and I, and that's where we're going to go next week. You and I, on our own, natural man, are hopeless and helpless and separated from God. We sin because we're sinners. We're dead in our sins and trespasses. We hate God. Some say it blatantly, openly. Others of us have learned to couch it a little bit better. But I'm saying I want my way, God, not Yours. I'll get my religion, God, not Yours.
And again, whether you're this deeply religious person or this great humanitarian or you're this guy that doesn't give a rip, you're all dead. That's His blanket assessment. At least that puts the market in perspective and you don't feel so bad now. But you see that?
Understanding the Bad News Before the Good News
And you know what? Let me give you 60 seconds here. In a world, even a church world, that doesn't want to talk about this, there's no way that I can begin to understand the good news of the Gospel until I understand the bad news of my sin.
What really breaks my heart is to see so many Christians and churches running away from this very truth. They don't even want to say the word sin. It's got a bad vibe. I don't want to hurt anybody's self-image. You shouldn't have any self-image. What self-image do you have if you're a depraved person who hates God?
You have no self-image of some worth or something intrinsically valuable about who you are and how clever you are and how pretty you are and smart you are or what a great athlete you are. It's all irrelevant because you had an overriding problem. You're dead and you need life. We'll talk about it next week.
Father, help us see this truth, open our eyes, help us understand and remind us we aren't the exceptions to this, that what we describe here in Romans 3 is everybody, every person in the room, every person in the city, the state, the country, the world, but You intervene and You save Your people from their sin. God, we thank You. We praise You. We worship You. We love You. In Christ's name, Amen.