I was struggling a little bit trying to think about what to talk about when Eric called me and the Lord led me to a story And I shared this with Eric, and we were standing out front the other day, I was, ended up reading about, it was, you know, we just went through what the world calls Halloween. Those of us that are Presbyterians and are reform type folks, we have always, and my family, Pam and I have always celebrated Reformation Day. And our kids grew up celebrating Reformation Day. And so I decided to go back and read a little bit about Martin Luther. Of course, there's some things about Martin Luther that are not real pretty, not real good, because you know what? He was a sinner, saved by grace, but God used him in a mighty way. Anyway, so I started reading about Martin Luther. But anyway, what I would want to begin with tonight is a question. And the question that I was struck with is, am I not good enough? And I want you to think of that, think on that. And you ask yourself that question, am I not good enough? And then when I thought on that, I came to that point that was why Jesus had to die for my sins. And so, I want you to go with me for a few minutes to a scene. But before we do, I want to read from Isaiah chapter 59. And keeping in mind the question I just asked you, am I not good enough? Hear the prophet Isaiah chapter 59. Behold, the Lord's hand is not shortened, that it cannot save, or His ear dull, that it cannot hear. But your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden His face from you, so that He does not hear. For your hands are defiled with blood and your fingers with iniquity. Your lips have spoken lies. Your tongue mutters wickedness. No one enters suit justly. No one goes to law honestly. They rely on empty pleas. They speak lies. They conceive mischief and give birth to iniquity. They hatch adder's eggs. They weave the spider's web. He who eats their eggs dies. And from one that is crushed, a viper is hatched. Their web Their webs will not serve as clothing. Men will not cover themselves with what they make. Their works are works of iniquity, and deeds of violence are in their hands. Their feet run to evil, and they are swift to shed innocent blood. Their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity. Desolation and destruction are in their highways. The way of peace they do not know, and there is no justice in their paths. They have made their roads crooked. No one who treads on them knows peace. Therefore, justice is far from us, and righteousness does not overtake us. We hope for light and behold darkness and for brightness but we walk in gloom. We grope for the wall like the blind. We grope like those who have no eyes. We stumble at noon as in the twilight. Among those in full vigor, we are like dead men. We all growl like bears. We moan and moan like doves. We hope for justice, but there is none. For salvation, but it is far from us. For our transgressions are multiplied before us. and our sins testify against us. For our transgressions are with us, and we know our iniquities. Transgressing and denying the Lord, and turning back from following our God, speaking oppression and revolt, conceiving and uttering from the heart lying words." And I'll stop there. This is God's Word. I want you to go with me to a scene. It's a frightening scene. There's a young man, probably 20, 21 years of age, and he's on horseback, and he's moving across an open field. And I don't know if any of you have spent any time on horseback, and I don't know if any of you have ever been caught in a lightning storm. I have done both. I grew up loving to ride a horse, and there have been some occasions when I was caught in a thunderstorm, and it is very unsettling, and it's very frightening, especially if it spooks the horse. But that's the scene. This young man is on horseback, and he's in an open field. And in this open field, lightning bolts are flashing all around him, and they seem to be closer and closer. And if you've ever been in that situation, it seems like the hair on your neck is just standing up because you can feel the static in the air. But he's on horseback, and he's moving across the field, and lightning seems to be getting closer and closer to him. The sky is dark as night, and the storm's fury is intensifying as he moves as fast as he feels he can safely move, and he's terrified. Nature's fury is on full display, and he hears the rumbling of the thunder, it is shaking the ground, and the lightning bolts are all around him as he's moving across the field. He was terrified and shaken, and being a devout Catholic, He took a vow to Saint Anne on this occasion. He said that if he somehow survived this storm, that he would enter a monastery and he would give his life to God. That he would devote himself to worshiping God and to studying God's Word and to praying. And the occasion was July the 2nd, 1505, and of course the young man that I'm describing was Martin Luther. And so, true to his promise, he left the university immediately, he sold his books, and he entered an Augustinian monastery in Erfurt, Germany, on July the 17th, a couple of weeks later. He's in the monastery. But yet as he entered the monastery as a monk, his intense search to find peace with God through his relentless and sometimes extreme religious devotion left him empty. He continually worried about his sins, he was just overcome with the guilt of his sins, just as he was certain when he was in that thunderstorm and the lightning was flashing all around, he was certain that God was punishing him because of his evil sinful heart. And that's the reason he was so frightened. But he tried to placate God's anger by trying to be the very best monk that he could be. He did everything, he served God in every way that he possibly could in the monastery. But he remained deeply troubled by his guilt. He had no sense that God had forgiven him his sins. He had no assurance concerning his eternal salvation. And so Martin Luther despaired as he was there in the monastery. But there's two words that we hear in Scripture that, but God. We often will read that, but God. But God was gracious toward Martin Luther and he was driven by his despair to a passionate study of God's Word. So you see Martin understood that Jesus Christ is our judge. He understood that clearly. But he came to understand that He is also our loving Savior who through his own death, through Jesus' death on the cross, paid the penalty for our sins. And he paid the penalty for our sins past, present, and future. And rather than attempting to make up for our sins by trying harder, Luther began to see that sinners are helpless to rescue themselves. That's really what he had been about. Somehow to rescue himself But he came to see as he dug deeper and deeper into God's Word that we're helpless to rescue ourselves. And this biblical truth resulted in lifting of the burden of guilt that Luther had wrestled with and we all know that it led to a great change in the Church of Jesus Christ as the Reformation was birthed. We all know about him nailing the, actually he didn't nail the thesis in the way we've heard it in history, but he did confront the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church concerning the indulgences. It led to, more importantly, a change in his heart and his life. Luther's experience today seems strange. Whenever you have a young person read history about what Luther did and what he went through, it seems foreign and strange to them. And many in the world today have difficulty even grasping what went on in the 1500s. But the fact is, the reality of what Martin Luther wrestled with that drove him to the monastery and ultimately drove him to Christ as his Savior is still key for each one of us. No matter who we are or where we live or what we think, God is sovereign and Jesus is judge. This fact, this reality seems to be largely dismissed by many in our world today. But it is one of the most important facts in human history. You see, ultimately, Jesus will have the last word. And we read in 2 Thessalonians 1 verse 7 as Paul He talks to us about a day that's coming. He says, "...the day is coming when the Lord will be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels in flaming fire, taking vengeance on those who do not know God and those who do not obey the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ." He writes that these that do not know Christ will be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power when He comes on that day to be glorified in His saints and to be admired and praised among all those who believe. That's what Paul wrote in 2 Thessalonians. And those words are strong and they're often avoided in most churches today. And I won't say most, many. They're strong, but we must face the fact that God's judgment runs through the center of the universe. God speaks clearly in his word that he will judge sin. God is God. Jesus is our judge, God's wrath against sin and against the world that stands condemned already because of its idolatry. We read in Isaiah, I just read about it from Isaiah about who we are. And then Isaiah chapter 42, Paul quotes in Romans chapter 3, read that now. It says, None is righteous, no not one. No one understands, no one seeks God, all have turned aside. Together they have become worthless. No one does good, not even one. Their throat is an open grave, they use their tongues to deceive. The venom of asp is under their lips, their mouth is full of curses and bitterness, their feet are swift to shed blood, and their paths are ruin and misery, and the way of peace they have not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes." This reality that Isaiah states and that Paul quotes makes the gospel breathtaking if that is the truth that scripture teaches that we all are desperately hopelessly lost sinners. If that is a reality that gospel is breathtaking Jesus, well, Paul writes in 1 Timothy 1, verse 15, he says, here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance. Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners. Isn't that wonderful? In light of what we just read from Isaiah and what Paul quoted in Romans chapter 3, the most wonderful thing we can hear is that Jesus Christ came into the world to save the folks that were described in Isaiah, you and I, sinners. Jesus is the judge, but Jesus also is the Savior. When we understand that, we more fully and more completely can understand and appreciate the gospel. So the question I asked in the beginning, am I good enough? Scripture says, no, no, no. That is why Jesus had to die for you. That's why Jesus had to die for you and for me. It's because, no, we're not good enough. You see, I have, and you have, had a love and affair with the world. Instead of seeking first God's righteousness, God's kingdom, as Jesus commanded in Matthew 6, verse 33, I pursued pleasure, I pursued wealth and health and prestige and all manner of things that the world offers. God's righteousness is not desirable to the taste and the relativistic values that the world promotes. James chapter 4 says that our love for the world is in reality hatred of God. The cravings of sinful man, the lust of the eyes, the boasting of what we have and what we do comes from the world, not from the Heavenly Father. And so we are left blind to God as we We have this futile drive to meet our unmet cravings for God by going after second-rate and fleeting pleasures of this world. We go about our lives unaware that even the breath that we breathe is a gift from God. We function like an addict in denial, in that we gorge ourselves on things that destroy us. False guides that we've constructed for ourselves, even out of ourselves, are other created things. Even our best efforts at self-improvement reveal how far we are from depending upon God for all things. And God will maintain His glory by judging those who have fallen short of His glory, by distrusting Him, by disobeying Him, by disregarding His word and disregarding His commandments. For God to simply look the other way, if God just looked the other way and acted as if we hadn't really done anything too much wrong, He would cease to be God. And to be righteous, to be holy, God must display and maintain His glory. And so He will. So that brings us to the harsh reality that's at the heart of the gospel. Once we realize that our lives have been this ugly, inescapable, hideous distortion of what God intended for us to be and for us to experience, then we will be like Luther. We'll be driven to sorrow, to remorse, and to sincere brokenness over our sin. Trying harder won't help. Comparing ourselves to others won't help. Offering God pitiful excuses won't help. It won't work. There's no self-help program, no self-justification that will fix the problem that each one of us has as a man or a woman in this world. The first step is to clearly see our need for God's mercy. I want to read a few verses from Psalm 51. And this was David crying out to God. But it speaks the same words that our heart could speak. Have mercy on me, O God. According to your compassion, blot out my transgression. Wash away my iniquity and cleanse me from my sins. For I know my transgressions and my sin is ever before me. Against you and you only have I sinned and done evil in your sight. That could be any one of us' prayer, couldn't it? When we see God's holiness, then we begin to see more clearly our great sinfulness. God would be justified if He ignored our plea for mercy. He would be perfectly justified in doing so. But Scripture, praise God, tells us about God's unfailing love and how He delights to forgive and to restore. And when we throw ourselves on God's mercy, we can be confident that He hears our cry and that He will forgive and restore. Hallelujah. Where would we be without that reality? And so, when we live our life of faith, when we turn to Christ broken, Recognizing that we're hopeless and helpless and the only place that we can go is to Christ and Christ alone and what He has done on our behalf, on the cross. And we live a life of faith. We're most Christ-like when we love and forgive others despite their sins. One of the things we struggle most with is what we've been called to do and be. When we do, when we love and forgive others, even though they're sinners, against us even, It reveals that God is growing in us a Christ-like character in and by the power of the Holy Spirit. And it will bring praise to our lips as we recognize that God is changing us. And it will also point to what a wonderful, to the wonder and the magnificence of God's character. Jesus' life Death and his resurrection were God's plan. And he was not cursed on the cross because of his sins, but for the sins of his people, for you and for me. And there he saved Jews and Gentiles, people from all nations. All who are His. He went to the cross to die for. And we have redemption through His blood. We have forgiveness of our sins. And He is our great high priest. But Hebrews chapter 9 says that He not only mediates the offering before God, but He Himself is the offering before God. And there's a big theological phrase I'm going to leave with you just to impress you, right? What Jesus did on the cross is called substitutionary satisfaction of divine justice accomplished vicariously for believers. I'll say that again. Substitutionary satisfaction of divine justice. Accomplished vicariously for believers. That's what happened. God declares us just, He forgives our sins, He adopts us as His children by His grace alone, through faith alone, because Christ alone, while we were still sinners. Romans 5, verses 6-8. It's all a gift. You didn't do anything. You don't deserve any of it. But everything you have and everything He has promised to you as part of the deal, the package of you coming to Christ, it's all a gift. Even your good works. Even the good works we have as new creatures in Christ God prepared in advance for us to do. Ephesians chapter 2 verse 10 and 2 Corinthians chapter 5. It says we live our life of faith in God's promise that no accuser can separate us from His love. The one who predestines and calls and justifies and glorifies is the one who intercedes for us in heaven. There's no earthly circumstance, no pandemic, no downturn in the stock market, no illness, no injury. Nothing that comes can separate us from the love of God in Christ. Nothing. Am I good enough? No, but Jesus is. I am not good enough, neither are you, but Jesus is. Romans 8, 1 says, There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. And verse 32 of that chapter says, he did not spare his own son, but gave him up for us all. Let us pray. Lord, thank you for loving us and saving us. Your word overwhelms us when we consider what you have done. How you saw fit to love us and save us when we were helpless. We were hideous and far from you our hearts were set upon loving ourselves and loving the world and seeking out after all that this world offers. Thank you for calling us out and setting your love upon us. Thank you for your son Jesus going to the cross to pay for our sins. Be with us now as we go our way. That we would be filled up with the love of Christ for all that we encounter. That we would recognize that our neighbor is whoever. In in who in whoever's presence we are in that as that is the neighbor that you have called us to love. And we ask these things in Christ name for his sake, Amen.