Sunday English Service – 04 SEP 22

Transcript

Please turn with me to Romans, chapter 1. As you know, we’ve been teaching on redemption in a series called “Redeemed”. And in that, we have been showing in the recent times, that since the fall of man into sin had an impact upon all aspects of God’s creation because everything was created for man, the fall of man, not only impacted man himself, but all of the creation that was made for him was impacted. Therefore, any kind of redemption to be true redemption must cover all those aspects in order to be true redemption. And it must cover the forgiveness of sins but that’s not enough but it must go on to cover the redemption of his body. It must want to cover the redemption of the creation. It must go on to cover everything that suffered as a result of man’s fall.

Now, that’s why we went to the book of Romans.In the first three chapters, I showed you the redemption which is the forgiveness of sins. It begins there. The moment you put your faith in Christ, that He died for you, He took your sin, that very moment, forgiveness of sin is granted to you. That aspect of redemption is done and finished. It’s over. It’s in the past.You have been redeemed. But then, I took you the Romans, chapter 6 and showed you that redemption is ongoing in the present, right now. It’s not completed now but it’s ongoing, where the grace of God enables us to live in victory over sin every day in our daily life.So, freedom from sin, from chapter 6 of Romans, we taught. Then, we went to chapter 8, we talked about a redemption that is yet to come. There is the past; there is the present; now, there’s the future redemption.A redemption that is going to happen when Jesus returns. The redemption of our bodies. When that happens, the creation, all that was created for man is going to be redeemed with it. It’s going to enter into its glory.

But last week, we began on a new thing, something that I’ve not really spoken about much here and that is the redemption of our culture. Since man has sinned, not only he himself was affected, not only the creation was affected, but the very culture, human culture was affected. Therefore, redemption, in order to be true redemption must have this aspect also as part of it. There must be a redemption of our culture. And this is something that is present and ongoing, and it will be completed and come to consummation in the end, when Jesus comes. We’ve been showing that from last week, how this redemption is carried out right now in our world through us. Let’s look at it one more time.

In order to talk about this, we need to look at the fall and what happened to man and we already looked at it in quite a detail. But we need to look at it again in light of this, to relate it to culture, how when men fell, it affected this culture. So, let me say this that when man fell into sin, the effects of the fall was threefold, they say.In Christian teaching, this is what is taught that the fall of man resulted in three ways man being affected and that is, one, there was perversion. Perversion is the first thing. Second thing is pollution. Man’s heart and mind became evil, soiled with the dirt of sin. And thirdly, there was a will that was distorted. Let me explain this. Let me first explain the first one, perversion. That’s why I asked you to turn to Romans, chapter 1.

What do we mean when we say, there was perversion?How did man’s sin result in the perversion in man? Let me read to you from Romans, chapter 1 and read from verse 21:Because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man—and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things. So, something happened in their mind; they became futile in their thoughts; hearts were darkened,thinking that they were wise, they became literally fools because they changed or they exchanged the glory of God, the glory of the incorruptible God. See, once you get disconnected from God, see alienation from God results in all of this because you’re cut off from God because of sin. And you get far away from God.

This happened in the garden when Adam sinned, he went and hid, didn’t want to come, and present himself before God. God had to go and find him. He was ashamed. He was guilty. He did not want to have anything to do with God and he did not feel like he can stand before God. That guilt and that shame is in man today and I will say, is in every man today. And as a result, what happens?Because they got disconnected from God, got far away from God, they forgot what God is actually like. They forgot that God is a glorious God;He’s an incorruptible God and He’s and eternal God, that He’s an invisible God.They forgot the glories of our God, the true God. And therefore, they now begin to imagine what God would be like, having come far away from God, having forgotten what God is like. Now, they’re trying to make God. God first made them in His image. Now, they’re making God in their image. That’s what is happening. They’re making God in their own image. Exactly what is said here:Changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man. They’ve reduced God to the image of a corruptible man. Not only that, and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things.They began to shape and form God, according to all their imagination. Therefore, God also gave them up to uncleanness – this results, the word “therefore” is very important.

In Tamil, it comes even more clearly. And because of this, it says in Tamil, in so many words. Therefore, God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonour their bodies among themselves, who exchanged the truth of God for the lie. See, that’s what they did. They rejected the true God. They brought about a lie. They’re projecting something as God, which is lie and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. For this reason, God gave them up to vile passions. This results, since they made God according to their own image and likeness, it distorts everything,twists, and turns everything wrongly. For this reason, God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature.Ah, there is the perversion.

Mark, chapter 6 to 9 is a passage that I read in every marriage here. We have about 40 marriages a year. We read that passage every time during the marriage ceremony. “When God made man,He made them male and female”, the Bible says.Why? Because he had family in mind. He wanted the earth to be filled with families, husband, wife, children, and so on. He wanted children to be born and the earth will be populated with families. There is a reason for God making man in two different genders, male and female. He could have made them as just male or just female.There is a reason for being made as male and female. And that is to have a family, children and so on. And therefore, nature dictates that men are attracted to women and women are attracted to men.There is a natural attraction, so that they can marry later and they can have children and so on. That this is something that God has set in men naturally. This part of nature. This is something that naturally happens, just like a child is born and nobody teaches or takes a lesson for the child on how to drink milk. The child reaches for the milk.As soon as the milk bottle comes near, the child is ready to grab it with the mouth and suck it all out. Nobody taught the child. The child is able to go for it and finish it.

Nature dictates that. It doesn’t have to go to college to learn that.Nature brings that about.In the same way, the attraction between men and women is like that. Nature dictates that. But they went against nature, against the natural use for what is against nature. Likewise, also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due.See, it’s resulted in a penalty that was due to them because they did this.They changed the natural use for unnatural use. They went against nature and started doing things in an unnatural way. And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind, to do those things which are not fitting; being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil-mindedness; they are whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving, unmerciful and so on. It goes on and on. So, there it is. The perversion from the natural to the unnatural. What God has gifted man, that’s a gift of God. The male female thing is a gift from God. God wanted man to live in that way, but they perverted it, the Bible says.There was a twisting and turning of everything against nature.

Secondly, there was pollution in their hearts. Pollution is like there is a freshwater stream, for example, and you go and pour some poison into it, some toxic acid into it or something like that. It pollutes the whole water so that everybody who drinks from it gets sick. Heart has been polluted like that. The pure heart that God gave man. A clean heart that God endowed man with was now polluted. The dust of sin began to settle in; the dirt of sin began to fill the heart and the mind of man so that everything that man does now, is dirtied by the dirty heart and the dirty mind. He cannot do anything without the dirtiness of sin. That is how the heart and mind has been influenced by sin. Pollution has come in.

Thirdly, there is the addiction to sin that came as a punishment for what they did. That’s what we just read:God gave them over to a debased mind. God said, “Well, if you choose to live this way, if you choose to reject Me and My principles, and what I have set as part of nature, and you go against nature, then I’ll leave it to you.” So, they were given over to a debased the mind. They chose what is perverted and polluted and therefore, they became addicted to the very thing that they chose. So, here are the three things. One is because they got distanced from God because of guilt; there was perversion. The second thing is that led to pollution; the heart was that dirtied by sin. And thirdly, there was this addiction, where they become slaves to sin.

There was a man named Malcolm Muggeridge, a very famous man, a great thinker, and writer. He said this, a very significant statement, he said, “The depravity of man is the most empirically verifiable reality.”What he’s saying is,“Well, I’m not saying logically, just by logic, I’m saying because experiments have been done, statistics say so, scientific evidence proves this to be true.” Empirically verifiable reality that man is depraved. “It’s the most empirically verified reality”, he says. Though often, the most intellectually registered fact that people resist it as much as possible. They don’t agree with it, even though it is empirically verified, they reject it completely. They don’t want to agree with it. They don’t want to see themselves as people that have been dominated by sin and so on.

Two illustrations to show that these three things are true, that perversion, pollution, and addiction to sin has become the reality of man’s life. There are two illustrations. One is what happened in Germany during Hitler’s time and C.S. Lewis talks about it in his book.He says, “The Germans first ill-treated the Jews because they were told that as a result of First World War, the whole country suffered great loss and economic downturn”. And they blamed it all on the Jews. They said these are the guys that caused it. They are the evil ones. They are the ones responsible for all our problems, for all our economic woes that we have today. Jews are the problem, so they taught hatred to the people and people started hating them and mistreating them and ill-treating them and persecuting them slowly, with various little things and then, it went on to greater things. What he says is, “The crueller you are, the more you will hate. And the more you hate, the crueller you become.” It’s a vicious cycle, forever”, he says.That is what Hitler’s persecution of the Jews proved. First, they started persecuting the Jews in a literal way. And the more they persecuted, the more hateful they became of the Jews. And the more they became hateful of the Jews, the more they persecuted the Jews. This is how the whole thing works, he says, started off hating the Jews, because they were the reason for all the problems. And as they began to ill- treat them more and more, in that ill-treating them, their hatred, more and more, he says. An accurate observation and sin are like that. The more you practice it, the more you do it; the more you do the very thing that you know to be sin, the more you become addicted to it; the more you do it, the more you get caught in the web of sin. You’re unable to come out of it. You’ll begin to be absorbed by it. You become a slave to it.

Second illustration comes from Romans, chapter 7. Romans chapter 7, Paul says, in verse 19, For the good that I will to do, I do not do.In other words, the good that I want to do, I don’t do, he says.But the evil I will not to do, that I practice. The good that I want to do, I’m not able to actually do it, though I want to do it. Man knows what is good. He wants to do it, but he’s not able to do it. The evil that he does not want to do, he ends up doing. He ends up practicing, he says. Now, this is a problem of a lot of people.All people addicted to various habits and so on. Find them that they want to leave it, but they’re not able to leave it. They want to quit, but they reach a point because they’ve done it again and again and again, they become addicted to it. They’re not able to leave it.

When I first started out here, there was a young man who used to sleep near our gates inside the compound. He used to sleep at the gates. He went to school with me. He got married, had children and all that but everybody sent him out. And his mother was there at the time. Family was there but they all sent him out and would not want to have anything to do with him. He’ll just sleep here in this compound. So, I was just beginning in those days and used to finish and go out and he will stop me always. He’ll say,“Sam, please pray for me. I need to get out of this. I need to be normal. I’m not able to. I’m caught in this sin. I know it’s wrong but I’m not able to get out of it.” So there,you can see many people like that. Well, he had a problem where everything was visible to everybody because he was drinking and lost everything and so on. But there are other people that are caught in sin of various kinds and nobody knows about it but they’re carrying it on but it is something that oppresses them or there’s something that damages them.They want to get out of it but they’re not able to get out of it because their will is not enough to make them overcome that.Even though they will do good, they are not able to do good.The spout of the sin is greater than their will, it seems like.It’s not that they don’t have a will; they have a will. Their will works fine when they want to go and drink or when they want to go and do the wrong thing. Their will works fine. It just doesn’t work when they want to go against it. It draws them into sin further but it doesn’t deliver them from what they are into.

So, this is the condition of man.These three things: perversion, pollution, and addiction, in short.That is what has come about as a result of sin. Now, I say this because you need to see how it affects culture. Now, these three things result in what Christian teaching says is what is called “total depravity”. I don’t know if you heard this term before or not, but I’ve been mentioning it the last one or two weeks. Total depravity. But you must not misunderstand total depravity. A lot of people think that total depravity means that man is absolutely depraved. It is different from absolute depravity. Absolute depravity means that he is depraved in every area of his life, 100% depraved in every area of his life. But the Bible doesn’t teach that. The Bible says that he is depraved in every aspect of his life, in every area of his life. Sin has not left any area of his life untouched. It has touched every area of his life.It has damaged and affected every area of his life but it has not absolutely ruined him. It is not 100% ruin. It is not that he doesn’t have any goodness in him now.He has some goodness in him. But every area of his life is touched by this sin. Everything in creation, in both humans and in creation, in nature is touched and marred by the effect of the fall. Evil is everywhere. Evil is in everything. Everything is contaminated by evil.

Therefore, humanity will never be as good as it could be. That’s the way it has become. Mankind can never be the way that God originally intended for mankind to be. But one good news in the midst of all this is that depravity is not absolute. He is not ruined 100% in every area of his life, though he’s been marred in every aspect of his being. He is not absolutely depraved. That is why, in nature, for example, we see that.We have hurricanes and all kinds of natural calamities and disasters, but at the same time, we have the rainbow. In humans, we see people committing grave crimes, being so evil, unimaginably evil, unbelievably evil,many times but we also see people that are good, good-hearted people, decent people, wanting to help others, wanting to do good. I’m talking about people of all kinds, not just Christians, other people also. They have a good heart and they reach out to people and help people and they have a good heart. They give towards good causes and so on, so that they can help others.

So, you have these two things going on. The Bible teaches total depravity but it also teaches what is called,“common grace”. I don’t know if you’ve heard of this. What is common grace? The Bible says in Matthew, chapter 5, verse 45:Your Father,Who’s in heaven, Jesus said, in the Sermon on the Mount, makes His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.Look at it. The rain is coming down, not just on your head, but on everyone’s head. Sun is shining, not just for us Christians, not just for us believers, but for everybody. This is called “common grace” in Christian teaching. That is, even though man has fallen, there are people that refuse to worship God, they worship whatever they want. And some people don’t even believe there is a God. There are atheists, that don’t even believe there is a God. God says,“I’ll treat everybody equally, in a way. The rain, I’m going to send for everybody, so that their lands will grow the food and they will eat and they will not perish. I’ll be gracious to them and send the sun to shine upon them also, even though they didn’t believe in Me, they don’t want to thank Me, they don’t want to even think about Me.So, God,impartially, without making any difference between religions or between beliefs and faith is blessing people. That’s common grace, it’s called.Blessing people with some general blessings.

Now, this concept of general blessings is very important in Christian teaching because if you don’t have this common grace, if we are without common grace, just imagine what our plight will be. We’ll be living in a world of sin, world that’s fallen, world that’s not in a perfect condition and a world full of sinners in sin. What will their condition be like? Just imagine what they’ll be like without common grace. I’ll describe what sinful condition will be like. One,there will be guilty.People will walk with guilty in their conscience. They don’t have a relationship with God. They don’t know God. They’re far away from God. That is an effect of sin, the Bible says. Then, there is the blinding effects of sin. In 2^nd Corinthians 4:4, it says that the god of this world has blinded the minds of men and women here in this world.

Thirdly, there is the deceiving effects of sin. Sin deceives because in Jeremiah chapter 17, verse 9, it says that every rational thought and action of man is crooked. “Very crooked”, it says.“Very wickedly crooked”. So, that’s the deceiving effects of sin. Then, there is the debasing effects of sin, as we read in Romans chapter 1. Sin brings down man, makes him like an animal, literally, makes him behave very low – debasing effects of sin.And then, there is the corrupting effect. Sin has dirtied man. His mind and his heart have been corrupted. It’s rotting.Corruption is where a dead body is just rotting and going dust to dust, in that way. Man is rotting in sin. And then, there is the debilitating effects of sin.Debilitating is the word that is used of some sicknesses which gets in you and you don’t realize that it’s slowly killing you. It is killing you, softly and slowly, day by day.You don’t realize what’s happening, but every day, it kills people. There are certain sicknesses like that.It’s a debilitating illness. Sin is like that. It gets in; you don’t think anything is wrong with you, but it’s eating you away. It’s like a cancer that eats away inside until it’s spread everywhere and doesn’t let you live. It completely destroys you from the inside, in a hidden way.

Now, just imagine living with people that are affected in this way:guilty, blind, deceived, debased, corrupted, in a debilitating condition. Just imagine living in a world of sinners like that. Just that’s all you got. That will be very bad. Thank God for common grace; you’ll appreciate common grace. Common grace not only gives you sunshine and rain,but it also gives you various other things. Let me mention some of them.First,it gives you the knowledge of God, even if you’ve never read the Bible, never went to church, never heard the Gospel, and do not have the opportunity to hear the Gospel. You live in some jungle somewhere out there, where you see nobody that knows the Gospel. Even then, you can know God. God is so gracious that He reaches out to those people. How?Through natural revelation. People live right in the middle of a movie theatre-like. The whole world is before them. The birds, the sun, moon, and the stars, the fish, the birds, animals, human life, everything they can see they can see. They can see the trees grow, they can see the earth produce, they can see all of this and anybody who has any kind of mind and ability to think will be led to think that there is a God behind all of this. It doesn’t just happen by accident. There must be a great God, a mighty God, a glorious God, a loving God who was provided all of this for man. There must be someone behind it, that’s more intelligent than this intelligent creation.

So, God has given natural revelation.Not only that,but God has also given the moral law and its witness in their hearts. See, the Jewish people had the 10 Commandments, but non-Jewish people will say, “Well, I don’t know what is right and wrong, because the 10 Commandments was given to Moses and he gave it to the Jews. It was not for us. How would I know what is right and wrong?” And Paul actually raises this point in the second chapter of Romans. And he says to them, he says, “Oh, well, you say, you don’t have the 10 Commandments, therefore you should be excused. There is no excuse”, he says, because even though you don’t have the law written on a stone and given to you like it was done to Moses. Paul says, “God has written it in your heart. You’ve got it in your heart.” And the example he uses is tremendous – I don’t have the time to read. The example is tremendous. He says, “I’ll show you how it is written in your heart. You’re constantly accusing your neighbour of being evil. How can you turn around and say your neighbour, the man living across the street is a terrible guy? How can you say that he’s an evil guy because he murdered or he stole or something? Because you know, stealing is wrong, because you know, murder is wrong. How do you know murder is wrong? Have you read the 10 Commandments? Thou shalt not murder. You say you don’t have the 10 Commandments, so how do you call that man that committed the murder, evil? Because in your conscience, you know.In your conscience, God has put that knowledge.Your conscience says that murder is wrong.So, that is common grace. God not only gives the revelation of Himself to man through nature. In conscience, He puts the laws of God, so that the heart bears witness.

Then, there is the image of God in man. God has given man His image, even in the fallen man, fallen in sin. He has not lost the image of God completely. The image of God is still in man. How do I know?In Genesis, chapter 9, verse 6, after Noah’s flood was over, Noah and his family get out of the ark, and they start their life new, a new humanity is going to come up now and God lays out the commandment.He says, “You shall not shed the blood of another”,He says, “Because your blood will be shed.”Why should you not shed the blood of another? That means you shall not murder.Why you cannot murder. He says,“Because man is made the image of God.”Read it. Man is made in the image of God.That’s why murder is wrong. When you strike a man, you’re striking the image of God. You’re disrespecting God because man, the fallen man, the man falling in sin still has the image of God.And then, you go to James, chapter 3, and you read there when he’s talking about the tongue and the importance of our words and so on. He says, “We bless God with our mouth and with the same mouth, the same tongue, we curse man who is made in the image and likeness of God”, he says. He mentions it like that. People said, “You curse men who are made the image of God.” That’s the problem. How can you curse people that are made in the image of God? So, man, even though fallen, in a fallen condition, still retains the image of God in him.

So, we have the natural revelation. We have the law on the hearts. We have the image of God; it’s all God’s grace. Common grace, given to every man.These are available to everybody. This keeps things in a tolerable level in this world. It’s a liveable world because there is natural revelation, there is the image of God in man and then, the law of God is written.The conscience is there. That is why people don’t do so much evil. A lot of evil is curtailed because of conscience, even the people that don’t know God and live by their conscience. It doesn’t allow them.Conscience does not give the freedom to do evil. Thank God for that, otherwise this world will be a world that we cannot live in. You cannot tolerate the evil there.

There is another wonderful thing that God has given us common grace.You know what?Marriage.Marriage is common grace.The relationship between the husband and wife.Therefore, each one lives in loyalty to one another. They love one another. They want to be true to one another. Therefore, they just don’t have to go and have relationships with everybody around. They’re not out loose, running around. They have a bond, a covenant, a relationship. I’m talking about not just Christians, people everywhere. Marriage is a common good that God has given, common grace that God has given, that keeps sin from becoming very rampant. That keeps people from running around, doing whatever they want because it curtails their passions and gives an outlet for their needs to be met, and creates bonding between the husband and wife, so that they stay loyal to one another. Therefore, the wrong things don’t happen as much as it could because of sin. But not only marriage, the family.You have children. Relationship between children, brothers and sisters, father, and mother, that kind of set up, that structure God has given for everybody. Look at the people out there in the world, even though they don’t know God. There are people that are living happily in marriage, that don’t do things that are not right in a marital relationship because it will be doing injustice to their relationship with their spouse. And just because they have children, they’re obligated to them and they want to carry out their responsibilities, feed them, educate them, and do good to them. Because of that, a man becomes more disciplined and devotes himself to that cause.He begins to live, not for himself, not for his passions, not just trying to go and live out his passions, but he lives for others. He lives for his wife and children so on, therefore society is more ordered. It’s a more tolerable place.

Not only that, but there’s also a more important thing. God has given government. I read Romans chapter 13. The Bible says that God has placed governments of this world, those who rule over us.You may not like sometimes, the way they rule or what they do. You may disagree with them, ideologically. You may disagree with them in so many ways. But the Bible says they’re placed there by God so that law and order can we maintain, so that there will be some kind of structure and there’ll be some kind of decency.That there will be law, that people just won’t do anything according to their whims and fancies.That they have to go by certain rules and regulations. God has given government; governance is ordered by God. Read Romans chapter 13, verse 1 to 10.It talks about it and we read it last week, I think.

So, I’ve just mentioned some of them. Some of the common grace that God made, not just for Christians, this is for everybody. Marriage is not just for Christians, it’s for everybody.Family in not just for Christians, it’s for everybody. Government is not just for Christians, it’s for everybody. Image of God is for everybody, Christians, and non-Christians. They’re made in the image and likeness of God. Moral law written in the hearts, it’s for everybody.Natural revelation is for everybody. God graciously granted this common grace, so that this world will be a tolerable place,liveable place. Otherwise, we’ve had it;otherwise, we can’t stand this world even for a moment. It’ll be a cruel world to live in. It will be a jungle but because of common grace, where in a fallen world, we live with some level of peace, and enjoy some level of happiness, here in this world.All people enjoy some level of happiness in this world.

I don’t know if you’ve heard of a man named, Alexander Solzhenitsyn. Solzhenitsyn, a very famous guy from Russia, from Soviet Union back in those days, back in the 70’s, I think, or early 80’s. When I was just a student still, this thing about him became very popular. He’s a writer, thinker and so on. He wrote something and it was very offensive. And they persecuted him and many countries got together they appealed for his release and so on.Finally, he was released, went over to America, and lived there. Then, he went back, before he died, to Russia and settled there. A very interesting guy, a very great man. And he wrote some books and so on.In that, he talks about good and evil. And this guy has suffered so much. They put them out there somewhere in places where they send them when they’re against the government and so on. And then, he says that the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. He puts it like this. “The line separating good and evil, passes not through states, not between classes, and not between political parties. But right through every human heart. Right through the heart of every human being, and who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?”He says that the line, the demarcation line, between good and evil is not between states. It’s not between political parties. It’s not drawn between different classes of people or different religions of people. It is drawn right in the middle of every human heart, he says.In the heart of every human being. That is why evil is here to stay, he says, because the people that are supposed to deal with evil are themselves evil. In order to deal with evil, they have to deal with their own heart. They have to tear down their heart. They have to admit that in their heart they are sinful. In their heart they’re evil and they have to admit that sin is in them and that they are sinners. “Evil pervades everything, every human being”, he says. That’s why there are social structures and public policies which perpetuate a lot of injustices. They all result from evil that is in the human heart. And he says,“Who’s willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?” If you start dealing with evil, you will destroy your own heart. The line is drawn right in the middle of your own heart, he says, in everyone’s heart.That’s a tremendous statement, I think. It makes you think what the problem is in this world. Man’s heart is evil. The thing is every man’s heart is evil. Therefore, there’s no one to deal with this evil. Nobody can deal with this evil. You can restrain it to some extent, by God’s grace, the common grace enables us to keep it down a little bit because the common grace is working. Because we have families because we have children because we have conscience, it’s forbidding us to do evil.Only that way can it be restrained a little bit, otherwise, nobody can do anything about it, he says.

So, man has now two sides. One is depraved; he is depraved, totally depraved. And the other is common good enables him to have some goodness also. Because of common good, you see phases of goodness in his life. Common grace says that there is grace and divine goodness common to all creation, nature and humanity saved or unsaved. Everybody has this common race. So, what happens to man because of this, because he is totally depraved, depraved in every aspect of his being? He is drawn to sin. He has a strong pull towards sin because his heart is damaged by sin, polluted, perverted, and addicted to sin. But, because he’s made in the image and likeness of God and that he retains, even in his fallen condition. Therefore, you can see some traces of some goodness on the other side. So, total depravity means that man or humanity will never be as good as it could be. And because of the doctrine of common grace, we know that humanity will never be as evil as it could be. They will never be as good as they can be, and they will never be as evil as they can be. That’s the good news in the midst of bad news, I think.There is a chance that things can turn for the better. There is a little ray of hope right in the middle of man’s sin and the destruction of man.Now, we understand why there are, even those who are non-Christians, that are doing something good in this world. There are people that are doing a lot of good, that don’t even know Christ. They don’t even believe in the fact that they are against but they have a heart to do something good and we can understand why because the Bible says they also have the nature of God. They have the image of God in them, which God gave in creation. And you’ll find good qualities in them because of that.

Now, let’s go to our last thing. We’ve said much about the three effects of sin. Then we talked about total depravity. Then we talked about common good. Though, totally depraved, we have common grace that is given to us that kind of helps us to live in this world and manage in this world right now. Now, how will you present the Gospel in this world in that way? To a world like this? Now, when you want to present the Gospel, first we think about the verbal presentation of the Gospel, like I’m doing right now, preaching the gospel. We need to preach the Gospel. There’s no doubt about it. Even when you present it in some other ways till you reach a point where you have to open your mouth and say something and preach something. But verbal Gospel is not the only way. There are certain other things that you can do. For example, the visual Gospel.You can help people see the truth of the Gospel. You can help people to see God; you can help people to see what life in Christ will be like; you can help people to see what forgiveness of sin can be, what getting rid of guilt means, what being cleansed in your heart means. You can help people to see the goodness that is there in and through Christ, in and through salvation in Jesus Christ. There is the visual Gospel that you can present.

How do you proclaim the Gospel visually?Now, for centuries now, some of the great Christian preachers have said this and I want you to think about this. They have said, for many centuries now, that there are three supreme qualities — they have reduced it to just three qualities —wherever you see these three qualities or in whoever you see these three qualities, you can be sure that even if they didn’t know God, even if they’re just sinners who don’t know God, these qualities if they have or if they speak about these qualities or if they reveal these qualities in some way, that quality is from God.There are three that they’ve reduced it to. This comes in all kinds of Christian teaching. One is truth. Truth.And I mentioned one thing last week. One great Tamil leader, many, many years ago, when I was young boy, came up with this, coined this phrase.He said, [Tamil: 00:47:39] That’s something that everybody liked but the thing is, that man is an atheist. It doesn’t even believe in God. I don’t know how he came to the conclusion that there is one God and how he came to the conclusion that we all belonging to different backgrounds, different races, different languages. And in India, we have castes, so many castes, you know, pages and pages it goes. But yet this man, born right here, in our [inaudible]it says,“There is only one God and there is only one kind of people, humans.”And I say to you, that is Bible truth. You can’t be more biblical than what he said. It is exactly the Bible truth. That’s what the Bible teaches. How many places do you read in the Bible, that the Lord our God is One? The Israelites were required to say it every morning and evening. “Here, O Israel: the Lord our God is one!” They called it the Shema. They will say it every morning every evening, “The Lord our God is one!The Lord our God is one!” There’s no chance this man heard that. As far as I know, he basically lived here. Where did he get that? That truth has gone somewhere and travelled somewhere. And this man is a thinker and a man who looks into things and thinks deeply and a man who’s interested in these things. So, somehow, he arrived at this great truth, even though he initially started out not believing in God. He was avowed atheist.He declared, finally, there is one God and people are just one kind of people. That is Bible truth. Truth is truth. Whoever says it.

Now, you may say, “Well, he’s an atheist, brother. How can you say that is God’s truth? It’s coming out of the mouth of an atheist?” Well, it is truth, nevertheless. What does it matter if someone is Hindu or Muslim, or Christian, or whoever it is?Two times two is four! Whoever says it, its truth. Its truth, whichever religion you belong to, whichever faith you belong to, or if you have no faith at all. Two times two is four.! It’s the truth! So, the great Christian leaders, centuries ago, declared that all truth is God’s truth. All truth is God’s truth. Actually, Augustine said that his church father, about fifth century.Listen to what he said, “Let every good and true Christian understand that whatever truth may be found, it belongs to our God.”If you find truth anywhere, it belongs to our God, it comes from Him. The person may have got it from somewhere. He may have happened upon it, in some way or the other. He may not even know that this is biblical truth.All truth if it’s truth, is God’s truth, he says. And Calvin, having read Augustine, he says, “All truth is God’s truth.” He put it more simply.All truth is God’s truth. So, truth is one item of the three.

The second item of the three is goodness. Wherever you find goodness, if something is good, they declared. Wherever you find it, you may find it in a person who doesn’t know anything about Christianity, Christ; you may find it somewhere where they don’t even believe in God. If you find goodness, it is from God. They’ve got it from God. And then, thirdly, they declared, beauty. Wherever you find beauty, true beauty if it’s beauty, it must be from God. God is the inventor of everything that is beautiful and wonderful.

So, last week, I talked about music and how, you know, some people are highly opinionated about music. They think music must be as old as possible, like it used to be so many years ago, when they were little. They want to keep on that kind of music and any kind of modern music is bad.They criticize anything, any effort that is made to enjoy any other kind of music, other than the old music. I like the old as well as the new.And most musicians, I think, they like all kinds of music. But there are people that criticize music. How can we judge whether some music is good or bad? I told you three criteria can be used. One is the intention of that music or that song.Second is the integrity of that music or that song. And third is the impact that it creates. Very simple three criteria that can be used. Their intent, integrity, and the impact. The intent can be judged simply by just looking at the words. The words are wonderful words, positive words, uplifting words. encouraging words. If the words declare truth, from the Bible, even though the person doesn’t know what the Bible says.If the words declare truth, and the person may have come upon that line or a few lines that he has written, from somewhere, not even knowing that it’s biblical truth. If he has put it in there, that is truth.

Integrity is the way that it is done, the excellence with which it is done. I believe it must be done; music must be done in an excellent way. The more and more I do ministry, the more and more I’m convinced that must be done excellently. So, a lot of people object to that. “Well, he’s just a show-off, you know, a person getting up there and taking this guitar and playing and going up and down the fret you know, just showing off his stuff. It’s for his own glory he’s playing,” they say. Well, I don’t think like that. I think when he’s going up and down the guitar and playing and just forgetting himself and enjoying himself and engrossed in that playing and plays the music, totally enjoying himself. I think that is the moment in which he is living for what God has made him. God has given him that talent; God has given him that ability; God has given him that gift – the gift of music. God has given him the ability to play. When he plays that music in that way.

There was a famous jazz musician that played one time for half an hour just improvisation.For half an hour he played it seems. Took a piece and played and improvised it for half an hour. Just non-stop. I mean, people were thrilled by his playing. His name is Coltrane. John Coltrane. A very famous musician, very gifted musician.Played it for a half an hour and after playing for half an hour, he said, “Now, I can die.” He has come in contact with God;he has given his life to the Lord. And he said, “I can die now because I’ve played my heart out. I have played, keeping in mind my God. I played glorifying God. I played whatever came to my heart. I played by inspiration. I played what God gave me with the abilities that God gave me. Now I can die”, he said. So, when a musician plays it, there is the intent and integrity and the impact.People were thrilled. It gave them great encouragement. It was so beautiful, so wonderful, so true, so good, so beautiful. These three qualities,if they are there in that music, in that song, in that whatever you’re making, in that drawing, a picture that you’ve drawn, in that photograph that you’ve made, in that creative work that you’ve produced, in that music you’ve composed, in whatever, whatever you feel the work is, you may be a builder building buildings.Whatever it is, if it reflects the truth, and if it reflects the goodness and the beauty of God, if the three qualities are there, then, you can consider it as something that is done for God’s glory and it is indeed done for God’s glory.

So, that is why I read Romans, chapter 12, verse 1.Remember, last week?Let me read it again. I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. Now, here’s where they messed it up in English translation, I think in the older translation, New King James, but if you go to the newer translation, it will say,“this is spiritual worship”.Instead of “reasonable service”, it says,“This is your spiritual worship.” What is spiritual worship? Not just coming on Sundays and singing a beautiful song and lifting up your hands in praise. That we do; that’s wonderful. That’s corporate worship. That’s a fine thing to do. But what is worship? What is he calling worship here? Presenting your bodies a living sacrifice, living out what God has called you to be, expressing what God…

If you’re a businessman, living out that life, living out for the glory of God, presenting your bodies as living sacrifice, producing a product, producing an invention, coming up with some idea. Andin all of that, there is truth, there is goodness, there is beauty. These three things are reflected or any one of these things are reflected. If it is there;it is worship. Because everything is worship, that’s what this verse is saying. Everything is worship and worship is everything. That’s what this verseis saying. According to this verse, whatever you do with this body, your body and what you do with your body is simply an expression of who you are because of what gifts God has given you, whatever it is, God has given you, what God has blessed you with. You’re simply expressing yourself. If you’re a teacher, if you’re a lecturer, if you’re not a doctor or lawyer, whatever, or a businessman. Doesn’t matter. God has gifted you with that, and that you are going out and living that out. And in the way that you live it out, in the way that you produce whatever you produce, whatever you come up with, whatever product you’re making, whatever you’re doing with that, if it reflects truth, goodness and beauty, then that particular thing is worship. You are worshiping God, by your body, by living out God’s call in your life. You’re being just like the guitarist plays and he’s living out what he’s called to do. He’s using his gift; he’s just playing because this is what God has endowed him with. He doesn’t know anything else. He doesn’t have an MBA to go and do some business. He doesn’t know anything about it. The only he knows is music. What do you want him to do? So, he plays music and that’s the way he expresses himself. He’s living it out. He’s presenting his body as a living sacrifice. The same way a businessman, the same way a teacher, the same way a doctor, same way, everyone in whatever profession they are.

So, what it is basically saying is with every good act, with every true word, with every beautiful piece of culture, or literature, drawing, whatever it is, through every redemptive, whatever you start to express the truth and the beauty and the goodness of God. If it is redemptive in quality, you’re doing something good,if it’s redemptive, it is showing God’s truth, God’s beauty, and God’s goodness. These are ways of redeeming the world because the world and its culture has been affected by a man and his sin. The world has been affected by man’s sin, suffering under the damage that man’s sin has caused.It’s become an unbearable world because of that, culture is affected. But when you turn that culture toward God, when you worship God with your gifts and talents and abilities, and you show forth truth, goodness, and beauty like this, and glorify God, you know what happens? Others start worshipping also, that same God that you’re worshiping.When we clap our hands for a musician who plays, you’re not clapping hands just for him. You are, in the back of your mind, you’re thinking about the God who gave him that talent and ability and you’re thanking God for him. When you’re clapping hands for anything, it is like that. We need to look at it like that.So, truth, goodness, and beauty. If your music or if your product of any kind reflects the goodness of God, the beauty of God, the truth of God, then you are participating in the redemption of the fallen world. You’re turning everything that has gone bad to something good. You’re using the life that God has given you and the gifts that God has given you to turn culture towards God, to give thanks to God and to glorify God. So, all things,if they’re true,good, and beautiful, are a way of worshipping God and helping others also eventually, worship God. Every act that has in it the three elements, truth, goodness, and beauty is an act of both worship to God and redeeming the world.

I want to tell you today that whatever you’re doing, whatever profession. See, somebody will think, coming to ministry and standing up on a pulpit and preaching is the only kind of ministry redeeming work you can do. No. Whatever you’re doing, can be turned into a redeeming work. You can offer your bodies as living sacrifice, you can live out your call as a businessman.You can live out your call as a doctor, as a lawyer, as a teacher, whatever you want.You can live out your call wholeheartedly, producing the truth and goodness and beauty of God in a visual manner, presenting the Gospel visually. I’ll tell you, when you present it visually, then you will have the opportunity to present verbally also. And many will worship the God who you worship. Many will be drawn to the God that you believe in, that you live for, and that you’ve dedicated your life to because this is what it’s all about it.This is about redeeming culture. Taking it back, taking the culture back to bring glory to God.

See, culture is made up of every gift,talent, and ability. Your gift, your ability, tour talent is part of culture. That’s what makes culture our songs, our music, our medicinal experts and their expertise and our legal experts and expertise in so many fields. That’s what makes culture.Culture is made up of those things and when you do it for the glory of God, there is the redemption of culture. And I hope that everyone here determines to live it for God, live it fully for God, just like a musician plays wholeheartedly to express his talents and abilities that God has given to him. You and I, every single person must do everything that we have because God has given that ability. God has given that talent. We must express it, express, and show God’s qualities through it. And that is the redemption of our culture.

Let’s all stand up together. Amen. Present your bodies as a living sacrifice. I want you to make up your mind today before you go home today. I want you to lift up your hands and say to God, “Lord,I present my body as a living sacrifice to You, to live for you, to live out the call of God upon my life. Whatever You’ve called me for, whatever You’ve gifted me with, whatever You’ve placed within me, the talents, and the gifts that You’ve graciously given to me. I dedicate it to you. May truth, goodness, and beauty be reflected through all of this.May the glory of Jesus be seen through all of this.Help me Lord, to present my bodies as a living sacrifice and that will be my worship, every day. Every single day of my life. I’ll be worshiping you and causing others to lift up their hands to you, to worship you.” That’s the prayer you need to pray today.