The “Gospel” of Moralism

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⟦Transcript⟧ Now, according to a 2016 survey from Lifeway, 74% of evangelicals in America in this survey said that they believed they had to contribute something to their salvation. Now, I shared that number with you last week, along with several others, and that number would be too high even if it was just a survey of Christians, self-proclaimed Christians in general. Even if it was a survey of the population at large, those numbers would be too high. But the thought of 74% of evangelicals, one of the things that makes you an evangelical is that you believe in the idea of salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.

It’s right there in the definition. The idea that 74% in this survey at least, 74% of people sitting in evangelical churches in America believe they have to contribute something to their salvation. That number is shocking.

That number keeps me awake at night, among other things. And there were several other numbers that I shared with you like that last week. I’m not going to go into all the numbers this week.

I’m not going to rehash those again. But if they’re anywhere close to being accurate, we have a problem. And high school said, could it be the issue of people thinking, you know, faith without works is dead?

I said, you know, I fully admit that maybe the questions were a little confusing to people. Maybe that could account for some of it. But let’s cut that number by a third.

Let’s just, for the sake of argument, say a third of the people who said yes to that were confused. We still have 50% of American evangelicals, according to that survey, saying they have to contribute something to their salvation. Those are not good numbers, folks.

And the others we looked at last week, people thinking God promised them riches in exchange for their faith. These are not good numbers. And if those numbers are anywhere close to being accurate, we have a serious problem.

Because it means not only does the unchurched world not know how to be reconciled to a holy God, But the problem is compounded by the idea that people in evangelical churches don’t know themselves how to be reconciled to a holy God and how to tell the people out in the lost world. It becomes a serious problem. And I told you last week, I doubt that those numbers hold true for our church.

I’ve talked to a number of you. I know many of you pretty well in what you believe. And I think if I took a poll that said, do you have to contribute something to your salvation?

I have a pretty good idea of what those numbers would be for Trinity. But at the same time, I know, I’m sure there aren’t many pastors of evangelical churches in America who would expect that the numbers from their congregations would look like that. And so even though I don’t think most people in Trinity are lost, even though I don’t think most of the people sitting in here this morning think they have to contribute something to their salvation, in case there is somebody who thinks that, we need to address it.

If there’s anybody who walks out of our church services thinking, if I could just be good enough, if I could just do better, then God would be okay with me. If anybody walks out of here thinking that that’s something we need to address and something we need to correct, it’s the responsibility of every Bible-believing pastor in America to proclaim the gospel clearly and regularly and unapologetically. Because Romans 10, 17 says that faith comes by hearing, and hearing comes by the word of God.

How will they know if the gospel is not preached, to paraphrase it? And so I told you last week, my goal is that everybody who walks through the doors of Trinity for a Sunday morning worship service would leave here, would leave at the end of the service, understanding that we are reconciled to God, that we are forgiven by grace alone, by God’s grace alone, through faith alone in Christ alone, without having to work for it. And so through the month of September, I know some of you were not here last week, just to reintroduce the series to you, throughout the month of September, we’re spending these Sunday mornings looking at some of the beliefs, some of the commonly held beliefs that sound similar to Christianity, but aren’t, they’re not quite Christianity, which is what I’ve called the series, not quite Christianity.

We’re going to talk about what the gospel is and what the gospel isn’t. We’re going to look at what these views are and what the Bible says about them and what the truth is. How can we have forgiveness?

How can we have peace with God? How can we as sinners be reconciled to a holy God? And as we look at each of these views, we’re going to see how the Bible responds to them, and we’re going to set the record straight.

And last week, we looked at one extreme view that overemphasizes the love of God, the grace of God, the mercy of God. Those things are all true. God is love.

God is gracious. God is merciful. He’s all of those things.

But as I told you, the view we looked at last week takes that and cranks it up to 10 and takes any of the negative attributes and turns it all the way down to where what you end up with is what I called last week the SpongeBob SquarePants God. Any of you remember that? That no matter how mean and how selfish the people around him are, no matter how they treat him, he always just thinks they’re wonderful and they’re his best friend and he just accepts whatever.

It would be like God was Spongebob and we’re Squidward and Mr. Krabs, just treating him like dirt every day. Some of you have no idea still what I’m talking about.

Go watch an 11-minute episode. One, you don’t want to rot your brain, but go watch one 11-minute episode of Spongebob. You’ll know what I’m talking about.

That’s the way some people view God, all right? That he’s just love. He’s just goodness.

He’s just mercy. And so whatever you do, however your attitude is toward him, that he’s just fine with it. he just loves you that much and he’s okay with your sin.

And what we end up with is a view of God that says we never have to repent. We never have to seek his forgiveness. He’s just going to be okay with us.

And it’s a feel good message that leaves us feeling good all the way up until we enter eternity separated from him. And we looked at that last week from 2 Peter chapter 3. This week we’re going to look at the opposite extreme or one of the opposite extremes where where the previous view said sin’s no problem at all.

This view that we’re going to look at today, the gospel of moralism, says that sin is such a problem that it’s the only thing that matters, and as long as we get these outward sinful behaviors under control, that’s the only thing that matters. And so if you would, turn with me, if you haven’t already, to Romans chapter 3. We’re going to look at verses 19 through 28 in just a moment, and we’re going to see how the Bible addresses what I’ve called the gospel of moralism.

And just like last week, it’s a term I’ve made up because all sorts of people teach it and all sorts of people call it different things. The term is something I made up. The beliefs are something that people really believe.

The gospel of moralism teaches that the object of Christianity, the goal of Christianity, is self-improvement through behavior modification. It teaches that the goal of Christianity, the object of Christianity, is self-improvement through behavior modification. What that means is that we can be better people just by behaving better.

If we just take care of the outside behavior, then we’re better people. We might need God’s help to do that. We might need a little help from God to do that.

But ultimately, that’s the goal, just to act better and be better. That’s the goal of the gospel of moralism. A few weeks ago, Charla and I sat down and were catching up with a friend of ours who was talking about the gospel of moralism.

And I don’t think she used that term unless I stole it from her and just imagined that I made it up. But anything’s possible. And she made the observation to us that many churchgoers, what they’re really working toward is a life where their children are well behaved.

And I mean, who doesn’t want that? But a life where their children are well behaved, their marriages are happy, their finances are under control, everybody’s safe, and everybody makes good choices. And if they could get, here’s the point that she made that made me sit up and take notice really of what she was talking about.

She said, and if they could get there without Jesus, they’d be just as satisfied. And I thought, there’s something to that. I don’t know that that’s everybody, but I guarantee you there are some people sitting in the pews of churches this morning.

Maybe here, maybe not. But there are people sitting in church pews this morning thinking they’re being good and serving God and they’re doing what they’re supposed to because they’ve got all this outward stuff in order. And what they really want out of life is for their kids to be well behaved, their marriages to be happy, finances under control, all of that.

And if they can get there with Jesus, great. If they could get there without him, they’d be just as happy. Because what matters is all this external stuff is under control and we’re being good.

Because we think by being good that somehow that’s going to make God love us more. So the gospel of moralism. And you’ll notice if you’re looking at that insert with the notes on it in the bulletin, gospel is in quotation marks because it’s not the true gospel.

It might be better to say the so-called gospel of moralism. But the gospel of moralism encourages people to just do better. And I do wonder to myself how many people are in churches this morning hearing a message that tells you, hey, just do better.

Just be better. Come on, you can do it. Now, there’s nothing wrong with wanting to behave well.

There’s nothing wrong with wanting to make good choices. I would love for my children to be well behaved. Sometimes they are, sometimes they’re not.

I would love it if they always were. My marriage is happy. Last time I checked.

My finances are, they’re all right. I’m not rich. I’m not broke.

They’re fine. But is that all there is? Is that all there is?

Just trying to keep life under control and just be a better person. The false gospel that we looked at last week comes from a distorted view of God. One that says that God is so loving that sin just really isn’t a problem.

But this false gospel comes from a distorted view of man. It comes from a distorted view of man. Where one gospel says sin is not a problem because God is just so loving.

God, there’s no judgment, there’s no righteousness, there’s nothing else but love and grace. This gospel says, it comes from a distorted view of man that says man is basically good. We’re basically good.

And if we just make some better choices, God would be more okay with us. That was one of the stats I quoted last week. I think something about the majority of people are close to a majority thinking people are basically good.

And I, I asked you, I don’t know what news they’re watching every night, but that’s not the impression I get either from the Bible or just observation that we’re basically good. But it’s the idea that, hey, we’re basically good. If we could just make better choices, we’d be okay with God.

So if you believe, if I could just do better, maybe God would love me. Or if you believe God can’t love me because of the things that I’ve done. I’ve sinned too much.

God can’t possibly love me with all these choices over here that I’ve made. If you believe, you know, I really need to give my life to Jesus. I really need to trust Jesus.

I really need to become a Christian, get saved, whatever terminology you use. I really need to do that, but I’ve got to get some things straightened out first. I’ve got to get my life in order first. If you think I’m probably okay with God because I go to church, or I’m probably okay with God because I give money. I’m probably okay with God because I don’t drink, I don’t smoke, I don’t cheat, I don’t curse.

If you think of you has something to do with your performance or lack thereof. The only thing that our performance does is separate us from God because we’re sinners. And this view is so dangerous because it ignores the biblical truth that we’re going to look at in just a moment, that you and I are sinners, that you and I are sinners who can only be reconciled to a holy God through the perfect sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross.

That’s the only way. And it ignores that. It distorts it and takes it from something that Jesus did because we couldn’t and makes it, here, you carry all the burden that we were never meant to and can’t.

You and I cannot be good enough to reconcile ourselves to God. It makes us think we can do this with or without Jesus if we just try a little harder. And let me tell you, I think Satan is really crafty to have distorted people’s thinking on this.

He’s not bothered at all by you living a moral life. Satan’s totally fine if you want to make good choices and live a moral life? Because Satan would be thrilled with a world full of outwardly moral people who thought that they were too good to need Jesus Christ. He’d be thrilled with that.

If everybody behaved, everybody kept their yards clean and their lives clean and paid their taxes and followed the law, he’d be thrilled with that. If you tried to do that without Jesus Christ, he’d be thrilled by thousands of outwardly moral people who thought that they could do it without Jesus Christ, just as he’d be thrilled for thousands of outwardly moral people to join him without Christ in eternity. He’d be thrilled with that.

The Bible doesn’t teach that we’re good. It doesn’t teach that we’re good enough. It doesn’t teach that we can be good enough.

The Bible doesn’t even teach that we’re bad, but could be good. Ephesians 2. 1 says that we are dead in trespasses and sins.

Dead means we’re hopelessly, utterly, entirely separated from a holy God. Just like death separates us, just like physical death separates us from our loved ones, spiritual death separates us from the Holy God. And the gospel of moralism, hear me on this, the gospel of moralism is not the gospel of Jesus Christ. There’s a quote that I’ve heard attributed to C.

S. Lewis. I couldn’t find where he had said it or written it.

The one person I know said it was Ravi Zacharias. He might have stolen it from C. S.

Lewis. But I know Ravi Zacharias said this, Jesus Christ did not come to make bad people good, but to make dead people alive. Let me say that again.

Jesus Christ did not come to make bad people good, but to make dead people alive. That’s the gospel. Not be moral and clean yourself up.

But you need Jesus because you’re spiritually dead and separated from God. Now let’s look at Romans chapter 3. Starting in verse 19.

Let’s look at verses 19 and 20. It says, now we know that what things soever the law saith. Let me start that over.

Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped and all the world may become guilty before God. Therefore, by the deeds of the law, there shall no flesh be justified in his sight. For by the law is the knowledge of sin.

So in verse 19 here, Paul is discussing God’s moral law and how God’s moral law applies to everybody. You know, there were the civil and ceremonial laws that were for Old Testament Israel, but he said the moral law was something that was meant for everybody. And in verse 19, we see about every mouth being stopped.

And what he’s telling us that there’s no room for protests of innocence when it comes to God’s moral law, because the law concludes all of us guilty. If we look at God’s moral law, we can’t conclude anything other than we’re sinners. I’m a sinner, you’re a sinner.

Even the Pharisees thought that they were righteous because of their outward behavior. But Jesus explained that the focus of the moral law isn’t even on the outward behavior, it’s on the condition of the heart. And you look at a couple of things that Jesus said to the Pharisees, and he straightened out their understanding of the law.

You know, in Matthew chapter 5, they thought they were righteous because they’d never killed anybody. They’d never gone out and physically murdered anyone. But Jesus said, you know, that if you’ve been angry, if you’ve had unjustified anger in your heart toward your brother, it’s the same as murder as far as God is concerned because it’s the condition of the heart.

If you’ve ever been so angry you wanted to murder someone, whether you pulled the trigger or not, the condition of the heart is the same, right? And Jesus pointed that out and said, it’s the same thing. They thought they were righteous because they’ve never gone out and had an affair.

They’ve never physically cheated. Okay, is that the bar? It’s a really easy thing not to do, or it’s a really easy thing to do is not cheating.

You just get up every morning and don’t cheat on your wife. I mean, it’s pretty simple. And so they thought they’ve done this wonderful thing.

Well, Jesus said, if you’ve ever looked on a woman with lust, it’s the same thing because in the heart, you’ve still lusted. The condition of the heart is the same. I think we all realize that’s a much harder bar to hit.

And so his point to the Pharisees, it’s not even about the external following of the law. It’s about the condition of your heart before God. That’s what the moral law teaches.

And so when we look at the moral law as explained by Jesus, we can’t conclude anything other than we’re sinners. If we’re honest, we can’t conclude anything else. And then in verse 20, he talks about how the law is the reflection of this reality that exists.

He says, for by the law is the knowledge of sin. We’re sinners by nature, and the law is like a mirror that’s held up to us to show us that. Because without the law, it’s easy for us to say, well, prove it.

Prove that we’re sinners. We already are. But God’s moral law, I’ve told you before, is like one of those signs of a theme park that says you must be this tall to ride this ride.

You must be this holy to get into heaven. And the standard up here is God’s holiness. And that law is there to show us all the ways we fall short of that holiness, that we can’t get anywhere close to being this holy.

So the law is sort of like a mirror held up there to show us, to reflect to us what our reality actually is. It shows us that we stand condemned under the law of God, and that we’re so sinful that not one of us can boast about doing anything to be right with God based on our own efforts or our own merits. Let’s look at verses 21, 22, and 23.

It says, But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifest, being witnessed by the law and the prophets. Even the righteousness of God, which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe. For there is no difference, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.

Okay, again, just like we’re sinners, even without the law, the law just shows us that we’re sinners. God was already righteous. God was already holy without the law.

And the law just demonstrates in an unmistakable way the difference between the two. It shows us in a way that we cannot mistake, that we are sinners and God is holy. Because all these things that he said, this is the standard and we’ve not been able to keep them, we haven’t even come close to keeping them, God is able to keep those because it’s a part of who is nature.

It’s a part of his nature and who he is. Excuse me. And so it just shows us who God is and who we are in comparison.

And verse 21 talks about how the law and prophets testify to the righteousness of God. Everything they were writing was talking about the holiness of God. God’s standard, God’s separation from us, our need for his righteousness because we have none of our own.

And verse 22 teaches that his righteousness is something that we lack because it’s something that has to be given to us. It says, even the righteousness of God, which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe. It’s not something that we have.

We’re not righteous like God until that righteousness is given to us. It’s something that we lack no matter how well we behave outwardly because our hearts are still sinful before God. So I can have everything in life in line.

I don’t, but I could, and I’d still be a sinner before God because my heart is not right. But the righteousness of God is given to us. It’s placed on us through Jesus Christ, not by our efforts, but through our faith in him.

If you look at verse 22, it says, by faith of Jesus Christ. That’s an odd phrasing, but if you look at the Greek, it basically means faith in Jesus. Not sure why they translated it of. I mean, there’s a convoluted explanation, but if you want to translate it, it means the same thing as faith in Jesus.

So faith in Jesus, our faith in Jesus is the condition. God doesn’t just put his righteousness on us. He doesn’t cover us in his righteousness apart from faith in Jesus Christ. And it says unto all and upon all that believe.

It’s given to those, to all those who put their faith, put their trust in Jesus Christ for salvation. Those who’ve realized I can’t be moral enough, those who’ve realized I can’t be good enough, those who’ve realized I can’t earn my salvation and have stopped putting our faith in our own abilities, in our own morality, and realized how far short we fall of a holy God and have come to him begging for mercy, believing that he will provide it in Jesus Christ. God takes his righteousness and clothes us in it. And verse 22 also says that there’s no difference.

meaning God doesn’t treat any of us differently when we come to him by faith in Jesus Christ. He doesn’t look at our background. He doesn’t look at where we came from. He doesn’t look at what we’ve done and say well I’ll give you some grace not you though you need to work a little harder for that’s not how God operates.

He doesn’t treat us any differently. He’s not more or less willing to save any of us because we’re no different by his standards. If you look at verse 23 he says all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.

We are all sinners condemned under the law. Now in our human pride and in our human flesh, we don’t like that because we like to compare ourselves and say, I’m better than him. I like it when I can say, you know, my yard is not the prettiest in the world, but at least it looks better than the guys next door.

Doesn’t look like anything in a magazine, but it looks better than that. That’s not really the standard though, when it comes to God. It’s not, hey, I’m doing better than so-and-so down the block.

It’s do I live up to God’s standards. And the book of James tells us that if we’ve broken the law in one area, doesn’t matter that we’ve kept all these other laws, if we’ve broken the law in even one area, it means we’re a lawbreaker. God doesn’t look really at how long our rap sheet is.

He looks and sees whether we meet the standard or not. So as much as it hurts my flesh and my pride to say this, I stand equally in need of grace as somebody like Adolf Hitler. Kind of a shocking thing to say out well.

He killed millions of people. He enslaved millions of people. I’ve never done anything close to that.

And I’m not saying he’s as good a person as me from a human standard, okay? My point is, he’s broken God’s law. So have I.

So have you. It doesn’t matter how much, how often, how big, how spectacularly we’ve broken God’s law. If we’ve broken it, we’ve broken it, and we don’t meet the standard anymore.

And so he’s not more or less willing to save any of us because we’re no different. The man with a few sins, with a little sin, with the socially acceptable sins, is still just as broken, just as lost, just as condemned under the law of God as the one who commits many big sins, the sins that we recoil from. We’re all sinners.

The most moral person you know is a sinner, according to God’s standards. And by the way, it doesn’t matter how moral you try to be as far as this goes. I’m not saying go out and live however.

There are still things that God calls for us to do. Right and wrong are still real. But the point is, if you’re trying to earn your forgiveness, earn your salvation by being moral, there’s no amount of being moral that’ll ever make you not a sinner. We’ve all missed the mark according to God’s standards.

Now, we need to stop for just a second and talk about what justification means, because it’s going to come up in the next couple of verses. Justification is essentially where God wipes our slates clean and declares us righteous. It’s a legal term as far as the Bible’s concerned.

Does it mean we’re perfect and sinless that we behave that way? No. It means that God has looked at us and from a legal standpoint says your record is clean.

I don’t hold any of that against you anymore. I view you as a clean slate. I view you as a righteous person.

Okay? And we can’t ever earn that. Now, I want to compare this to something in my own life, why justification is important.

I had a cleaning fit on Friday, and it’s the second Friday in a row I’ve had a cleaning fit after breakfast. When I get up from the table, and the kids are supposed to wipe down the table every time they eat. They do not. And I’ll sit down at the kitchen table, and there’s a sticky brown substance.

And I can’t identify what it is. I know what they’ve had for breakfast. I know what they’ve done at the table the day before. I don’t know what this is, but they’ve left it all over the table.

And I’m enough of a germaphobe still. I had to get over a lot of that when I had children. But I’m enough of a germaphobe still that I’m not going to sit there and eat with this sticky brown whatever all over the table.

And we have a white table, by the way. I redid our table and chairs and painted them white and everything shows up. I’m not going to sit there and eat with this sticky brown mess all over the table.

And it doesn’t make it more appetizing if I came and put some pleasant things on the table. I could set out a platter of pancakes. I could set out a plate of sausage.

I could put some flowers in the middle. Try to spruce it up a little bit, put all this pleasant stuff all over it. It doesn’t change the fact that there’s still this sticky brown whatever all over my table.

I’m not going to just sit there and eat with it like that. So before I put anything out on the table, I’m going after the thing with an SOS pad. And whatever else I need, Clorox wipes.

I wore out the last magic eraser or I’d be using that too. But that table is coming clean and sparkling white. It’s getting wiped clean before I even try to put breakfast on it.

And that’s what justification is. For us to try to come to God and say, look at all my good works, look at all my morality, look at all that I’ve done. It’s like that table that should be white being covered with a sticky brown mess, and we’re trying to make the table more appetizing by just putting flowers and place settings on it without addressing the sticky brown mess underneath.

We don’t need to dress up the filth with flowers and delicious food and pretty place settings. We need that table wiped clean. We need that table to shine again where we can see ourselves in it.

That’s the difference between moralizing and justification. Moralization says I’m going to add a few good works to the sin mess. I’m going to add some place settings and some flowers to the sticky brown table.

Justification, on the other hand, says this mess needs to go first. This mess needs to be wiped clean. And only God can do it. And he’ll do it through our faith in Jesus Christ. He does it when we stop putting our faith and our ability to cover up the mess with good works and come to him and say, I can’t clean up the mess.

I need you to do it. The mess is wrong. The mess is sickening.

It needs to be cleaned up. Could you take care of it? And at that point, he justifies us.

If you want to be right with God, you don’t add good behavior over the sin to try to cover it up. You don’t try to moralize without dealing with the sin problem first and call it good enough. You ask God to give you a clean slate because only he can and that’s justification.

Let’s look at a couple more verses here. Verses 24 and 25. Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that through the forbearance of God.

Verse 24 tells us that when we’re justified, when that slate is wiped clean, it’s an act of God’s grace. He doesn’t have to forgive us, but because he is gracious, he’s chosen to forgive us, and he’s chosen to make that forgiveness available, and so he’s willing to wipe the slate clean. We don’t earn it through our goodness.

We don’t earn it through the other decorations we put on the table. He wipes the slate clean when we come to him by faith in Jesus Christ. Okay? It’s his undeserved kindness, and he gives it to us because it’s in his nature.

And the reason he justifies us when we come to him by faith is because Jesus Christ has paid the price for the justification. All that sticky brown sin all over our lives has already been punished. There’s a price.

There’s a penalty for sin, and Jesus has already paid it. He took responsibility for it when he went to the cross. He went carrying our sins and he was nailed to that cross and he shed his blood and he died there to pay for those sins in full so that God doesn’t have to just ignore them or sweep them under the rug or do things that God wouldn’t do.

He can look at them and say that’s been paid for. Clean slate. When we admit our wickedness and our need for a savior, that’s what we talked about last week with repentance.

It’s not changing our lives. It’s sin and that God’s right. When we admit that wickedness and that need for a Savior, when we trust fully in Christ alone, God forgives our sin.

He cleanses us from all unrighteousness, and when he looks at us from then on, he chooses to see only the righteousness of Jesus Christ that he’s clothed us with. Our morality doesn’t cut it. We need the righteousness of Christ. Now let’s look at the last couple verses. <

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