Looking at Psalm 140 this past Sunday we saw, again, that there are no perfect people – none are all-righteous. To say it like the Bible does in Romans, “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks after God.” (This same theme is also found in Psalms 14, 53, 5, 10, and 36).

Now when we looked at Psalm 140 however, this may not have seemed to be the case. Psalm 140 is a cry of David to be delivered from evil men – not a cry that he is an evil man. So, when we get to verse 13, “surely the righteous shall give thanks to your name; the upright shall dwell in your presence,” we might exclaim with David, “Thank you God that I am not like the people I see on the 10:00 news!” (Is news still on at 10:00? With my iPhone and iPad I get so much news that I don’t watch it on TV anymore). And do you know what, that’s the problem: “i”. It’s so much easier for me (i) to notice other people’s faults and wrongdoings than it is to examine my own (i). But more than that, it’s so much more self-justifying (i)! I can make myself (i) feel a lot better about my (i) problems, my (i) anxieties, my (i) sin, and my (i) life by finding fault, or placing blame on others and not myself (i).

This is why finding the Gospel in every scripture we preach is so important. While the Gospel is Good News it’s surely preceded by Bad News. The Bad news, as we’ve already discovered, is that no one is righteous – not even one. It’s not enough to say, “Eh, yeah well, no one is perfect.” We all know that, and we use it as part of our self-justification. We must face the fact that, first of all, we have been created. Secondly, that our rebellion isn’t just against each other – it’s chiefly against God. Thirdly, we will be held accountable for this rebellion. This is exactly how the Bad News is spelled out in Romans 1-3. It’s important to notice how Paul refers to God here – as creator. Point: You are not your own and you have rebelled from the one who, in love and in His image, made you. The answer then to verse 13 of Psalm 140 – who are the righteous that shall give thanks to your name, who are the upright who shall dwell in your presence? – one is righteous, yes, only one.

There is only one person who could sing this Sacred Song without being convicted. Jesus. In a sense Psalm 140 isn’t so much a Psalm of David as it is a Psalm of Jesus. Can you hear Jesus singing this Song to the Father. “Deliver me, O Lord, from evil men; preserve me from violent men…” If we see Jesus rightly, as God in the flesh, then there is no more evil event in history than the Death, Burial, and Resurrection – and surely coupled with that, the betrayal, beating, and mocking of Jesus. Can you hear Jesus, then, singing this song maybe in the garden the night he was handed over, maybe while He was being tried, maybe while He stood nearby Pilate as the people shouted, “Crucify.”

Jesus the Messiah – Savior and King – is the only One who could sing this song, truly, because Jesus is the only perfectly righteous person who has fulfilled all righteousness.

The Good News is that while Jesus is the only One who is upright and able to dwell in the presence of God the Father, through His death on the cross Jesus offers Himself as a substitutionary sacrifice. In our place He dies paying the full penalty of our unrighteousness – in His place we stand being credited with all the righteousness He has earned. Jesus, through His death, secures salvation for the Church. It is only in Christ, then, that we can proclaim with David “You are my God!” And it is only in Christ, too, that we will dwell in the presence of God.

One thing, very practical, that we should take away from this is a lesson in how to live in community.  We live in a world where everything you can think of has been “relativized.” This isn’t as bad as that; blah blah blah. This is how we get the idea in our heads that “I’m not that bad.” I say something pretty frequently when I preach, “If you’re not that bad than your god can’t be that good.” But relativism puts something before this primary truth. Relativism says, “If that person is pretty bad than I must be pretty good.” Relativism is fundamentally broken because it removes the supreme thing (in this case a perfect, flawless, transcendent, Holy God). Relativism is broken because it removes the standard – the “what” that everything else ought to be examined against.

Forget relativism – we need reality. The reality is, God is the standard. If He created us we’re not our own, we’re His. If we’re His we must live and behave according to His standard. (By the way, His standard is not overbearing or burdensome – Love God, Love People). Practically, when God is the standard, we realize that all of us have issues. Instead of expecting perfection from each other which, when that perfection isn’t met, we may think thoughts that lower our value of others, may say careless words that damage others, or may do lousy things that ruin relationships. (Or, sometimes we don’t say or do, but keep the thinking bottled up inside us). This doesn’t give us license to be sluggards and cause trouble, nor does it serve as some kind of handicap and make us to have no expectations for people. Surely, also, where sin is involved it needs to be met with repentance and return, not dismissal. This all helps to make us to live in community (inside and outside the church) seeing Jesus and the Gospel as the only all-sufficient answer to our ever-insufficient lives. The heart of the Gospel is that God has been gracious to us – and, thus, we ought to be gracious to each other. When we remember that God is the standard, that we have all failed to meet that standard, and that Jesus alone has met that standard on our behalf we will all be much more humble people who are eager to let the small disappointments we have against other dissolve from our minds and the big disappointments, after conversations of clarity, repentance, and forgiveness, dissolve in the blood of Jesus.

This past Sunday we preached through Psalm 14 – a Psalm that the Apostle Paul will use in his letter to the Romans to illustrate that all people are sinful and fall short of the glory of God. One of the benefits of learning Psalm 14 as a Psalm (a sacred song) is that we get to feeeel it in a way that we might miss when we see it in Romans. I think when people read Romans 3 they have a difficult time understanding what Paul is saying. “Are all people really this bad?” they think. This is a text, after all, that we build our Doctrine of Total Depravity on. But are we all like Joseph Stalin or Queen Mary I?

When we read it the way Paul puts it in Romans 3 it may seem that he’s suggesting that we are. But when we read it from Psalm 14 we see what Paul is actually saying in Romans 3 – all people are sinful, biblical fools even, because we ignore God and we ignore people made in God’s image. This was our main idea from Sunday’s sermon.

The solution to this serious problem is that we need to see God and good. The clearest place we see both of these is on the Cross. If we, unlike the Rich Young Ruler of Mark 10, can realize Jesus as God (instead of simply a good teacher), who died for our own sins, and see people as made in the image of God then we will do much more good than we do otherwise.

I was struck by the power of this, and my sin, on Sunday morning. And as we headed out to lunch God continued to correct my view of Himself and His people. I was recognizing how much of a great life God desires for us to have; the kind of joy and godliness He offers in the Gospel. See, when I devalue my wife by not loving her the way I ought to I’m not recognizing God, and I’m not recognizing her made in His image. I’m only concerned about myself. The same goes for my kids. The same goes for anyone I may ever see or think about! So, on one hand, I am horribly convicted as a sinful man who does truly ignore God and God’s people. But on the other hand, now that salvation has come (Psalm 14.7) because I trust in Jesus to forgive me of sin and recreate me in His image, I find tremendous joy in loving my wife and kids and neighbor not for what they do or don’t do but simply because I ought to – and simply because I view God as excellent and people created in His image as beautiful and valuable.

This is something that we as a church must “get.”

Because we realize Jesus as God – as savior. And because we realize people as made in His image. And, especially because, we realize the Gospel as saving us and recreating us, we must be a church that blesses people with the knowledge and the benefit of the Kingdom of God that is, actually, here, now!

Tim Keller has written a fantastic book, one that I have recommended before, one that, providentially, became available on Sunday morning as a free audio book on christianaudio.com. (Go to christianaudio.com/free). This book has been the catalyst for mercy ministry in my mind for a long time. As our vision for mercy ministry takes shape into reality I’m hopeful that this book and your own passions for ministry here in our city shape how we love people.

To sum this all up then. Psalm 14 (and thus Romans 3) ought to convict us of our sin of ignoring God and ignoring people and move us, seeing and trusting the Gospel where we see God and good, to fulfill the law – to love God and to love people. Paul says it this way:

But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— ²² the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: ²³ for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, ²⁴ and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, ²⁵ whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. ²⁶ It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

²⁷ Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith. ²⁸ For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law. ²⁹ Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, ³⁰ since God is one—who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith. ³¹ Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law.

Now that salvation – justification and recreation – has come we ought to uphold the law – love God and love people. May TcD be a church known for doing this well, because her Savior did it well.