Knowledge of Sin
April 15, 2022 • Jan Vezikov • Romans 3:9–20
Audio Transcript:
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Heavenly Father, we thank you for Jesus Christ, your son. Jesus, we thank you that you did not leave us in our sins, but you came to seek and to save that which is lost, those who are lost and that's us. Jesus, you are our good older brother. You came to find us when we ran from... You pursued us like the hound of heaven. And for those of us who have been found by you, I pray that you give us more unction and power of the Holy Spirit to pursue you with everything we have and to help others who are still lost to meet you. And Lord for those who are yet your children, are not yet adopted into your family, we pray by the power of the Holy Spirit, today convert them, regenerate and adopt them to your family by giving the gift of repentance, humility, and the gift of submission to the king of Kings and the Lord of Lords, Jesus Christ. Bless our time, the holy scriptures and we pray in your name, the name of Jesus. Amen.
Title of sermon is knowledge of sin. You are not ready for Easter Sunday until you grapple with Good Friday, because every Christian and their mom celebrate Easter. It's true. A lot of people show up to church just because that's what their mom wants. And there was no true resurrection day without a bloody death, a bloody death that we all deserve because we are all guilty. I'll never forget, Kyle Rittenhouse's reaction in the courtroom as he's awaiting the verdict and he hears "Not guilty." And he just broke down weeping uncontrollably, inconsolably. In the court of public opinion, he was vilified, obviously guilty, "Kill him now, no need for a trial." But there was also a video footage, the man Kyle killed was chasing Kyle and Kyle falls on the ground, turns around and sees the man pull out a gun, so Kyle defends himself.
Well, we are the opposite of Kyle. In the court of public opinion today, every single person alive, just by virtue of you being alive, you're declared innocent. You're declared a good person, a virtuous person even. But the court of public opinion has no force. It has no power. The power is in the court of God. God is the judge and God judges, according to his law, and not man's law. Are you good or evil, obedient or defiant, innocent or guilty? What's the verdict? Today, we are on Romans 3:9-20, as we continue our sermon series through Romans, would you look at the text with me? "What then? Are we Jews any better off? No, not at all. For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin, as it is written: None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God.
All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one. Their throat is an open grave; they use their tongues to deceive. The venom of asps is under their lips. Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood; in their paths are ruin and misery, and the way of peace they have not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes. Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin." This is the reading of God's holy inherent infallible. Authoritative word may write these eternal truths upon our hearts.
This Good Friday, we'll just walk through the text, verse nine. "What then? Are we Jews any better off? No, not at all. For, we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin," he says we are all under sin, is your heart beating? You are under sin, under the crushing weight of it. Sin isn't superficial. We're not talking about mistakes or foibles. It's not surface level. It's not tangential to our lives. Sin is a heavy weight bearing down on us, full throttle, like 10,000 pounds on a barbell on your back and you didn't even know it was there. On top of that, we have a whole burden of guilt as a result of our sin. "Guilty," we're on trial for the murder of the son of God and the verdict is "Guilty." We're all guilty.
God is the judge, he is ruling and we're guilty. The 10 commandments, they hang over our next, like the blade of a guillotine and it's about to drop. And God will say the word when it's time and the time will come for each of us, it's inevitable. How do we know we're under a sin? Do you need stats? Do I need to give you real life examples? No, I do not. Do I need to share my own precise sins? There are many of how I've come to realize the weight of my own sin. No, you don't need to hear from my experience. You don't need to know the sins I've wrestled with and the demons I've wrangled. All you need to know is the pure word of God. How can we know we're under sin? Because God says so, God's word tells us that we are all sinners.
God said so, God spoke. God's word is true and final. I don't need to make a case. I don't need to persuade you. I don't need to compel you. God says it, that settles it. Do you believe God's word? Do you believe God? If you don't, this is your greatest sin. You don't trust God, you don't take him at his word. Repent of your arrogant, willful, stubborn, stiff necked unbelief. Romans 14:23 says the following, "For whatever does not proceed from faith is sin." Whatever. So friends do believe in the word of God without question, without doubts, the pure unadulterated word of God. Do you have that faith? If not, you're under sin, you're under the greatest sin. You are under the unpardonable sin. Lot of Christians ask "What is the unpardonable sin? What is the sin that God will never forgive?" Well, it's standing over a clear work of the Holy Spirit and standing over in judgment and saying "That is not from God."
Study the context of Matthew 12, Matthew 12, Jesus Christ cast out a demon from a gentleman. And the Pharisees say that Jesus cast out the de demon by the power of Satan. Jesus says the following, verse 31, "Therefore I tell you, every sin and blasphemy for me will be forgiven people, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. And whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come." Who wrote the holy scriptures? It was the Holy Spirit. He chose people, anointed people, inspired people to write the holy scriptures. And if you don't believe the holy scriptures, you need to repent of your or unbelief, or else, you will not be forgiven ever, either in this age or in the age to come, Jesus said.
The greatest sin is not believing that you are a great sinner. So look in the mirror of the holy scriptures. What does it show you? It exposes your sin. Look to God's word, as it is written. And the apostle here turns to the Hebrew scriptures and amalgamation of the text. Most from the Psalms, some from the prophet Isaiah, versus 10 through 18 are all from the sacred scriptures, one charge after another one indictment after another, verse 10, "as it is written," that's the case.
How do we know that we are sinners? "As it is written, none is righteous. No, not one." You're alive, thanks be to God. Therefore you are God's. He created you. He breathed life into you. He knit you together in your mother's womb. He created you in his image to represent him, to represent his holiness, his love, his beauty, his righteousness, and yet you rejected him, you rebelled against him. I was walking with my daughters to church today, and my pink shirt that my wife got me from my birthday. And I love my wife, so I like the shirt. She said "Too many dark of colors you've got." I'm walking with my daughters and then all of a sudden, I see everyone's face turn to this dog that is sprinting across the street. Because people in Boston, they really care for their dogs.
And then after a while everyone's worried, "Who's dog is this?" Then you see this poor guy just sprinting as fast as he can after the dog. Well that's each one of us. In our nature, we are sprinting away from our owner and therefore we in God's court cannot stand. And these are the charges brought against you and me that we are sinners. You might have done some righteous things, but good works can't change a wicked heart, a hard heart, a stone heart, based on what standard are we guilty on the standard that matters. The only one God's holiness. God is holy, blazingly holy. And not one sin can stand in his present, not one sinner. You know what heaven is? Heaven is just the fullness of the presence of God for all of attorney, the pure presence of God. Do you want to be in the presence of God for all of attorney?
Could you even stand it? I know many of you can't, of course not. Many of you can't even sit in a room quietly by yourself and just think and meditate on God. You can't even drive in silence because in the silence, God's spirit begins to convict you of sin and self righteousness. With questions like "Where did I come from? And where am I going? And what is the meaning and the purpose of life? What is my identity? What am I going to do with all the shame and the guilt that I am burdened with?" And God says be still and know that I am God.
Verse 11, "No one understands; no one seeks for God, because no one is righteous." So no one can understand a righteous God, if you have no desire to be righteous, if you have no desire to be holy or obedient, well, how can you understand a being who is perfectly righteous and perfect and holy? How many hours a day do you focus your mind on God and only God, the things of God? Do you hunger and thirst for the word of God, for the deep things of God? By choosing sin over God and over his will, you dehumanize yourself.
You become less of a human being. You devolve into an animal driven by your physical passions, cravings and appetites. And when this happens, of course, you won't see God, you have no power to, because you're a slave to sin, locked inside a jail cell of your own creation, and you flush the only key down the toilet. No one in his or her natural state seeks after God. You consider yourself as a spiritual seeker. A lot of people do. A lot of people say things like "I'm not very religious, but I'm spiritual. I'm a seeker. I'm looking for God. I'm open to finding God." And I always say, "Are you? Are you really? Of course not. And that's why you haven't found him yet." Perpetual seeking, never finding the absolutely most dishonest position to be in. And lots of people say they see God, but they don't see God.
They see God's blessings or protection from his curses. This is you, you don't love God. You love the benefits. You just want to be friends with benefits with God. Well, sometimes there's no benefits. Sometimes it's just spiritual warfare and struggle and trial and temptation. When things get difficult or when God doesn't meet your demands, you grow bitter at God, cold distance and you walk away. Why? Because you weren't seeking God, because if you were really truly seeking God, you would find him because he promised drawn near to me and I'll draw near to you. And if you find him his presence and his Holy Spirit, you realize that's all you ever needed. That's the peace you've been seeking your whole life, the Shalom that comes only by the power of the Holy Spirit. Fact of the matter is no one seeks God, actually your journey to seek after God only begins the day you meet Jesus Christ.
Saul, before he became Paul was on the path to Damascus to go persecute and kill Christians. Was he seeking God? He was not. But Jesus Christ met him. He found him and he finds us, the lost, and Jesus came to seek and to save the lost. Christ found him, Christ found me, Christ names and claims us and then we're his. And he can do the same for you, but you got to stop running. You got to stop fleeing, stop fighting. Indeed we're all seekers, but apart from the spirit of God converting us, giving us the gift of repentance, which is a gift, giving us a supernatural love for God, we seek everything other than God. We seek purpose, happiness, relief from guilt, removal from shame, peace. Well, all of these things can only be found in Jesus Christ, ultimately.
There's no security apart from the King of Kings. There's no peace apart from the prince of peace. There's no truth direction, fullness of life, apart from Jesus Christ, who is the way the truth and the life. He comes to give life and life to the full. Once Jesus has found you got to start following him. You got to start seeking and pursuing him with every fiber of your being. This is what Jesus said, "Hey, you want the physical needs of your life taking care of? Seek first." He says. The kingdom of God and his
righteousness, the righteousness of God and everything else you'll be added on to you. Verse 12, "All have turned aside; together they become worthless; no one does good, not even one." Turned aside from what? From God's will, from God's way, as is clearly depicted in God's word. The earliest Christians, the earliest followers of Jesus Christ, the Messiah, they weren't called Christians until... In Antioch, it was a derogatory term.
To be called. A Christian was a curse word, kind of like today in Boston. It was like that in Antioch. They were called followers of the way, followers of Jesus Christ. Why? Because John 14:6, Jesus said the following, "I am the way." "I'm the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." And you can debate this ad nauseam, but there's no way around this truth that Jesus Christ is the only way to God. There are no other ways. All the other competing religions, philosophies, worldviews, they're all lives from the pit of hell, inspired by Satan, not the Holy Spirit. "Together, they've become worthless." Unprofitable, feudal, pointless. Where does your value come from? Your esteem, your worth. Where from? Your education? Is that where you get your value? How good that name is, the prestige attached to the name of your school?
Relationships? Wealth, family, friends, looks? Is that where you get your value? All of this is worthless, if death takes it all away, and death does take it all away. It's foolish to live for material temporary things when we're going to and spend eternity somewhere. Worthless from whose perspective? From God's of course. If you remain in your sin, fleeing from God, not seeking him, you are worthless in God's eyes and God's love will be lost on you. Yes, God loves everybody so much that he gave his one and only begotten son that whosoever believes him should not perish, but have eternal life. But if you reject that love and there is no love left for you, you only get wrath. "No one does good, not even one." And you say, "Well, wait, wait. Not even one? Not even one good person?" No, not one God. Doesn't judge us by the work of our hands or human standards or another person's standard.
Who decides what's good, what's evil? God alone. And there's no morality apart from God. The case can't be made for a true ironclad foundation of a morality apart from the existence of God. How does God decide if something we do is good? Well, first God weighs our actions and how they correspond hourly to the 10 commandments. Second, God evaluates our inward motivation. Why did you do what you did? Why did you do the good thing, give money to the good cause, why'd you do that? Did you do the good out of love for God? Did you do it for his glory? Did you do it for his honor? No, of course not. Not one of us has done one thing that was 100% motivated by love for God, with all our heart, soul, strength and mind. So no, no one is good. Not even one. In Matthew, 19:16-22, there's a rich young guy that comes to Jesus Christ.
I always think of the young college students driving Lamborghinis and Ferraris and Bugattis, and they're always in Allston. I don't know why, they're always in Allston. They're always in the Blanchard's parking lot. I don't know why that's where they are. So one of these guys gets out of his Buggati as he sees Jesus Christ walking down the street and says "Behold, a man came up to him, saying, 'teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?'" he knows he's missing eternal life. He's not sure about it. So he is like, what's the one thing? Where do I write a check, Jesus? And he said to him, "Why do you ask me about what is good? There's only one who is good." That's God, "If you would enter life, keep the commandments. And he said to him, 'Which ones?' And Jesus said, 'You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not bear false witness, honor your father and mother, and, you shall love your neighbor as yourself.'
The young man said to him, 'All these I have kept, what am I still lack?'" Jesus could have at this moment said, "Oh wow, I've never met anyone as good as you, would you join my bossy of rag tag disciples? You are so virtuous. You are a great guy." Jesus said to him, "'If you would be perfect," because that's the standard to get into heaven, "go sell what you possess and give it to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; come, follow me.' When the young man heard this, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions." Jesus points to this man's heart. And he says, you have a god above the God of the universe, and your god is money, in money you trust. And that's why he leaves the only one who can point him to eternal life and give him eternal life, and he goes and follows his money. I've noticed that the younger you are, the better of a person you think you are. I have to know that middle schoolers are like the best people alive.
And then high schoolers and then college freshmen, oh my, they are saints. They are just angels from above. And then you live a little and life happens to you, and you actually read God's word, which tells us that you are a degenerate. Sin starts in the heart, but makes its way out through our body parts. That's verse 13, "Their throat is an open grave; they use their tongues to deceive. The venom of asps is under their lips." It's an open and grave, he says, meaning out of a dead heart comes death via words.
Matthew 23:27-28, "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people's bones and all uncleanness. So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness." They use their tongues to deceive. Scripture says we're all liars. By nature, we hate truth. We love truth, only when it advances our self-interest. It says "The venom of asps is under their lips." The adder or asps is one of the deadliest reptiles in the world. Its bite is not just painful, but it's lethal. And our tongues, he says are sacs of venom, we are like vipers. Have you ever hurt someone with your words?
Yeah. All of us have. Have you ever been hurt by someone's words? Yes, we've all had, we've all been hurt. Not by speaking truth and love, but by speaking lies in hate or even truth in hate. Verse 14, "Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness." I've been here, I've repented, I've received grace, have you? One thing about curses here and cursing in general, is it okay to ever curse someone? A human being? No. God? No. Can we at least curse Satan? Can you say to Satan, God damn you? Can you say that?
If you are wrestling with that question, you've probably never wrestled with Satan. Many of you have never wrestled Satan because you've been busy flirting with him or dancing with him.
In Genesis 3:15, the protoevangelium, this is the gospel before the gospels, God pronounces to Satan, to the serpent, he said "The son of the woman is going to come, the seed of the woman, Jesus Christ, he will crush your head and you will bruise his heel," meaning Jesus Christ, on the... Remember The Passion of the Christ? Remember that movie, Passion of the Christ and Jesus in Gethsemane? I love that movie, Mel Gibson, back in the day. Passion of the Christ, Jesus Christ in Gethsemane there's a snake that comes. Like Jesus is praying, he's sweating bullets, he's sweating blood, his capillaries bursting in his face. But by the way, how strenuously do you have to be praying? Jesus was praying like that.
And all of a sudden snake comes and he stomps on it. And that's one of the most satisfying scenes I've ever seen in the movie. Because that's what happens on the cross. As Jesus Christ is on Golgotha, calvary, which means skull, the place of the skull, that Jesus Christ, as he's hanging on the cross, and as he says, "It is finished," he dies. And then he goes into the pit of hell to continue proclaiming the tremendous news and lead a train of captives free. But Jesus Christ in that moment, he dealt Satan a death blow to the head. Yeah, he was bruised
Sometimes, when you struggle with demons, when you struggle with sin, you do get bruised. But make sure you keep struggling to overcome it, to beat it. Isaiah 6:1-8, a timely text, "In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple. And above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, with two he covers feet, and with two he flew. And one called to another and said: 'Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory! And the foundations of the threshold shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. And I said: 'Woe was me! For I am lost: for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, Lord of hosts!' Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar.
And he touched my mouth and said: 'Behold, this has touch your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin is atoned for.' And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, 'Whom shall I send, and who shall go for us?' Then I said, 'Here I am, send me.'" The apostle Paul moves from throat to mouth, to lips, to tongue to the feet. Verse 50, "Their feet are swift to shed blood; in their paths are ruin and misery, and the way of peace they have not known." Once we're used to killing people with our words, assassinating reputations, killing them in reality isn't much of a leap, in their paths are ruin and misery, the way of peace they have not known. When war broke out in Ukraine, I heard this a lot early on, I still keep hearing this, I was at my daughter's soccer practice the other day, Thursday.
Now I'm the official chaperone. I was nominated for the job because have a vehicle. They can see a lot of people. So now I'm a soccer dad and I'm just chilling there for an hour, just shooting the breeze at the locals and met this gentleman. And he's like, "Hey, when the war started, I couldn't believe it. I could not believe it. I thought we were pass this. I thought we were educated out of war, out of bloodshed. I thought we had progressed." Well, I wasn't surprised, because I know the word. And the word says in verse 18, "There's no fear of God before their eyes."
The world is as evil as it is, because there's so little fear of God. A lot of people want to talk about the love of God, the love of God, the love of God. Yeah, but you don't really love God until you fear him, revered him, until you're in awe of him. Unfortunately, the people furthest from God have the least fear of God. We're naturally irreverent people. We desperate lack a sense of awe. We don't have a natural desire to honor God glorify him, praise him, but God should scare us to death.
The fact that we are guilty before the creator should scare us to death, and if you've repented of your sins and trust in Jesus Christ, this shouldn't alleviate your fear. The cross should not alleviate your fear of God, the cross should deepen your fear of God. When you look at the son of God, dying on the cross, crying out "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" That should put the fear of God in you. Oh, God does forsake people?
Yeah. So much so that the son was forsaken by the father on the cross. What kind of father is that? That's a father whose heart breaks for you. But he's also a God of justice. Therefore, he sends his son Jesus Christ to fulfill the law. And then Jesus Christ goes to a cross to bear the curse for law breaking, scripture says, curse does anyone who hangs on the tree. And that was the tree, the cross. San Corinthians 5 says "He who knew no sin," that's Jesus, he never sinned, "became sin," meaning every single one of our sins was placed on Jesus Christ, if you are in Christ, on our behalf.
So it wasn't that Jesus just died and you should feel bad for the physical pain? No. Jesus, he took the full cup of God's wrath, the whole thing, and that darkness that comes with being abandoned by God. So that we might have the righteousness of Christ given to us, counted to us so that we might become the righteousness of God. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. We're in a city of a lot of really intelligent people, a lot of very educated people, a lot of very smart people. I tell my daughters, who go to the public school system, I say, "Oh, doesn't matter how smart your teachers are. If they do not fear God, they do not have wisdom.
They are fools. So you got to filter everything that they tell you through that. It's all folly. So we are to repent, believe, fear and love God." Verse 19, "Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped and the whole world may be held accountable to God." Everything's so clear. A lot of people, you're intimidated by even opening the Bible. You're like, "Ah, I'm not a biblical scholar. I didn't go to seminary. I can't read this." You can, it's all very simple. God is King and he is judge. And as King, he issues the law. That's the 10 commandments. And it's still enforce for all of us, for each of us. And once God's verdict comes down, your only reasonable response is silence.
Shut your mouth. That's what the text says that every mouth may be stopped. That means shut your mouth in the presence of God, you have been found guilty, case close, sentenced issued, eternity in hell banished. And each one of us will be held accountable to God. We will be weighed in the balance and found wanting empty of righteousness. Verse 20 "For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin." The law was issued, we're all under it, we've all broken it, we are under sin. Guilty is charged. And no one will be justified by keeping the law because no one has. The law teaches us that we're just sinful. So what do we do? We do the only thing we can do, we cry out for mercy. God have mercy on me, a sinner.
God have mercy on me, a sinner. Matthew 27:15-26, "Now at the feast the governor was accustomed to release for the crowd. Any one prisoner whom they wanted. And they had then a notorious prisoner called Barabbas. So when they had gathered, Pilate said to them, 'Whom do you want me to release for you: Barabbas or Jesus who was called Christ?' For he knew that it was out of envy that they had delivered him up. Besides, while he was sitting on the judgment seat, his wife," Pilate's wife, "sent word to him, 'Have nothing to do with that righteous man, for I have suffered much because of him today in a dream. Now the chief priest and the elders persuaded the crowd to ask for Barabbas and destroyed Jesus. The governor again said to them, 'Which of the two do you want me to release for you?'
And they said, 'Barabbas.' Pilate said to them, 'Then what shall I do with Jesus who is called Christ?' They all said, 'Let him be crucified.' And he said, 'Why? What evil has he done?' But they shouted all the more, 'Let him be crucified.' So when Pilate saw that he was gaining nothing, but rather that a riot was beginning, he took water, washed his hands before the crowd, saying, 'I am innocent of this man's blood; see to it yourselves.' And all the people answered, 'His blood be on us and our children!' Then he released for them Barabbas, and having scourged Jesus, delivered him to be crucified."
Guilty prisoner, Jesus Christ is set free.... The guilty prisoner Barabbas is set free. The innocence son of God is crucified. And no Pilate, not the purest holy water can ever wash the stain of guilt. The blood stain off your hands. You are not, Pilate, innocent of this man's blood. I am not innocent of this man's blood. My sin crucified Jesus Christ, because I'm in Christ. And if you're in Christ, your sin crucified Jesus Christ. If you're not in Christ, you will pay the penalty for your sin yourself.
Receive the gift of forgiveness. He is our propitiation, our substitutionary attorney, our savior. He is our Lord. He is our King and he is our God. Christian, if Jesus died for your sins, he died for your sins. Why do you keep living in them?
Why haven't you left your sins at the foot of the cross, all of them, all of them? If not, you're quenching the power of the Holy Spirit and you're keeping yourself from the fruit of the spear, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, goodness, self control. Nail your sins to the cross of Christ and leave them there. And believe the words of Christ, when he says "You should know the truth," the truth is the gospel. The truth that Jesus Christ died on the cross for your sins, that he was buried, that he rose on the third day. Believed that this is true and live in the freedom of the liberation from sin. Galatians 2:20, "I have been crucified with Christ. It's no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me."
Before we sing and worship from the bottom of our hearts. And then during the third song, we're going to partake in communion. I'll come up and I'll explain. I'll pray over holy communion. But for whom is communion, communion is for anyone who looks to the cross of Jesus Christ and says, "That's my Lord. And that's my savior. And he died on the cross for my sins. That's my savior. And that's my King." If you repent of your sins, you submit to him, you give your life over to him and you are a Christian, you're welcome to partake. If you're living in sin that you have not repented of, you're not living in submission to the Lord. Therefore, do not partake in holy communion. Instead, repent and meditate. If you do repent, you are welcome to take communion.
In conclusion, verse 20 ends the very depressing part of Romans, for now. There's going to be more depressing parts. But this one's pretty depressing because it shows us that we are all wicked sinners. And then verse 21 begins with one of my favorite words in the Bible. Three letters, B U T. "But." That one word is the difference between heaven and hell. It's the difference between hope and hopelessness. It's the difference between purpose and nihilism. It's the difference between love and hate. It's the difference between bad news and good news. It's the difference between guilty and not guilty when it will matter most, the day of judgment. And that's Romans 2:21-26. I'll read, I'll pray, we'll worship, I'll come back up, we'll have communion. And then I said, communion, in Good Friday, in past year, we told everyone, "You got to leave quietly. Don't talk to anybody."
That's depressing. You should talk to some people, have some fellowship, give people hugs. It's spring and the best time of the year in Boston is coming. Romans 2:21-26, "But now, but now righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law. Although the law and the prophets bear witness to it, the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe, for there's no distinction for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sin. It was to show his righteousness at the present time so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus." Amen. Let's pray, Lord God, we thank you for Jesus Christ. Jesus, we thank you that you came in submission of God, the Father, by the power of the Holy Spirit, you fulfilled your ministry.
You didn't want to go to that cross. You wrestled in the garden Gethsemane and you prayed. You prayed, you prayed, "Lord, Lord father, let this cup pass for me, but now my will, but yours be done." And Jesus, we thank you that you submitted to the father's will when he didn't want to forgive us for those times when we didn't submit to the will of the father. Thank you for your obedience. And thank you that obedience counts to us when we place our trust in you. And thank you, by the power of the Holy Spirit, we can live a life of holiness and righteousness, pursuing God, seeking after God on a daily basis. Bless our time and holy worship right now, fill our hearts with the Holy Spirit and let us sing from the bottom of our hearts to worship and honor and glorify the King of Kings and the Lord of Lord's, Jesus Christ. In whose name we pray. Amen.