Faith Alone

Good morning, everybody. Welcome. Let's grab our seats if we haven't yet done that already.! Good morning. If you are new to Watermark, my name is Kevin, and great to have you with us. A warm welcome. Please do make yourself right at home. It's great to have you with us this morning.

I'm going to call Lonnie up, who's going to come and read the scripture to us. So if you've got a Bible, open up to Romans chapter 3. We're going to be reading there together. But as Lonnie comes on up, let me pray for us. Father, as we come to your word, as we say each week, we're not particularly interested in the opinions of man, what I have to say.

But God, we want to know what your word has to say. And so I want you to speak to our hearts, let your word take root in our hearts. By your spirit, write these truths on our hearts, we pray, so that we can love you and know you more.

In your great name we pray. Amen. Lonnie, will you come and read God's word to us this morning? Today's scripture reading is taken from Romans chapter 3, verse 21 to chapter 4, verse 8.

Please follow along with your Bible. If you do not have a Bible with you, please grab a church Bible from the front of the stage at the back or near the door. Our passage today is on page 885 of the church Bible. Page 885.

Hear then God's word to us today. Through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood.

To be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness because in his divine forbearance, he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith.

For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law. Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also?

Yes, of Gentiles also. Since God is one who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith.

Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means. On the contrary, we uphold the law. What then shall we say was gained by Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh?

For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about. But not before God. For what does the scripture say? Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness.

Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift, but as his due. And to the one who does not work, but believe in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness.

Just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works. Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven and whose sins are covered.

Blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin. Let us believe and respond to God's true and living word. Blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin.

As a church, we are going through this preaching series called the five solas. The five solas. And the word sola comes from the Latin word to mean alone or only. And it comes from a time in church history, 500 years ago, when the church, certain men and women, were fighting for truth of the gospel.

They felt like the church had become very political, had become more interested in power than Jesus and the gospel. And we're kind of going back to the very core essence of the Christian faith and the gospel and what it was all about.

And they came up with these five things, five only's. They said scripture alone and faith alone and grace alone and Christ alone to the glory of God alone. These five alones or five solas were kind of things that marked the Reformation.

They said if we're going to come back to what the Bible is all about, we need to know these five things. And so there's five Sundays in the month of November. November is often the time associated with the Reformation.

And so we're going to look at these five solas during the month of November. And last week we looked at scripture alone. And today we're going to look at faith alone. But why should we pay attention to this?

You know, maybe if you're like a theology nerd or a church history person, that may interest you. But for most of us, what does something that happened 500 years ago in Europe have to do with our lives here and now today?

You've got 10,000 things on your mind at the moment. You're juggling children or elderly parents. You've got projects on at work. It's the end of the year. What does something that happened 500 years ago have to do with you today?

And the answer is these five things really get to the heart of Christianity. This is the most core essence of what the entire Bible, everything about Jesus and Christianity really can be summarized in some ways in these five things.

If you get this, you get Christianity. If you miss this, you can get a lot of other things. But you can miss the gospel, miss Christianity in its entirety. And so if you're here this morning and you're not a Christian, we are so thrilled that you're here.

I've been praying for you and looking forward to having you here. It's my hope that if you're here today and you come over the next few weeks, my hope is that you will get one of the clearest, most succinct presentations of the gospel.

What is the Bible about? What do Christians believe? And I hope that you come away with clarity on that. If you're here this morning, you are a Christian, which is most of us. My hope is that as a result of this series, our hearts will sing again.

That we will leave church with a bounce in our step, with a song in our heart, with fresh conviction and joy as we come to know what the gospel is all about once again. Okay, so that's where we're going and that's what's up.

Now, life is full of lots of questions, isn't it? Many of them unimportant questions. What clothes are you going to wear? Should you buy a car? Are you going to go on holiday this Christmas, this December?

But also some important questions. Should I marry that person? What kind of person am I becoming? And the Bible is not particularly interested in the unimportant questions.

If you want to buy a car, don't buy a car. It's okay. Jesus isn't overly concerned about that. There may be some wisdom in, you know, don't go to death, those kinds of things. Where you go on holiday isn't massively important.

The Bible is not overly concerned with the unimportant questions. The Bible is concerned with the important questions. What kind of person are you becoming? Who you marry? What you do with your money? Your sexuality, etc.

But the question that the Bible is most interested in, most concerned about, and wants us to think most carefully about, very thoroughly about, is indeed, a question that the Bible is at pains to help us know and answer, is how do I have relationship with God?

How can I know God? And in particular, how can an imperfect person like me get back into relationship with a perfect and holy and righteous God like God?

You may know, right at the beginning of the Bible, the first few chapters, the people are in the Garden of Eden. They're in beautiful relationship with God. They know Him. They walk with Him. And very quickly, only in the third chapter, everything falls apart.

And the rest of the Bible, from the third chapter, all the way at the end, is trying to answer this question, how do we get back to Eden? How do we get back to the place where we can have relationship with God?

How can an imperfect person like me know and love and come before a perfect holy God like God? How can human beings who have spurned His love, rejected His lordship, be reconciled in relationship with Him?

And that's the trillion dollar question. Because it affects not just our lives here and now on earth, but our lives for all eternity. But it also affects not just all eternity, it affects our lives here and now, the way we live.

And so that's the most important question. Why should God be for me, not against me? With all my self-centeredness, all my arrogance, all my spurning of His lordship and His glory, rabbishing His glory, why should God be for me and not reject me forever?

And this is a question, the problem of sin is a question that humans have wrestled with for thousands of years. Listen to how the psalmist in Psalm 130 wrestles with this.

Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord, O Lord, hear my voice. If you, O Lord, should mark with iniquities, who, O God, could stand? That's the problem, isn't it?

If you, O God, holy and righteous though you are, if you should mark our iniquities and hold that against us, who of us could stand? We are in deep trouble. What hope do we have?

And it's a problem that the New Testament wrestles with a lot. But it's also a problem that the Reformers wrestled with a lot. And in particular, there's a guy called Martin Luther. And he wrestled with this question a lot.

You heard about Martin Luther. Neil spoke about him last week. Martin Luther was a Catholic monk in the town of Wittenberg in Germany around the early 16th century.

And he had a very acute conscience. He was very troubled by his sin. And historians tell us that, you know, as a Catholic, he would go to the confession booth and confess his sin to his priest or his mentor.

And he would often be in there for five or six hours as he thought about every possible sin that he had ever accomplished in the last week.

Every bad thought. Every unwholesome idea. Every attitude of his heart. Every funny look he gave someone else in the monastery. Anything that crossed his mind, he'd be in there for hours.

And he'd be confessing his sin. He'd be asking the priest for pardon. He'd be saying, what must I do to deal with my sin? How can I get over it? He was tormented by his sin.

In fact, there's stories where he would be in the confession booth for hours. And he had done everything. And then he leaves the booth. And as he leaves, he has a thought.

And he thinks, oh, no, no. And he goes back. And you can just imagine the priest being, here we go again. A couple more hours as he remembers something else that he hadn't yet confessed.

But the reason was because he did this in order to be pardoned by the priest, to then go and do penance, then meant doing some action, maybe fasting or some self-denial, some deed in order to be pardoned, to get free from the penalty of his sin.

And the question on his heart was this. How do I get right with God? How do I get right with God? God. Here's something he wrote. Oh, my sin, my sin. What shall I do with my sin?

What can I do to win a gracious God? Psalm 130 goes on. And this is what it says. If you, O Lord, should mark our iniquities, who, O Lord, could stand?

But with you there is forgiveness that you may be feared. With you there is forgiveness. That's the great hope. But the question is how? On what basis is God just saying, oh, you seem like a nice person.

I'll forgive your sin. Or, you know, you're a good Jewish person. Why don't I forgive you? Or, you know, you're a good Chinese person. I'm sure Asians are God's favorites, right? I'll forgive you.

On what basis does God forgive us? Why? Why? Why? How can we be forgiven? How can an unrighteous man like me, how can an unrighteous person like you stand before an eternally holy and righteous God?

And for Martin Luther, the righteousness of God was the thing that he hated about God. It was the thing that bothered him the most about God. And the thing about Christianity, because he understood that not only was God holy and righteous, but that Jesus had come to reveal the righteousness of God, which we must live up to if we are to be acceptable.

So here's Martin Luther and here's me way down here. Jesus come and has revealed how perfect God is. And now I've got to spend my whole life trying to attain to that measure.

And he looked at them and said, who can ever do that? Who can ever live up to Jesus? For him, the righteousness of God was the standard by which God judges, condemns, and punishes sinful people.

Listen to what he writes. He says, Though I lived as a monk without reproach, that means blamelessly, I felt as if I was a sinner before God with an extremely disturbed conscience.

I could not believe that he was placated, that means satisfied, by my good works or religious duties. I did not love, yes, I hated the righteous God who punishes sinners.

And secretly, if not blasphemously, I was angry with God. Probably not a very good priest to be angry and to hate God, but the righteous standard by which he could never attain and never felt good enough and never felt worthy, only condemned him.

And Martin Luther's worst passage, one of the worst passages for him was the book of Romans. And he reads this in Romans chapter 1 verse 17, says this, the apostle Paul writes, For in the gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed or made known from faith for faith, as it is written in Habakkuk 2, the righteous shall live by faith.

Now Martin Luther read that and thought, that's the problem. God has revealed this righteousness that I've got to live up to, and I can't, I can't. So I'm condemned. Everyone's condemned.

And he felt utterly hopeless about it. As we said, he thought the gospel revealed the standard that he had to obtain. But then one day, he is studying the book of Romans because he's got to teach his students, and he discovers something.

He discovers, he had been reading the Latin translation, he goes back to the Greek translation, and he realizes that what Paul is saying in the book of Romans, In the gospel, the righteousness of God is not the standard that he demands from sinners, but a gift that he gives to anyone who will come to him and trust in him.

The righteousness of God is not a standard he demands, something we obtain through good deeds and religious devotion. Instead, in the gospel, God gives the righteousness to unmerited people, those who haven't earned it, as a gift of grace simply on the basis of trusting in Christ.

Luther came to see that in the gospel, God gives us his gift, his own moral perfection, to anyone, anyone who will simply trust in Jesus. Not on the basis of confession booths, not on the basis of indulgences, not by going and asking the priest to be pardoned, not by doing good deeds or serving the poor, simply coming to Jesus and say, Jesus, I need you.

And on that basis, God gives his gift of righteousness. And the Bible word for this is justified. To be declared righteous based on God's gift of righteousness and then treated as if we are.

Now, that's all very theological. So let me see if I can share this with an analogy. Many people here are university students or you're thinking about university or maybe you've got kids that are thinking about university.

Imagine you're finishing your undergrad, you want to do a post-grad course. And there's a particular program that you want to get into with the very top professor in the whole world in a very particular field of study that you're interested in.

And so you have set your sights. I want to study with this professor and this field at this university. And so you've set your sights on that. And it's very hard to get in there. And then you read the requirements.

And the requirements are that you need to have 100% academic record for every test, every exam, every course you've ever done in your entire life.

Okay? And you think, well, I'm in trouble. That's not me. Okay? You can't get in. You're in deep trouble. But then somebody tells you, there is a way to get in.

And what you have to do is you have to go to the professor and you have to knock on his door. And you have to say to him, Professor, I want to study with you. Will you please let me in?

And if you do that, he will gift his academic record to you and treat you as if it's your own. And so he takes his absolutely perfect academic record and he says, here you go, Kevin.

You are now qualified. You are welcomed into my program. Martin Luther thought that he had to come to God with this whole stack of CVs. This is everything I've done. Please can I get in?

And God would say, no, you're not good enough. But then he realized, if I come to him simply on the basis of faith, please, Jesus, I'm trusting in you and you alone.

God will take his own righteousness, his perfect track record, and credit it to us and then treat us on the basis of as if it's our own.

We will be justified. Listen to how Martin Luther wrote about this. He said, understanding this, that justification is by faith alone. He said, there I began to understand that the righteousness of God is through grace and sheer mercy a gift of God, namely by faith.

Thereupon, I felt myself to be born again and to have gone through open doors into paradise. It changed his life and as we know, it changed the world. Now, thanks Martin Luther for your story, but as we heard last week, Martin Luther is not our authority.

No saints or church history is our authority. So the question is, is this what the Bible says? Because actually, we want to know, what does the Bible have to say? And so let's look at Romans chapter 3 that Lonnie read to us.

And we're going to focus mainly on just chapter 3. So open your Bible to Romans chapter 3 and let's look at it here together. Now, up until this point in the Bible, Paul, who's been writing this, has been arguing that none of us have a perfect track record.

All of us, whether you're a Jew or a Gentile, whether you're religious or you're not religious, all of us are sinners and are in deep trouble. Look what he says in verse 21 then. But now, the righteousness of God has been manifested or revealed or made known apart from the law, that means apart from good works, although the law and the prophets, that's the Old Testament, bear witness to it, the righteousness of God that comes through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe.

Okay, that's what we've just been talking about. That's what Martin Luther discovered and Jan Hus and John Wycliffe and all the other reformers in the 15th and the 16th century. They saw being righteous before God does not come from the Pope.

It doesn't come from doing good works. It doesn't come from being a member of the church. It doesn't come from anything that's found inside of us. Simply the righteousness of God that comes through simple faith in Jesus Christ.

He goes on, for there is no distinction for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God and are justified or declared righteous by His grace as a gift through redemption.

That is in Jesus Christ whom God put forward as a propitiation. That means an offering for sin. And how is this gift to be received? To be received by faith.

Friends, you see it? As clear as day in black and white. There is no distinction. All of us are in deep trouble. All of us have sinned. From the richest CEO in the world to the person living on the street.

From the smartest Ivy League professor to the most uneducated simpleton. From the most powerful person in the corridors of power to the unknown person that nobody cares about.

Friends, from the most pious religious person in the world to the world's worst criminal. All of us, the heroes we look up to, our parents, the people we think are great, all of us are sinners before a righteous God.

And yet God has found a way for sinners like me and you to be declared righteous, to be justified, to be spotless and blameless before our God.

How? Simply by trusting in Jesus on the basis of faith. Trusting in Him, believing upon Him, putting our hope and confidence in Him. That Jesus died on the cross in my place.

He took my unrighteousness upon Himself and He gave me His righteousness instead. This exchange took place and now I stand before Him completely justified.

Not because I'm a nice person, because I'm not, but because Christ has given me His righteous standing. Look at verse 28. Paul says, For we hold that one is justified, declared righteous, by faith, apart from works of the law.

There it is, in black and white, in 15 words, the entire message of the gospel. We declare that someone is justified, apart from good works, apart from being a religious person, simply on the basis of what?

Faith alone. Friends, that's Christianity. That's the gospel. Trusting that Jesus died for you, for me, putting our confidence in Him, we are declared righteous and justified before God.

Listen to how the Heidelberg Catechism asks and answers this question. This is Heidelberg Catechism question 60. How are you righteous before God? I think the next slide will have it.

Only by true faith in Jesus Christ. Although my conscience accuses me that I have sinned grievously, sorry, it's a bit small, against God's commandments, have never kept any of them, and am still inclined to all evil, yet God, without any merit on my own, out of mere grace, imputes, that means credits, to me, the perfect satisfaction, righteousness, and holiness of Christ, He grants these to me as if I had never, as if I had never had nor committed any sin, and as if I myself had accomplished all the obedience which Christ had rendered for me, if only I accept this gift with a believing heart.

Friends, do you see it? How can you be righteous before a holy God? How can you ever stand before the holy and righteous creator of the whole universe? In simple faith, you trust in Jesus, and He will give to you what is true of Him, His perfect righteousness.

And the rest of Romans chapter 4, we're not going to look at it, Paul is going to give three examples of the kinds of things that people in his day trusted in. And each time he says, no, it's not that, it's faith alone.

It's not circumcision, it's faith alone. It's not good works, it's faith alone. It's not obedience to the Old Testament law, it's faith alone. Look at 4 verse 3, what he says here.

What does the scripture say? Abraham simply believed God, he put his faith in God, and it was counted to him as righteousness. Verse 5, to the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, His faith is counted as righteousness.

See friends, at the time of the Reformation, Martin Luther and all his friends were trying to put their hope in 10,000 other things. Confessing every possible sin, getting pardon from the priest, going and doing penance, fasting, self-beating up, self-denial, doing all these good things, buying indulgences, all of it was utterly meaningless.

Faith and faith alone. Do you trust Jesus? That's all it takes. Well, that's what Paul says. What about the rest of the New Testament? Look at Galatians chapter 2. Paul says the same thing.

We know that a person is not justified before God by works of the law, but through faith in Jesus Christ. By works of the law, no one will be justified. Well, look at Ephesians 2. It says, For by grace you have been saved, through faith.

And this is not your own doing, it's the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.

Now, this verse is very important because look at what Paul says here. He says, You are not justified on the basis of doing good works, being a good person, but you are saved in order to do good works.

Do you see that? You don't, God doesn't look at you and say, You are such a good person. I think I'll welcome you into my kingdom. But, he says, You trust in Jesus. Okay, now that you are a Christian, I have got things that I want you to do.

I want you to demonstrate your faith. I want your faith to show itself. That's what Paul says. What about Jesus? Does Jesus say this, or is this just the Apostle Paul? Well, look at what Jesus says in John chapter 6.

Some people come to him and say, Jesus, what must we do to be doing the works of God? Jesus, we want to get eternal life. We want to go to heaven. What must we do? Must we fast?

Must we go on pilgrimage? Must we sell all our possessions? What must we do to get into heaven? And Jesus answered, This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom God has sent.

Simply believe. Simply believe. Friends, what about John chapter 3? Jesus is talking to a man called Nicodemus, and He tells him, You must be born again. And then at the end, He says, Just as Moses lifted up the serpents in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him will have eternal life.

Do you remember that story? We looked at it early in the year. The people of God in the wilderness, they're all rebelling against God, and they're under His judgment. And because of their sin, they are dying. And God says to Moses, Moses, get a wooden pole, a big wooden pole, and put a bronze snake about it, and stick it up high in the camp.

And if anybody is under my judgment, and they're dying, and they're under judgment, if they just simply look at the pole, if they just look at it, they don't need to do anything, if they just look at the snake on the pole, in faith, trusting that I will forgive them, they will be healed.

Well, Jesus says, Don't you see, I am going to be lifted up on a wooden pole. In just a few years' time, I'm going to be lifted up, and I'm going to be crucified. And anyone who will simply look to me, don't need to do anything, simply look to me, simply believe in me, you will be saved.

Well, friends, think about Jesus in Luke 24. He's on the cross. He's paying for my sin and your sin. He's on the cross, and next to him is a man, a thief, a criminal, who's been crucified for his sin.

And what happens? The thief looks to Jesus, with faith in his heart, and he says, Jesus, I believe, in effect. And what does Jesus say? Well, you know, sorry, it's too late, you haven't been baptized.

You know, best of luck. Or, hey, sorry, I wish you, you should have gone, done confession with the priest, and got penance. He says, today, you will be with me in paradise. Friends, the thief didn't do a single thing, not a single thing, to earn God's grace.

But what did he do? He simply believed. Friends, the New Testament couldn't be any clearer. The righteousness of God has been made known. The righteousness of God that comes through faith in Jesus Christ, for all who believe.

Now, there is one problem. And the problem is that there is a book in the Bible called James. Okay? And James seems to say the exact opposite. James is actually Jesus' half-brother.

Look at James chapter 2 with me. James writes this, Now, that's a problem, because we don't want dead faith.

We want living faith. Okay? Verse 24, You see that if a person is just, so you see a person is justified by works, and not by faith alone.

For as the body apart from the Spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead. Now, here's a problem, because the whole Bible seems to say you are justified by faith, not works.

Okay? That's what Paul said. And now here comes James. He says, you're justified by works, not faith. So what's going on here? Actually, what James is saying is exactly what Paul said back in Ephesians 2.

James is saying, you say you have faith, but where's the evidence? How do we know? How do you know that your faith is not just meaningless words? Kind of like when someone says, I'm so sorry that you don't have any food, but best of luck, I really feel for you.

Actually, they don't feel for them at all. If you really felt for them, you'd go and do something about it. That kind of faith is fake faith. It's not authentic faith. It's just empty words. And Paul is saying, in the same way, if you say, I love Jesus, I love Jesus, but actually you live in for yourself, you're self-righteous, you don't care about anyone else, maybe God hasn't changed your heart.

No one is justified by works, but when you're saved, when you put your faith in God, and you declare righteous, He so changes you, that you become a different kind of person, that will result in works.

And James is saying, that if your life, if there's no proof, there's no evidence whatsoever, you've got a question, is your faith genuine? So look what he says, verse 18. Show me your faith apart from works, but I will show you my faith by my works.

You're not saved by works, saved by faith, but faith that results in good works. Remember Ephesians chapter 2, what did Paul say? You've been saved by grace through faith.

This is not your own doing. It's a gift of God, not because of works, so that no one will boast, but God has prepared works for us to do. So friends, as we come to a close, how should we think about this?

Well, let me close with three thoughts. The good, the bad, and the indifferent. Okay? The good, the bad, and the indifferent. Let's start in reverse order. The indifferent. Friends, some of us may be here this morning and say, yes, yes, I know the stuff.

I believe in Jesus. I believe He died on the cross for my sins. I get it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay? But let me ask you, do you really know it? Do you, is your hope, is your confidence, is your rest, your trust in Christ alone, or do you still look to yourself and your righteousness, your goodness, to justify yourself, to feel good about yourself?

And here's one of the ways you can know, is are you someone who is given to defensiveness? Are you someone who's often needing to justify yourself? You're in the office and someone says something maybe about your performance or you did something or that meeting didn't go so well, and you always feel like you need to justify yourself.

You always need to defend yourself. Or maybe you always need to blame someone else. It's always someone else's fault. Friends, are you someone that, that you're always needing to defend or justify yourself because you don't know how to rest in the justification of Jesus?

That Christ is enough for you. Friends, would your family members, your colleagues describe you as a prickly person? Someone who needs to look good in other people's eyes. Why is that?

It's because we try to build our own righteousness, our own justification. Because Jesus' righteousness may be intellectual, I understand it, but it hasn't penetrated our hearts. It doesn't change us deeply.

A Christian is not just someone who understands the doctrine, someone who's come to rest in Christ alone. Jesus is my only justification. Nothing in my hands I bring, simply to his cross I cling.

It's the anthem of the Christian. The indifferent. Secondly, the bad. Friends, consider the bad news. The bad news is that for those of us who seem to have it all together, who may think that our goodness or our morality or our religious devotion gets us a good standing with God, the Bible says that he, God will take that confidence, that thing that we trust in and hope in, and he will utterly crush it.

And it will leave us devastated. It will be a terrifying thing that the thing that I hold so precious, my justification, my righteousness, the thing that tells me I am a good person, God will take that thing and utterly crush it.

Jesus tells a story in Luke chapter 18. He says there's two people that go into a temple to pray. There's a Pharisee and there's a sinner. And the Pharisee goes in and he says, he's very pious, he's very devout, very religious, and he says, God, I thank you that I'm not like other people.

I pray twice a day. I give tithes of everything I have. Thank you, God, that I'm not like that sinner over there. I'm a good man. I'm in your kingdom. Thank you for your kindness to me. And what does Jesus say about this man?

He says he is lost. Lost. Utterly lost. Jesus says he will not go home justified. He will die in his sins and never be reconciled to God.

Here's a religious man. He's very devout. He's very devoted. His life looks like the perfect example of what a religious man should look like. And Jesus says he's lost.

Friends, that's the bad news. One day that man is going to come face to face with the living God, and he's going to hear the bad news that I never knew you, because you trusted in yourself.

Friends, you see why this is such bad news? Because it says that the thing that we bring to Jesus that's so precious is utterly meaningless to save you. And that's incredibly difficult in a city like Hong Kong, because Hong Kong is full of people that have got it together.

We are a city of self-made men and women. And Jesus says that that can't save us. And then Jesus says there's another man that goes into the temple. And here's a man that has got nothing.

He is a sinner. He is downcast. He is the kind of person that everybody else looks down upon. He has got nothing. And he falls on his knees and he says, God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

And Jesus says, that man goes home justified, righteous, accepted in my kingdom, one of my own. Friends, that's the good news.

That anyone, anyone, anyone who knows themselves to be an imperfect human being, anyone who knows themselves to be in need of mercy and grace, anyone who can look at themselves and say, I am not a perfect human being.

If you will simply trust in Jesus, that Jesus went to the cross for you and died for you to give you his perfect righteousness, you can be declared righteous in the sight.

And all of this is by faith alone. So friends, what about you? Where are you putting your hope, your confidence? Are you still trying to establish your own righteousness? You still trying to justify yourself?

You still trying to earn God's favor through your goodness? Listen to what Paul says. We have a righteousness of God that is made known apart from good works, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe.

For there is no distinction, for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift through Jesus Christ to be received by faith.

Let's pray together. Lord Jesus, today we've tried to look at the very essence of the gospel, that you Christ died for sinners like us.

None of us have it all together, but God, you do have it all together, and you promise that if we will simply believe in you, simply trust in you, you will give us your gift of grace. Thank you, God, for the good news of the gospel.

Lord, when we think about it, the good news is infinitely better than we expected. Thank you, Jesus, that you can welcome people like us, to be part of your kingdom. We can go back to Eden, to know you, to be reconciled, and even better than that, to spend all eternity with you.

We love you. We need you. In your name we pray. Amen. Amen.