[Music] 00:00:01.30\00:00:11.33 [Music] 00:00:11.33\00:00:20.86 --As the conversation is progressing, we've covered a lot 00:00:20.86\00:00:23.43 of ground. 00:00:23.43\00:00:24.63 And the thing that I'm loving so far about the way that the 00:00:24.63\00:00:28.26 conversation is going because these aren't scripted, 00:00:28.26\00:00:30.23 obviously, and for the people that are listening in, you know, 00:00:30.23\00:00:32.96 we kind of have a general direction that we're going, but 00:00:32.96\00:00:35.20 the thing just kinda takes on a life of its own, and I've been 00:00:35.20\00:00:37.73 thrilled. 00:00:37.73\00:00:39.00 We've been through, this is our fifth conversation now, is that 00:00:39.00\00:00:41.76 right? 00:00:41.76\00:00:43.03 What I'm loving about the way that this is developing is, is 00:00:43.03\00:00:45.56 that it's coming off very relationally significant, very 00:00:45.56\00:00:49.50 relationally in tuned, which is not something that's being 00:00:49.50\00:00:52.56 imposed on the text, it's the way the text itself presents 00:00:52.56\00:00:55.93 both the sin problem and the salvation solution. 00:00:55.93\00:00:58.40 We so often make it just like a legal arrangement. 00:00:58.40\00:01:01.16 There's a problem, here's the solution, you know, cross all 00:01:01.16\00:01:03.03 your t's, dot all your i's and it's game over. 00:01:03.03\00:01:05.50 But at the center of this, there are people, and God is himself a 00:01:05.50\00:01:09.43 person and there's relational connectivity, so sin is distrust 00:01:09.43\00:01:11.76 and love is relational trust and love and connection. 00:01:11.76\00:01:16.03 We're gonna continue that same conversation and that last 00:01:16.03\00:01:19.03 conversation we were talking about the woundedness of the 00:01:19.03\00:01:22.30 human experiences, emotionally, psychologically, spiritually, 00:01:22.30\00:01:24.16 etcetera, and here, we're gonna flesh that out even more, 00:01:24.16\00:01:27.43 transitioning eventually to the New Testament, but we wanna 00:01:27.43\00:01:31.10 really get our fingers wrapped around the idea of the 00:01:31.10\00:01:33.36 universality of the sin problem, that it's not just an individual 00:01:33.36\00:01:40.50 thing, it's not just an isolated thing, it's universal, and the 00:01:40.50\00:01:43.30 bible paints a very unflattering picture of humanity, which I 00:01:43.30\00:01:47.26 think is one of the reasons that many people are a little stand 00:01:47.26\00:01:49.76 offish with Christianity, and yet, human history has confirmed 00:01:49.76\00:01:53.86 that the bible's diagnosis, God's diagnosis is accurate. 00:01:53.86\00:01:57.00 So, let's get into some of those texts, both old and especially 00:01:57.00\00:02:02.93 New Testament texts that speak to this issue. 00:02:02.93\00:02:05.33 --The first one that comes to mind is Romans 3, Romans 3 is a 00:02:05.93\00:02:09.66 New Testament passage that specifically defines what the 00:02:09.66\00:02:16.16 sin problem looks like in human relations, and again, following 00:02:16.16\00:02:22.83 through with the trajectory that we clearly see in the scripture 00:02:22.83\00:02:27.73 of this highly relational language, what Paul defines here 00:02:27.73\00:02:33.13 as the sin problem, again, shows us that we're not dealing with 00:02:33.13\00:02:37.46 sin in the abstract. 00:02:37.46\00:02:39.23 We're dealing with sin as something that impacts our 00:02:39.23\00:02:44.33 concrete relationships with God and with one another. 00:02:44.33\00:02:46.86 In Romans chapter 3, he's describing the problem, and he 00:02:46.86\00:02:52.40 says in verse 10, as it is written, there is none 00:02:52.40\00:02:55.26 righteous, no, not one. 00:02:55.26\00:02:57.66 Verse 11, there is none that understands, which, by the way, 00:02:57.90\00:03:01.30 doesn't that get back to what we were saying earlier, that when 00:03:01.30\00:03:06.23 we look at the sin problem in Genesis 3, it begins on the 00:03:06.23\00:03:09.56 level of mental distortion regarding the character of God. 00:03:09.56\00:03:13.43 So, there is none who even understand. 00:03:13.43\00:03:17.10 And then, there is none that seeks after God, which indicates 00:03:17.10\00:03:22.03 that if there is to be a relationship between God and 00:03:22.03\00:03:25.73 man, it would have to be God who is taking the initiative. 00:03:25.73\00:03:29.53 --Let me just throw in, I love that, that also takes us back to 00:03:29.76\00:03:31.83 Genesis because rather than the posture of seeking God, man, 00:03:31.83\00:03:35.76 Adam and Eve, after the fall, are fleeing from God and God is 00:03:35.76\00:03:39.10 seeking them. 00:03:39.10\00:03:40.03 --And actually, the word is used in Genesis 3, that they hid 00:03:41.26\00:03:42.93 themselves from the Lord. 00:03:42.93\00:03:44.70 And when the Lord called them, wooed them, beckoned them out of 00:03:45.06\00:03:48.90 hiding, the first thing they said was, we hid because we were 00:03:48.90\00:03:50.70 afraid. 00:03:50.70\00:03:51.96 So, there's fear, there's phobia in the relationship between God 00:03:51.96\00:03:56.23 and humanity now because God is perceived in a false light. 00:03:56.23\00:03:59.63 They would've never been afraid of God if they had maintained an 00:04:00.60\00:04:03.16 accurate perception of his trustworthy character. 00:04:03.16\00:04:07.13 --Let me just take that a step further, if you read the whole 00:04:07.83\00:04:10.30 context of Genesis 3, when God comes into the garden, it's to 00:04:10.30\00:04:14.43 announce that a way of escape has been made from the 00:04:14.43\00:04:18.86 disconnect that they're now experiencing. 00:04:18.86\00:04:21.50 God comes into the garden to announce that the head of the 00:04:21.73\00:04:24.73 serpent will eventually be crushed, and that their way of 00:04:24.73\00:04:28.33 escape will be made, a deliverer will come. 00:04:28.33\00:04:29.96 So, here, God's coming in to sort of announce the good news, 00:04:29.96\00:04:33.43 right? 00:04:33.86\00:04:35.13 Also, to evaluate the problem, no question there, because the 00:04:35.13\00:04:37.03 good news is only as good as the bad news is bad, so he's gotta 00:04:37.03\00:04:39.80 first cover that ground, but he's coming in to tell them the 00:04:39.80\00:04:41.80 good news, and they're fleeing. 00:04:41.80\00:04:43.13 So, he's not just coming in for some general sense, he's coming 00:04:43.13\00:04:46.06 in to say, hey, this is gonna be okay, it's gonna be okay for you 00:04:46.06\00:04:49.03 because I'm gonna take it upon myself, but here, again, they're 00:04:49.03\00:04:51.30 fleeing because of a distortion. 00:04:51.30\00:04:52.93 --Right, and they're guilty, David, but check this out, not 00:04:53.43\00:04:56.43 only does God come to the garden, he's not stomping and 00:04:56.43\00:04:59.93 snorting, and you know, flames aren't coming out of his mouth. 00:04:59.93\00:05:03.70 God comes into the garden, and when they stand before him, 00:05:04.50\00:05:07.10 finally, with their trembling fear, they said, we hid because 00:05:07.10\00:05:09.96 we were naked. 00:05:09.96\00:05:10.93 And he said, who told you you were naked? 00:05:11.20\00:05:12.80 That's a very interesting question. 00:05:13.26\00:05:14.50 --That's a great question. 00:05:14.73\00:05:15.60 --You normally know when you are naked. 00:05:15.60\00:05:16.90 --Who told you you were naked? 00:05:16.90\00:05:18.80 The implication is, I didn't. 00:05:18.80\00:05:20.96 I'm not heaping guilt upon you. 00:05:21.63\00:05:23.73 I'm not the source of this new way you feel about yourself and 00:05:24.00\00:05:26.86 this new way you feel about me. 00:05:26.86\00:05:28.83 I didn't create this, it's not imposed. 00:05:29.23\00:05:31.56 The guilt isn't imposed externally, it's realized 00:05:31.96\00:05:35.26 internally and then it affects the way you see and relate to 00:05:35.26\00:05:37.83 God. 00:05:37.83\00:05:38.36 --But they've projected it. 00:05:39.03\00:05:39.60 --They've projected it. 00:05:39.60\00:05:40.83 --I have a question here, in verse 12, it'll say, they have 00:05:40.83\00:05:43.70 all turned aside, they have become together unprofitable. 00:05:43.70\00:05:48.13 There is none who does good, no, not one. 00:05:48.13\00:05:51.90 So, I guess the question is, like, really? 00:05:52.73\00:05:57.13 There's none. 00:05:57.73\00:05:58.93 How literal is this language, I'm just asking the question. 00:05:59.53\00:06:04.20 What about all the people who, there is none who do good, no, 00:06:05.30\00:06:08.76 not one. 00:06:08.76\00:06:09.73 What is he really saying? 00:06:09.73\00:06:10.90 There's nobody on earth that does good? 00:06:11.30\00:06:14.16 Isn't there people who do good things? 00:06:15.30\00:06:16.73 What is he really saying? 00:06:17.53\00:06:18.76 --I really like this question, two ways, and I'm not gonna 00:06:18.76\00:06:20.70 answer yours directly but I'm gonna answer it indirectly, and 00:06:20.70\00:06:22.46 that is this, in Romans 3, Paul is actually quoting from the Old 00:06:22.46\00:06:25.60 Testament, and what's really interesting about his 00:06:25.60\00:06:27.80 application in Romans 3, is that in the Old Testament, the 00:06:27.80\00:06:31.66 context of the application in Psalms 14, the fool has said in 00:06:31.66\00:06:37.13 his heart, there is no God. 00:06:37.13\00:06:38.50 They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none 00:06:39.66\00:06:43.13 good, they have gone aside, verse 3, they have become 00:06:43.13\00:06:46.90 filthy, there is none that does good, no, not one. 00:06:46.90\00:06:49.16 The context is the fool. 00:06:49.16\00:06:50.33 The person that says, there is no God. 00:06:50.33\00:06:52.66 Paul takes that, that context, that applies to unbelievers, and 00:06:53.13\00:06:57.30 he applies it, not just to the gentiles, he applies it across 00:06:57.30\00:07:01.10 the board, he applies it universally to everyone. 00:07:01.10\00:07:05.53 --We know that in the text, James, because in verse 9, it 00:07:06.00\00:07:08.00 says, all are under sin. 00:07:08.00\00:07:09.40 --Jews and Greeks. 00:07:09.93\00:07:11.40 --Yes, that's the whole context of Romans chapter one, Romans 00:07:11.80\00:07:13.80 chapter two, Romans chapter three. 00:07:13.80\00:07:15.16 --So, he's saying, he's speaking at a very fundamental level, 00:07:15.56\00:07:18.40 deeper than just the visual, because if he says there is none 00:07:18.76\00:07:21.80 who does good, no, not even one, well, somebody might say, what 00:07:21.80\00:07:27.43 are you talking about? 00:07:27.43\00:07:28.60 --That's patently untrue. 00:07:28.60\00:07:29.76 --Yeah, there's all kinds of people who do good in this 00:07:29.76\00:07:32.50 world. 00:07:32.50\00:07:33.80 What do you mean there's none who does good? 00:07:33.80\00:07:35.66 Maybe his idea of good is deeper and more profound than what is 00:07:35.66\00:07:42.80 commonly thought of as good. 00:07:42.80\00:07:45.46 Like, what does he mean by good? 00:07:45.46\00:07:46.60 --I think you're asking a question that has, there is a 00:07:46.90\00:07:50.36 deeper sort of subterranean level to the question that 00:07:50.36\00:07:53.56 you're asking that is just replete with theological 00:07:53.56\00:07:56.83 significance. 00:07:56.83\00:07:57.60 It's hugely significant. 00:07:57.60\00:07:59.20 Because, just part of the answer, and we might just 00:07:59.20\00:08:01.93 actually finish the verse, but part of the answer, I think, 00:08:01.93\00:08:04.93 lies in the fact that apart from the vivifying saving power of 00:08:04.93\00:08:11.10 God in Christ, no one would even be alive. 00:08:11.10\00:08:14.90 Right, no one would even be breathing if God hadn't stepped 00:08:15.96\00:08:17.76 into that space, into that gap between the wages of sin, or 00:08:17.76\00:08:23.60 relational brokenness, relational disconnection from 00:08:23.60\00:08:26.50 God results in death. 00:08:26.50\00:08:27.80 God didn't say, and the day that you eat of the tree, I'll kill 00:08:28.30\00:08:29.70 you. 00:08:29.70\00:08:30.50 He said, on the day that you eat of the tree, you will die. 00:08:31.70\00:08:32.56 Well, they didn't die. 00:08:32.56\00:08:34.00 Well, what happened? 00:08:34.56\00:08:35.43 God said, I'll step into that space. 00:08:35.43\00:08:36.76 He makes them, you know, we've been over this ground, the 00:08:36.76\00:08:38.80 clothes of skins and that there will be a woundedness where he 00:08:38.80\00:08:43.50 will be bruised and then we even talked about Isaac and all of 00:08:43.50\00:08:46.93 that. 00:08:46.93\00:08:48.06 So, we're getting there, but the point is that, in some 00:08:48.06\00:08:49.86 significant sense, God has done something that has given 00:08:49.86\00:08:53.06 humanity a second chance, right? 00:08:53.06\00:08:55.43 Now, not only that, not only the breath that we have and the 00:08:55.80\00:08:58.73 blood that flows through our hearts is a direct result of 00:08:58.73\00:09:03.63 God's grace, his attitude of grace toward the whole human 00:09:03.63\00:09:07.30 race, but now, any good thing that's ever done, right, any 00:09:07.30\00:09:12.60 good thing that's ever done is actually not originated and 00:09:12.60\00:09:15.90 inherent within you, it's something that God has equipped 00:09:15.90\00:09:19.90 and enabled and gifted you to do, even if you don't know it's, 00:09:19.90\00:09:23.03 even if you give God no credit for it. 00:09:23.03\00:09:25.40 So, I think that's at least part of the answer of what Paul is 00:09:25.40\00:09:28.66 saying here. 00:09:28.66\00:09:29.20 Left to yourself. 00:09:29.20\00:09:30.76 --There's nothing. 00:09:31.63\00:09:32.90 --I wanna add to that, add this idea, see what you guys think of 00:09:32.90\00:09:35.96 this, when he says, there's none good, not one, he's talking 00:09:35.96\00:09:40.96 about the human condition in total. 00:09:40.96\00:09:43.33 He's not saying that no human being in their fallen condition 00:09:44.20\00:09:49.10 ever does isolated acts of goodness that emerge from the 00:09:49.10\00:09:55.10 Holy Spirit working and touching and drawing, there are people 00:09:55.10\00:09:59.26 who don't know God on the conscious level but do know 00:09:59.26\00:10:04.63 God's principles because, according to John 1 verse 9 00:10:04.63\00:10:08.56 Jesus is the true light who lightens every person who comes 00:10:08.56\00:10:11.90 into the world. 00:10:11.90\00:10:13.03 So, Jesus is continually cultivating, the Holy Spirit is 00:10:13.03\00:10:15.36 continually working in people's hearts before their believers, 00:10:15.36\00:10:19.36 James told us in our last session that as an unbeliever 00:10:19.36\00:10:25.76 who's not walking in a conscious deliberate relationship with the 00:10:25.76\00:10:29.96 Lord, he sees somebody in a predicament, the car driving up 00:10:29.96\00:10:33.93 the hill and it's sliding and they need help, and there's two 00:10:33.93\00:10:37.46 things going on. 00:10:37.46\00:10:38.90 There's the depravity and the wickedness of the human heart 00:10:38.90\00:10:41.53 that just wants to laugh and make fun of it, and then there's 00:10:41.53\00:10:44.13 the impulse to intervene and do good, so there's a controversy 00:10:44.13\00:10:48.00 going on in human nature. 00:10:48.00\00:10:50.03 I think Paul is not saying, no human being in the fallen 00:10:50.53\00:10:53.80 condition ever does anything right or good, I think Paul is 00:10:53.80\00:10:57.66 saying that no human being does right or good consistently 00:10:57.66\00:11:02.33 perfectly that there's a fallenness that undergirds the 00:11:02.33\00:11:05.50 human condition and even if we do good things, those good 00:11:05.50\00:11:11.23 things that we do are the result of the workings of God on our 00:11:11.23\00:11:16.26 heart and God is evangelizing us, so to speak, in prompting us 00:11:16.26\00:11:21.10 toward goodness. 00:11:21.10\00:11:22.13 --Can I read a text in Isaiah, I think it goes perfectly with 00:11:23.36\00:11:27.06 everything you just said in your assessment of. 00:11:27.06\00:11:29.23 --We'll keep our finger in Romans 3, yeah. 00:11:29.23\00:11:30.80 --Keep it in Romans 3, but in Isaiah 64, and we've been 00:11:30.80\00:11:34.10 thinking about this, in verse 6, it says, we are all like an 00:11:34.10\00:11:38.50 uncleaned thing. 00:11:38.50\00:11:40.26 All our righteousness 00:11:40.26\00:11:42.23 All our righteousness's are like filthy rags. 00:11:42.53\00:11:45.96 --Menstrual cloths, literally in the Hebrew. 00:11:48.43\00:11:51.70 --And if all our righteousness is as filthy rags, what about, 00:11:52.40\00:11:55.23 what about whenever we mess up? 00:11:56.33\00:11:58.00 I mean, like, so the best we can produce is as filthy rags. 00:11:58.00\00:12:02.73 So, it sounds like, it sounds like, going back to the Romans 3 00:12:02.73\00:12:07.83 concept that he's talking about things that we can of ourselves, 00:12:07.83\00:12:13.40 like, our own version of the best that we can do amounts to 00:12:13.40\00:12:17.03 the moral value of filthy rags, but that doesn't mean that we 00:12:17.03\00:12:21.23 cannot, at some point, like you said, isolated acts, where we do 00:12:21.23\00:12:25.80 things, we have impulses like you had, where we're just 00:12:25.80\00:12:28.63 reflecting goodness that comes from God and it doesn't come 00:12:28.63\00:12:33.33 from us. 00:12:33.33\00:12:34.53 --I think in chapter 3 of Romans, that it might be helpful 00:12:34.53\00:12:36.00 also to just skip and, but what we wanna go back to these 00:12:36.00\00:12:38.66 verses, but look at verse 23, where Paul seems to make a 00:12:38.66\00:12:42.23 summarizing statement about what the sin problem entails. 00:12:42.23\00:12:45.06 He says, for all have sinned, there's the universal nature of 00:12:45.60\00:12:48.53 the sin problem, and fall short of the glory of God. 00:12:48.53\00:12:52.50 So, when he says, there's none righteous, not one, he's talking 00:12:52.50\00:12:56.63 about the general condition of the human being. 00:12:56.63\00:12:59.83 --There is none that does not fall short of the glory of God. 00:12:59.83\00:13:02.36 --Yeah, all fall short of God's glory. 00:13:02.36\00:13:04.20 All fall short of the character of God, the word glory there 00:13:04.20\00:13:07.70 prompts the idea of character, all of us are out of harmony 00:13:07.70\00:13:14.43 with the character of God, which is other-centered love, we're 00:13:14.43\00:13:18.50 out of harmony with that. 00:13:18.50\00:13:19.83 That doesn't mean there aren't points of light, and even those 00:13:20.33\00:13:23.36 points of light in our experiences where God is trying 00:13:23.36\00:13:25.56 to work his way into our experience, but in a pervasive, 00:13:25.56\00:13:31.10 consistent sense, we do this right, but we do a thousand 00:13:31.10\00:13:35.53 things wrong. 00:13:35.53\00:13:37.30 And even the good things that we do are often prompted by bad 00:13:37.30\00:13:40.06 motives. 00:13:40.06\00:13:41.26 --And Paul is so intentional here, have you noticed that? 00:13:41.26\00:13:43.86 He's intentional, he's lifting out of a context, a certain 00:13:43.86\00:13:48.00 context that David is writing, he's lifting out of that context 00:13:48.00\00:13:50.86 and he's broadening the context. 00:13:50.86\00:13:53.16 For example, I remember before I got married, I was dating my 00:13:53.16\00:13:56.93 wife and I was living by myself. 00:13:56.93\00:13:59.60 And I had a little trailer that I lived in, and I had everything 00:14:00.23\00:14:03.23 just so. 00:14:03.23\00:14:04.23 --Yeah, I remember you had everything just so. 00:14:05.43\00:14:07.80 --Just so, yeah. 00:14:08.03\00:14:09.30 The toilet paper was on just so, the toothpaste was squeezed just 00:14:09.30\00:14:12.73 so, my clothes were put just so and my kitchen was arranged just 00:14:12.73\00:14:16.26 so, and everything was just so, including the flower boxes, 00:14:16.26\00:14:20.03 everything was just perfect. 00:14:20.03\00:14:21.33 It was perfect. 00:14:21.83\00:14:22.60 --Flower boxes outside a trailer? 00:14:22.60\00:14:23.80 --I was ready for translation. 00:14:23.80\00:14:25.36 Literally. 00:14:26.06\00:14:26.96 --In your imagination. 00:14:26.96\00:14:27.86 --Yeah, in my self-evaluation. 00:14:27.86\00:14:30.06 And then I got married and at first, I noticed a lot of 00:14:30.06\00:14:33.06 imperfections in her, but then I realized, wait a minute, wait a 00:14:33.06\00:14:38.30 minute, there are some things in my own character that have 00:14:38.30\00:14:41.90 escaped my notice up until this point. 00:14:41.90\00:14:44.60 I think that's what Paul is saying right here. 00:14:44.83\00:14:46.26 He's saying, you know, we used to think that it was the people 00:14:46.26\00:14:49.83 that were ungodly that were bankrupt. 00:14:49.83\00:14:52.33 The people that were ungodly, the people that didn't believe 00:14:53.00\00:14:54.90 in God, we used to think that they were the ones who were not 00:14:54.90\00:14:58.86 seeking after God, but really, the reality is is that all of 00:14:58.86\00:15:02.16 us, all of us are equally in the same place. 00:15:02.16\00:15:05.56 And there's only one remedy. 00:15:06.00\00:15:07.56 --I love that emphasis there because it's so contextual with 00:15:08.43\00:15:11.60 Romans 1 and 2, because Paul has actually even gone. 00:15:11.60\00:15:15.53 He's gone even further than what would've been socially wise in 00:15:15.53\00:15:20.23 his day, and he says, you know, there is gentiles who don't even 00:15:20.23\00:15:22.06 have access to the written law, and they're doing the things 00:15:22.06\00:15:25.56 that are in their hearts, and we who do have access, that's why 00:15:25.56\00:15:28.76 the condemnation is greater for those who know better, and he's 00:15:28.76\00:15:32.36 like, we know better. 00:15:32.36\00:15:33.86 There was a point I wanted to make earlier, Ty, that you said, 00:15:34.83\00:15:37.26 even our good deeds grow out of a kind of brokenness we have, 00:15:37.26\00:15:41.83 well, that's right in the text of Isaiah 64, because he says, 00:15:41.83\00:15:44.36 we are an unclean thing, and, I'll insert some words here, on 00:15:44.36\00:15:50.46 the basis of that, all of our good deeds are broken. 00:15:50.46\00:15:54.33 We are an unclean thing and, as an inevitable result of that, 00:15:55.23\00:16:00.43 the stuff that we do is broken. 00:16:00.43\00:16:02.10 If you have an unclean thing, it can't produce a clean thing. 00:16:02.80\00:16:05.43 --There is a theological perspective that basically says 00:16:06.13\00:16:09.63 that sin is not a condition, or it's not grounded in a 00:16:09.63\00:16:13.66 condition, which I've never seen in that text, the way you're 00:16:13.66\00:16:16.63 quoting that, we are therefore we do. 00:16:16.63\00:16:19.53 --We are all like an unclean thing and therefore, this is the 00:16:19.90\00:16:22.46 stuff we do. 00:16:22.46\00:16:23.46 --Yeah, and some would say it's a pretty popular theological 00:16:24.70\00:16:27.16 perspective, that is that sin is just wrong behavior past the age 00:16:27.16\00:16:33.16 of accountability. 00:16:33.16\00:16:34.30 But this text is saying, no, we are something. 00:16:34.70\00:16:37.13 There's something intrinsic to our nature, we are morally 00:16:38.00\00:16:42.33 bankrupt at a fundamental, essential level. 00:16:42.33\00:16:45.93 --Your conduct is just following your character. 00:16:46.30\00:16:48.20 Your character's messed up, therefore your conduct follows 00:16:48.63\00:16:51.93 suit. 00:16:51.93\00:16:53.23 --And maybe even your nature. 00:16:53.23\00:16:54.36 --I absolutely love this text in Luke 11 for this reason, this is 00:16:55.70\00:17:02.13 something that Jesus says almost offhandedly, and you know the 00:17:02.13\00:17:05.60 things that we say offhandedly, in other words, without 00:17:05.60\00:17:08.26 intention, are the things that we absolutely take for granted. 00:17:08.26\00:17:11.66 It's just part of our world. 00:17:11.66\00:17:13.06 And we do this all the time, just in communication. 00:17:14.00\00:17:16.50 Now, look at this, Jesus says in Luke 11:13, he's telling a 00:17:16.96\00:17:19.43 story. 00:17:19.43\00:17:20.66 He says, if you then, comma, being evil, comma, know how to 00:17:20.66\00:17:24.86 give good gifts to your children, how much more will 00:17:24.86\00:17:26.66 your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to he who asks him, 00:17:26.66\00:17:28.70 to those who ask him. 00:17:28.70\00:17:30.20 He's not making a point about the depravity of humanity, 00:17:30.20\00:17:32.46 that's something that is assumed, so he's basically 00:17:32.46\00:17:36.00 telling a story, hey, you ask for good stuff, you got it. 00:17:36.00\00:17:38.90 So I just love the fact that Jesus, it's just so easily, 00:17:40.03\00:17:44.70 offhandedly said that you know that this is a part of his basic 00:17:44.70\00:17:48.16 view of humanity. 00:17:48.16\00:17:49.40 He's read the Old Testament, he knows the covenant has been 00:17:49.40\00:17:51.33 broken over and over and over and over again, because covenant 00:17:51.33\00:17:53.46 is broken in our heart, and so he just says, if you, you know, 00:17:53.46\00:17:56.50 being evil. 00:17:56.50\00:17:57.93 --As we all know. 00:17:57.93\00:17:59.43 He says the same thing in Marks 7, he says, from within, out of 00:17:59.43\00:18:01.90 the heart of man, Mark 7:21, come evil thoughts, adulteries, 00:18:01.90\00:18:06.56 fornications, murders, deaths, it comes from the heart. 00:18:06.56\00:18:10.66 --See, if sin is not just something that we do, but it 00:18:10.66\00:18:14.03 becomes something that we are, if there's a broken, the medical 00:18:14.03\00:18:18.23 analogy, going back to Isaiah 1, in our last conversation, was 00:18:18.23\00:18:21.83 not just hey, you've got some stuff on you, let me get it off. 00:18:21.83\00:18:25.20 You are wounded. 00:18:26.86\00:18:28.06 --The sinful man that I am. 00:18:28.06\00:18:29.30 --That I am, there is something wrong with us that produces 00:18:29.30\00:18:32.90 wrong actions. 00:18:32.90\00:18:34.83 --Those were side effects, that other stuff is just side effects 00:18:34.83\00:18:37.76 of your condition. 00:18:37.76\00:18:38.73 --Yeah, that's a good way to say it. 00:18:39.00\00:18:40.46 We have to take a break, but this is a pretty exciting, 00:18:41.06\00:18:43.86 although dark, conversation. 00:18:43.86\00:18:45.90 We're talking about the sin problem, but boy, it sure is 00:18:45.90\00:18:48.86 vital that we understand what the sin problem is. 00:18:48.86\00:18:52.73 We have to be, we have to be accurately diagnosed in order to 00:18:52.73\00:18:57.80 know where we're looking for the remedy. 00:18:57.80\00:18:59.83 --That's good, accurately diagnosed. 00:19:00.30\00:19:01.56 --What I say is, if we take a shallow view of the sin problem, 00:19:01.56\00:19:05.33 we'll take a shallow view of the sin solution. 00:19:05.33\00:19:08.30 But if we take a biblical view, it's the spilled milk, if we 00:19:08.30\00:19:11.43 take a biblical view of the sin problem, now we, this is 00:19:11.43\00:19:14.76 relational and psychological, it's emotional, is it 00:19:14.76\00:19:16.96 behavioral? 00:19:16.96\00:19:17.70 Of course it is. 00:19:17.70\00:19:18.80 It's behavioral because it's all of this other stuff. 00:19:18.80\00:19:21.73 --Yeah, great. 00:19:21.73\00:19:23.23 Okay, we'll come back in just a minute and keep moving through 00:19:23.23\00:19:25.86 this. 00:19:25.86\00:19:26.70 --Sounds good. 00:19:26.70\00:19:28.60 [Music] 00:19:28.60\00:19:35.10 --Hi, I'm Ty Gibson, welcome to digma.com. 00:19:35.10\00:19:37.76 I am so excited about this website because you're about to 00:19:38.20\00:19:41.06 discover a powerful new way to share life transforming messages 00:19:41.06\00:19:45.73 and videos with your family, friends, and anybody else on the 00:19:45.73\00:19:49.23 planet who has access to a computer. 00:19:49.23\00:19:51.33 Digma is a Greek word. 00:19:52.76\00:19:54.63 It basically means, to show or to reveal something by means of 00:19:54.63\00:19:58.30 a pattern or an example of some kind. 00:19:58.30\00:20:00.76 It's the second half of the word, paradigma, from which we 00:20:01.33\00:20:04.56 get the English word, paradigm, as in paradigm shift. 00:20:04.56\00:20:08.70 And so, what you're going to find at digma.com is a growing 00:20:09.56\00:20:12.23 library of short videos and transcripts dealing with 00:20:12.23\00:20:15.23 paradigms and fundamental questions. 00:20:15.23\00:20:18.06 What's the meaning of life? 00:20:18.93\00:20:20.56 What is our origin and destiny as human beings? 00:20:21.13\00:20:24.50 What happens when we die? 00:20:25.06\00:20:26.73 Does God exist or are we alone in this vast universe? 00:20:27.26\00:20:30.93 Why is there so much evil and suffering in our world? 00:20:31.70\00:20:35.13 An estimated 70% of Americans have a computer right in their 00:20:35.80\00:20:39.66 home and stay in touch with their family and friends by 00:20:39.66\00:20:43.16 email, and more than 400 million people are active on Facebook, 00:20:43.16\00:20:49.16 and 5 million new users are signing up every week. 00:20:49.16\00:20:53.60 We are literally in the midst of a communications revolution of 00:20:54.26\00:20:58.80 massive proportion. 00:20:58.80\00:21:00.60 This is granting the gospel direct and easy access to 00:21:01.06\00:21:05.63 millions upon millions of homes and hearts, 00:21:05.63\00:21:09.10 and that's what digma.com is all about. 00:21:10.06\00:21:13.33 It's a tool for leading our family and friends on an 00:21:13.86\00:21:16.90 exciting paradigm shift by revealing the truth of God's 00:21:16.90\00:21:21.10 creating power and his incredibly beautiful character 00:21:21.10\00:21:25.76 in contrast to our world's popular misconceptions about 00:21:25.76\00:21:30.83 who God is. 00:21:30.83\00:21:33.10 [Music] 00:21:33.10\00:21:38.06 --We're talking about the sin problem and we're seeing here, 00:21:44.56\00:21:48.53 in scripture, that this thing runs deep in human nature. 00:21:48.53\00:21:51.80 I wanna just ask a, probably uncomfortable, but blunt 00:21:51.80\00:21:56.10 question, do you think that you are capable of something like 00:21:56.10\00:22:03.46 murder. 00:22:03.46\00:22:04.33 --I don't think, I know, of course. 00:22:05.03\00:22:06.40 --You know. 00:22:06.40\00:22:07.40 --Of course. 00:22:07.40\00:22:08.70 --Something about the sin problem, I've noticed in 00:22:09.23\00:22:11.20 scripture, see what you guys think about this, all the way 00:22:11.20\00:22:14.00 back in Ezekiel 28, describing the fall of Lucifer, when the 00:22:14.00\00:22:19.73 sin problem begins, the origin of evil and sin, in Ezekiel 28 00:22:19.73\00:22:24.10 verse 16, God makes an observation and says that you 00:22:24.10\00:22:30.96 are filled with violence. 00:22:30.96\00:22:33.03 So, the word violence is used, okay, you got that? 00:22:33.76\00:22:35.73 The word violence is used to describe Lucifer, this is 00:22:35.73\00:22:39.40 something that God discerns in him before any violent acts are 00:22:39.40\00:22:42.86 committed. 00:22:42.86\00:22:43.96 In other words, God sees in his deception, his lies, and his 00:22:45.23\00:22:49.56 self-centeredness, that the logical outcome and trajectory 00:22:49.56\00:22:54.26 of self-centeredness is to value yourself above others in the 00:22:54.26\00:22:59.90 ultimate sense of being willing to be violent toward them, okay? 00:22:59.90\00:23:05.43 Then, fast forward to the New Testament, to John 8:44, where 00:23:05.93\00:23:11.23 the religious leaders are conspiring to crucify Jesus, to 00:23:11.23\00:23:16.50 take his life. 00:23:16.50\00:23:17.73 And in verse 44, Jesus makes an observation, that's similar to 00:23:18.43\00:23:21.50 this observation that has been made back in Ezekiel 28 about 00:23:21.50\00:23:25.03 violence. 00:23:25.03\00:23:26.30 He says, in so many words, he says, you're planning to kill me 00:23:26.30\00:23:30.46 because you are of your father, the devil, he's the origin, he's 00:23:30.86\00:23:35.50 the source of these impulses that you're cultivating and 00:23:35.50\00:23:39.10 you're willing to act on. 00:23:39.10\00:23:39.80 He was a murderer from the beginning. 00:23:40.66\00:23:43.46 From the very beginning of the great controversy between good 00:23:44.63\00:23:47.23 and evil, as Lucifer launches his rebellion against God, 00:23:47.23\00:23:52.96 murder and violence were there in the DNA of the sin problem. 00:23:53.96\00:24:01.33 In my own experience, as I mentioned in a previous segment, 00:24:02.30\00:24:07.26 I was just blown away to see, having basically decided that I 00:24:07.90\00:24:13.93 would never do anything violent, I found myself, actually, as a 00:24:13.93\00:24:17.26 teenage kid, in a fight with somebody where I lost control 00:24:17.26\00:24:19.63 and I was being terribly violent. 00:24:19.63\00:24:22.23 I mean, this is amazing what we're capable of, as human 00:24:23.00\00:24:25.83 beings. 00:24:25.83\00:24:27.10 We look at somebody like Hitler and we say, wow, what a monster, 00:24:27.10\00:24:30.83 and yet, we need to realize we're talking about a human 00:24:31.40\00:24:33.96 being who has the same basic, essential, fallen condition that 00:24:33.96\00:24:39.26 we have. 00:24:39.26\00:24:40.73 I mean, it's pretty scary if you think about it. 00:24:41.43\00:24:43.86 --Yeah, and even the good that we seek oftentimes gets just 00:24:43.86\00:24:47.83 tainted with our own selfishness. 00:24:47.83\00:24:50.46 I'm reading this book on the introduction to sociology and 00:24:50.46\00:24:55.10 I'm reading about Karl Marx. 00:24:55.10\00:24:57.00 And how he notices, you know, this just oppressive society, 00:24:57.66\00:25:03.60 and the structure of society and the different classes, and how 00:25:03.60\00:25:06.46 the people in the lower classes are getting, you know, trampled 00:25:06.46\00:25:10.16 upon by the higher class, and so he wants to come up with a 00:25:10.16\00:25:14.16 solution to this, to create a classless society so that he 00:25:14.16\00:25:18.30 can, you know, remove all of this oppression and all of this 00:25:18.30\00:25:21.70 injustice and inequality and everything, and it turns out 00:25:21.70\00:25:24.36 that not too long after that, then you have things like the 00:25:24.36\00:25:27.56 Soviet Union and millions and millions of people being killed 00:25:27.56\00:25:31.16 through oppressive regimes because of this classless 00:25:31.16\00:25:35.06 society system. 00:25:35.06\00:25:36.70 --And it was never classless, it was only classless for the 00:25:36.70\00:25:39.66 non-elite. 00:25:39.66\00:25:40.90 --Right, so I'm reading this and it's interesting because the 00:25:40.90\00:25:42.76 best solutions that man can come up with, it just spins out of 00:25:42.76\00:25:47.76 control, and they're broken in themselves, and they turn out, 00:25:47.76\00:25:50.60 those very solutions turn out to be oppressive and repressive 00:25:50.60\00:25:54.56 themselves and it causes more suffering and more selfishness 00:25:54.56\00:25:58.46 and more oppression. 00:25:58.46\00:25:59.80 --And the answer to that is, the reason is that Marx or any 00:25:59.80\00:26:05.56 governmental system, but in this case, Marxism, does not have a 00:26:05.56\00:26:09.00 solution to the real problem, which is not rearranging the 00:26:09.00\00:26:12.50 pieces on the board, you know, we'll try government this way, 00:26:12.50\00:26:15.63 no, we'll try it this way, the problem is in the person, it's 00:26:15.63\00:26:19.00 a, you know, nucleic, embryonic form in us and the arrangement, 00:26:19.00\00:26:24.70 whether, you know, we can go socialism, we can do capitalism, 00:26:24.70\00:26:27.30 we're gonna do communism, whatever, all economic systems, 00:26:27.30\00:26:31.13 I mean, right now, we are living in the wake of the breakdown of 00:26:31.13\00:26:33.86 capitalism. 00:26:33.86\00:26:35.86 Oppressive capitalism, because capitalism assumes, this is a 00:26:35.86\00:26:38.63 little going around, but it assumes a basic civility and 00:26:38.63\00:26:42.30 responsibility toward the worker, right? 00:26:42.30\00:26:46.03 But when that doesn't happen, when we're not regulated by 00:26:46.03\00:26:48.36 virtue and by biblical principles of love and 00:26:48.36\00:26:51.00 other-centeredness, it just becomes all about the bottom 00:26:51.00\00:26:54.16 line, and whether you're dealing with a democracy or capitalism 00:26:54.16\00:26:59.60 or communism or whatever it is, there is a brokenness in the 00:26:59.60\00:27:02.36 people that make up those governmental systems that no 00:27:02.36\00:27:04.83 governmental arrangement can fix. 00:27:04.83\00:27:06.93 --And that's what makes Jesus so revolutionary, because he spoke 00:27:07.20\00:27:11.33 to the real problem. 00:27:11.33\00:27:13.30 He addressed the real issue, as we read, actually, we ended last 00:27:13.90\00:27:17.06 segment with Mark 7, from within, out of the heart of man, 00:27:17.06\00:27:22.80 come. 00:27:22.80\00:27:24.06 --I wanna add to that, I don't think, I wanna be very clear for 00:27:24.06\00:27:27.26 myself, I don't think that means that all governmental systems 00:27:27.26\00:27:29.96 are equally valid or good, I think there are better ways to 00:27:29.96\00:27:34.33 do government. 00:27:34.33\00:27:35.46 However, none of them will solve the human predicament. 00:27:35.46\00:27:38.43 None of them. 00:27:39.20\00:27:40.33 Something, when you were saying there, Ty, about the violence, 00:27:41.60\00:27:43.36 you know, I love that in Ezekiel 28, and I remember the first 00:27:43.93\00:27:45.83 time I saw that. 00:27:45.83\00:27:46.90 I was like, wait a minute, there's no violence yet. 00:27:46.90\00:27:48.80 But God anticipates violence, and here's why, because sin is 00:27:48.80\00:27:53.16 ultimately about self-preservation, and 00:27:53.16\00:27:55.66 self-exaltation, all sin, even if it's not murder, is murderous 00:27:55.66\00:28:00.93 in its intent. 00:28:00.93\00:28:02.66 --That's right. 00:28:02.66\00:28:03.90 --Because, at the end of the day, if it comes down to you or 00:28:03.90\00:28:05.63 me, it's gonna be me. 00:28:05.63\00:28:07.60 This is what we see with Cain and Abel. 00:28:07.60\00:28:08.86 If it comes down to you and me, it's gonna be me, and if I have 00:28:08.86\00:28:11.30 to leverage my strength and my power to rid you of life so that 00:28:11.30\00:28:16.23 I'm the last guy standing. 00:28:16.23\00:28:18.03 --So be it. 00:28:18.53\00:28:19.66 --So be it. 00:28:19.66\00:28:20.93 Maybe I just told a lie, maybe the sin wasn't itself murder, 00:28:20.93\00:28:22.93 but all sin has murderous intent. 00:28:22.93\00:28:25.76 This is why Jesus could say, oh, you're angry with your brother? 00:28:25.76\00:28:29.46 --You're a murderer. 00:28:29.86\00:28:30.60 --You've murdered in your heart. 00:28:30.60\00:28:32.00 Because the continuum of anger, sin, whatever, it's the same 00:28:32.00\00:28:36.70 continuum, but it's murder down here. 00:28:36.70\00:28:39.03 These are not two different things, they are the same thing. 00:28:39.03\00:28:40.73 --Back in Romans 3, exactly what you're saying is there, that 00:28:40.73\00:28:43.86 connects with Ezekiel 28 and John chapter 8. 00:28:43.86\00:28:47.53 This is interesting, it says, we only read, I think, to verse 12. 00:28:47.53\00:28:53.63 --Through verse 12, yeah. 00:28:53.63\00:28:54.86 --But then look at this in 13 and onward, it says that the 00:28:54.86\00:28:57.33 throat is an open tomb, with their tongues, they have 00:28:57.33\00:29:01.33 practiced deceit. 00:29:01.33\00:29:03.60 The poison of asps is under their lips, whose mouth is full 00:29:03.60\00:29:08.90 of cursing and bitterness, their feet are swift to shed blood. 00:29:08.90\00:29:14.56 --There's the violence. 00:29:14.56\00:29:15.76 --Destruction, notice this language, destruction and misery 00:29:15.76\00:29:20.03 are in all their ways. 00:29:20.03\00:29:23.26 --There you go. 00:29:23.26\00:29:24.20 --And the way of peace they have not known. 00:29:24.20\00:29:26.46 Again, going back to my teenage years where a lot of this stuff 00:29:26.46\00:29:29.60 was just beginning to come to the surface and I was realizing 00:29:29.60\00:29:33.03 these things. 00:29:33.03\00:29:34.30 I have these friends, we're all just having a good time, we're 00:29:34.30\00:29:39.66 buddies, you know, you just picture what appears to be 00:29:39.66\00:29:43.13 innocence, you know, we're out at the lake waterskiing. 00:29:43.13\00:29:47.20 We're, you know, walk into one guy's house who's a friend of 00:29:47.20\00:29:51.03 mine and he kisses his mom on the cheek, she serves us 00:29:51.03\00:29:53.60 sandwiches. 00:29:53.60\00:29:55.03 Everything looks good. 00:29:55.60\00:29:57.33 Well, then, the next day, these same young men, myself, and my 00:29:57.33\00:30:02.83 friends were taking a bus to the school that I was kicked out of, 00:30:02.83\00:30:10.13 expelled from for the fight that I told you about earlier, and 00:30:10.13\00:30:12.90 we're gonna make it right. 00:30:12.90\00:30:14.06 And how are we gonna make it right? 00:30:14.60\00:30:15.80 We're gonna go to this school, and here's our ridiculous, 00:30:15.80\00:30:17.76 horrible, ugly plan. 00:30:17.76\00:30:19.36 After kissing mothers on cheeks and having sandwiches. 00:30:20.10\00:30:22.86 We're going to go and arrive at this school at lunchtime, we're 00:30:23.40\00:30:28.60 gonna walk on campus, when everybody's out of class, and 00:30:28.60\00:30:32.36 we're going to, in the cafeteria, just start throwing 00:30:32.36\00:30:35.20 punches, and just create a violent riot. 00:30:35.20\00:30:39.86 We don't even make it to the school. 00:30:39.86\00:30:41.40 We get off the bus at the Circle K, we get off the bus at the 00:30:41.40\00:30:45.30 Circle K, destruction and violence are in their ways, we 00:30:45.30\00:30:49.76 get to the Circle K, we're off the bus, this car pulls in and 00:30:49.76\00:30:54.86 rolls his window down, and says to us, as we're walking, get out 00:30:54.86\00:30:59.43 of the way, with some superlatives, and my friend, who 00:30:59.43\00:31:04.53 just kissed his mom and we had sandwiches, grabs him by the 00:31:04.53\00:31:07.10 hair in his car, begins smashing his face on the car. 00:31:07.10\00:31:11.03 I'm freaked out, I'm looking at this, and the guy that this act 00:31:11.03\00:31:14.20 of violence is being performed against responds with violence, 00:31:14.20\00:31:16.63 by immediately pulling a knife and driving it into my friend's 00:31:16.63\00:31:19.70 chest. 00:31:19.70\00:31:21.20 He walks away bleeding as the next one of us approaches this 00:31:21.86\00:31:25.20 guy in response to the violence and he drives a knife into his 00:31:25.20\00:31:28.60 stomach. 00:31:28.60\00:31:29.60 He walks off bleeding and this guy puts the knife to my chest 00:31:30.86\00:31:32.63 and says, back up white boy, and I don't know where this flash of 00:31:32.63\00:31:36.73 intelligence came from, but I backed up, I backed up. 00:31:36.73\00:31:40.46 --A flash of intelligence. 00:31:40.46\00:31:41.86 --I backed up. 00:31:41.86\00:31:43.13 Two of us were stabbed, I backed up, he drove off, I memorized 00:31:43.13\00:31:45.96 his license plate number, he was apprehended, but you see what 00:31:45.96\00:31:49.56 I'm saying. 00:31:49.56\00:31:50.76 Here we are, life is going along, these are just young men. 00:31:50.76\00:31:55.20 Sandwiches and kisses on mom's cheek. 00:31:56.10\00:31:57.36 --Waterskiing and doing the nice thing at the lake one day 00:31:57.36\00:31:59.03 -- Yeah And it all looks, and the next day, there's violence 00:31:59.03\00:32:02.26 and destruction that is emerging out of these hearts, these 00:32:02.26\00:32:06.30 natures that are capable of the most horrible things. 00:32:06.30\00:32:10.60 --Absolutely. 00:32:10.60\00:32:11.70 --One thing missing, though, just wanna add it to the 00:32:11.70\00:32:12.96 conversation, everything that we've been talking about so far 00:32:12.96\00:32:17.06 is going back to the experience that we had, legitimately before 00:32:17.06\00:32:21.40 we knew God. 00:32:21.40\00:32:22.16 But the application that Paul is making in Romans 3 includes 00:32:23.40\00:32:26.06 that, but it goes one step further. 00:32:26.06\00:32:28.53 He actually applies this not just to irreligious people, he 00:32:28.96\00:32:32.43 applies it to people like us, who've known God, loved God, 00:32:32.43\00:32:35.80 walked with God for years. 00:32:35.80\00:32:37.73 He applies it to himself in Philippians chapter 3 for 00:32:38.20\00:32:40.80 example. 00:32:40.80\00:32:41.83 --Go there. 00:32:42.23\00:32:43.30 --Yeah, he applies it to himself, and what's really 00:32:43.30\00:32:44.93 interesting is that in Paul's understanding of the corruptness 00:32:44.93\00:32:50.60 of the human condition, of the depravity of our hearts and of 00:32:50.60\00:32:55.20 the fact that sin is etched with diamonds on the hard, coal, 00:32:55.20\00:33:01.53 callused hearts. 00:33:01.53\00:33:02.73 He describes his righteousness as a religious person, and 00:33:02.73\00:33:07.20 here's how it begins, it's right here in Philippians chapter 3 00:33:07.20\00:33:10.53 and verse 4, he says, though I might also have confidence in 00:33:10.53\00:33:16.33 the flesh, if any other man thinks that he has, where if he 00:33:16.33\00:33:19.40 might trust in the flesh, I more because I was circumcised on the 00:33:19.40\00:33:22.33 eighth day, a Jew was to be circumcised on the eighth day, 00:33:22.33\00:33:24.80 that was the day you were to be circumcised, if it fell on the 00:33:24.80\00:33:27.10 Sabbath or not, that was the day. 00:33:27.10\00:33:29.03 That made you a Jew of the Jew. 00:33:29.03\00:33:30.80 He says, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a 00:33:31.10\00:33:33.43 Hebrew of the Hebrews is touching the law, a Pharisee, 00:33:33.43\00:33:36.30 strict law keeper concerning zeal, I persecuted the church. 00:33:37.13\00:33:40.06 Now, notice this, verse 6, this is the point, this is what I 00:33:40.06\00:33:42.90 really wanted to highlight other than some points going on here 00:33:42.90\00:33:46.63 that we can look at but concerning Zeal, what did he do? 00:33:46.63\00:33:50.30 --Persecuting. 00:33:50.56\00:33:51.83 --He did the very same thing you were talking about, violence. 00:33:51.83\00:33:53.06 --In the name of God. 00:33:53.06\00:33:54.63 --In the name of God. 00:33:54.63\00:33:55.80 And so this is not just a Gentile problem, this is not 00:33:55.80\00:33:59.50 just a problem with the people in the world, with unbelievers, 00:33:59.50\00:34:02.10 this is a problem with humanity in general, and it's even worse 00:34:02.10\00:34:05.90 in religion because we do it in the name of God. 00:34:05.90\00:34:09.40 --Can I read just one chapter before, chapter 2, Philippians 2 00:34:09.40\00:34:12.23 and verse 13, because he's talking to the church at 00:34:12.23\00:34:17.10 Philippi, like you're saying, he's talking to religious 00:34:17.10\00:34:20.06 people, and he says, it's God who works in you, both to will 00:34:20.06\00:34:26.20 and to do of his good pleasure. 00:34:26.20\00:34:29.30 So, I love what you're saying that even in a religious 00:34:29.30\00:34:31.83 context, we can't even muster up the will to do anything. 00:34:31.83\00:34:36.46 So, we require God to give us the will and the actual doing of 00:34:36.46\00:34:41.83 the thing, both to will and to do of his good pleasure, so 00:34:41.83\00:34:45.03 again, this depraved condition, as James said, we're not just 00:34:45.03\00:34:50.03 talking about the, you know, God-haters, 00:34:50.03\00:34:51.40 he's talking to Christians. 00:34:53.30\00:34:54.50 --But he also wants, in that verse, he also wants, in another 00:34:54.80\00:34:58.40 aspect of it, that I think is part of this, he also wants us 00:34:58.40\00:35:00.36 to be willing to work with him. 00:35:00.36\00:35:02.26 In other words, both of us. 00:35:02.26\00:35:03.86 He's not going to force us. 00:35:03.86\00:35:05.13 --He doesn't take away our will, but our will is also sick, like 00:35:05.13\00:35:10.23 we're using. 00:35:10.23\00:35:11.46 --He's not remote controlling us, he wants us to cooperate 00:35:11.46\00:35:14.50 with him, and he wants us to say, yes, yes, and that's the 00:35:14.50\00:35:17.10 whole idea here. 00:35:17.10\00:35:18.60 In other words, Paul here has been on this religious 00:35:18.60\00:35:21.00 persecution deal, he's just been out there tearing the church up 00:35:21.00\00:35:24.06 and Jesus comes to him. 00:35:24.06\00:35:25.26 Jesus appears to him. 00:35:25.26\00:35:26.53 Really, Jesus is the answer to this problem, and as you said 00:35:26.53\00:35:29.46 earlier, David, he assumes that we all recognize, and the reason 00:35:29.46\00:35:34.26 he does that is because, if we're honest with ourselves, 00:35:34.26\00:35:38.36 right now in this moment, not going back 10 years or 20 years 00:35:39.10\00:35:42.26 or 30 years, but if we're honest with ourselves in this 00:35:42.26\00:35:45.26 moment, we know that our hearts are corrupt, that they're 00:35:45.26\00:35:48.53 naturally selfish, that we naturally think of ourselves, 00:35:48.53\00:35:52.46 that we're first, and that we want what's best for us, and 00:35:53.00\00:35:56.73 that we have to cry out from the depths of our being every 00:35:56.73\00:35:59.33 moment. 00:35:59.33\00:36:00.70 God be merciful to me, a sinner, oh wretched man that I am, who 00:36:00.70\00:36:04.60 shall save him from the body of this death. 00:36:04.60\00:36:06.36 There's no good thing in me. 00:36:07.00\00:36:08.53 Lord, take my heart, I can't give it. 00:36:09.13\00:36:11.26 I can't even give it, it's your property. 00:36:11.60\00:36:13.33 --I love what you just said, and because of the language that you 00:36:13.96\00:36:19.10 used, I wanna just make one sort of, not a clarification, I wanna 00:36:19.10\00:36:22.46 add it onto what you've said, we are naturally inclined to evil, 00:36:22.46\00:36:28.06 we are naturally inclined to selfishness, that's true, but 00:36:28.06\00:36:30.43 because of what God has done for us in Christ, whether we 00:36:30.43\00:36:33.76 recognize it or not, even though we are naturally inclined, 00:36:33.76\00:36:36.86 we are not necessarily inclined. 00:36:36.86\00:36:40.13 We can resist, it can be resisted. 00:36:40.70\00:36:42.76 Not by anything that comes from within us. 00:36:43.03\00:36:44.70 Paul himself says, in myself, there's no good thing. 00:36:45.03\00:36:46.90 So, even what's natural for us doesn't have to be necessary. 00:36:46.90\00:36:50.36 Because of, now we're gonna go all the way back to Genesis 3, 00:36:50.36\00:36:53.20 the very thing that God promised, I will put a hatred, 00:36:53.20\00:36:57.26 an enmity between you and this way of thinking, 00:36:57.26\00:37:00.56 this way of doing life. 00:37:00.56\00:37:01.83 It's intrinsic to us, which is why, when the bible starts 00:37:02.70\00:37:06.70 talking about a solution. 00:37:06.70\00:37:08.10 --Supernaturally intrinsic 00:37:08.10\00:37:09.40 --Supernaturally, yeah, exactly, the bible doesn't start talking 00:37:09.40\00:37:12.26 about merely accounting forms and we're gonna just change the, 00:37:12.26\00:37:15.93 it starts saying things like you have to be born again. 00:37:15.93\00:37:19.73 You need a new heart, you need a, you know, this is language of 00:37:20.06\00:37:24.33 recreation, a new person, a new, a holistic solution, not just 00:37:24.33\00:37:28.90 mere bookkeeping. 00:37:28.90\00:37:30.43 --I think what we're saying is that the sin problem is complex, 00:37:31.16\00:37:36.93 not complex in you can't understand it, but it's complex 00:37:37.16\00:37:41.10 in that there are various parts to it. 00:37:41.10\00:37:43.36 There's the foundational stone, if you will, of the sin problem, 00:37:43.36\00:37:48.66 which is distortion regarding the character of God. 00:37:48.66\00:37:51.23 Which, once you believe false things about God, when you 00:37:51.70\00:37:55.10 believe that he's essentially self-centered, then your natural 00:37:55.10\00:37:58.40 inclination is to live for yourself, and so, trust is 00:37:58.40\00:38:02.46 broken, which then leads to rebellious actions, and it's a 00:38:02.46\00:38:07.10 continuum, it's all connected. 00:38:07.10\00:38:08.90 It's a domino effect, and those wrong behaviors and rebellious 00:38:08.90\00:38:15.50 actions toward God because of broken trust with him then lead 00:38:15.50\00:38:19.06 to the horizontal level of human relationship, in which we then 00:38:19.06\00:38:23.43 begin to violate one another, and then all of that produces, 00:38:23.43\00:38:29.20 in these violations, a sense of guilt and shame, 00:38:29.20\00:38:32.23 deep inside our hearts and minds. 00:38:32.66\00:38:34.73 And that guilt and shame then leads us to repeat our 00:38:34.73\00:38:38.73 violations and self-justification and covering 00:38:38.73\00:38:41.63 and compensating and coping mechanisms and addictions and 00:38:41.63\00:38:46.66 obsessions and we get into all kinds of things which basically 00:38:46.66\00:38:50.93 equates to the same kind of thing that Adam and Eve were 00:38:50.93\00:38:54.60 doing in Eden, hiding. 00:38:54.60\00:38:56.40 Hiding in fear, hiding in shame, hiding in guilt. 00:38:56.80\00:38:59.96 --Hiding from God and hiding from ourselves, even. 00:39:00.43\00:39:02.23 --And it's so simplistic to say, the sin problem is merely wrong 00:39:02.23\00:39:06.96 behaviors and the solution is you need to overcome sin and 00:39:06.96\00:39:12.20 Jesus will help you. 00:39:12.20\00:39:14.10 That is not the solution, the solution has to go deeper to 00:39:14.10\00:39:18.13 deal with the sin problem on all levels. 00:39:18.13\00:39:20.86 --To use your illustration here, the way that the sin problem is 00:39:21.26\00:39:24.66 dealt with is not, because you started here, moving this way, 00:39:24.66\00:39:27.76 this distrust of God leads right through, the solution is not to 00:39:27.76\00:39:32.00 say, okay, well, deal with this, to work backward through the 00:39:32.00\00:39:34.50 thing, it's just to start here. 00:39:34.50\00:39:36.26 Because when this is right, it's the whole root, fruit thing. 00:39:36.50\00:39:39.13 Jesus didn't come to lay the axe to the leaves of the tree. 00:39:39.13\00:39:42.46 --But the root. 00:39:42.76\00:39:43.90 --That's what he said about John the Baptist and himself. 00:39:43.90\00:39:45.13 There is a fundamental rearrangement of reality that 00:39:45.13\00:39:48.86 needs to take place here. 00:39:48.86\00:39:50.13 We had to start over. 00:39:50.33\00:39:51.46 --Yeah, I like that because when God takes care of this, 00:39:51.46\00:39:53.76 everything else falls off. 00:39:53.76\00:39:54.63 You see what I'm saying? 00:39:55.46\00:39:56.30 --You scared me when you did that. 00:39:56.30\00:39:57.00 --That was intentional. 00:39:57.00\00:39:57.70 I thought it was an accident. 00:39:57.70\00:39:58.83 --God takes care of this, everything else falls off. 00:39:58.83\00:40:00.26 All of that's gone now. 00:40:00.26\00:40:01.53 And this is what 1 John chapter 3 says, now, notice this, this 00:40:01.53\00:40:05.43 is really interesting. 00:40:05.43\00:40:06.66 1 John chapter 3 is where we find the definition of sin. 00:40:07.00\00:40:10.73 1 John 3:4, for whosoever commits sin transgresses also 00:40:13.50\00:40:16.70 the law, for sin is transgression of the law. 00:40:16.70\00:40:19.20 That's the outward acts that we're talking about. 00:40:20.36\00:40:22.70 But we're saying it's deeper than that. 00:40:22.70\00:40:24.46 All you need to do is read the context of 1 John 3. 00:40:24.46\00:40:26.83 1 John 3 is talking about a context of relationship, 00:40:27.40\00:40:29.93 abiding in Christ. 00:40:29.93\00:40:31.30 It's talking about the love that God has toward us, it's talking 00:40:31.30\00:40:33.50 about whoever is born of God loves God and when you love God, 00:40:33.50\00:40:37.03 his seed, that seed of love remains in you, and you can't 00:40:37.03\00:40:39.60 sin because you love God and so the whole context of these 00:40:39.60\00:40:42.70 outward acts is based in this relational language, and it 00:40:42.70\00:40:46.03 actually takes us all the way back to Genesis because he 00:40:46.03\00:40:49.36 quotes here in verse 12, he says, verse 11, this is the 00:40:49.36\00:40:54.10 message you've heard from the beginning that we should love 00:40:54.10\00:40:56.30 one another, so context of transgression of the law is 00:40:56.30\00:40:59.13 loving one another, not as Cain, who was of that wicked one who 00:40:59.13\00:41:02.00 slew his brother and wherefore slew him? 00:41:02.00\00:41:05.73 Why did he slay him? 00:41:05.73\00:41:07.00 Because his works were evil and his brother's were righteous. 00:41:07.00\00:41:08.86 The outward works, the outward transgression is an inevitable 00:41:09.46\00:41:12.80 indicator. 00:41:12.80\00:41:14.10 --That's the right word, inevitable. 00:41:14.10\00:41:15.96 --Of the relationship that is either there or not there. 00:41:15.96\00:41:18.46 --Yeah, wow, this is serious stuff that the bible is 00:41:18.76\00:41:21.63 downloading, teaching us here. 00:41:21.63\00:41:23.80 --If you just jump down to verse 15, I love where you're going 00:41:24.13\00:41:26.06 with that. 00:41:26.06\00:41:27.10 --That's what I was gonna say. 00:41:27.10\00:41:28.43 --You do it, you do it. 00:41:28.43\00:41:29.53 Let me defer. 00:41:29.53\00:41:30.73 --I don't know what point you were, are we out of time? 00:41:30.73\00:41:32.33 --No, I have to take a break, but go for it. 00:41:32.33\00:41:34.56 --I don't know what point you were gonna make. 00:41:34.56\00:41:35.83 --You make your point, and we'll see if it's the same one I was 00:41:35.83\00:41:36.93 gonna make. 00:41:36.93\00:41:37.80 --What verse were you gonna make? 00:41:37.80\00:41:38.33 --Verse 15. 00:41:38.33\00:41:39.60 --Whoever hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no 00:41:39.60\00:41:42.16 murderer has eternal life. 00:41:42.16\00:41:43.40 I was gonna make the simple point that hatred, according to 00:41:43.40\00:41:47.26 God, equates to murder, because you were saying 00:41:47.26\00:41:48.93 earlier that it's the inevitable result, because 00:41:48.93\00:41:53.16 self-preservation will always lead to murder. 00:41:53.16\00:41:55.03 So, according to God, any little inkling of self-preservation is 00:41:55.03\00:41:59.46 murder. 00:41:59.46\00:42:00.93 --That's back to his point about Ezekiel, there's violence in 00:42:00.93\00:42:04.56 you. 00:42:04.56\00:42:05.63 God saw violence in Lucifer's initial rebellion. 00:42:05.63\00:42:07.10 --What point were you gonna make? 00:42:07.10\00:42:08.33 --The point I was gonna make is that he doesn't have eternal 00:42:08.33\00:42:10.70 life in him. 00:42:10.70\00:42:11.83 The principle that leads to eternal life, which is 00:42:11.83\00:42:14.13 relational connection and love, connection with God and love for 00:42:14.13\00:42:17.93 God is not in the heart of somebody who's just looking out 00:42:17.93\00:42:20.50 for himself. 00:42:20.50\00:42:21.36 You can't have that in you. 00:42:21.36\00:42:23.50 If there is murderous, violent self-preservation intent in you, 00:42:23.50\00:42:29.03 that is not compatible with eternal life, because at the end 00:42:30.10\00:42:32.73 of the day, if you gave, this is kind of a funny little 00:42:32.73\00:42:35.33 psychological experiment, or mental experiment, if you gave 00:42:35.33\00:42:37.66 someone eternal life who had murderous intent, at the end of 00:42:37.66\00:42:39.93 the day, if it were possible for him, he would be 00:42:39.93\00:42:41.50 the only one left. 00:42:41.50\00:42:42.56 You give it enough time, and he'll whack everyone that 00:42:43.73\00:42:45.70 doesn't see, or she, the way that he wants, and he will be, 00:42:45.70\00:42:48.83 I mean it's really. 00:42:48.83\00:42:50.83 It's dismal, it's bleak. 00:42:50.83\00:42:51.86 --In other words, this is our condition. 00:42:52.16\00:42:54.66 So, knowing this condition, where does that leave us? 00:42:54.66\00:42:58.20 I think that's what we need to visit here in this next session. 00:42:58.46\00:43:00.26 --We do have to take a break. 00:43:00.26\00:43:02.26 We don't want to, but we have to take a break, and we'll come 00:43:02.26\00:43:05.96 back and just keep exploring this. 00:43:05.96\00:43:08.10 [Music] 00:43:09.16\00:43:12.63 Digma videos are short, engaging messages designed for 00:43:15.20\00:43:18.26 opening up discussion with individuals and groups regarding 00:43:18.26\00:43:21.76 the character of God as well as for your own personal spiritual 00:43:21.76\00:43:25.50 growth. 00:43:25.50\00:43:26.63 For your free DVD sample collection of Digma videos, call 00:43:26.63\00:43:29.73 877-585-1111, or write to Light Bearers, 37457 Jasper Lowell 00:43:29.73\00:43:37.53 Road, Jasper, Oregon 97438. 00:43:37.53\00:43:40.50 Once again, for your free DVD sample collection of Digma 00:43:40.50\00:43:44.46 videos, call 877-585-1111, or write to Light Bearers, 37457 00:43:44.46\00:43:52.36 Jasper Lowell Road, Jasper, Oregon 97438. 00:43:52.36\00:43:56.60 Simply ask for Digma DVD 2. 00:43:56.60\00:44:00.16 [Music] 00:44:00.16\00:44:03.13 --Okay, so, James, you took us to Philippians chapter 3, and I 00:44:05.86\00:44:09.76 thought for sure you were gonna get into verses 6, 7, and 8, and 00:44:09.76\00:44:12.83 maybe you intended to, but this is amazing because there's 00:44:12.83\00:44:16.33 background here. 00:44:16.33\00:44:17.53 You read the background. 00:44:17.53\00:44:18.80 Paul is basically recounting for us his religious pedigree, he's 00:44:18.80\00:44:23.20 saying, I'm a Hebrew of the Hebrew, I was a Pharisee, I had 00:44:23.20\00:44:28.26 all my spiritual and theological ducks in a row, and I was 00:44:28.26\00:44:33.26 performing at the optimal level. 00:44:33.26\00:44:36.20 --I'm a religious guy. 00:44:36.20\00:44:37.46 --Yeah, I'm a religious guy, and then he says, verse 7, but, but 00:44:37.46\00:44:42.36 what things were gained to me, he means on a spiritual, moral 00:44:42.36\00:44:45.90 level, the things that he thought were to his spiritual 00:44:45.90\00:44:49.86 and moral credit. 00:44:49.86\00:44:51.86 --Well, he says right there, righteousness, 00:44:51.86\00:44:52.60 which is in the law. 00:44:52.60\00:44:53.96 --Is that... 00:44:55.90\00:44:56.63 --Verse 6, right? 00:44:56.63\00:44:57.83 --Yeah, yeah, so, but what things were gained to me, these 00:44:57.83\00:45:01.90 I have counted loss for Christ. 00:45:01.90\00:45:04.60 That's an amazing inversion right there. 00:45:05.50\00:45:07.23 He's basically saying, all of my spiritual and religious 00:45:07.90\00:45:10.93 accolades basically equate to nothing in comparison to what I 00:45:10.93\00:45:17.56 find in Jesus Christ. 00:45:17.56\00:45:19.03 Then verse 8, yet indeed, I also count all things lost for the 00:45:19.03\00:45:23.26 excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord for whom I 00:45:23.26\00:45:28.20 have suffered the loss of all things and count them rubbish 00:45:28.20\00:45:33.60 that I may gain Christ. 00:45:33.60\00:45:35.20 Now, it's interesting, the word rubbish here, what does it say 00:45:35.53\00:45:38.33 in your version, you have the King James Version, 00:45:38.33\00:45:39.30 what is yours? 00:45:39.30\00:45:39.70 --Mine? 00:45:39.70\00:45:40.33 --Yeah. 00:45:40.33\00:45:40.83 --Dung. 00:45:40.83\00:45:41.70 --D-U-N-G, 00:45:41.70\00:45:42.43 --that's a very, very crass 00:45:42.43\00:45:44.73 --It means poop, 00:45:44.73\00:45:45.96 --bottom of the 00:45:45.96\00:45:46.23 --Donkey. 00:45:47.20\00:45:47.66 --Specifically? 00:45:49.33\00:45:49.96 --Dung, D. 00:45:49.96\00:45:51.46 --I don't think so, but the word in the Greek is scubilon, it's 00:45:51.76\00:45:58.13 a, I like the word itself, but the word is horrible. 00:45:58.13\00:46:01.40 Scubilon, yeah, it's fun to say, scubilon, but scubilon means 00:46:01.40\00:46:05.13 what, Jeffrey? 00:46:05.13\00:46:06.33 I don't wanna say the word, so I'll leave you to say it. 00:46:06.33\00:46:07.70 --It means poop. 00:46:07.70\00:46:08.70 --Means dung, King James Version, it means excrement, 00:46:09.80\00:46:14.20 feces, right? 00:46:14.20\00:46:16.03 It's a horrible, horrible description, it's nothing you 00:46:16.26\00:46:19.90 wanna pause to imagine. 00:46:19.90\00:46:21.06 He is here describing what though? 00:46:21.53\00:46:24.56 He's not describing himself in an atheist state, he's not 00:46:25.26\00:46:29.20 describing himself in a secular state. 00:46:29.20\00:46:31.96 --All his religious performance is like poop. 00:46:31.96\00:46:35.83 It goes back to Isaiah 64, righteousness as filthy rags. 00:46:35.83\00:46:39.90 --So, verse 9, and to be found in him, not having, and here's 00:46:42.03\00:46:46.93 where he makes himself very clear, not having my own 00:46:46.93\00:46:50.93 righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through 00:46:50.93\00:46:55.56 faith in Christ, the righteousness, which is from God 00:46:55.56\00:47:00.46 by faith. 00:47:00.46\00:47:01.66 --That's the point, that's the whole point of what we're 00:47:01.66\00:47:03.36 talking about. 00:47:03.36\00:47:04.06 Righteousness by faith. 00:47:04.06\00:47:05.26 If we wanna understand the practical application of this, 00:47:05.26\00:47:09.06 what it really means, here it is right here, it's spelled out 00:47:09.76\00:47:12.23 point by point. 00:47:12.23\00:47:13.56 And one thing that's really, I think, significant in all of 00:47:13.56\00:47:16.20 this, is verse 8, yea, doubtless, I count all things 00:47:16.20\00:47:19.06 but loss. 00:47:19.06\00:47:20.63 Now, that word there, we don't always look at in detail, but 00:47:20.63\00:47:24.23 that word there, in the Greek, actually means damage. 00:47:24.23\00:47:28.10 I count all this righteousness of the law, this 00:47:28.63\00:47:31.93 self-righteousness, I count it damaging, this is damaging to 00:47:31.93\00:47:34.30 me. 00:47:34.30\00:47:35.00 This has been damaging to me. 00:47:35.00\00:47:35.93 Yeah, it's not just dung, it's damaging. 00:47:35.93\00:47:39.46 --Because it doesn't say it's nothing, it says it's a loss, 00:47:39.70\00:47:42.03 so, there's a negative, there's a deficit there, it's not just, 00:47:42.33\00:47:44.60 it's nothing, it's worse than nothing, it's a loss. 00:47:44.60\00:47:50.03 --It's hurtful because this is what, we talked about hiding 00:47:50.03\00:47:53.70 from God, hiding from God, hiding from God. 00:47:53.70\00:47:54.83 Well, where's the number 1 place people hide from God? 00:47:54.83\00:47:57.30 --In religion. 00:47:58.00\00:47:59.26 --In religion, that's the number 1 place, and that's what Paul is 00:47:59.26\00:48:01.00 saying here, he's saying the number one place. 00:48:01.00\00:48:03.73 --You just dropped a bomb there and just moved on as if it was 00:48:03.73\00:48:05.13 nothing. 00:48:05.13\00:48:06.06 --The whole world is filled with religion. 00:48:06.06\00:48:07.90 --It's the most popular place in the world to hide from God is in 00:48:07.90\00:48:10.96 religion. 00:48:10.96\00:48:11.80 --And this is what Paul was doing. 00:48:11.80\00:48:13.36 He was hiding from God in religion. 00:48:13.56\00:48:14.93 This is what we naturally tend to do. 00:48:15.20\00:48:16.63 We get all of our t's crossed, we get all of our i's dotted, 00:48:17.00\00:48:19.13 and as Paul, we say, hey, I'm doing good. 00:48:19.96\00:48:22.83 Now, how can we know that we are hiding from God in religion that 00:48:22.83\00:48:26.53 we are self-righteous? 00:48:26.53\00:48:27.66 There is a verse in the book of Luke, chapter 18. 00:48:28.26\00:48:31.23 --Hey, I was just going there. 00:48:31.63\00:48:32.66 You want me to read it? 00:48:32.90\00:48:34.16 --I do. 00:48:34.16\00:48:34.90 --I'll read it and you. 00:48:34.90\00:48:36.13 --This is the question, how can we know, see, we want to be 00:48:36.13\00:48:40.63 honest with God, we wanna be true with God, we wanna be 00:48:40.63\00:48:43.03 faithful to God, we want to know where we stand. 00:48:43.03\00:48:46.00 And it's difficult. 00:48:46.53\00:48:48.30 How can you discern whether you're doing righteousness by 00:48:48.30\00:48:50.06 works or righteousness by faith? 00:48:50.06\00:48:51.80 --That's a great question. 00:48:51.80\00:48:53.03 --How can you know if you're connecting with God or if you're 00:48:53.03\00:48:54.23 depending on yourself. 00:48:54.23\00:48:55.50 Here is a verse that identifies how you can know the difference. 00:48:55.50\00:48:58.66 --So, the diagnosis continues. 00:48:58.66\00:49:00.50 Verse 9 of Luke 18. 00:49:01.23\00:49:03.33 Also, he spoke this parable to them who trusted, to some, who 00:49:03.66\00:49:08.23 trusted in themselves that they were righteous and they despised 00:49:08.23\00:49:13.60 others. 00:49:13.60\00:49:14.40 --There it is right there. 00:49:14.40\00:49:15.66 --There's the connection. 00:49:15.66\00:49:16.23 --The way that we relate to other people is an indicator of 00:49:17.46\00:49:21.63 whether or not we are trusting in ourselves. 00:49:21.63\00:49:23.40 Cain trusted in himself. 00:49:23.80\00:49:26.06 He was upset. 00:49:26.56\00:49:27.63 You've misrepresented me. 00:49:28.00\00:49:29.00 You don't understand what my motives are. 00:49:29.50\00:49:31.66 I'm bringing this to God. 00:49:31.93\00:49:33.16 God said, hey, sin's lying at your door. 00:49:33.16\00:49:34.86 Your actions towards your brother are going to indicate 00:49:35.36\00:49:37.40 whether or not you're trusting to me or whether you're trusting 00:49:37.40\00:49:40.86 to yourself. 00:49:40.86\00:49:42.13 --That's exactly what the two commandments teach, number one, 00:49:42.13\00:49:43.70 love God, number two, love your neighbor. 00:49:43.70\00:49:45.56 If you don't love your neighbor, it's indicative that you don't 00:49:45.76\00:49:51.16 really love God. 00:49:51.16\00:49:52.33 --And you're trusted to yourself. 00:49:52.33\00:49:53.33 --This verse is heavy, there's a lot here. 00:49:53.33\00:49:55.56 I wanna emphasize this, Jesus spoke this parable to some who 00:49:55.56\00:50:00.43 trusted in themselves, and they trusted, specifically, that they 00:50:00.43\00:50:05.73 were righteous, they had a self-view, they had a perception 00:50:05.73\00:50:08.96 of themselves, we're righteous, and despised others. 00:50:08.96\00:50:13.30 There's a direct connection between righteousness by works, 00:50:13.60\00:50:17.06 salvation by works, and despising others, and I think 00:50:17.06\00:50:20.40 that what you were getting, James, is you were asking the 00:50:20.40\00:50:23.06 question, how can we know? 00:50:23.06\00:50:25.20 Because we can lie to ourselves. 00:50:25.20\00:50:26.50 You ask the average group of Christians, you have 500 of them 00:50:26.50\00:50:30.40 together in a congregation, how many of you believe in 00:50:30.40\00:50:32.96 righteousness by faith? 00:50:32.96\00:50:34.46 All the hands are going up because on the surface level of 00:50:35.53\00:50:38.36 our theology, we know we're supposed to believe that, so we 00:50:38.36\00:50:41.73 say we do. 00:50:41.73\00:50:43.06 How many of you believe in salvation by works? 00:50:43.36\00:50:45.93 Nobody's hands are going up. 00:50:46.83\00:50:48.13 But here's the real litness test, here's the real indicator, 00:50:48.73\00:50:51.53 looking inside ourselves and the way we relate to people, do you 00:50:52.63\00:50:56.20 despise others. 00:50:56.20\00:50:58.23 Do you look down on anyone else? 00:50:58.76\00:51:02.16 Do you perceive or believe or imagine yourself to be morally 00:51:03.86\00:51:09.00 better than others? 00:51:09.30\00:51:11.60 --All the time, I'm just being honest, all the time. 00:51:11.60\00:51:15.00 I go home after a day, shooting table talk or doing whatever, 00:51:15.00\00:51:19.60 and I'm in a moment of quietness, no one else is 00:51:19.60\00:51:23.46 around, I've called my wife, I've checked in with my family, 00:51:23.46\00:51:26.26 I've done all the things I need to do, I'm laying on my bed, 00:51:26.26\00:51:28.56 whatever, and I'm getting ready to just go to sleep, and I'm 00:51:28.56\00:51:31.50 just communicating, just talking to God, and he's talking to me. 00:51:31.50\00:51:34.90 And things are coming to my mind that remind me that I have 00:51:34.90\00:51:38.10 trusted, -to some degree or another, to some level or 00:51:38.10\00:51:41.46 another, in my own righteousness, things that I 00:51:41.46\00:51:44.00 regret, things that I said, things that, whatever they were, 00:51:44.00\00:51:46.20 that were in the context of despising others, in the context 00:51:46.20\00:51:50.73 of belittling somebody else, putting someone else down, and 00:51:50.73\00:51:53.33 that whole concept that goes all the way back to Genesis of 00:51:53.33\00:51:56.36 pointing the finger, pointing the finger, pointing the finger, 00:51:56.36\00:51:58.80 and therefore, wanting to justify yourself, relying upon 00:51:58.80\00:52:01.30 yourself upon something good in yourself. 00:52:01.30\00:52:03.00 It all just comes in like a flood, and at that moment, and I 00:52:03.26\00:52:07.56 know we're not getting into this here, not only do I feel that 00:52:07.56\00:52:10.70 utter depravity, that lostness, but I also am pointed to the 00:52:10.70\00:52:13.76 remedy. 00:52:13.76\00:52:14.73 --Amen. 00:52:14.73\00:52:15.96 Maybe we could just quickly read through this parable because 00:52:15.96\00:52:18.86 there's a lot, we've quoted verse 9, which is Luke's 00:52:18.86\00:52:21.86 introduction to the parable, but there's some data in here that's 00:52:21.86\00:52:24.63 only gonna buttress the thing that we're talking about. 00:52:24.63\00:52:27.03 Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee, the other 00:52:27.53\00:52:29.43 a tax collector. 00:52:29.43\00:52:30.43 The Pharisee stood up and said, and prayed thus with himself, 00:52:31.70\00:52:34.43 God I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, 00:52:34.66\00:52:37.10 unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. 00:52:37.10\00:52:40.06 I fast twice a week, I give tithes on all that I possess. 00:52:40.80\00:52:43.80 And the tax collector, standing afar off, would not so much 00:52:44.00\00:52:46.53 raise his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast saying, 00:52:46.53\00:52:49.46 God be merciful to me, a sinner. 00:52:49.46\00:52:51.16 Verse 14, Jesus evaluation, I tell you, this man went down to 00:52:52.26\00:52:55.30 his house, justified, rather than the other, for everyone 00:52:55.30\00:52:57.26 who, and this is where we've been driving it the whole time, 00:52:57.26\00:53:00.33 everything who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who 00:53:00.86\00:53:04.50 humbles himself will be exalted. 00:53:04.50\00:53:06.66 --Jesus is a genius. 00:53:06.66\00:53:08.06 --He was a relational genius. 00:53:08.06\00:53:10.80 Psychological, he knew what was, in fact the bible even says 00:53:10.80\00:53:13.46 that, nobody had to tell him what was in man, he knew what 00:53:13.46\00:53:15.66 was in man. 00:53:15.66\00:53:17.06 What I love about this and this is, frankly, the review to me, 00:53:17.60\00:53:21.06 and I so appreciate you being vulnerable there, James, and 00:53:21.06\00:53:23.13 being honest about your own awareness of your shortcomings, 00:53:23.13\00:53:26.36 so, too, with me. 00:53:26.36\00:53:27.56 The deception, there's two things we can keep coming back 00:53:28.40\00:53:31.40 to again and again here, and that is that sin is deceitful 00:53:31.40\00:53:34.26 and violent. 00:53:34.26\00:53:35.73 It's deceitful and violent. 00:53:35.73\00:53:37.10 We see both here. 00:53:37.10\00:53:38.40 No, there's no violence there, oh, what are you talking about 00:53:38.40\00:53:41.00 there's no violence there? 00:53:41.00\00:53:42.26 Looking down on another, despising another, again, is 00:53:42.26\00:53:45.43 just in the continuum of... 00:53:45.43\00:53:46.46 --Violence. 00:53:47.20\00:53:48.10 --Absolutely, it is violent behavior. 00:53:48.10\00:53:49.93 Even, by the way, even our own legal system says so. 00:53:50.70\00:53:53.20 If you just yell at somebody, saying, I'm gonna, and I'll do 00:53:53.20\00:53:55.13 this, even if you don't ever actually do it, that's assault, 00:53:55.13\00:53:57.50 when you actually do the physical punching, that's 00:53:58.10\00:54:00.13 assault and battery. 00:54:00.13\00:54:02.00 --A hate crime would just be a comment. 00:54:02.00\00:54:03.50 --Exactly. 00:54:03.50\00:54:05.20 Now, there's the violent thing, but look at the deceit thing. 00:54:05.20\00:54:07.60 The guy is completely self-deceived. 00:54:07.83\00:54:09.76 God, I thank you. 00:54:09.76\00:54:12.40 --That I am not like other men. 00:54:13.00\00:54:14.23 --Yeah, he's deceived about, number one, his own standing, 00:54:14.23\00:54:18.06 number two, his standing with God. 00:54:18.06\00:54:19.80 So, here we have a situation that is exactly the thing we've 00:54:20.46\00:54:23.40 been describing that sin is saturated with both violence and 00:54:23.40\00:54:27.36 deception, self-deception, which is the trickiest kind of 00:54:27.36\00:54:30.46 deception. 00:54:30.46\00:54:31.73 I think it was, somebody said famously, the easiest person to 00:54:31.73\00:54:34.60 fool is yourself. 00:54:34.60\00:54:36.56 And this guy here, completely self-deceived and Jesus 00:54:36.56\00:54:38.80 evaluation is, if you go along the line of self-exaltation, 00:54:38.80\00:54:44.06 that train doesn't get off here, you don't get off that train 00:54:45.26\00:54:47.13 here, here, here, you follow it to its logical end. 00:54:47.13\00:54:49.26 You're the only one left in the universe. 00:54:49.26\00:54:50.86 You will even see to dethrone God, which is the experiment 00:54:51.50\00:54:54.26 that we're in the midst of now. 00:54:54.26\00:54:55.86 --That's to Lucifer. 00:54:56.30\00:54:57.53 --We don't say it like this, though, we're so convoluted and 00:54:57.53\00:55:00.10 self-deceived, we don't say, I thank God that I'm not like 00:55:00.10\00:55:02.70 other men, we say things like, I can't believe she would do 00:55:02.70\00:55:05.96 something like that. 00:55:05.96\00:55:07.16 --It comes up in this sort of pious gossip. 00:55:08.60\00:55:11.03 --Wow, that's, how could you do such a thing. 00:55:11.03\00:55:14.60 The moment we say to somebody in noticing their failure, I can't 00:55:15.03\00:55:18.13 believe you would do such a thing, or, worse yet, about 00:55:18.13\00:55:20.90 them, outside of their presence, we bely the fact that we 00:55:20.90\00:55:25.93 ourselves are infected with the sin problem so deeply that 00:55:25.93\00:55:31.46 number one, that's how can we so quickly discern and judge 00:55:31.46\00:55:35.20 another, and secondly, we are so deceived that we imagine we 00:55:35.20\00:55:39.60 wouldn't do those things, but the fact is, we would do those 00:55:39.60\00:55:42.90 things. 00:55:42.90\00:55:44.16 --It's like, look, you're in a sinking boat, and then your line 00:55:44.16\00:55:46.23 follows and, oh, me, too. 00:55:46.23\00:55:47.53 ---So am I. --Me too 00:55:47.53\00:55:49.03 --That's a good place to close. 00:55:49.03\00:55:51.00 [Music] 00:55:51.00\00:55:52.00