Lesson 12b
Romans 4:1-5 · Mike Doyle · Jul 1, 2018
Romans (2018-21), No. 24
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/49261910526834

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

So, what we're doing is that we've started into chapter 4 of Romans and probably I was thinking this morning, I've got one of the hard things to do when you're only doing a few verses at a time is to keep it in context. So, chapter 4 of Romans verse 1 and we're talking about justification by faith. as it is illustrated in Abraham and then David.

So, first one, what then shall we say that Abraham our father has discovered according to the flesh? For if Abraham was justified by works, he does have something to boast about, but not before God. What does the scripture say? Abraham believed God and it was counted to him for righteousness.

Now to him who works, the wages are not counted as grace, but as debt. But to him who does not work, but believes on him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness. So we are in lesson 12 and we had gotten to about Question six, right? We did five, correct? So question six says, in verse four, we have the first tenets of grace. What is it? What are the very first tenets of grace? The very first elements or issues of grace? What are they?

First one. Believing? No, before that. The verse says, now to him who works, his wages are not credited as grace or favor, but as what is due. That's the first tenet. What's he saying? It's the opposite of working. Totally opposite of work? Or is that work? It's a gift. Listen to the verse. The guys aren't listening. Now, to him, the one who works, who are we talking about? A worker bee?

A Southern Baptist? A Catholic? A whomever? A reformed couple? Sorry. We're talking about anybody who functions in an environment where they work. So, some of you are retired, some of you have jobs. When you got up on Monday morning and you went to work, On Friday, did your boss pay you because it was the gracious thing for him to do? No, because you work. He owes you, right? He owes you. Because you have a deal with him, you have a contract with him. If I put in the work, he'll pay me. And if you're a millennial and you want to get paid, then you'll put in the work. Maybe.

Was it because it's unearned? The very first thing to understand about grace is that it is not based on a works principle. So you have to take that whole idea of performance in order to get someone to do something and you have to throw it out the window. That's pretty hard, isn't it? Because we live in a society and we live in a world that we have to do in order to get. I mean the Constitution of the United States, Old Testament, everything you have to perform in order to get rewarded. The very first principle of grace is that's not one of the principles.

His wages are not credited as a favor, so when you picked up your check on Friday, You did not get it because it was a favor from your boss. Now some of you might think that, but it's not a favor from your boss. He owes it to you. That's the very first tenet of grace. It's what's due. So I could say this, that grace is totally opposite of any sort of merit system at all. Understand that? Now I know what you're thinking in the back of your head. Well, I can do some grace and some merit. Nope. Nope. It's either going to be all merit or it's going to be all grace. Because grace is totally unmerited and it's totally unlimited.

Now think about that. We don't trust it because we think it has limits. And the reason we think it has limits is because we come to grace with the idea that if I perform more, I'll get more. And I don't know how long it takes the Spirit of God to teach us, especially in spiritual things, that it works totally the opposite way.

Everybody in this room who I know pretty well has been the recipient of God's grace and you didn't earn anything. Now later you've probably tried to take some credit for it, but you got it for free. So what's the problem with the mentality that it's free?

Maybe I'll ask it this way. Two Mormon guys knocked on my door a week or so ago, and we get into a conversation. Usually I don't talk to those guys, but I was feeling kind of spunky that day. And I said to them, I said, the problem I have with Mormonism, or one of the problems I have with Mormonism, is that it doesn't teach grace.

And the guy said, well, what do you mean? I said, well, salvation according to the word of God, the Bible, is a free gift given to those who believe, which is a non-meritorious act, and we are saved and kept by grace. You know what he said to me? Do you mean to tell me that what you're saying is that you can be saved and you can live any way you want to? I said, yeah, that's what I'm saying.

And he said, well, I can't accept that. I said, I didn't think you could. I said, the problem is that you don't understand how powerful a thing grace is in terms of regulating your behavior. Because you're so wrapped up in the do's and don'ts, you don't ever give grace a chance. He didn't understand what I was saying. And I don't blame him. How could he? How could he?

So what do we mean that grace is unmerited? Give feedback to me in some of your words. Well, what can we do to earn it anyway? It's free. It's free? Right. So after you get it, do you need to show God how much you appreciate it? What do you think? Well sometimes it's automatic. Great answer. You respond automatically. So it's totally unmerited. You can't do anything to get it or to earn it. And then how about the unlimited aspect of grace? What does it mean that it's unlimited? To all who believe. I mean, well, it's universal, but how about unlimited? Grace upon grace, I mean, you just keep...

Sure. ...receiving it. Yeah. That's probably one of the hardest things to continually be okay about. Yeah. Because human interaction, you know, like me with my kids, you know... Well, your kids are not under grace of notice. I know that for me, I know that there's a certain amount of patience that I'll have with them. I know at some point I'm going to snap.

But to carry that over to the Lord Jesus Christ where it's unlimited, it's like at some point you think you're going to do too much and then it's just going to stop. And it's very difficult, especially from your personal relationship with God, to think, well, I'm really kind of a young believer spiritually. I may be old physically, but I'm kind of a young believer, and he's going to have to discipline me a lot, which means he's going to correct me and give me rules.

No, he's not. It's going to all be of grace from start to finish, and it's unlimited. What keeps us from experiencing the grace that he's supplying? We don't believe him. We don't believe him. Because that's the third element of the issue of grace is that faith is the one thing a man can do he cannot take credit for. So there's got to be credit somewhere. Where is the credit? Bob gets all the credit. God gets the credit.

Now think about it. If God says to you, if you believe on my son, who he is and his work, I will graciously give you eternal salvation. You say, okay, I believe. Where's the merit in that? True there is. In Christ. Yeah, the merit's in Christ, but the merit is in what you believe, not the fact that you did. Do you see that? What you believed is where all the merit is, which redounds to God's glory.

Now once you enter into that gracious umbrella, Brian and I were putting a tent up this morning, one of those yard tents where you can get out of the sun. You get under that thing, you're out of the sun. You get under grace, you know, stay there. Because that's where the grace is. Once you step out, There's no grace out there.

Yeah. I'm just thinking there's a bit of a pendulum, I think, for us as we try to understand the grace that Paul's talking about. One of them is that we feel like we've got to earn it. So we're pretty well aware of that feeling. The other one is pendulum swings. It's like, I don't deserve it. That's true. And so you start to feel guilty for having received such a free gift. But both of those two Even if you're feeling guilty about, surely God can't continue to be gracious to me under these circumstances.

I'm not worthy. Me, me, me, me. On the other side, it's about, well, I got this, and me, me, me, me. This is the pendulum, right? It's a good point because I think part of that guilt of, I don't deserve this, doing things that they wouldn't do because they don't feel free. Right. You can get guilty pretty quick. You can feel guilty pretty quick.

Again, those eyes just kind of wander off the Lord and back to yourself and your situation. Mine don't wander. They're right there. Well, he doesn't. So all of this grace is based on one person and what he did. It's based on who the Lord Jesus is and what he did. And that's the last issue that we have doubts about.

What he did on the cross, was it enough? Was it enough to take care of your guilt? Was it enough to take care of my sins? Was it enough to take care of whatever I'm wandering? before a holy God, who is the only one I have to answer to, does it totally cover all of what he requires of me?

Answer, yes it does. And that's where the value is. The value is in the Lord Jesus and what he did. It's hard to tell believers to say, once you're a believer, you're going to have a circumstance the rest of your life where you're confessing your sins. But in eternity you're not going to run into him again. You'll never see him again.

Because there's this little cool thing that what Jesus did, he put them away. He didn't cover them up. He put them away. So he put them away from who? Himself. See? Okay. Now, how can a man not work and yet be accounted righteous before God? How does that happen? There's two aspects to that. The first aspect is the work that God did. The second aspect is me. So the first aspect is what? How can a man not work and yet be accounted righteous before God?

You see, God doesn't just sweep sins under the carpet and say, well, Cheryl, you're kind of cool, so you're in. I'm not so sure about you, Francis. You have to work a little harder. How can he do that? You see God, because he's righteous and he's holy, nothing escapes him. And because he is righteous and holy, he has to take care of the insult of sin to him personally before he can be gracious. Do you see that? So whenever we go to God and say, well, you know, I'm not feeling like I'm living up to it. You know what you're really doing? You're telling God he didn't do enough. His work wasn't adequate to satisfy him.

See that? So the very first thing you have to understand is the adequacy of the work of Christ on the cross solved the entire issue. And the second thing is like you would say, I have to believe him. I think one of the, and Donna and I talk about this all the time, the lack of faith within the body of Christ is incredible. On just the littlest things, they just don't trust God. Either because they're ignorant and they don't read their Bibles, or because their emotions are stronger than their faith. See that? They just don't trust Him.

But it seems like somehow the Holy Spirit has to work in there because there's nothing that we ever experience that is other than sin, that there is so much of, you're not going to use it up. Like grace. Oh yeah. We think we're going to use it up? Is that what you mean? We think we're going to use it up or we think that we have to do something. I mean everything from being raised as a child.

Like you were saying, your patience goes so far, but if you look at this extra one, you know there's always a line out there that if you cross it, something's going to happen. Yeah, I've gone too far. I tried God and I kept trying him, and one of these days I'm going to go over the barrier.

Or, I haven't done this, so he can't possibly... Think about what a subtle... deal that is. If I don't live and walk by faith, then God says to me, okay, if you don't believe me, you get you. How's that working out for you? Well, you're thinking, well, you know, God is maybe angry at me because I asked him for the new Mercedes and I got a Plymouth. I don't even make those anymore. Well, that's right. What year is it, Mike? My dad was a Chrysler Plymouth dealer. I lived on ten acres. We had five acres of Plymouth in our backyard. cars.

We think that he is blessing us when things are wonderful. It takes a little bit of maturity to realize that he is blessing us even more when there is a trial. You see that? That is a greater blessing than whether I got the Plymouth or not. Or the Mercedes or whatever. Or I pray that I would be well.

We pray for people all the time while they're having a physical issue. And we pray that it would be resolved and they would be fine. Well, maybe we ought to rethink that. Because if God answered our prayer and it was a trial that he brought in their life for their spiritual growth to teach them about grace, we're asking God to stop doing what he's doing graciously. Do you see that? So you have to be careful how you pray. You really do.

Because we have this mentality that grace is I get. It's all about me and my getting whatever. I need a better job. I need more income. I need this. I need that. I need this. It's like Miles Stanford said, we have nothing but needs. That's all we have is needs. Everything is a need.

Okay, so what does the word reckoned here mean? Okay, the verse says, Now to him who works, the wages are not counted or reckoned as grace, but of debt. But to him who does not work, but believes on him who justifies, faith is accounted or reckoned for righteousness. So what does reckoned mean? I gave her five pages of notes this morning on reckoning and she's got this. Was reckoned has two ideas, to lay to the charge of another or to treat them accordingly.

In other words, let's say that Cheryl owes Donna $1,000. And Cheryl hasn't got a penny. So Donna would say, I reckon that I'm not ever going to get my money. But if someone graciously gives Cheryl $1,000 and Donna hears about it, she reckons that now she's got the money.

Reckoning is a really interesting word. It's a word that in Romans 6.11 After the great ten verses of identification, Paul says, Reckon yourself dead unto sin, but alive unto God. Would you say reckon is a stronger word than just believe? What do you think? It's a different word. It's a different word.

Well, good as am I. Yeah. I think that there's some interesting thoughts here. So Adi and I were talking a little bit about You know, a lot of times in the middle of parenting and talking to kids and working with them, the question arises, are you trusting the Lord right now? And it happens for us as parents, too. Am I trusting the Lord? Sure. And that's a conversation that you have a lot with your kids, I think, because poor parenting and poor behavior from a child is something that is the subject of a lot of the week.

It occurred to me that, Are You Trusting the Lord? sounded more like a light switch. It was like, Did you flip that switch yet? Because you need to flip that switch. I need to flip that switch real quick. The word trust has this idea about, I'm going to flip the switch and start trusting the Lord again. We talked a little bit about that. The idea of reckoning is yet another part of that conversation that we started talking about.

It's not that I'm trusting a thing. I'm trusting a person. And that trust occurs in the midst of a conversation. Because it's personal. God's a person. And you're building a relationship with him as you walk with him. Now, that relationship is solid. We talked about that. You're a daughter. I'm your father. No matter what happens, that relationship will never change. But you're growing in that. You're learning that.

He's fully aware of everything that he is as a father. that fellowship is needed, and that trusting Him is a conversation, and that reckoning aspect of it is just another perspective in terms of how that personal relationship is developing over time. From our perspective, right? It's 100% gracious, unlimited, and He's not the one that ever has turned on us. Yet, when we do find ourselves not trusting the Lord, It's a personal conversation that needs to be had with him so as to have that fellowship and recognize the unlimited grace that we live under.

It's not just a light switch. Right, it's not. You know what I mean? Yes, I do. And line that up with trials. The Lord brings a trial in your life. And it's, you know, initially you've got the wool knees going, right? But he's using that trial, like my son loves to say, well, dad, what did we learn? Well, John, what did you learn? What do you learn through the trial? You learn some aspect of why God gave you the trial.

He wants to teach you something, and it's more than faith, it's the reckoning thing. If you realize, listen I've been down this road a little bit with the Lord about this issue and He has proven faithful to me and He has demonstrated through this trial that X is so. Now I'm persuaded forever, I'll never go back on that. Where I might get a little weak in the faith, I don't think you get weak in the reckoning because that's the part of spiritual growth where things get set into you. They become part of you, like you were talking about.

Well, and that word legitimize was also used, the counting term of course, but it was also used for totaling, the summing up of numbers. Right, right. So you count this fact, I'm dead, right, I was buried, I was raised, right, I was ascended, seated. It's true, right? I reckon that. Because it's the sum of the facts. Yeah, I mean, it's really a pretty simple thing.

It's like if I knew I had 25 of something in my backyard, and I said to my son, hey, go count those. I need somebody to count it. And I know there's 25, because I touched it. He comes back in and says there's 23. What am I thinking? He didn't count them, because I know they're 25, because I put them there. I handled each one of them. My trial, and so they all added up to 25, each one.

And that's why trials are so valuable to us as believers, because it solidifies, that trial solidifies in our hearts these aspects of the truth that we may have known and we believe, but we're not in concrete about it. Trials make it concrete, I think. Okay.

So based on that, What is the term that God uses to classify all unbelievers? Why that term? Why can't he just say you're a democrat? Or a republican. Or you're a communist. Or you're a free trader. They're not from around here. Why ungodly? Why that turn? Because there's none righteous, no not one. No not one righteous, not a single one.

Okay. But I mean, you know, if you've ever gone to like the Denver County Jail to visit somebody, you know, everybody in there has got an issue. They have sinned specifically in some manner. And so they've been incarcerated about it, and there's going to be a trial or whatever. But the overall encompassing term that God uses for every non-believer is that they are ungodly. And the reason I ask that question is this. God can only have godly people around him. You agree with that? See that?

So it doesn't, it isn't sinner necessarily. It's ungodly. If you're not like him, you don't have anything to do with him. You are not righteous. See that? So, I think it's important for believers... I mean, I've had people say to me, you know, I know Joe over here, he's a great guy and he's becoming a Christian because he's a good guy. And I say, no, he's ungodly. I don't care how nice of a Boy Scout he is. He's ungodly.

Our position, we're godly, our condition, we're working on that. My position before salvation was one of ungodliness. There wasn't anything about me that God could accept. See, nothing. Even my mustache, I was done. My behavior, whatever I did, God does not grade on the curve.

You're either godly or you're ungodly. One of the two. So I think it's important to understand that when you're dealing with being counted righteous, those that aren't righteous are counted righteous or reckoned righteous. They're ungodly and that's the category they belong in. They may take showers twice a day and they're still ungodly.

So then what would you say is the only qualification for justification? Here's what Newell says, the only qualification for justification is, but believes on the God who declares righteous the ungodly, not the godly or the good, declares righteous to those ungodly who believe.

Can God do that? Newell asks that question, for God can reckon on an ungodly man who dares cease trying to change himself and relies on God just as he is a sinner. God can declare that man. God can and does reckon to such a one the glorious benefits of Christ's death and resurrection on behalf of sinners. And such is a believing sinner.

It cannot be too much emphasized that the words, The ungodly in verse 5 wholly shut out any class of justification. Now, nice words, right? Here's the problem we have in our society. I'm a Catholic. You're a Baptist. You're a Presbyterian. I was going to say, sure, I was a Mormon, but I better not say that.

And we have learned from childhood about a system in which we are getting better. And at some point we've been taught and believe that God will accept us as we progress. Haven't we been taught that? That here are the Ten Commandments, here are the rules of the church, here's this, here's that.

At some point you're going to arrive at a plateau where God says, okay, you've done enough, you're in. You're now righteous. The point here, and the point that Newell's making, The only people that get justified, get accounted righteous, are ungodly people. If you're self-righteous in the little bit degree, you're not qualified. You see that? If you think you've got something to bring to the table, you're not ready to be accounted righteous by God. Pretty cold, huh? Pretty cold. But that's where it boils down to.

When the two guys were leading me to Christ, one of the guys was a guy that I was in Religion 101 at Regis University with. And he says to me, I want to talk to you about Jesus Christ. I said, we were in that same class together, I know all there is to know about Jesus Christ. He said, no you don't. And he started to explain to me this basic concept.

I couldn't, you know, it just didn't click with me. I mean, I knew I was in trouble because I was a major sinner, but I always figured I did all of the Catholic stuff my mother told me to do and at some point God would come along in my life and say, okay, let's get straightened out now and we'll go forward from here. And I was relying on that. But that wasn't it. And even my mother, when I turned around, she didn't understand what had happened to me because she was a good Catholic, went to church every day. She didn't understand that I hadn't stopped being a bad guy and now I was going to be a good guy. There was more of a change than that. You almost have to get to the point where you realize in your own mind, boy, there's nothing about me that's acceptable to the Lord, but He's offered me eternal salvation if I just believe Him.

And I kept thinking, that's too easy. That's way too easy. You mean, how about once I believe then you're going to give me the list of stuff to do? And you know what? That's what happened. I was saved and two days later some guy walks up to me and hands me a book that says, now you're a believer, here's what you do.

I was just going to say that we take the gospel and we either front load it or back load it. So there's the idea of here's all the things I've got to do to make sure I receive what is offered to me. Here's all the things that I did to keep what you gave me, and I lose it. So, you know, there's a couple different ways of confusing grace and confusing the nature of the gospel, but it's that, again, it's another kind of pendulum where you're either back-loading or front-loading what the Lord gave to you. It's like, I gotta keep it, or I gotta earn it. So, what do I... I'm constantly... And there's no other comparison in life to free grace. And so you're always left with some kind of comparison without an understanding of what Paul is saying and time spent in God's Word. You have nothing to compare this to.

Because everything else is front loaded and back loaded. One or the other. The problem is we can't just rest. Well, yeah, if you recognize what the scripture says, there is that rest. There's no front or back loading, but we are busy as people trying to do one or the other, and it's a very busy state in it.

I might forget who said it, but if you lose the fall, you lose it all. I was thinking when Donna and I first got married, I forget what exactly it was, but you were cooking something in the kitchen and I came in and took a piece of it and ate it and you went, oh, we can do that. I think it was pie dough. It's like taking a nap. At some point in your life you think, it's okay to go take a nap.

Nobody's watching. I can rest because of what God said. I can just chill. I can chill in that grace. It's really a cool thing when you begin to realize that from your Father, your Heavenly Father, has nothing but kind and loving thoughts about you, and he wants to bless you. My problem is, am I going to let him? I believe in him. And I'm going to stop this, maybe by 5 o'clock I'll earn enough points where he can bless me. No. Now. Right now.

I like that front load, back load thing. That's a really good... Because you don't think about that, that after you're saved, you still have that mentality. You know, that... Well, pay it forward, pay it back. We have a lot of different ways of thinking about it. Yeah.

I mean, even if you get a free gift from a very rich friend, you're going to carry this idea that I've got to pay him back. I've got to make sure I do something to show him that while I can't pay him fully back, I've got to do something. My behavior is going to change in relationship to that gift somehow, someway, in terms of what I might try to do to show him how thankful I am. Can I talk about your dad? I'm mentioning his name. Sure. Okay. I've got a great story for you. There's a guy we know. and he's an older man.

He's 90 years old and it's time for him and his wife to move into independent living and assisted care. It's time because one of these days he's going to fall down or who knows and God has supplied over his whole life grace after grace after grace after grace after grace from the time he was a young boy in the Oklahoma oil fields all the way up to now has graced him with a great family enough income, a career that he could... I mean what he did in his life is what he always wanted to do from this eye. And now in his life he's got adequate, more than adequate assets to move into this facility and just enjoy it. What do you think his mindset is?

I can't do that. I can't do that. What do you mean? Why not? Why not? I mean, here comes God. He sets up the whole grace picture financially for him and says, OK, well, I can't do that. Either I didn't earn it or, you know, And so I had a talk with him and we talked about that back-loading idea, you know, that, hey, wait a minute, you don't live all your life under grace and then at the end, when God has already made provision for you to be in an environment like this, you don't say, oh, I can't go there. You can't stop the grace after 90 years. You have to accept it. And I said to him, here's the question, is there anything in your life harder to do than accept God's grace? Is there anything harder than that?

I don't think there is. Because we're not built that way. You know, when we got kicked out of the Garden of Eden, we've been sweating and working since. And we've been trying to get back, but we lost our estate. Now we have a totally new estate, and the totally new estate is all based on grace.

And it's so difficult, little tiny things that someone does for you, that you just don't instantly think, oh, I've got to pay him back. Or they offer and do something for you that you couldn't pay him back, like God does, but you walk around with this back-loaded idea that someday I'll pay him back. It's really, really difficult to accept grace, I think. I think it's really hard.

I think also one thing that plays into our specific situation as Americans is that as much as we all appreciate the idea of the American dream and earning and having the opportunity and having done a good day's work for a good day's pay, those are admirable American qualities, right? And we respect that and we push for that and we expect it. We don't expect a handout. We expect to do our time and make and make sure that what we've done is worthwhile and has a good outcome.

Well, good, but not grace. And grace is meant to exist in the spiritual realm to the point that eventually you are conformed to the image of Christ and it becomes your entire realm. So here we're kind of... I mean, we have America. But even bigger than that, we have citizenship in heaven, which is based on grace, and it's a whole different mentality even beyond just being American and doing a good day's work for a good day's pay. I think it's harder for us than any society. It might be, just because we want to work hard and we want to be... I mean, as a generalization, right? I had this thought a week or so ago.

God is so gracious to his creatures. that when he told Adam in the garden that you're going to have to sweat and you're going to have weeds and all that kind of thing. Yet in the middle of all of that, if you go to work every day, when you come home at night, there's a satisfaction in that. That's God's grace.

Not that, oh, I earned. It's just that I expended my energy, I worked really hard, and there's satisfaction in that. Not that I'm proving anything. It's just, wow. Kind of cool thing to do, you know? Okay, last question. I saw Brian heading for the bell. The last question, I asked a question out of Newell's Romans.

And he says, the burning question is, have you and I been so really convinced of the fact of our sinnerhood and guilt and our utter helplessness and lost state has to be able to believe on God who can and does declare righteous the ungodly, those who believe as ungodly on Him. You know, you think, well, gee, at this point it's kind of a redundant question. I don't think it really is, because someone notes that he said, a child without Christ is ungodly in this sense.

We were by nature the children of wrath. When you were playing in that rock band in Boulder, you were by nature a child of wrath. Right? I could still walk when we were done with the gig. Even go back to your mother's womb and sin did my mother conceive me. Not cool.

We were born into a lost, guilty race. We were born part of that race. We belong to it. And it is written of all of us concerning Adam that through the one man's disobedience, all were made sinners. Now, I've had guys tell me, well, if I was Adam, I wouldn't have done what he did. Yeah, you would have. You're just like him.

We are all ungodly and when we place our faith in the God who is in the business of declaring righteous the ungodly, we trust Him as they are on the sole ground of the shed blood of Christ. That's the only reason is that Christ is the reason why He can be gracious to us, He can recognize. Then we're justified, we're accounted righteous by God.

And I like this part, he says, no, it's not the regenerate, the born again man who is declared righteous, but the ungodly man. It's not the penitent man or the praying man as such, but the ungodly man. It's not the professing Christian who has escaped the defilements of the world through certain spiritual experiences. It may be a high order, but it's the ungodly man.

He who believes as such on the God who declares righteous, the ungodly who believes on him as such. That's who gets righteousness. Of course it's not the church member, I love this part, and one of these categories fits everybody in this room. Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, Episcopalian, Roman Catholic, and Plymouth Brethren. Too bad Courtney isn't here because we would have covered him too.

As such, but the ungodly. This is not either putting a premium on ungodliness, but telling the truth. If you have not relied on God as an ungodly one, you have yet to be declared righteous. For He is the God who declares righteous, the ungodly who believe in Him. I think it's pretty hard for somebody who's raised in a quote-unquote Christian church to come to this conclusion that they're ungodly.

Don't you think so? Because we pump them full of all this righteousness and stuff that they need to know. But did they ever come to the point where they recognize, ooh, I'm ungodly? Or a term such as that. I am separated from God. And unless something changes, I'm going to stay there. You see that? So, I'm done. Any questions? Comments? Criticisms? No, you don't get to criticize. Let's close. Father, how we thank you for your word and we thank you for the grace that we live under and we continue to ask you that we might always be growing in the knowledge and grace of your dear son, the Lord Jesus. And we pray in his name. Amen.