Well, like yours, our church believes in Calvinism or the doctrines of grace, as some call it, or simply free grace. If you read our confession, I think you will find that phrase, free grace, from time to time. It's a very encouraging phrase. And free grace has several components. One is the doctrine that sinful humans cannot, will not, and care not to save themselves from sin and its power and the just and holy wrath of the Creator God. It is true, sinners eschew Him. They want nothing to do with Him. They are adverse to Him. And I want us to consider today this part of free grace, which is called total depravity. And in particular, I want us to think about this doctrine as it applies to the believer, the disciple of Jesus Christ, the one who hears and believes the God of free grace. We know that believers are to persevere, to continue in spiritual warfare, Following our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, however, and I think it was well put in our prayer of confession this morning, we who follow Him find ourselves at times besieged by sin, by our lusts and by temptations that overwhelm us, and this rightfully disturbs us. It may depress us at times. even though we ought to pray against that, and sometimes leads us to a sort of fatalism regarding our constant shortcomings. We want to please the God of free grace. He has loved us, He has pardoned us, but we find ourselves still sinning, still falling short of His deserved glory. And we grieve at our unfaithfulness and our lack. And maybe you find yourself, as I find myself at times, saying, what shall I do? Well, that is what I'd like to address today, at least somewhat. It's a huge topic, but at least I can maybe introduce some of the things to you today. Let's pray. Our dear Father in heaven, We give you all praise and all glory and all honor and certainly all thanksgiving that we are able to call you our Father in heaven. We thank you for that constant reminder of your transcendence, that you are so beyond us and so different than us in heaven. And yet you have come near to us. You are imminent as you have taught us. You are not far away. But you are near to all, especially to those who call upon you. As we do this day and we come asking your blessing upon our time of worship and all that's involved in that, especially now as we consider things from your word. May we be strengthened in these things. We ask this in Christ's name. Amen. First of all, as we think about this topic that I call the believer in total depravity, I want you to recall the nature of mankind's sinfulness, of our sinfulness, of your sinfulness. Every human being is born in sin. with original sin upon his or her soul. That is, we have the spiritual condition and nature of our spiritual or federal head, the first human, Adam. This means that you and I are born sinners. We're born sinners with a sin nature, and I think this is one of the best ways to put it, always and only sinning. It's very important to think about that. This means that you and I were born guilty, bearing Adam's guilt before God from conception. We were born and we remain in that condition, left to ourselves, under God's just wrath. We must think about that and be very careful in articulating that. This explains the constitution of both our nature and our status before the triune God. We are always and only sinning and we are guilty left to ourselves. Furthermore, our sinfulness means that we have, and I'm using my words very carefully here, we have no power no understanding and no desire for true good. For salvation, we have no capacity for or sensitivity to God and His nature. We love sin and we love sinning. Left to oneself, this lack of capacity for God's goodness cannot decrease. This lack only increases. We become more hardened left to ourselves. We hate his presence, even the idea of it, left to ourselves. We want to recall this issue of the nature of our sinfulness. If you are not a believer, but you have gone long being among Christians, hearing of Christ's work, listening to the gospel, observing God's grace and goodness in the lives of His people, maybe your parents, maybe a friend, maybe a loved one, you may have escaped some of the worst displays of sin in yourself. However, if you will not hear Christ, and turn to Him, trusting Him as Lord and Savior, you are storing up greater judgment than any who have never heard of God's goodness or seen it in His people." That helps us as Christians to think about that. If you are not a believer, I encourage you to strongly, prayerfully think about these things. So as we think about the believer and total depravity, we want to first of all recall something of the nature of mankind's sinfulness. Always and only sinning, guilty before God, with no power, no understanding, and no desire for true good. When one thinks about these things and meditates upon them, they're very devastating. And they unfound any hope we may have in ourselves or anything else for escape from this condition. Well, secondly, with this, recall the nature, at least somewhat, the nature of the elect sinner's salvation. What takes place with the soul of one who does turn to Christ? who believes in Him and His Word, who sees God's goodness revealed in His Son, the Lord Jesus, and turns from sin to God. What takes place with that person? Well, just a few things we might say. He who repents toward God and believes toward Jesus is surely delivered from all punishment for their sins. All of his or her sins and iniquities and transgressions are pardoned, forgiven. God grants to repentant believers the mercy of his Son's pardon and righteousness, receiving them, as bad as the other news was, this is the best of news, receiving them as he receives his Son. Jesus taught this. Let me read to you, and if you want to follow that's fine or just listen, John chapter 6, excuse me, John chapter 9. We have in John chapter 9 the record of the man born blind and Christ's healing of this man for the glory of God. And as the story unfolds in John chapter 9, it reaches its climax in a way at the point in which the man is excommunicated from the synagogue. He is put out. And so we read at the end of chapter 9, Jesus heard that they had cast him out. That is, the rulers of the synagogue had cast this one whom he had healed, excommunicated him, cast him out of the synagogue. And when Jesus, that is, had found him, he said to him, do you believe in the Son of God? Now that was a phrase they would have understood. This is a phrase referring to deity incarnate. Messiah. The son of God. Do you do you believe in him? Jesus asked this man and he answered and said, who is he, Lord? Now, here we have this this term of submission, this term of faith. This term of readiness to listen and humility. Who is he, Lord, that I may believe in him? And Jesus said to him, You have both seen him, and it is he who is talking with you. Then he said, Lord, I believe. I believe. And he worshipped Jesus. Isn't that beautiful? We love that sort of thing, don't we, when we come across that in the scriptures? He worshipped Jesus, and Jesus said, For judgment I have come into this world, that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may be made blind. Then some of the Pharisees who were with him heard these words and said to him, Are we blind also? And Jesus said to them, If you were blind, you would have no sin. But now you say, We see, therefore your sin remains. Now that's the contrast. Forgiveness comes with believing Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God. The man whom he had healed, his sins no longer remained. Those who rejected Christ, their sins remain upon them and all the guilt and the punishment that would accompany that. This man whom Christ had healed was excommunicated by these men and became a communicant with God. It's a beautiful picture of salvation and what God does and what our Savior does in saving His people. So, he who repents toward God and believes toward Jesus is surely delivered from all punishment for his sins. His sins no longer remain. This means that the one who believes has his status with the triune God changed. It's now a status of reconciled. We love the way Paul describes this. If you would look, or just listen carefully to me as I read from Romans chapter 4, where Paul helps us understand this. He says in verse 5, But to him who does not work, but believes on him, that is on Jesus, who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness. Just as David also describes the blessedness of the man to whom God imputes righteousness apart from works. And this is what David said that Paul is quoting. Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven and whose sins are covered. Their sins no longer remain. Paul went on to close chapter 4 with these words. And therefore, he's describing the result of Abraham believing in God's word and God's promise. Therefore, it was accounted to him, that is to Abraham, for righteousness. It, that is his faith, was accounted to him for righteousness. Now, it was not written for his sake alone that it was imputed to him, but also For us, those who have come to believe in the word of God's promise of salvation displayed in Christ and as we heard in the gospel, also for us, It shall be imputed to us who believe in him who raised up Jesus, our Lord from the dead, who was delivered up because of our offenses or for our offenses and was raised because of our justification or for our justification. Therefore. Having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, so the one. whose sins no longer remain, that one hears the word of Christ, so to speak, declared over him or her, peace. You are at peace with God. Your sins no longer remain. So it's a very difficult thing to talk about when we think about the nature of man's sinfulness. But as difficult as that is, it's much more wonderful then to think about the nature of God's work in saving a sinner. We were born in that condition, always and only sinning. We were born guilty. We were born with no power, no understanding, and no desire for good. But having come to faith in Christ, our status is changed with God. We're no longer enemies. Now we are at peace with Him. Well, thirdly, then, we need to think about something else. We need to next understand something of the nature of the inward change that Christ works in a sinner. He reconciled himself. We're born in sin. By faith in Christ, we have our status changed with God to one of peace and reconciliation. But what about this thing of the inward change? What takes place in the soul of the one who turns to Christ is more than his status changed. And that's what I would have you think about for a few moments this morning. In this granting of a new status, what is truthfully called peace with God, and I'm talking about that feeling of comfort that we might have at times within our souls, I'm talking about a status, a position before God. It's one of peace, even when we may be in great turmoil of soul. But what has happened in this granting of this new status? Well, God made an inward change in every believer. A believer now has the capacity for believing, for understanding, for desiring God's goodness. This is a radical change. It may not be very apparent. I think most times it's very subtle. It may not be that someone just obviously sees it all the time. It may be something we don't even discern real well in ourselves, but it nonetheless will be there. And it will at times surprise us, I think, and maybe even surprise others who know us. We have this belief, this understanding, this desire for God's goodness and God's holiness. That which we previously hated, if we are in Christ, we now desire God's presence. We want to be with him. We want to know we are with him. We see this in some statements that are very interesting in the New Testament. One of them is the one that Paul makes in Romans 7, in verse 22. for I delight in the law of God in the inward man. Isn't that amazing? We delight in the law of God in the inward man. I know outside of Christ, that word was not even part of my vocabulary when it came to God and God's law. But in Christ, there's something has been implanted there. We want to be careful about how we describe this and think of this, but there's at least this, there's this delight in the inward man and the law of God. I like also the way Peter put it in 1 Peter, when speaking of our Savior regarding believers, it says, whom having not seen, you love. Now that's a profound change. We wanted nothing to do with God. We were totally opposed and averse to Him before. And now something has come that was not there before. However, I must go on. However, this inward change does not make the reconciled sinner sinless. It does not make us have some ability of perfect obedience. That change of sinlessness and perfect obedience awaits the next age, after death, as the Apostle John taught when he said, when Jesus is revealed, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. In 1 John 3, 2. This means that in this life, we never perfectly repent. never perfectly believe. This means that in this life we never have 100% pure motives in any attempt to obey. This means that in this life we never completely conform to any command. We don't understand it in complete perfection and fullness, nor do we grasp thoroughly what God has commanded or intended. This means that in this life we never fully achieve giving God the glory due His name. We don't demonstrate in perfection His goodness or the gracious love He has bestowed on us. And what does it mean that God, by the power of His Spirit, because of Christ's work on our behalf, changed the sinner inwardly? We must think about these things. Let me read to you just a text, Hebrews chapter 8, wherein The Apostle deals with the change of covenant, and he brings the statements from Jeremiah 33 in application to believers, disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ. We read in Hebrews 8 and verse 10 and 11, For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord. I will put my laws in their mind and write them on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be My people. None of them shall teach his neighbor, and none his brother, saying, Know the Lord. For all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them." Now, let's pick this apart just a little bit. This means that we now have some capacity for believing in God and His goodness. The Triune God. We think differently about Him now. We know Him, to some degree. It starts out with little knowledge and hopefully expands as we go along in our Christian walk. Certainly it does. But we have some capacity now that we lacked before to know Him, to believe in His goodness. It means that we understand to one measure or another this goodness of God and the character of God so that his presence is something precious to us. It means that we desire true goodness. We see it, we see its beauty, and we want it. He says, you shall have no other gods before me. And instead of cringing and running, we agree. We believe that that's true. We desire that. We see the beauty of it. You can go all through God's commandments and say the same thing. There could be no more profound change than that the sinner now wants to be with God and to enjoy his presence. So that one of our greatest griefs in life is when we have a sense that God is not present. It's not that he's not present. It's that we have moved in some way. It's maybe that we have not confessed our sins as we should and pursued repentance as we should. We've simply gotten distracted by so many things in life, but that disturbs us. It means that we have some ability to work toward good. I see this as something beautiful that I want and I take steps towards it. I cannot emphasize how radical a change that is. If before we hated God, we were adverse to God. Remember Job, he eschewed evil. We eschew God. Left to ourselves. And now we have this thing within us that we want to be near him. There could be no more radical change. There could be no greater evidence of grace. And God's work in us. Now we see it and we want it. God is there, holiness is there, goodness is there. We remember what the writer of Hebrews said when he quoted Yahweh, who said, I will put my laws in their mind and write them on their hearts. And we delight in that, in the inward man. While the sinless, full, perfect doing of the good our gracious God has revealed to us is beyond us in this age, nonetheless we have become willing from the heart to labor to have that, to labor to deny ourselves and our sins, and to attempt to do good because of His great love for us displayed in the work of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. We comprehend something of His holiness, and instead of fearing and running from Him, we fear and long for more of His presence and knowledge and holiness. This may be weak in you, but if you are in Christ, there's something there of this. And what I am saying now appeals to you. And it may at times seem way out of reach, but you want it. And you wish repentance was more than it is. And you long for more of His presence and His knowledge and His holiness. We hear His law and instead of despising and rejecting His law, we find in ourselves a great desire to conform to His commandments and to be more like our Savior. We find this desire and prayer in ourselves. Oh, to be made completely like Jesus who said, my food is to do the will of Him who sent me and to finish His work. I wish that was implanted in me in all its power and strength. And I wish it was pervasive. So we're going to think about the believer. And this idea of total depravity, we must recall, first of all, the nature of our sinfulness. We must recall something of the work of Christ in changing our status before God. But then we also must recall and think about and develop our thinking on this idea of the inward change, being very careful about this. It does not mean that we are sinless or ever will be in this life. It does not mean that we'll have anything of perfect obedience. But it means that this issue of our very delights and desires and the things we love has begun to go through a profound change. We see ourselves still falling short. We see ourselves still always and only sinning. but we have a new delight and a new want and a new desire. So what are we to do? There's a tension here, isn't there? There's a tension that in this life is never going to be relieved fully. But in light of this tension, how are we to live the Christian life then? Well, let me give you a few things. These are not steps that if you follow, everything falls in place. I don't mean that. These are some things for you to think about. There's much more to think about than these, but I want you to think about these things at the very least this morning. First of all, this. Honestly, honestly face your complete sinfulness of being. There's no escape from this. We are more sinful than we realize by far. Believers are always and only sinning. We must think about this carefully. If you do, this will humble you and it will keep you alert to the necessity of self-denial and the mortification of sin. That's a sermon all on its own. So first of all, honestly face your complete sinfulness of being that you were always and only sinning. Secondly, do not despair. in some kind of prideful bitterness over your remaining inability. There are dangers with this as there are with self-righteousness. Both are rooted in idolatry. Both are rooted in the seeking of man's honor. In many ways, our most fundamental of idolatries. That's the shape of our unbelief. I don't want God. I want you to think I'm God. I know we're never that clear about it, but that's really who we are. That's who our children are. All right. Do not despair in some kind of prideful bitterness over your remaining inability. Excuse me. I love the way in that prayer of confession that word despondency was in there. That's a good thing to think about. and to pray about. Thirdly, keep yourself returning to Christ, relying on the gospel. Another way of putting this is use the means of grace faithfully, praying through the use of the means of grace. This is one of the reasons our Father in Heaven leaves us struggling with our sinfulness. Without this, we would quickly become self-dependent instead of Christ-dependent. It's why praying the Lord's prayer, this model prayer, excuse me, or the disciples prayer, whatever you want to call it, on a regular and daily basis is good. We ought to be praying, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven, in me and in my fellow church members. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. That I'll be on your prayer in your mouth and on your mind and heart daily. So keep yourself returning to Christ daily as often as needed. Rehearse Jesus person in your mind, the son of God, the son of man. He is the second person of the Trinity, the only begotten and beloved of the Father, the one who alone has the Spirit without measure, the reigning authority and power over all that exists, and the living head of His church. Think about the person of Christ. Run these things through your mind. Also, remind yourself of Christ's work done to save us from wrath. Think about His incarnation, His perfect obedience and holiness of which He lacks nothing. Think of His willing, loving, determined, and voluntary death. Think of His bearing of wrath and punishment due us. Think of His mighty resurrection, His glorious ascension, and His present, universal, ongoing, never failing reign at the Father's behest. And pray to understand these. So keep yourself returning to Christ and relying on the gospel. Keep yourself Christ-dependent, thinking of His person, thinking of His work. We need this. We need Christ. We never cease needing Christ. It's one of the fallacies of Arminianism. You've turned to Christ, everything's settled. No! Salvation is an ongoing thing. And we need to turn to Christ daily. Only He will warm our love for the Triune God. Only by thinking upon who He is and what He has done that displays God's work of eternal love will cause us to love God. He continues to display this love in our abiding reconciliation. in the provision he makes and the hope he gives. So, keep yourself returning to Christ. Honestly face your complete sinfulness of being. You are always and only sinning. Do not despair in some kind of prideful bitterness over your remaining inability. Third, keep yourself returning to Christ and relying on the Gospels I've described here. And fourthly, confess your sins as often as they come to mind and When we confess our sins, don't ever, ever stop there. Confess your sins as often as they come to mind and remind yourself of the complete forgiveness of sins that Jesus Christ has provided for you and for all of us who confess his name. You never confess sin without reminding yourself that you are forgiven of your sins. Christ taught us this in the very prayer we prayed a few moments ago. Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. Don't let that second part take away that first part from you. They both need to be there, I agree. In Hebrews chapter 8, I read verses 10 and 11, but verse 12, oh, this is in many ways the thing that brings us around. Yahweh said this as part of the New Covenant. I will be merciful to their unrighteousness and their sins and their lawless deeds. I will remember no more. So when you confess your sins, hurry along to forgiveness of sins. Yahweh's angel announced to Joseph about the Virgin Mary, and she will bring forth a Son, and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins without being irreverent. Can I say this? For the believer, every day is Christmas. Our Savior was given to save us from our sins. This is one of Jesus' earliest teachings. For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. Luke quoted Jesus simply, forgive and you will be forgiven. Forgive and you will be forgiven. Your sins do not remain. Think upon this as you confess your sins. All the apostles quoted this of Jesus, the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins. In Mark, Jesus said, And whenever you stand praying, if you have anything against anyone, forgive him, that your Father in heaven may also forgive you your trespasses. We have many texts in the scripture to remind us that our sins are forgiven. Peter preached this. In Acts 5, this Jesus, God is exalted to His right hand to be Prince and Savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins. This occupied them. Paul preached this when he said in Acts 13, Therefore let it be known to you, brethren, that through this man, referring to Jesus Christ, is preached to you the forgiveness of sins. That's my message. It's the message of any gospel preacher. There's forgiveness of sins in Christ. No wonder then that Paul proclaimed in Romans 3, Now the righteousness of God, apart from the law, is revealed, being witnessed by the law and the prophets, even the righteousness of God. through faith in Jesus Christ to all and on all who believe. And from that statement, he made these statements in Romans, where sin abounded, grace abounded much more. There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. And then to the church at Ephesus, he wrote, in him, that is in Jesus, we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of his grace. And you may be tempted to think to yourself, while I'm quoting from all these texts, I'm just too sinful. Then hear what Paul said to the Colossian church. And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, he is made alive together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses. All trespasses. You see, if you're going to deal with the tension of being a believer, a disciple of Christ, and still knowing that you're depraved, and you're still struggling with this thing, you must remember you're always and only sinning. You must not allow yourself to get discouraged about that, depressed about that, and your inabilities. You must always run to Christ and rely upon Him, and confess your sins when they come to mind. and hurry along to remind yourself that Christ came to forgive you your sins. This will help you deal with the tension that comes, rightfully, to a believer. Let me say one last thing, then, in closing. Indulge yourself in the truths of free grace. Only in this way will you remain encouraged in your labor to obey. Obedience will never be what it should be. Your labor will never be what it should be. But if you're laboring, you're doing what you should do. Labor to these things. Labor to please the Father, knowing that He has already made you entirely and completely and thoroughly acceptable to Himself and His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. You may have noticed in the bulletin that there was a text given from this sermon, and I haven't referred to it yet, but I'll close with it. First John, chapter two, verse twelve. I write to you, little children. Because your sins are forgiven you for his namesake. Let's pray. Our father in heaven. We are so thankful to bow before you. We are so thankful to name you our Father. We are so thankful that we can think of ourselves and know ourselves to be children before you. Children whom you pity. Children whom you will not retain anger against. Children whom you love and have compassion like a father does his little children. Children whose sins are removed from us as far as the East is from the West. We believe your promise. That you will remember our sins no more. We know that is all accomplished by our Savior, the Lord Jesus. And so in his name, receive our thanksgiving and our praise and our worship this day. and send us forth, continuing to teach us, but granting us the grace of recalling these things for the comfort of soul that we need to live our lives for your honor and glory. We ask for your help in the name of our Savior. Amen.