A pastor in Kansas City was calling neighborhood grocery stores and laundromats to set up some community service projects for church members to show the love of Christ around town.
On one call, the employee who answered the phone hesitated, then said, “I'll need to ask the manager, but first, let me make sure I understand: You want to clean up the parking lot, retrieve shopping carts, hold umbrellas for customers, and you don't want anything in return.”
“Yes, that's right,” the pastor replied.
After disappearing for a moment, the employee returned to the phone. “I'm sorry,” he said, “we can't let you do that because if we let you do it, we'd have to let everyone else do it, too!” (Ann Jeffries, Kansas City, Kansas, "Lite Fare," Christian Reader; CT Pastors, Sermon Illustrations).
Oh wow! Wouldn’t that be great to have everybody clean up your parking lot? But I guess they didn’t want just anybody to do it. After all, you have to be careful who you trust to do that sort of thing.
The story is a little silly, but it does raise a serious question: Who do you trust to clean up your life? When you have made a mess of things, on whom do you depend to make everything right? Tell me. Can you even trust yourself? Well, if you have your Bibles, I invite you to turn with me to Romans 4, Romans 4, where Abraham and David, after they made a mess of their lives, show us who they trusted to make things right.
Romans 4:1-3 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” (ESV).
Abraham did not trust himself, especially after his lie to Pharaoh nearly lost him his wife and with her all of God’s covenant blessing. No! Abraham did not trust himself. Abraham trusted God, who had promised him as many descendants as the stars in the sky.
Now, that’s incredible when you realize that at the time Abraham and his wife Sarah were well beyond their ability to have children. He was in his 80’s and she was in her 70’s (Genesis 16:16). On top of that, did you ever try to count the stars on a cloudless night?
In the mid 1500’s, famous astronomer Tycho Brahe cataloged 777 stars with the naked eye. Several centuries later, using the Kepler space telescope, astronomers cataloged over half a million stars (or 530,506 stars to be exact). Today, astronomers estimate the existence of more than two trillion galaxies, each of which has an average of one hundred billion stars. Do the math, and that adds up to two hundred sextillion stars in the observable universe (Mark Batterson, A Million Little Miracles, Multnomah, 2024, pp. 4, 21; CT Pastors, Sermon Illustrations).
God promised an old, childless couple that they would have millions upon millions of descendants; and incredibly, Abraham believed God. Literally, in the Hebrew text of Genesis, Abraham said “amen” to God’s promise—yes, it is true—and God counted his faith as righteousness.
Had God counted Abraham’s works, God would have condemned him. For, on at least two occasions, Abraham lied about his wife to save his own skin. Then he schemed with his wife to have a child through her maid when God delayed his promise. Abraham was a sinner like the rest of us, but he believed God. As a result, God declared him righteous. In the same way…
King David, also a sinner, trusted God, as well.
Romans 4:4-8 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 believes 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” (ESV).
This is what David said AFTER he committed adultery with Bathsheba and murdered her husband. Rather than condemning him, God covered David’s sin and removed his guilt. Now, the Old Testament Law required judges to condemn the ungodly (Deuteronomy 25:1). But here, God “justifies the ungodly” (verse 4) when they put their faith in Him.
In order to clean up the mess in their lives, both Abraham and David refused to rely on their works, which could only condemn them. Instead, they relied on the Lord to make everything right. You do the same. If you want to clean up the mess in your life, first…
RENOUNCE YOUR WORKS.
Refuse to depend on your own efforts at self-improvement. Set aside your useless toil to make things better.
Michelangelo, the great Renaissance artist, is known for his statue of David and the incredible Sistine Chapel. But what many don’t know is that Michelangelo was plagued with depression, failing to live up to his own high standards. He lived at a time when the Reformation was sweeping through Europe and late in life began to find comfort in the reformation ideas about justification by grace through faith, not works.
One of his final works, intended to be his gravestone, was a statue of himself, in the guise of Nicodemus, holding the dead body of Jesus being lowered from the cross. He called it the Deposition and worked on it for nearly eight years. At one point, he became so deeply discouraged by his own failing abilities, he attacked the statue in a fit of frustration and left it unfinished (Simonetta Carr, “Michelangelo and His Struggles of Faith,” Place for Truth, 6-6-17;’ CT Pastors, Sermon Illustrations).
At the time, he wrote a sonnet expressing his frustration but also his faith in the One who loved him unconditionally. This is what he wrote:
The course of my life has now brought me
through a stormy sea, in a frail ship,
to the common port where, landing,
we account for every deed, wretched or holy.
So that now I clearly see
how wrong the fond illusion was
that made art my idol and my king
leading me to want what harmed me.
My amorous fancies, once foolish and happy:
what sense have they, now that I approach two deaths—
the first of which I know is sure, the second threatening.
Let neither painting nor carving any longer calm
my soul turned to that divine love
that to embrace us opened his arms upon the cross.
Michelangelo gave up seeking perfection and came to rest in the arms of Jesus, who loved him unconditionally from the cross. You do the same. Set aside your useless toil to make things better, and rest in the loving arms of Jesus.
If you want to clean up the mess in your life, 1st, renounce your works. Then 2nd…
RENOUNCE YOUR RITES.
Refuse to depend on religious rituals to make you a better person. Set aside the pious practices that fail to impress a holy God.
Romans 4:9-10 Is this blessing then only for the circumcised, or also for the uncircumcised? For we say that faith was counted to Abraham as righteousness. How then was it counted to him? Was it before or after he had been circumcised? It was not after, but before he was circumcised (ESV).
Actually, God declared Abraham righteous more than 13 years BEFORE he was circumcised (Genesis 15:3; 16:16; 17:24). Why then did Abraham go through the painful ritual if God had already declared him righteous?
Romans 4:11-12 He received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. The purpose was to make him the father of all who believe without being circumcised, so that righteousness would be counted to them as well, and to make him the father of the circumcised who are not merely circumcised but who also walk in the footsteps of the faith that our father Abraham had before he was circumcised (ESV).
Abraham was circumcised as a “sign” and “seal” of God’s promise. You see, God had promised him many descendants. Therefore, it was only fitting that God would give him such a sign. That way, every time a descendant of Abraham made love to his wife, they would be reminded of God’s promise. Circumcision was God’s guarantee that He would keep His Word.
It’s just like the rainbow in the sky (Genesis 9:13-17). It reminds us of God’s promise not to flood the earth again, and it is God’s guarantee that He will keep His Word.
Abraham did not depend on circumcision to receive God’s promise. He used circumcision to remind Him of God’s promise. For it was his faith in that promise that saved him, but not only him. Faith saves anyone, Jew or Gentile, circumcised or uncircumcised, who like Abraham believe in God’s promise.
So, like Abraham, stop depending on religious ritual and simply trust what God has said in His Word. The Bible says, “God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). Put your name in place of the “whoever” and claim this promise for yourself.
Christian counselor, Elyse Fitzpatrick, says, “The primary reason the majority of kids from Christian homes stray from the faith is that they never really heard it or had it to begin with… Scratch the surface of the faith of the young people around you and you'll find a disturbing deficiency of understanding of even the most basic tenets of Christianity.”
Then she described a conversation she recently had with a young woman in her early twenties, who had been raised in a Christian home and had attended church for most of her life. After assuring Elyse that she was, indeed, saved, Elyse asked her, “What does it mean to be a Christian?”
She replied, “It means that you ask Jesus into your heart.”
“Yes, all right, but what does that mean?” Elyse asked her, to which she replied, “It means that you ask Jesus to forgive you.”
“Okay,” Elyse responded, “but what do you ask him to forgive you for?”
“Bad things?” the young lady said. “I guess you ask him to forgive you for bad things, the sins you do.”
“Like what?” Elyse asked her, getting a deer in the headlights look from the young lady.
So Elyse tried a different tack. “Why would Jesus forgive you?” she asked the young lady, who fidgeted and answered, “Um, because you ask him?”
Elyse asked, “What do you think God wants you to know?”
The young lady beamed. “He wants me to know that I should love myself and that there's nothing I can't do if I think I can.”
“And what does God want from you?” Elyse asked her.
“He wants me to do good stuff,” the young lady replied. “You know, be nice to others and don't hang around with bad people.”
Elyse concludes, “We've transformed the holy, terrifying, magnificent, and loving God of the Bible into Santa and his elves. And instead of transmitting the gloriously liberating and life-changing truths of the gospel, we have taught our children that what God wants from them is morality. We have told them that being good (at least outwardly) is the be-all and end-all of their faith. This isn't the gospel; we're not handing down Christianity” (Elyse Fitzpatrick, Give Them Grace, Crossway, 2011, pp. 18-19; CT Pastors, Sermon Illustrations).
Elyse Fitzpatrick is absolutely right. Some Evangelicals tell people, “Just ask Jesus into your heart.” Other denominations tell people, “Just be baptized and confirmed.” But that is NOT the gospel. The Gospel is the good news that Christ died for our sins and rose again (1 Cor. 15:3-4), that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life (John 3:16).
Instead, we tell people, “Walk this aisle, pray this prayer, or do this ritual.” Then we wonder why we see no lasting change in their lives. NO! Invite people to trust Christ with their lives, to depend on Jesus who died for their sins and rose again. For only Jesus can clean up the mess and make people right with God. So, invite people to believe in Jesus, not in some prayer they pray or some religious ritual they practice.
And if you just realized that YOU have been depending on such things, transfer your trust from that ritual to Christ; look to Jesus to save you, not some pious practice.
If you want to clean up the mess in your life, 1st, renounce your works; 2nd, renounce your rites; and 3rd…
RENOUNCE YOUR FAILED ATTEMPTS TO KEEP THE LAW.
Refuse to depend on your own futile efforts to obey all the rules. Set aside your losing struggle to measure up to some standard, no matter how good it might be.
Romans 4:13-15 For the promise to Abraham and his offspring that he would be heir of the world did not come through the law but through the righteousness of faith. For if it is the adherents of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null and the promise is void. For the law brings wrath, but where there is no law there is no transgression (ESV).
The Law did not come until 400 years AFTER God promised Abraham many descendants. Therefore, God’s promised blessings could only come through faith in God’s promise, not in trying to keep some non-existent law.
The only thing that comes through attempts to keep the law is God’s wrath, because everyone breaks the law. So, renounce your futile efforts to keep the law and simply rely on God’s promise to make everything right in your life.
On September 18, 2003, Genshin Fujinami, 44, a Buddhist priest nicknamed the “Marathon Monk,” finished a seven-year, 24,800-mile journey in the Hiei Mountains of Japan. It was intended to be a trek to enlightenment.
Once a monk starts this journey, he must finish or kill himself. According to an Associated Press article, for the first three years the pilgrim must rise at midnight for 100 consecutive days to run 18 miles per day, stopping 250 times to pray along the way. During the next two years, he must up his schedule to 200 days. In the fifth year the pilgrim must sit and chant mantras for nine days without food, water, or sleep… In the sixth year, he must walk 37.5 miles every day for 100 days. In the seventh year, he must run 52.5 miles for 100 days, 18 miles for another 100 days, and then complete a 234-mile trek back to his home base (Marathon Monk Ends Seven Years on the Run, Chicago Tribune, 9-20-03; CT Pastors, Sermon Illustrations).
Very few attempt the trek and much less complete it. Even so, that would not be enough to find God, because God’s rules are much more stringent. There are 613 commands in the Old Testament, which only govern the outward behavior. When you define obedience as keeping the law in your heart, like Jesus did, then you see how impossible it is to do. For example, you may refrain from murder, but no one can keep anger at bay. You may refrain from adultery, but no one can avoid lustful thoughts.
As someone once said, “Many a man has followed the Ten Commandments all his life but has never quite managed to catch up with them.” So, give up your futile efforts to perfectly obey God’s Law.
If you want to clean up the mess in your life, 1st, renounce your works; 2nd, renounce your rites; 3rd, renounce your failed attempts to keep the law; and simply…
RELY ON GOD’S PROMISE.
Depend on what God has said in His Word. Trust in His pledge to make all things right for those who believe in Him.
Romans 4:16 That is why it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his offspring—not only to the adherent of the law but also to the one who shares the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all (ESV).
All who believe like Abraham are children of Abraham. And if you are a child of Abraham, you are his heir and a recipient to all that God promised to Abraham. This is true whether you try to keep the law or not, i.e., whether you’re a Jew or a Gentile.
Romans 4:17-22 as it is written, “I have made you the father of many nations”—in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist. In hope he believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations, as he had been told, “So shall your offspring be.” He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead (since he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah’s womb. No unbelief made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. That is why his faith was “counted to him as righteousness” (ESV).
Abraham believed God, so God declared him righteous simply because of his faith.
Romans 4:23-25 But the words “it was counted to him” were not written for his sake alone, but for ours also. It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification (ESV).
Like Abraham, when you believe in Christ, God declares you righteous, as well. That’s because Jesus died for your sins. He paid the price you owed for your sins, and God raised Him from the dead to prove to you that He had accepted Christ’s payment on your behalf.
Disgraced author and pastor, Gordon MacDonald, asks us to imagine standing by the Jordan River with Jesus on the day John baptized Him. Jesus ended His ministry covered with the sins of the world on the cross. He began his ministry identifying with all those sinners in his baptism.
So, imagine coming to the river with hundreds of people to show your changed heart through baptism. When you get there, someone asks you to register with your name and your most awful sin, which that person writes on a name tag.
Up to this table steps Bob. "Name?"
"Bob."
"What's your most awful sin, Bob?"
"I stole some money from my boss once." The person takes a marker and writes, BOB: EMBEZZLER.
Next person: "Name?"
"Mary."
"Mary, what's your most awful sin?"
"I slandered some people. I said things that weren't true. I just didn't like them. So the person writes, MARY: SLANDERER.
"Name?"
"George."
"What's your most awful sin?"
"I've been coveting my neighbor's Corvette." GEORGE: COVETER.
"Name?"
"Gordon. "
"Gordon, your most awful sin?"
Adultery. GORDON: ADULTERER.
And the person writing, with some degree of gloating, slaps the name tag on the chest of each person. Then all these people, with their name tags and their most awful sins, line up by the river, waiting to be baptized.
Up to the table comes Jesus. Jesus' most awful sin? Well, there aren't any. So Jesus starts walking down the line. He steps up to Bob and says, "Bob, give me your name tag," and he puts it on himself. "Mary, give me your name tag." He puts it on himself. "George, give me your name tag." It goes on himself. "Gordon, give me your name tag."
Soon the Son of God is covered with name tags and awful sins. Someone comes up and gently says to Jesus, "It's a nice thing you're doing. If you must do this, couldn't you take off a few of the worst ones? If you're going to spawn a messianic movement, you've got to be above reproach. Why don't you take off the tag that says, MURDERER. Take the adulterer tag off, too. Those are too despicable. We're talking about nines and tens here."
Jesus says, "You don't realize that I am the Son of David. David had to wear those name tags, and I will not write him off, for I have forgiven him."
Gordan MacDonald says, “In my vision, I see Jesus going to the water to present himself to John, who baptizes our Savior.” He also noted that “the people who had the markers didn't buy indelible ink. So, when Jesus comes up [out of the water], all of the ink has been washed away and is going down the river” (Gordon MacDonald, "Repentance," Preaching Today, Tape No. 121; CT Pastors, Sermon Illustrations).
The Bible says, “As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us” (Palm 103:12).
That’s what happens when you when you stop trying to be good enough and simply admit your sin. Jesus takes your sin upon Himself and washes it all away, for “the blood of Jesus, [God’s] Son, purifies us from all sin” (1 John 1:7).
If you want to clean up the mess in your life, 1st, renounce your works; 2nd, renounce your rites; 3rd, renounce your failed attempts to keep the law; and simply rely on God’s promise. Rely on the promise of God’s Son, THE descendant of Abraham, through whom God blesses the world.
I’ve shared this before, but it’s worth sharing again and again and again.
Dane Ortlund, in his book Defiant Grace, says, “Christianity is the unreligion. It turns all our religious instincts on their heads…
The ancient Greeks told us to be moderate by knowing our inclinations.
The Romans told us to be strong by ordering our lives.
Buddhism tells us to be disillusioned by annihilating our consciousness.
Hinduism tells us to be absorbed by merging our souls.
Islam tells us to be submissive by subjecting our wills.
Agnosticism tells us to be at peace by ignoring our doubts.
Moralism tells us to be good by discharging our obligations.
Only the gospel tells us to be free by acknowledging our failure.
Christianity is the unreligion because it is the one faith whose founder tells us to bring not our doing, but our need” (Dane Ortlund, Defiant Grace, EP Books, 2011, p. 38; CT Pastors, Sermon Illustrations).
Oh my dear friends, don’t bring your doing to God. Just bring your need.
