We're going to be reading from the 103rd Psalm just one verse
Psalm 103 verse 14 here. The Bible says, for God himself
knows our frame. He is mindful that we are but
dust the psalmist. David once said, I have been
young and now I am old Old. That's Psalm 37 and verse 25.
And every person who lives a full life or anything close to,
it goes through a time of Youth, some people have an especially
traumatic Youth and others have an especially sheltered Youth
and most have something in between.
Some people are deprived of any education in spiritual things.
And others are blessed to be exposed to the word of God, and
the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ, early in their lives.
And some of them are taught to love God by people who love God
themselves. And some of these are led to
love God as well. And to make the decision to
honor and serve him. In time most of these people, in
fact, I'm going to say all of them experienced a crisis, they
realize that they are not as good as they understand.
They should be. They failed to live up to the
standard that God seems to set in his word.
Some of them think that others succeed at that but they know
that they do not My father was a person like that.
I don't know if any of you knew him, he was by my judgment.
A very good man. I loved him very much.
He was raised to follow Christ. But he came to the conclusion.
He told me before he died, when he was a teenager that he just
wasn't good enough. And he chose to handle that,
like many others have in a very unhealthy way.
A tommen way, but a very unhealthy one.
Some people delude themselves into thinking eventually that
they are good enough by focusing on the ways that they feel that
they're better than others. These become Hypocrites others.
Like my father for 18 years. Give up and walk away and leave
the church behind and try to live without God.
Others determined that they will go ahead and continue going to
church and hope that somehow things will get better.
Maybe they'll get hit by a truck when they're having a good day.
Or maybe they'll just eventually cross that line that they
recognize, they haven't crossed yet and eventually get as good
as they need to be or somehow some way everything will work
out. These become devoutly religious
but generally miserable people. Well, I believe that the
underlying problem in all of these cases is a failure to
appreciate the Human Condition and perhaps to appreciate that.
God understands The Human Condition.
And so, for the duration of our study, I want to consider what
the Bible teaches on this matter.
I want to begin by considering two popular.
Diaz about the human condition that I reject is untrue.
One of these is a secular and atheistic idea.
And the other is a religious idea that actually professes to
be the biblical and Christian won.
The first is, what we'll call evolutionary progress.
This is the secular atheistic concept of The Human Condition,
but although it is secular atheistic, that doesn't mean
that. No, Christian holds to it, many
times Christians inadvertently mistakenly borrow ideas from
other worldviews. And so it may be that there are
many people who believe in Jesus Christ, but they've embraced
this notion. And this notion says that in one
way or another humanity, is getting better naturally and
will eventually get as good as it can possibly be, and then it
will go extinct and will be replaced by something that's
even better than it. Now, this idea has philosophical
and even scientific problems that make it Unworthy of
acceptance by anyone. But if you believe in God and
the Bible, Then this notion is even more unacceptable because
it runs completely contrary to Biblical teaching.
According to the Bible Humanity was created by God in a way that
he judged to be very good. So he said in Genesis 1 and
verse 31. When he observed, that something
was not good. As in Genesis 2:18, he
immediately improved the situation.
Now, in these contexts, the phrases, very good and not good,
refers specifically to how man was suited to accomplish God's
intentions and plans for him in Revelation chapter 11 verse 4.
The Bible says, worthy are you, our Lord, and our God to receive
glory, and honor and power for you created all things.
And because of your, will they existed and were created.
The implication of this passage is that God created the world
for his glory and honor and because he wanted to create it.
One translation says, it was created for his pleasure.
Thus all things including human beings, find their purpose in
God's purpose for them. God determines whether we are
very good or not, good, or we could say that whichever of
those describes us. Depends on whether or not.
We are fulfilling God's intention for us.
One of God's Express purposes for Humanity, was for them to
fill the Earth according to Genesis 1 and verse 28, which is
why God said it was not good. That man should be alone.
On Genesis 2:18 when he was alone specifically when he liked
to counterpart with whom he could reproduce, he was not
capable of accomplishing. At least that part of what God
had purposed for him and created him to do.
Now my point in all of this is to show that God created
Humanity in such a way that once there was male and female, he
could say it is very good. When you consider the rest of
Genesis 1 and verse 28, you'll find that God's purpose is for
Humanity on the whole included that they be the image of God in
the world and that they rule the rest of creation and use the
rest of creation to promote the glory of God.
The idea of being God's image Bearer has something to do with
how we are made specifically with the combination.
Things that make us different from every other part of
creation things, like personal Consciousness at this Podium is
a good Podium. So far as podiums go, it's doing
precisely. What a Podium was built to do.
Holding up my notes and allowing me to stabilize myself while I'm
standing up here. But this Podium would not make a
good image, bearer of God. Because it lacks personal
Consciousness, it doesn't have the ability to think, or to
speak, or to develop a relationship with really
anything around it. But we have personal
Consciousness, and intelligence, and language, and volition, and
moral reasoning, and creativity. The capacity to bring together,
colors, and words, and musical notes, and make something
beautiful. Just like God.
We are His Image bearers, we have the capacity to feel
things, good and bad painful and joyous and all of this combined
in a physical body that can make other versions of itself that
can reproduce. According to its own, kind these
qualities. Make humans very good because
they enable us to know, God and to reflect the Character.
And at least some of the qualities of God in the world,
to receive the love of God and to understand it, and to love
him. Back in return to grasp, certain
aspects of God's glory with our minds, and then to ascribe That
Glory to him with our lips and with our lives, that's to
worship to understand the rest of creation and through time and
through Annotation and study to understand it, more and more,
and more, and to take hold of it and to harness it and to utilize
it for its own good purposes. And all of this, so that we
might enjoy a very special, kind of fellowship with our Creator.
God made us very good in all of these ways from the very
beginning. God made us just the way.
He wanted us and rather than getting better, if such a thing
is even possible to get better from very good.
The Bible teaches that man has failed to maintain that.
Very good condition. And rather he has gotten worse.
The idea of evolutionary progress that humans are much
better now than they ever were before and whatever problems you
or anyone else has in. This moment are just the
accidents of being born at that particular point in the Stream
of evolutionary development. And if you're not, please just
wait. If you're not fit, you'll die.
Something will come along and topple you over and and you'll
go extinct, but if you are fit, you'll survive and eventually
you'll die, but something better will come along.
This idea, whatever it generates in the human soul, is at the
very least, contrary to the Bible and I reject it and I
encourage you to reject it as well.
There's another idea about the human condition and this claims
to represent the teaching of the Bible.
In fact, it is often called the Christian doctrine of man, it is
summed up. In the words, total depravity
and occasionally, you'll see the word Hereditary Stuck in the
Middle to make it total, hereditary depravity and those
who add this, word are emphasizing that.
This condition originated with Adam and Eve.
The father and mother of humanity and has passed from
them on to all other humans. We've inherited it.
In fact, many times, the word heredity is used to emphasize
that this condition is supposedly even present in in
infants even from the mother's womb as some of the Creed say,
Now, the idea of total depravity is not that all humans are as
bad as they possibly could be. Everybody knows that's not the
case. If it was, this room would be a
whole lot different, we'd be fighting like dogs over a bone
and most of us would not survive.
Half an hour together. Nobody affirms that every human
being on Earth is as bad as they possibly could be.
That's a misrepresentation. Of total depravity.
Neither is it that humanity is getting worse all the time.
Anyone who knows history knows that's not the case.
Rather total depravity is the idea that human beings have a
nature, that is utterly turned against God and his will.
So that it is impossible for humans in their natural
condition to do any thing that is truly good or to seek after
God or to exercise faith in him. Even if they were told the truth
about him, Of course, the people who affirmed total depravity
would agree with the Bible that God has revealed himself to
everyone through Creation. In fact, some of them would go a
step further and argue that God has put an innate knowledge of
himself into all people, but because people are totally
depraved, they hate God by their very nature, and they are
irrevocability bent away from God.
Unless their nature is Hinged through the miracle of the new
birth or regeneration. Now, all of those terms and
words are biblical terms, even the word depravity can be found
in some English translations of the Bible, but I deny that the
concept is biblical There many passages, we could consider to
show that but I want to show you four examples of real people.
We read about them in the book of Acts and everyone would agree
that when the Bible describes them in the areas were going to
focus on. They were unregenerate.
They were lost people. They weren't Christians.
And yet, the Bible describes them as people who loved God.
And they were seeking God. And it shows how they turned to
faith in God without any evidence of some miracle being
wrought to change their nature. The first is the Ethiopian
nobleman in Acts chapter 8. The eunuch when he's introduced,
the Bible tells us that he did not know who Jesus was nor did
he understand virtually anything about God's plan to save
Sinners? But he did, love God.
He was returning from Jerusalem to, which he had travelled at
Great expense, and Peril for this, sole stated purpose to
worship acts 8 and verse 27, we see him move from a state of
unbelief to saving faith in Christ, but there's no reference
or even implication of some miracle being worked on his
nature, all that the Bible says was necessary for this.
And to believe in Jesus, was that he should hear about him?
Next consider the case of the Philippian Jailer.
Here was a man who was worse off than the Ethiopian.
He didn't even know who the true God was.
He was a polytheistic Pagan and when we first meet him, he
appears to be a rather cruel, man.
But he witnessed some things in the world around him, that
caused him to question his former positions.
And without any indication of a miracle being performed on his,
Sure, he asked the question, what must I do to be saved?
Acts chapter, 16 and verse 30 and he's told in verse 31 to
believe on the Lord, Jesus Christ and then after hearing
the word of the Lord, spoken to him in verse 32, the Bible says
he believed, and he was baptized verses 33.
And 34 earlier, in the same chapter, we read about a woman
named Lydia. The Bible does say of this woman
in the course, of her story that the Lord opened her heart Acts
chapter 16, verse 14. And yet before the Lord opened
her heart, whatever it was, that that meant the Bible describes
her as one who feared and worshipped, God, and who tried
very hard to obey God's Commandments even in a culture
that was generally disinterested in him.
And as a woman who prayed and who listened when people spoke
about God, that would be absurd to accuse a woman like that of
hating God. Even before he opened her art,
and I think that the most reasonable way of reading the
account, is that he opened her heart through the preaching of
Paul, rather than, by a miracle being worked on her nature,
which he evidently didn't need any way, finally, consider the
case of Cornelius and I Chapter 10.
When we meet Cornelius, he is according to an angel who I
suppose was a fairly good judge of things in need of words by
which he and his household should be saved.
That's acts 11 and verse 14. In other words he was not a
regenerate man but all the same, the Bible describes him as a
devout man and one who feared God with all his household and
gave many alms to the Jewish people.
Oh, and prayed to God, continually acts, 10, and verse
2. This is what the Bible says
about him later. The Apostle Peter is led by the
Holy Spirit to acknowledge that, this man practiced
righteousness, Acts chapter 10, and verse 35, and it was
unreasonable to think that God would not be pleased with him
for that, even though he was not Jewish this man wanted to hear
about Jesus and he wanted to know how to be truly right?
With God. So much But even though the
preacher was Prejudiced and cruel and dismiss it, he was
willing to work through that in order to lay hold of the
message. Now, my point in all of these
cases is to show that according to the testimony of the Bible.
Whatever The Human Condition is, it's not total depravity.
There are people in this world who could be described as
utterly turned against God. The imagination of their heart
is only evil continually their heart is deceitful above all
things and desperately wicked there.
Like a man full of sores from head to toe in their wickedness
and they're evil and their Brokenness but not Not everyone
has allowed themselves to reach that state.
Whatever is true of all unregenerate people.
It is not that they hate God and can do nothing else.
It is not that they are incapable of believing his word
though. It were told to them unless some
external power. First moves them into that
capacity. So what is The Human Condition?
According to the Bible, I'm going to describe the condition
with the Following this. And I use that word because I
think it's a biblical term in Romans 3:23, the Apostle Paul
says, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
I suggest that there is a sense in which the Deeds of Adam and
Eve did impact all Humanity. There is a sense in which we
fell in their fall. But there's also a sense in
which we contribute further to our own fallenness through our
own actions. And then, there is also a sense
in which the fallenness of the world where we live shapes our
condition, as well, to see the way in which Adam and Eve
impacted us. I would direct us first to
Romans chapter 5 verse 12. The Apostle says, therefore,
just as through one man, sin entered Did the world and death
through sin and so death, spread to all men, because all of sin,
the text goes on to say, by the transgression of the one, the
many died and through the one who sinned the Judgment arose
from transgression, resulting in condemnation, by the
transgression of the one death reigned through the one.
And through the ones transgression, there resulted
condemnation to all men, through the one man's Disobedience.
The many Many were made sinners now, read all of these simply to
show that Adams Disobedience his sin, had an impact on the
condition of all Humanity. We know that it wasn't total
depravity to learn what it was. We should look back at Genesis
chapter 3 and read about it directly.
Genesis 3, beginning in verse 16.
Then to Eve God said I will greatly multiply your pain in
childbirth in pain, you will bring forth children that your
desire shall be for your husband and he will rule over you.
Then to Adam, he said, because you have listened to the voice
of your wife and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded
you saying you shall not eat from it.
Cursed is the ground because of you in toil, you will eat of it
all the days of your life, both thorns.
Thistles, it shall grow for you. And you will eat the plants of
the field by the sweat of your face.
You will eat bread until you return to the ground because
from it, you were taken for. You are dust and to dust you
shall return. Then the Lord God, said, behold
the man is become, like, one of us, knowing good and evil.
And now he might stretch out his hand and take also from the Tree
of Life and eat and live forever, therefore the Lord God
sent him out. Um, the Garden of Eden, he drove
the man out. And at the east of the Garden of
Eden, he stationed, the cherubim and the Flaming sword, which
turned every direction to guard. The way to the tree of life
without giving an exhaustive, exposition of these texts.
I would suggest that from them, we learned that the Human
Condition in our state of following.
This is one of ignorance. And weakness by which, I mean,
physical weakness and the in capacities that come from that
instability by which I mean moral instability and deception.
Now the first two of these are hereditary that is they pass to
all humans and they impact us from birth as the result of Adam
and Eve sinned. I should say that.
Even if Adam and Eve had never sinned.
I suppose that babies would still have been born ignorant
and wheat that just seems to be how reproduction works.
But because of Adam and Eve, some babies will never grow out
of the ignorance and weakness with which they came into this
world and those who do never grow as far or as fully as they,
otherwise would have. All human beings are ignorant.
That includes me. It includes every one of you and
everybody in the world. The Bible says that God knows
all things. First John, 3 and verse 20, most
humans know some things but no human knows all things.
We are all ignorant. We're born ignorant.
In fact, we're born. So ignorant.
It. And with such a limited capacity
to understand and to grasp what is going on around us that for a
while we're justified by our ignorance.
But eventually that passes for most people eventually, most of
us reach a state in life, where we have enough, knowledge, and
enough reasoning ability, including moral reasoning,
because we are made in God's image, that we can distinguish
between good and evil. And even though we're still
ignorant, Aunt, we're no longer justified by ignorance knowledge
is important. We cannot be what God made us to
be without knowing some things. In fact, the mandate to have
dominion over the Earth, seems to imply that our growing in
knowledge, is a part of fulfilling our purpose in God's
Eternal plan. And yet it's difficult to learn.
For all of us, some of us struggled to learn math, some of
us struggle to learn English or language or literature or
history. Some of us might not struggle in
one of those areas, but we struggle in another and even
when we excel in learning, we always run into some point in
life when we struggled to learn anymore.
It's hard. Even all of the things that we
opted to know, we will never reach a state in which we know
all things. Ignorance can be improved, but
it can never be overcome completely.
Ultimately, it is just a part of the human condition.
Physical weakness is another thing that distinguishes us from
God With God, all things are possible but with man many
things are impossible says Jesus in Matthew, 19.
And verse 26, we lack the capacity, or the energy, or the
focus, or the stamina to accomplish them.
Of course, we can get stronger, but the great Paradox of life is
that as we get older and stronger, we also become more
conscious of our weakness. I'm stronger now than I was when
I was two months old. But I'm also getting closer to
the ultimate manifestation of my weakness, the weakness that
results from my fallenness and eventually, I'm going to get so
weak that I can't go on living. And I'll die.
And the same thing will happen to everybody else in the world.
There are lots of people in this world who are stronger than me
in many ways, but they too are weak.
All humans are weak and All Humans will eventually die and
it's just part of being a human that our muscles, our eyes, our
minds. Begin to falter.
We get tired, we get hungry, we get sick.
There's certain things that we want to do and there's certain
things that we need to do, but we find we cannot do them.
And then there's instability now when I speak of instability as I
said I'm talking about moral instability and I'll explain
this further but this is something that we do not inherit
from Adam and Eve this comes from our own sins and to some
degree from the sins of others in the world around us and
against us as we live in a fallen system.
In James chapter 1 verse 8, the Bible says, There is such a
thing as a double minded man and a double minded man is unstable
in all of his ways are the word double-minded.
Literally means a to sold man. He has two souls in him.
His heart is not fully fixed on God, there's something else that
pulls him in another Direction. And this person is extremely
unstable and an unstable person. Is someone who is bent downward?
Prone to fall someone who has the tendency to Tumble.
If this person yields to the pull of what seems natural,
they're going to fall down. An example of moral instability
would be same-sex attraction. This is the Temptation that lies
at the foundation of the sin of homosexuality.
Now, when I was a boy, I Heard lots of Christians, very
foolishly called same-sex attraction, a choice.
It is, of course, a choice who you have sexual relations with.
But it's not a choice who you're attracted to.
There are lots of factors involved in that and some of
them are very Elusive and mysterious and it's possible for
people to do things or to have things done against them that
cause their moral sense to be warped and therefore their
appetites, which are perfectly normal and natural and given by
God in order to help us accomplish what we were made to
do. Those become warped too.
The word pervert is a strong word and an ugly word.
And nobody would like it to be applied to them.
But in reality, all Sinners, all people who reach a state of
moral reasoning and spend enough time in this world that they
deliberately choose to do something.
Contrary to the will of God become perverted in one sense or
another. Our affections move away from
the will of God to something else, something base and earthy
and sometimes demonic and those can be sexual affections or they
can be any other kind of appetite or longing or desire.
It can be that the desire for praise and for friendship, and
for popularity, the Bible says that as Sinners, we develop
Coordinate desires, evil desires, Colossians 3 and verse
5 and these cause us to be bent downward.
And in that condition it becomes a great struggle not to fall.
Finally deception is a part of the human condition to be
deceived is to be led astray by a lie and I believe that every
one of us is almost certainly deceived about something even at
this very moment and this is because we're ignorant and we
live in a world that's full of lies.
We live in a world that in a very, real sense is under the
sway of the devil at this present time.
Jesus said that when the devil speaks a lie, he speaks from his
own resources for he is a liar and the father of it, John 8 and
verse 44. So I would say it is impossible
for any one of us. However, smart and clever, and
shrewd, and, and watchful. We think we are to go through
life and never be deceived about anything.
It might be something small. As what time it is, you might
look at your watch and it's off by five minutes, but that's
deception your off. You don't know as much as you
think you do. You've been LED astray.
You see this is the very important point.
You do not have to hate the truth, to be deceived.
Now, if you do hate the truth, you will be deceived.
The Bible says that the one who hates the truth, and there are
people who hate truth. There are people who Embrace
ignorance and they Embrace weakness, and they Embrace
instability and they allow those things to Define.
Who they are as a person, and they hate the truth.
Because the truth, challenges them in all of those areas.
And the Bible says, if you hate the truth, then God will give
you a deception, even a strong delusion, so that you should
believe the lie and be condemned 2nd Thessalonians 2, 11 through
12. Now, you might be troubled by
that but don't dare to challenge God over that because all he's
given that person is what the person wanted.
Didn't love the truth. They hated the truth.
So he gave them a lie. That's what they wanted.
But not everyone hates truth and even those who love truth and
who are seeking after it can be deceived ignorance, weakness,
instability and deception. These are not just the problems
of the people out there, they're not.
Just the problems of people in false religion and in
denominationalism, they are The Human Condition for everyone in
the world. And if you will become
Christian, then God will. At once begin to deliver you
from all of these things, he will give you knowledge.
He will give you strength. You say even physical strength.
Yes. According to his will, if he
needs to bless you to enable you to do, what he wants you to do.
The Bible says those who wait upon the Lord shall renew their
strength, they shall Mount up with wings as eagles, they shall
run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.
Thank God can give you whatever you need to be useful to the
purposes for which he has called you.
He'll straighten you out. If you're crooked, he'll
enlightening, you to the truth and drive the deception of the
lives away, and ultimately he will Deliver Us from all of
these things completely in the resurrection.
But until that day, the Deliverance is Progressive and
partial. In other words, we will continue
to deal with ignorance and weakness and instability and
deception. Of Our Lives.
Even as a Christian, you need to know that and you need to know
that God knows that so that you can receive for great blessings,
four blessings that will protect you from those unhealthy
responses to the realization of your own problems for great
blessings that will keep you from pretending that you're
Better than you are for great blessings.
That will keep you from giving up and walking away and
embracing your fallenness and letting that just decide who
you're going to be until it, takes you to hell.
For great blessings that will keep you.
From becoming a miserable. Albeit religious person.
Number one, knowing The Human Condition and knowing that God
knows it will keep you hopeful. You must never think that you
are so ignorant. So weak, so broken.
So deluded that God cannot save you.
If you are willing to turn to him, the passage that we read to
introduce the lesson belongs to a Psalm of praise to God.
God for his graciousness, I want you to listen to it.
It's context. These are some of the most
beautiful words ever written in history.
Psalm 103 verses 8 through 14. The Lord is compassionate and
gracious, slow to anger. And abounding, in loving
kindness, he will not always strive with us, nor will he keep
his anger forever. He has not dealt with us,
according to our sins, nor rewarded us according to our
iniquities. Equities for as high as the
heavens are above the Earth. So great is his loving.
Kindness toward those who fear Him as far as the East is from
the West so far. Has he removed our
transgressions from us just as a father, has compassion on his
children. So the Lord has compassion on
those who fear Him and you might say, how can that be?
How can God? Feel that way towards someone
like me. to such a worm as I Verse 14 says, for he himself
knows our frame. He knows what we're made of, he
is mindful that we are but dust God created us.
He knows where we are. And when he made the gospel, he
made it for us to come to where we are and bring us to something
better. He has the power to save us from
our fallenness and make us all that.
We need to be to be very good again.
Number two, knowing The Human Condition and knowing that God
knows it will keep you humble. The Bible says that in order to
enter into the Kingdom of Heaven, to have God rule over
you and accomplish your purpose in life.
You must be poor in spirit. Matthew Chapter 5 and verse 3.
That is humble Brokenhearted. If we deceive ourselves into
thinking that God's work in US is finished.
If I say, you know, I've been doing this for a while.
Several years now and I finally reached the stage.
I have nothing left to learn. My weakness is not so great.
I'm not broken anymore. I have it all figured out just
right. I see through all of the
falsity, 's and lies and and delusions around us.
And if everybody else was just like me, then they'd be all
right, as well. If that's the way I think.
Then God can never complete his work in me.
I've shut him out. I tell you a number three.
Knowing The Human Condition and knowing that God knows it will
keep you merciful. Jesus taught us to pray that God
would forgive us as we forgive those who sin against us.
Matthew 6 and verse 12, he taught us that we will be judged
with the same standard with which we judge others.
So we should be merciful and patient and forbearing as much
as we possibly can be because those against whom we are
inclined to pass judgment. They're made of the same stuff
we are. They have the same condition we
have remembering that will Empower us to love our enemies.
Even as God has loved us. I think about how Jesus
interacted with his disciples. He told them over and over and
over again. I don't know how many times I've
never counted that he was going to die and he would rise again
on the third day. And yet when he did, they didn't
believe it. And he appeared to them and he
let them touch him and they still didn't believe it.
And yet he continued and continued he didn't abandon
them. He was patient with them.
Because they were ignorant and they were weak.
You remember, when they were with him in the garden and he
asked them to watch and pray with him and they did, how do
you respond to do? You say, why did I ever waste my
time picking you stupid men? You worthless men.
Why did I think that you would be there for me when I needed
you? What's wrong with you?
No. when he was suffering, he saw them and he said, The spirit
is willing. But the flesh is weak.
He knows our frame. That we are but dust and so he
is merciful to us. And we ought to be merciful to
one another. and finally, To know the Human Condition.
And I know that God knows it. Will keep us faithful.
Remember faithfulness is not flawlessness.
It is the Relentless pursuit of the will of Christ.
It's not a decision. You make it one moment.
It's not signing a card praying, a prayer, taking a dip, and then
it's all over. It's a new lifestyle, The Human
Condition reminds us. Why?
We must be justified by faith. We're not ignorant enough and we
don't have it within us to offer God Perfection James who said in
James 2 and verse 10 for whoever keeps the whole law.
And yet stumbles in one point has become guilty of all them
said in chapter 3 and verse 2. We all stumble in many ways.
We're not perfect. None of us.
And truth be told we're not even perfect in the ways that we
sometimes feel that we are. Maybe you are tempted to say no.
Listen, I know my life is in shambles.
I've got lots of problems, but at least when I come here this
morning and I do this, it's perfect.
Probably not as much as we think.
Probably not as much as we think. if our hearts were laid
bare, We'd probably see, even here, I fail.
Even here, I Stumble in many ways.
It's so important here to realize that the gospel is not
about God giving us a second chance to do what we failed to
do before. Because if we had one, we would
fail again. And the same, the third time,
and the fourth, and the thousands.
The gospel is about saving us out of a fallen State.
The only hope of justification we have is by pardon and when we
are faithful to Christ, God, grants us.
Perpetual part. Listen to First, John 1 and
verse 7. If we walk in the light as he
himself is in the light, what does it mean to walk in the
light? This is the Relentless pursuit
of the will of Christ to know it and to do it.
This is allowing the light of God's word to bathe your whole
life. In Illuminating glory to expose
every ugly nasty, hurtful broken, shameful embarrassing.
Thing about you. How can you allow that to
happen? How can you not cover up some of
it? Because if you walk in the
light, as he is in the light, the blood of Jesus Christ, his
son cleanses you from all sin. The light is what enables you to
know how to grow, how to get better.
It exposes the areas where you need to improve.
This is not talking about a rebellious person.
It's talking about a person who has submitted to Christ and he's
trying to learn and to do his will, he's ignorant.
He's weak. He stumbles, he's unstable, he's
deceived, but he persists, in faith, in Christ, He does not
Embrace his human condition. He gives it over to God to
complete his work in him. And the Bible says that such a
man is right with God, not because he's perfect, but
because God makes him right by the blood of Jesus.
Through his faithfulness. I dare say that a person who
recognize who fails to recognize The Human Condition and that God
knows it too cannot and will not be faithful.
A person in that situation will either become proud or else
despair of any hope. And that person may get to a
point where they do hate God. And they reject him altogether.
but if you love God right now, And you know who you are.
Know that he knows who you are too.
And he still loves you. And come to him with your
ignorance and your weakness and your instability and your
deception and your Brokenness and your fallenness.
And let him love you. And through Christ transform,
you into something greater. And ultimately, Very good.