The Necessity of a Savior: Understanding Sin and God
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Sermon Summary
Bible Study Guide
Sermon Clips
"Where God is small and man is big, hell will be abhorrent indeed absurd, and the Cross will be foolishness. So where God is small and man is big, hell will be abhorrent and the Cross will be foolishness. The most telling thing about Lisa's question is that her conception of evil can never be big enough to make sense of Hell or the cross of Christ because she defines evil only in relation to what harms man not what demeans God." [00:02:03]
"The essence of evil, what makes evil evil, is not harm done to man but indignities done to God. Harm to man is horrible, but it is meant to be a vivid parable of the outrage of failing to honor God, failing to glorify God, failing to thank God as God. So ask this question: if God is of infinite value, infinite beauty, infinite greatness with all of his perfections uniting in an infinitely satisfying panorama of personal beauty and glory, then of what is he worthy from the human soul?" [00:05:52]
"The essence of virtue, therefore, is to love and desire and prefer and treasure and enjoy and thus honor God above all things in this world. And the essence of evil, essence of evil, is loving and preferring and desiring and treasuring and enjoying anything above God. It's treason, and since God is of infinite worth and beauty and greatness and honor infinite, the failure to love and treasure and enjoy him above all things is an infinite outrage worthy of infinite punishment." [00:07:31]
"Paul said both Jews and Greeks are under sin. It is written none is righteous, no, not one. And then he explained what this failure is, this sin. He says in verse 23 of Romans 3, all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. And you see how he moves immediately from the concept of sin to failing to embrace the glory of God as our supreme treasure." [00:08:37]
"The outrage of the human race is not humans killing humans. That's not the outrage of the human race, but humans exchanging the glory of the immortal God for anything less. That's who we are. We are outrageous, treasonous, God-belittling, self-exalting rebels against God, and we are this way even in our so-called moral efforts to do good to other people while giving almost zero attention, zero affections, zero admiration to God and taking no delight in his glory." [00:09:23]
"God gave a glimpse of his rage toward such evil in these words from Jeremiah 2:12-13: Be appalled, O heavens, this is God talking, appalled, O heavens, at this, be shocked, to be utterly desolate, declares the Lord, for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, this is great evil, my people have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out for themselves cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water." [00:10:11]
"The great shock, the great appalling reality in the world is that humans have turned from God as the all-satisfying fountain of life and joy and tried to find it not in God but in what he made. It is high treason and worthy of eternal punishment. That, Lisa, is why we need a Savior, and I tremble with thankfulness that God in mercy sent His infinitely worthy son to do what no mere man could ever do." [00:10:50]
"Only a God-man can bear an infinite punishment for all who embrace him for the glorious one that he really is. A man, the great shock, the most wicked evil there is, the root behind all other evils and the reason we wrong and harm one another, it's because we have turned away from God as our all-satisfying fountain of life and joy." [00:11:26]
"Lisa doesn't seem to have a category for evil understood as the dishonoring, demeaning, disparaging, insulting of God as infinitely worthy of honor. Not doesn't come into her picture. So let's do a thought experiment: suppose there is no God and Lisa is a super successful Adolf Hitler. Not saying she leans that way at all, just this is just an experiment." [00:03:33]
"She is able not only to kill all the Jews in the world but all the other non-Aryans, everybody in Africa she kills, everybody in China she kills, everybody in India she kills, everybody in South America she kills. So she succeeds in orchestrating the murder of about seven billion people, and the question is would she deserve eternal punishment in hell?" [00:04:08]
"And my answer is no, she wouldn't for two reasons. First, if there's no God and we are simply complex chemical and material animals, then there's no such thing as right and wrong anyway or dessert or merit, blameworthiness, just different chemical reactions. But second, and more importantly for my point, she wouldn't deserve an infinitely long punishment because seven billion murders are still finite." [00:04:33]
"A finite number of finite crimes doesn't deserve an infinite punishment. In other words, when God is left out, there's no way to have an infinite crime deserving of an infinite punishment like hell or the cross. They would simply be unjust. But this is why God has spoken to us in the Bible. We will never understand the depth of our sinfulness without God's telling us what the problem is, which he has very clearly." [00:04:57]
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"The essence of evil, what makes evil evil, is not harm done to man but indignities done to God. Harm to man is horrible, but it is meant to be a vivid parable of the outrage of failing to honor God, failing to glorify God, failing to thank God as God. So ask this question: if God is of infinite value, infinite beauty, infinite greatness with all of his perfections uniting in an infinitely satisfying panorama of personal beauty and glory, then of what is he worthy from the human soul?" [00:05:52]
"The essence of virtue, therefore, is to love and desire and prefer and treasure and enjoy and thus honor God above all things in this world. And the essence of evil, essence of evil, is loving and preferring and desiring and treasuring and enjoying anything above God. It's treason, and since God is of infinite worth and beauty and greatness and honor infinite, the failure to love and treasure and enjoy him above all things is an infinite outrage worthy of infinite punishment." [00:07:31]
"Paul said both Jews and Greeks are under sin. It is written none is righteous, no, not one. And then he explained what this failure is, this sin. He says in verse 23 of Romans 3, all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. And you see how he moves immediately from the concept of sin to failing to embrace the glory of God as our supreme treasure." [00:08:37]
"The outrage of the human race is not humans killing humans. That's not the outrage of the human race, but humans exchanging the glory of the immortal God for anything less. That's who we are. We are outrageous, treasonous, God-belittling, self-exalting rebels against God, and we are this way even in our so-called moral efforts to do good to other people while giving almost zero attention, zero affections, zero admiration to God and taking no delight in his glory." [00:09:23]
"God gave a glimpse of his rage toward such evil in these words from Jeremiah 2:12-13: Be appalled, O heavens, this is God talking, appalled, O heavens, at this, be shocked, to be utterly desolate, declares the Lord, for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, this is great evil, my people have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out for themselves cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water." [00:10:11]
"The great shock, the great appalling reality in the world is that humans have turned from God as the all-satisfying fountain of life and joy and tried to find it not in God but in what he made. It is high treason and worthy of eternal punishment. That, Lisa, is why we need a Savior, and I tremble with thankfulness that God in mercy sent His infinitely worthy son to do what no mere man could ever do." [00:10:50]
"Only a God-man can bear an infinite punishment for all who embrace him for the glorious one that he really is. A man, the great shock, the most wicked evil there is, the root behind all other evils and the reason we wrong and harm one another, it's because we have turned away from God as our all-satisfying fountain of life and joy." [00:11:26]
"Lisa doesn't seem to have a category for evil understood as the dishonoring, demeaning, disparaging, insulting of God as infinitely worthy of honor. Not doesn't come into her picture. So let's do a thought experiment: suppose there is no God and Lisa is a super successful Adolf Hitler. Not saying she leans that way at all, just this is just an experiment." [00:03:33]
"She is able not only to kill all the Jews in the world but all the other non-Aryans, everybody in Africa she kills, everybody in China she kills, everybody in India she kills, everybody in South America she kills. So she succeeds in orchestrating the murder of about seven billion people, and the question is would she deserve eternal punishment in hell?" [00:04:08]
"And my answer is no, she wouldn't for two reasons. First, if there's no God and we are simply complex chemical and material animals, then there's no such thing as right and wrong anyway or dessert or merit, blameworthiness, just different chemical reactions. But second, and more importantly for my point, she wouldn't deserve an infinitely long punishment because seven billion murders are still finite." [00:04:33]
"A finite number of finite crimes doesn't deserve an infinite punishment. In other words, when God is left out, there's no way to have an infinite crime deserving of an infinite punishment like hell or the cross. They would simply be unjust. But this is why God has spoken to us in the Bible. We will never understand the depth of our sinfulness without God's telling us what the problem is, which he has very clearly." [00:04:57]
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