Our sermon text for this evening comes from Romans 3. Romans 3, it's found on page 1092 in our Bibles. So please turn with me to Romans 3. Turn also with me to page 8 in the back of our Psalter hymnals. To page 8, we're going to be taking a look at question and answer 2 of the Heidelberg Catechism. Question answer two is slightly less well-known than question answer one, which asks us what's our only comfort in life and in death. And this evening we're going to be looking at how to live a life of joy in that comfort. So let's look first to Romans 3, beginning at verse 9. We'll read all the way through verse 31. Let's remember as we hear this that what we're about to hear is the very word of God. What shall we conclude then? Are we any better? Not at all. We've already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under sin. As it is written, there is no one righteous, not even one. There is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away. They have together become worthless. There is no one who does good, not even one. Their throats are open graves. Their tongues practice deceit. The poison of vipers is on their lips. Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood. Ruin and misery mark their ways, and the way of peace they do not know. There is no fear of God before their eyes. Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God. Therefore, no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law. Rather, through the law, we become conscious of sin. But now a righteousness from God, apart from the law, has been made known to which the law and prophets testify. This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented Him as a sacrifice of atonement through faith in His blood. He did this to demonstrate His justice, because in His forbearance He had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished. He did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus. Where then is boasting? It's excluded. On what principle? On that of observing the law? No, but on that of faith. For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from observing the law. Is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles too? Yes, of Gentiles too, since there is only one God who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through that same faith. Do we then nullify the law by this faith? Not at all. Rather, we uphold the law. We turn now to question and answer two of the Heidelberg Catechism. I'm going to read the question and let's together read the answer. What must you know to live and die in the joy of this comfort? Three things. First, how great my sin and misery are. Second, how I am set free from all my sins and misery. Third, how I am to thank God for such deliverance. Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, as we hear from your word this evening, we trust only you. And we pray that you would open it up and open our hearts to receive it, and please also open my lips to preach it. Let it glorify your Son, in whose name we pray. Amen. Now, people of God, as most of you know, I'm a seminary student at Westminster Seminary in California. And I've been studying theology for a little bit of time now. Before I came here, I was in Wheaton studying theology there as well. And while at Wheaton, on a couple of occasions, I had people come up to me and tell me, why are you studying theology? Theology is really the problem with all of our churches today. Theology makes people bitter or joyless. It just creates divisions. Why study it? We would do better to remove it all from our churches, and we wouldn't have the problems that we have today. And when these people would come and talk to me, I would respectfully disagree. But I do understand. Sometimes there are individuals that we may have encountered in life who seem bitter or joyless. It seems like they want to adhere to rigid rules rather than experience the joy of Christ. Maybe some of us here know of people or congregations who have been accused of being cold or distant, Perhaps even Reformed congregations, they've been told are too focused on doctrine to be joyful. Well, this is always very surprising to me because if we take a look at our confessional documents, we as Reformed people have the great joy of looking to Scripture first as the only infallible and errant rule of our faith. But as we read Scripture, we're helped by our confessions, the most loved of those being the Heidelberg Catechism. And if we look at this question and answer, we're asked, what must you know to live and die in the joy of this comfort? You see, these theological documents, far from wanting to take away our joy, far from wanting to make us bitter or cold or distant, the writers of the Catechism want us to lead lives of joy, characterized by the knowledge of joy and comfort because of the salvation that we have? And now, what three things must we know in order to live and die in the joy of that comfort? Well, we first need to know how great our sin and misery is. And second, we need to know how we've been set free from all of that sin and misery. And third, we're to know how we can thank God for that deliverance. And that's going to be the three points for our sermon this evening. First, our great sin and misery. Second, our complete redemption in Christ. And third, our thankful lives. So first, let's turn to our great sin and misery. Now, the Catechism wants us to live lives of joy. And that's not something that's unique to the Reformed tradition, wanting to live a life of joy. It's not even something that's unique to Christians. This may surprise you, but even non-Christians want to lead lives of joy. If you don't believe me, just turn on the television and spend about five minutes watching advertisements. Every one of them try to sell us lives of comfort, of joy. They promise us the good life. Perhaps the most striking example that I've encountered of this is BMW. They unleashed an advertisement campaign in February of this current year. And I'm going to read just a couple of phrases from their advertising campaigns. They put these in magazines. The story of BMW is the story of joy. We don't just make cars. We build joy. And in this holiday season, you're encouraged to give the gift of joy. I'm not sure who has the money to give a gift of a BMW, but it's something that the automakers encourage. This isn't surprising to us. we expect companies to try to sell us a life of joy. But what would be surprising to us is if we were watching a BMW commercial and we heard the announcer say something like, this holiday season, BMW owners know the way to find joy is to acknowledge that they're miserable sinners. I don't think that would sell very many cars. It might sell 10, maybe to Calvinists. There would be 10 Calvinists that would buy BMWs. But in general, nobody would purchase such a car sold in that sort of way. And yet we're told that the first step to, the first thing we must know in order to live and die in the joy of the comfort that we have is that we're miserable sinners. Why is that? Well, let's explore it together. Well, the first thing we need to do is acknowledge that the scripture is true, is right when it speaks to us about the way that we are. The fact that we are sinners, the fact that we are not righteous. And that's what our passage this evening talks about. Chapter 3, starting at verse 10, it says, There is no one righteous, not even one. There is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away. They have together become worthless. There is no one who does good, not even one. And then it speaks about these people who don't do good. It says, their throats are open graves, their tongues practice deceit. The poison of vipers is on their lips. Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness, and their feet are swift to shed blood. And when we hear this, we might say, no, that's not me. That's somebody else. That's describing somebody else. I've got a little bit of righteousness. I mean, look at my neighbor. My neighbor is who's really being spoken of here. That person really doesn't have it together. Or perhaps we think of those that we see on the evening news or read in the newspapers. We hear of horrific acts committed, and we think, those are the unrighteous ones. I'm one of the righteous ones. But people of God, if that's our attitude, Romans 3 must correct us. And we must realize that apart from Christ, there is no one who is righteous. That no one who has ever sat in the pews here at Escondido United Reformed Church has in himself or in herself been righteous. And there's not one man who stood behind this pulpit and preached who has been righteous in and of himself. No. When we read this, we must realize that it speaks of us. There really is no one righteous. Not even one. There's no one who understands, no one who seeks God. Our throats are open graves. Our tongues practice deceit. The poison of vipers is on our lips. Our mouths are full of cursing and bitterness. Our feet are swift to shed blood. Jeremiah 17, verse 9, says that the heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? And so as we look to our passage this evening, we must understand that Romans speaks of us, apart from Christ. Now, how do we know of this? How do we know of our sin? Well, it's through the law. That's what verse 20 says. It says that through the law we become conscious of sin. And so some may say, well, why not just get rid of the law then? The law must really be the problem. Let's just get rid of it. But Romans 7, 7 there corrects us. It says, is the law sin? Not at all. It's through the law that we come to know our sin. And so picture this. If you're in a room and a ray of light comes into the room through a window and you see that ray of light and as you look into it, you see particles of dust, it'd be foolish to say, oh my goodness, the sun is bringing in dust, let's shut the window so that the sun no longer brings any dust. That'd be foolish. It wouldn't deal with the problem of the dust in the room. In the same way, to get rid of the law wouldn't get rid of the problem of the sin in our lives. And so maybe we can deal with this by trying really hard to keep the law. Maybe if we work as hard as we possibly can, maybe there will be a few of us who are righteous. Maybe this will be changed to say there are a few righteous, three or four. They all go to Escondido URC. No. The problem of the dust particles in the room wouldn't be solved by bringing in more light either. It would just illuminate more sin. The more and more we come into contact with the law, the more and more our sin is revealed and we realize that Romans is right when it speaks of us. That in comparison to a holy God, we have no righteousness whatsoever. because what God demands isn't for us to be slightly better than the terrible people that we read of in the newspapers. He demands perfect obedience, perpetual obedience. No. The function of the law is that so every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God, held accountable for their own sin. and now as we're hearing this we might ask well how is this supposed to bring me joy this just makes me feel really bad about myself but it's the first step we're not done yet we need to hear about the redemption that comes in Christ and think about this if we were to step outside and look up in the sky we'd see stars right would we have seen him this morning no because it was too bright you see the stars gleam all the brighter because they're set against the backdrop of a dark night sky you see the righteousness and the holiness and the goodness of our great God shines brighter than the sun but all the more so when we look at it in comparison with how dark our sin is And so as we turn to our second point, the glorious redemption that's found in Christ, we see it in relief against our dark sin and we see how beautiful, how glorious, and how amazing it is. And our redemption in Christ really is total and complete. And Romans 3 continues to talk about it. We heard about it actually this morning. And let's take a look at it again right now. In verse 21, there's this beautiful turn of phrase. We see, But now a righteousness from God, apart from the law, has been made known, to which the law and prophets testify. This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There's no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented Him as a sacrifice of atonement through faith in His blood. He did this to demonstrate His justice. And so we see the glorious, the beautiful truth of the Gospel. That yes, it's true that we are great sinners. That none of us is righteous. but Christ is and therefore Jesus Christ can make a perfect sacrifice for us that because of Jesus all of our sins are taken away because of Christ's life we're given His righteousness so that when the Father looks at us He sees righteous children of God not miserable sinners righteous children of God freely by the grace that comes through the redemption in Christ Jesus what a beautiful and glorious truth it's what we sing about we sing my sin oh the bliss of this glorious thought my sin not in part but the whole is nailed to the cross and I bear it no more. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord, O my soul. And the Catechism says that we're set free. And this is what Romans 8 says as well. Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For through Christ Jesus, the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. We just sang about it, didn't we? Long my imprisoned spirit lay, fast bound in sin and nature's night. Thy eye diffused a quickening ray. I woke the dungeon flamed with light. My chains fell off, my heart was what? My heart was free. I rose and went up and followed Thee. And this is the case because, as Romans 10 tells us, Jesus Christ is the end of the law. It's Christ. That's how we are set free from all of our sin and misery. Jesus Christ, the only way, the one true good way to be set free from all of our sin and misery. And in his death and resurrection and the salvation that brings, we are set free. And that does bring great joy. Think about it. Has there ever been a time in your life where you've been set free? I know there was one time when I was 16 years old. I had just gotten my driver's license and I was driving home from high school for one of the first times. And on my way home from high school, there was a two-way stop sign. So people needed to stop the way that I was going from high school, but cars passed freely past that stop sign. And I was behind another car at the stop sign, and that car began to go, and I looked and saw that everything seemed to be clear, so I thought I would just go on through the stop sign as well, and I didn't see that she had stopped. And I went right into her bumper, just bumped right into it. I stopped, and I got out of the car, and she looked at me, and she said, What were you thinking? I told her, I guess I wasn't thinking. And she asked me a few questions and looked at her bumper, and there it was. This dent had been made by my car in there. And I apologized, told her, I'm sorry, it's my fault, I understand. And as we talked, she opened up her eyes a little bit. Her eyes got a little bit brighter. And she looked at me and she said, you know what? I'm going to let you go. I said, what? And she said, I'm going to let you go. I know this is your fault, but I'm going to just let you go, drive home. You don't need to worry about it. We don't need to tell anybody. You don't need to tell your parents, which was great for me at the time. And I felt so free. I had been freed from this error that I had made. Much more serious is a courtroom. The pastor that I interned under this summer is a man named C.J. Dendal. And he told me there have been times where he's sat in a courtroom and watched grown men literally tremble as they await the verdict from the judge. Knowing that if he says not guilty, they can exit one of those doors into a life of freedom. But if he says guilty, then they will have handcuffs put on their arms and their feet as well and they'll be taken off to a cell to spend the duration of their prison sentence isolated from those that they love behind bars. Far more serious still is the fact that each one of us will one day face the great judge God, our Heavenly Father. He judges rightly, truly. His verdicts are always correct. And we know that as we go before Him, that we've committed the crimes for which we stand accused. We are, in fact, miserable sinners. But praise God that through Christ we have already received the not guilty verdict. We've been set free by the sacrifice of Christ Jesus completely and only through His sacrifice. And therefore, we can stand before the judge with boldness because of what Christ has done. For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by our sinful nature, God did by sending His Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering for us. And so praise God for the not guilty verdict that comes through Christ Jesus. And so then, what's the third part of how we can live a life and die in the joy of this comfort? Well, it's how we're to thank God for this redemption that we have received. The end of our passage says, do we nullify the law by this faith? Not at all. Rather, we uphold the law. But you see, it's different. We live a life of faithfulness because we are thankful for the redemption that we have already received in Christ. We do good works and we keep ourselves from evil because we are thankful that the debt has been completely paid, that Christ is our complete salvation. And so it's because of thankfulness, thankfulness to Christ for his redemption, that we gather here twice on Sundays to thank him, to praise him, to glorify his name. It's because of thankfulness to Christ that we keep ourselves from stealing. That we keep our eyes, our minds, our bodies pure. It's because of thankfulness that we refrain from the sins of murder, of adultery, of covetousness. It's why we tell the truth. It's because we thank God for the redemption that he's given us. Because the truth is this, congregation, that sin no longer has any power to determine your eternal destiny, but it will steal your joy. It will. And so a life lived in thankfulness for the redemption already accomplished brings us great and profound joy. Have you seen this? I know I have. It's beautiful. It's attractive when we see it. I think sometimes the best people at living this out for us are those who have just come to know Christ. I remember in one of the summers of my high school years, I was at a leadership camp. And I had the great blessing and privilege of seeing my roommate at this leadership camp come to know Jesus for the first time. He didn't actually come to know Jesus at camp. It was after he returned home, I got a call from him. And right when I picked up the phone, I could tell that something was different. It was joy. It was comfort. This young man had for the first time in his life acknowledged his sin, had found complete redemption in Christ, and was now living a life of thankfulness to Jesus Christ. And the joy was so tangible, it's like it was pouring out of the receiver as I was talking on the phone. It's like I could pick it up and it would run through my fingers. It's the joy that comes from knowing Christ. I think the other time that we can sometimes see this joy is if we look to an older brother or sister in the faith. Someone who's led a long life following Christ. I know that when I was in college, I attended a church called College Church, and I sat right in front of a very elderly man while I was there. He was old, and his hearing was failing, and he had to be helped into the sanctuary each day. one person on each side of him, taken up and sat down. He couldn't stand when we sung, but every time the pastor preached Jesus, he would say, Amen. It welled up from the very core of him. It's like he couldn't contain it. Amen, he would say. And that Amen carried with it so much joy and so much comfort because it came from a man who had lived his whole life in service to Jesus Christ. It was beautiful. There was so much comfort, so much joy in that amen that this old man shared. And it came because he had acknowledged his sin. He had found complete redemption in Christ. He had lived his whole life in thankfulness to God. it's a beautiful picture of the Christian life. It's amazing, this redemption we've received from Christ, despite the fact that we are such sinners. It should lead us to living joyful lives. And so, as we conclude the sermon this evening, I have to ask you this. Do you know this joy? sometimes this joy that we have found in Christ can become crowded out by the stresses, by the difficulty of the lives that we lead. We can forget about it. Well, if that's true, I encourage you to shed those, to trust the scriptures, to listen to our confessional documents, and to live lives of joy. Because if you know Jesus, you have been redeemed, and you now have the privilege of living for Him. Right? I must say also, if you're here this evening, and you don't have this joy, and you don't know Jesus, then it's time to come to Him. It's time to acknowledge your sin. Because you can and you will find complete redemption in Christ. The time is now to come to Him. He will always receive. And the lives that you live, oh, how beautiful. how glorious, how joyful. Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, we thank you and praise you for the complete redemption that's found in Jesus. We thank you that we are justified freely through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. And we pray that as we leave this place that we would live lives of joy that evidence the fact that we have been completely redeemed and that we would follow your law out of thankfulness for the fact that you have already saved us apart from the law. We praise You for Your Son and for the fact that He is ours. In His name we pray. Amen.