In his sermon titled 'O The Depth of the Riches of Christ,' Scott Brown delves into the doxology found in the last verses of Romans 11, emphasizing God's unfathomable wisdom and knowledge. He explains that this doxology serves as a bridge in the Book of Romans, summarizing the gospel's message from chapters 1 through 11 and setting the foundation for the practical applications in chapters 12 through 16. Brown highlights the incomprehensible nature and infinite excellence of God, His independence from man, and His encompassing role as the source, means, and end of all things. The sermon explores the depth of God's riches, His unsearchable judgments, and the ways that are beyond human comprehension, illustrating the divine wisdom and foreknowledge that guide the universe. Brown urges believers to embrace the gospel, recognizing their own sinfulness and God's grace in salvation through Jesus Christ. The sermon underscores the importance of scripture, the purpose of glorifying God in all things, and the necessity of humility before God's wisdom.

Please open your Bibles to Romans chapter 11. Romans chapter 11, we come to the final verses of this chapter. We'll begin in verse 33, Romans 11 33. Oh, the depth of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and his ways past finding out for who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has become his counselor, or who has first given to him, and it shall be paid to him, for of him and through him and to him are all things to whom be glory forever.

Amen. Well, these last four verses of Romans 11 are what is called a doxology. The word doxology comes from two Greek words, doxa, glory or praise, and logia, which means to speak. So to speak the glory and the praise of God. That's what this text of Scripture is.

So it's a song of praise toward God from whom all blessings flow, praise Him, all creatures here below. You know, if there was anything that would mark a church of the Lord Jesus Christ, it should be this. Of all the other things that are done in the church, all can be summed up in this. That God is the center of all of the attention, all of the conversation, all of the works, everything that it is unto the praise of God. For what?

For the gospel. For the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. This passage of scripture is so stunning that Charles Spurgeon said that no living man can preach a sermon worthy of this text. And that there never was a man who ever did preach a sermon worthy of this text he certainly isn't and there will be none following him who can preach a sermon worthy of this text so This is what we're dealing with here today. God alone is able to expound this to us today.

I trust that He will come among us and help us see what is meant here, because we do so need the work of the Holy Spirit to find the depths of the glory of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. We are dealing here with the heartbeat of all that God has done and desires to do. So it is a doxology. It begins with a single letter, O, or omega. It's actually the last letter of the Greek alphabet.

Jesus said, I am the Alpha and the Omega. It's the Omega here. I am the beginning and the end and he begins this doxology with the Omega, the symbol of the finality of God's work that He is both the beginning and the end. It takes us into emotions, which we should have many emotions in the Kingdom of God. It takes us into many thoughts about God.

But I hope it does this to us. It sets before us the emotional impact of the gospel in our lives. If there is no emotional impact of the gospel, Has the gospel really come? I think it is a good question to ask. If there is not an, oh, oh, oh Lord, with this intensity, its wonder, its emotion, its praise that's bound up in this text.

And what amazes Paul is the gospel. This is the most satisfying, stunning, stupefying thing to him that God has brought the gospel in the way that he has brought it to us. Charles Hodge, that theologian said that the principal ideas expressed in this passage are three. I'm going to give you his outline, not mine. The incomprehensible character and infinite excellence of the divine nature." How's that for a mouthful?

Number two, God's entire independence of man. And number three, his encompassing everything, everything within himself as the source and the means and the end of all things. I just like the way he summed that up. It's a beautiful summary of this text. But what would cause someone to have such a doxology coming, springing from his lips?

What led to it? And what led to it are the things that we have already covered in Romans 1 through 11. He is looking back to the beginning of the gospel as was expressed beginning in chapter one and so that the reason for this doxology is the content of the gospel this doxology is really a bridge in the book of Romans Romans 1 through 11 is the establishment of the sinfulness of man and the justification of God toward man by faith. And then chapters 12 through 16 are practical. Since the gospel is true, since this is the fact of salvation, then what should you do about it?

How then should you live? That's what Romans 12 through 16 tells us. So Paul has been arguing and asking different questions about the gospel and so here as we find ourselves in this midpoint in the book of Romans we find ourselves in a song of praise for what has been communicated previously in chapters 1 through 11 and it also forms the foundation for why. Why in the world would you live differently in this world? Why would you not be conformed to this world?

Because of the gospel, that's why. There's a reason for it. So that's the logic that's being presented to us here. You know, this morning I hope that our time would be so dedicated to praising God for this immeasurable gift of salvation, that His love, His wisdom in dealing with sinners, his plan for mankind would be so appreciated by us this morning. I know that I can't build appreciation into anyone's heart, but I pray that God would build a rising appreciation and happiness in the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ this morning.

So the subject matter of all of this praising is what God has already said about sin and grace and the law and faith. And so what would cause someone to write something like this? It would be someone who's not ashamed of the gospel. And it would be someone who has just spent lots of time presenting and answering questions regarding the gospel. Someone who has learned about God and ended up worshiping Him and finds himself amazed and that in some ways his hand would go over his mouth in amazement of this knowledge.

So let's go back. Let's go back. What is he praising God for? Let's go back to chapter one and we'll work our way up to this place again and then we'll then we'll move on again he says for I am not ashamed of the gospel for it is the power of God's salvation for everyone who believes to the Jew first and also for the Greek For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, as it is written, the just shall live by faith. And here is both the best and the worst news.

It's only bad news if there's no cross and resurrection. But the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness. Why this praise toward God? Because man is sinful and God has dealt with sinful mankind. He has done something about this sinful world and what he is doing is he is punishing sin.

It's God's intention to punish sin. The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men. How sad it is that we can miss the gospel in the midst of all of our trying to become interesting, wonderful people in this world, by trying to develop our character, which we should, by trying to put on some kind of a face. But one of our problems in our own hearts, in our churches, is that we misunderstand what the gospel is saying about us and that is that we are sinners. I was tempted to entitle this sermon, Your Best Life Now in the Hands of an Angry God, Because this is not about getting your best life now, this is about dealing with your sins for which the wrath of God is worthily needed out because we all fall short of the glory of God.

If you would have your best life now, then you would do what the book says. There are seven ways to live to your full potential. You need to enlarge your vision for life and begin to dream God-sized dreams. Secondly, you need to develop a healthy self-image. Thirdly, you need to discover the power of your thoughts and your words.

Fourthly, you need to let go of the past and quit dwelling on it. Next, you need to learn to find strength through adversity. Sixth, you need to learn how to give. Lastly, you need to choose to be happy. This is not the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.

The gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ is that you are lost in your sins, that you deserve the wrath of God. You deserve to die. But God in His mercy has come and He has given you the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ so that you might be saved from everlasting perdition. We could go to chapter 2 where there's a summary of God's judgment towards sinners and his mercy. He says, you are inexcusable, O man.

Now, he turns from the wicked of this world, the people who truly hate God, to those who acknowledge God, to the religious, to those who know the promises, who understand the things that God has said. And they are the people who are instructing those who are not as learned as they are. Those who are moral, He addresses them. He says, no, but you are inexcusable. Who are you to judge?

For in whatever you judge another, you condemn yourself. For you who judge, practice the same things. But we know that the judgment of God is according to truth against those who practice such things and do you think this oh man You who judge those practicing such things and doing the same, that you will escape the judgment of God? Or do you despise, do you despise the riches of His goodness, forbearance and long-suffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance? But in accordance with the hardness of your intent is at heart you are treasuring up for yourselves wrath in the day of wrath of the revelation of the righteous judgment of God who will render to each one according to his deeds." What is he saying here?

He is saying here that the moral he has dealt with the immoral now he's dealing with the immoral and he says there is just as much wrath from heaven against the immoral as there is to the immoral because we have this we have this problem of sin gained from Adam. We could go to chapter three where we see the doctrine of justification by faith alone. What advantage then has the Jew or what's the profit of circumcision or morality or anything else like that? And we come to what some people have called the theological center of the Bible in Romans chapter 3 verses 20 to 26. Therefore, by the deeds of the law, no flesh will be justified in his sight.

For by the law is the knowledge of sin. But now the righteousness of God, apart from the law, is being revealed, being witnessed by the law and the prophets, even the righteousness of God, which is through faith in Jesus Christ to all and on all who believe. For there is no difference, and then verse 23, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified freely through His grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed, to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus Christ. The glory of the gospel is that we are justified by faith, not by any works of the law, destroying all of our pride in our works and finding all of our joy in the work of Christ on the cross. We could go to chapter four where we see an example of Abraham.

What does this look like? What does it mean to be justified by faith? Abraham is set before us as an example, who before he was circumcised, he had faith. He had faith, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness. Paul goes 600 years before the law was ever written for mankind.

He says look at Abraham before the law that just that justification was by faith then and he says it was by faith during the days of the law, and it is by faith today under the new covenant. And so Abraham is justified by faith. We go to chapter 5, and we see how justification guarantees final salvation and we were we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God because he has done a work that will carry us through to the end He's given us hope that will not disappoint because it is founded in heaven, at the right hand of God, through the Lord Jesus Christ. All of our hope wrapped up there, not here at all. And then chapter 6, how should we be justified when there's this ongoing wrestling with sin?

And chapter 7, each chapter dealing with a different aspect. One chapter is a defense for the law, the other is a defense for grace. And what shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Certainly not.

What then? Shall we sin because we are under the law but under grace? Certainly not. What shall we say then? Is the law sin?

Certainly not. And so you find this justification of the Law and justification of grace in chapters 6 and 7. And at the end of 7, of course, the illustration of the great battle that we're all in. We're struggling with sin, aren't we? We struggle with rebellion every day in our homes.

Every child in this room has a daily struggle that the Apostle Paul speaks of in chapter 7. Every man and woman from the moment they wake up has this struggle within them that would cause us to say, wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death. Let not anyone in this church think that they are righteous by their good attitude or their good conduct. This is not the righteousness of God which is by faith. If you have a father or a mother who is exalting themselves and thinking that there is no sin.

If you have a child who does not understand that their greatest problem is sin, a rebellion, dishonor, or whatever it might be, selfishness, this is our plight in in the family, in the church, and in our work. We are like the Apostle Paul. He says, the law is spiritual, but I'm carnal, I'm sold under sin. For what I'm doing I do not understand. For what I will to do, that I practice.

But what I hate, that I do. If then I do what I do not, I will not to do. I agree that the law is good. But now it is no longer I who do it, but sin who dwells in me. For I know that in me, that is in my flesh, nothing good dwells.

For to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find. O wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death? I thank God through Jesus Christ, our Lord. So then with the mind, I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh, the law of sin." And so In this scheme of salvation, Paul brings before us in chapter 7, the greatness of our sin, and how important it is that we all through our lives understand what's going on within us, that we interpret the world properly. Our problem is not that someone's not speaking our love language.

That's not my problem. The problem is not that my boss is a bad guy. The problem is not that the government is doing stupid things. The problem lies within me. And that's where I need to look to deal with my problems.

And then in chapter eight, the windows, you know, blow open and this glorious testimony of the grace of God, the assurance of salvation, life in the Spirit, the gifts of the Spirit, the gift of sonship and adoption, the gift of security, that Christianity, Christianity is what? What is Christianity? It's Christ in you. That's what Romans 8 makes so clear. And those words that we've said so many times and will continue to say for another month and a half.

But there is therefore no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death." And then we come to chapter 9, beginning a new section in the book, Romans 9 through 11, which speaks of the sovereignty of God in salvation, the status of Israel, and also what we should be doing about the gospel in our own life. Chapter 9 explains the sovereignty of God in election. And just to make sure we understand that God is perfectly sovereign in election, He gives us many examples through this chapter. The example of Rebecca, who had two children out of the same house.

Jacob I loved and Esau I hated. He gives the example of Pharaoh. He says, I have raised Pharaoh up for my own purposes. It does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy. He gives the example of the potter and the clay.

Remember when we went through that. He gives the example of the prophets, Hosea and Isaiah, how all of these speak, all of these collected illustrations make it clear that God is sovereign in salvation. Does not the potter have the power over the clay, he says. And then we turn to Romans chapter 10, which speaks of Israel's rejection, but it also speaks of our duty to preach the gospel. And it also speaks of the fact that the gospel is is accessible that that it is near that it is in is in our mouths and it's and it's our duty to preach the gospel all our lives and and and that when this gospel is simple that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

For with the heart one believes to righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. For the scripture says, whoever believes on him will never be put to shame. What does it mean to receive the gospel? It means that in your heart you say, I believe, and you confess with your mouth that Jesus Christ is Lord and that as Lord you are inadequate that you are a sinner and That you need the blood of Christ his lordship not your own that Is the faith of Abraham and to which it is reckoned as righteousness. And then we move into chapter 11, Romans chapter 11, which speaks of the rejection of the Jews.

God is making them jealous. How does God make the Jews jealous? He takes these filthy, despicable, pagan gentiles, these quote-unquote, tattooed, lingo-talking idiots before the Jews, and saves them, and gives them a real faith, and gives them hearts that rise up in joy. It's a real faith, different from the dead faith of the Jews. They had lost faith.

They had only been walking in ordinances, but had not loved the Lord Jesus Christ. And so the Jews now are going to see pagans who have love in their hearts toward God. They're going to see people with a genuine faith, and it's going to cause them to be jealous. They're going to say, that's not me. I am, I'm a dead man.

And God is giving salvation to those who are unworthy of it, to show to the Jews that God is wonderful, that he changes the heart, that he gives you the emotions and the deeds and the life that is beautiful. So a beautiful life begins to be lived in front of the Jews and it makes them jealous. That's what God has done in bringing salvation to the Gentiles. So this benediction, this song of praise toward God is based on all these things that have come before. This is the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.

The wrath of God is revealed from heaven, but you can be justified by faith like Abraham and there will be no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. That's what he's summing up. He's looking back on everything that he's just communicated regarding the gospel. And this benediction rests at the end of this great doctrinal section. And it's the beginning of the next section.

Now in these verses, I would like for us to walk through them now. Because we've seen the reason for them. Why is it so soaring? Why is it so emotional? Why is it so mind-bending that, as Charles Spurgeon would say, nobody could ever preach this and get it right?

Why? Well, here it is. And I want to break it down this way. There are seven marks of God, of the God of the gospel, that we see in Romans. Seven marks of the God of the gospel, verse 33.

Oh, the depth of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God. So it's his riches are unfathomable. That's why. This is our God. His riches are unfathomable, too deep, deeper than deep space.

There are hundreds of billions of stars. Astronomers say that the universe is expanding rapidly. No one can catch up with it. It's just going. It's deep, deep space.

It's interesting, depending on the era that you live, you think the findings of that day are so phenomenal, right? Magellan went out into the ocean, and he wanted to find out the depth of the sea and so he took all the rope that he could get and tied a cannonball on the end of it to try to find the bottom of the ocean and he dropped it in there hung and it apparently he had found about 2400 feet of rope well the ocean in many places is miles, six, seven miles deep. He didn't have any idea. He thought he could plumb the depths of the ocean. He couldn't even get there.

And his puny little rope was nothing. And this is the idea here. There is a depth. There is something so infinitely deep here in the wisdom of God. And this is why Paul would say for this reason I bow my knees before the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named that he would grant you according to the riches of his glory that you may comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height, and to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge.

The love of Christ is so wide, It's so deep, it's so high that you can't, you just, it's just, this gospel is more wonderful than you even know now. You might drop your cannonball a distance and say I'm there. No, You're not even close. You might look out into space as astronomer and say, well, there are billions of stars out there and it'll take me 70 million light years to get to the end of the universe right now, which is what some astronomers say. 70 million light years to get from here to the end of the universe who knows that how do they how do they know that what's farther than that that's nothing that's what I think oh the depth of the riches And this depth of riches is very practical.

It is the gospel. It is Christ who makes us rich. You may not have very much money. You may not have enough money to go buy a cup of coffee after this service, but you are incalculably rich in the kingdom of heaven. Your riches are in heaven.

All these will pass away, but there are riches in heaven that will never, that will never pass away. There's this idea that swims in our head that we can that we'll get it. We'll get the depths of the gospel. Nope, it's not going to happen. You won't get it.

You know it's interesting how confidently we often speak of things of God. And yet there will be that great day when we will find out that our profound insights were nothing compared to what was really there. We wouldn't have gotten it in this life. So there's wisdom. These riches are riches of wisdom.

He knows what to do. Wisdom is knowledge applied and then there is knowledge. God is omniscient. He's foreseen everything. There are no surprises.

This is the doctor of divine for knowledge he knows everything ahead of you so here's here's something that shouldn't be surprising to any of you There is around the corner a crisis in your life. It's coming. There is a crisis coming in your life. You might be in one right now, but there might even be a bigger one around the corner. God knows this.

His knowledge is perfect. He is omniscient. All of the things that you go through, he has already covered for. When my father was a pilot in World War II, his father came to visit him for the last time that he would see him, until he would enter combat. And he gave him a small Bible and he said to him these words, son the Lord goes before you.

The Lord goes before you. That is divine foreknowledge. But the riches of his wisdom and knowledge are spoken of here. There are no dead ends. There are no hopeless situations in this room.

He is the God of hope. He has it all covered. That's why Paul would soar so high in this doxology because he knows that everything is covered by the foreknowledge of God and then not only not only are his riches unfathomable, but his judgments are unsearchable. Verse 33. His judgments are unsearchable.

How unsearchable are his judgments. Now this is about how he judges things, how he comes down on things. God comes down on the issues of the day differently than we do. My ways are not your ways. The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but those which are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of his law.

There are secret things. There are judgments that are beyond us. And then there are judgments that we know, that we can understand. That's a good thing. He hasn't left us without knowledge.

But his judgments here are about the execution of his will, his mode of acting, his manner of ruling. And all of our investigation cannot get to the bottom of his judgment call on this thing. We won't know why he did it, because his judgments are unsearchable. You know, Have you ever gone through a trial and said, well, Lord, why? Forget that question.

Are you asking why right now? Forget it. Now, you may say, oh, Lord, What lessons may I learn from this now? That's a good question. But you will never know the mind of the Lord.

His judgments are unsearchable. You can't know why, exactly, why he did that. But you can know this. What can I do in response to this situation according to what God has revealed to me we can do that but there's a kind of why that's a destructive why it's an unbelieving why and It's inappropriate because you can't know because his judgments, the execution of his will is unsearchable? You can't know it.

You may think you know it. You may say, well, A, A happened, B happened, therefore I see the meaning of it. Possibly, possibly only. His judgments in the execution of his will are unsearchable. So there's a certain kind of why we should stop asking.

You know, there are things that are too hard to understand. There are hard texts. There are things that are hard to harmonize and there are things that we can't make sense of because they speak beyond our own understanding of things and so there should be among us a humility. There should be a doctrinal humility in the Church, because His judgments are unsearchable. And how important it is for us to see what things are clear and hang everything on those.

But then there are some things that are unsearchable in his wisdom. There must be a humility among us until that time that we appear before that great judgment and he makes all things clear if he would will to do at that time. So his judgments are unsearchable and then it says thirdly his ways are past finding out. His ways are past finding out. The language that the Apostle uses here is sort of the language of tracking something down, hunting.

It's the tracks, trying to find his tracks and understanding it, Tracing his ways, figuring out where he is going. This idea that finding the will of God is finding out what God is doing and then getting the light behind it. I don't know. I'm not sure about that. I'm sure there's a truth to it for sure.

But his tracks, his tracks are past finding out. We don't really know where he's going he may be doing something completely different he may be going somewhere that we have not figured out because we've discerned what he's doing. To think that we know what he's doing is presumptuous. His ways are past finding out. We cannot connect all the dots.

We cannot. In this life, we rightly engage in the discipline of systematic theology. We want to find out what God says about all these different things and to try to connect them as best we can with our feeble minds. This is the right thing to do. This is searching out the things of God.

This is the right thing to do. This is looking at the whole council of God. But we need to understand this, that all of the systematic theologies that have ever been written are inadequate. In all of them, something spills over the side that you just can't get your arms around every single part of it. One might say, I'm a Calvinist, and I am.

But there are things that slip over the edge of that wall. You might say, I'm an Arminian. Of course that wall would be full of holes! But we have to understand that nothing, none of our human constructs can get it all because his ways are past finding out. If they were completely rational to us, that would make us God.

They're not going to be completely rational. Do you think that all the things that you do are rational to your dog? Do you think your dog knows all of what you're thinking and doing? No. Why?

Your dog has a different kind of mind than you have. The dog's mind is, I think, wired for happiness, because the tails are always wagging. This is the glory of doghood. But the dog has a different kind of mind. You can actually kick a dog and he'll come wagging to you sometimes soon, quite unlike your children or your wife.

You would have to win your child back, you would have to win your wife back, but you do not have to work very hard to win your dog back. Why? Because the dog has a different mind than you do, And you and I have a different kind of mind than God does. I would be loath to make the parallel from God's mind to man's mind according to man's mind and a doggy mind but I'm not confident there's very much difference in the in the space between the thinking of the two there's a gigantic space and We talk about people who are feeble minded. That is so incredibly presumptuous.

That is so incredibly missing the gigantic growth that exists between the mind of God and the mind of man. The most feeble minded human being is not that much far away than the most brilliant scientific mind of man. It's just not that much of a difference. But There is a huge difference that separates the mind of God to the mind of all men. Even the very most feeble-minded are not that far away from each other as they are from God's mind.

His ways are past finding out. You know, Solomon was the wisest man that ever lived. How wise can you get? His ways are past finding out. You know, some of you have seen this movie, Expelled, right?

Which I think is a fantastic exposition of the stupidity of Darwinism and a few other things like that. But one of the interesting aspects of the movie is they make commentary on how Darwin made his conclusions okay Darwin Darwin didn't know very much Darwin had no idea of the complexity that was there. He was looking at completely boneheaded, gigantic samples to make his conclusions. When in fact, it was far, far more, infinitely more complex than he ever dreamed. If he knew how complex it was, would he have written that book?

He didn't know, because the tracks, if you just look here and try to track the tracks of God it doesn't work his ways are past finding out his ways are past finding out and then number four his mind is beyond our comprehension for who is known the mind of the Lord We've seen the gulf that exists between the judgments of God, the paths of God, the ways of God. Now it's the mind, who has known the mind of the Lord, the way that he thinks about things. He's beyond our mental capacity. Who has known the mind of the Lord the way that he thinks about things He's beyond our mental capacity Who has known the mind of the Lord the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ is above the mind of man. It's way above it.

This gospel of the wrath of God being satisfied by Christ, that his righteous requirements can only be met one way, is in the mind of God. We would not have created a salvation like this at all. But God has done it. Who has known the mind of the Lord? Last week I was reading the letters of Samuel Rutherford, that Scottish reformer who wrote the book, Lex Rex, Law is King.

And he says this in one of his letters your heart is not the compass that Christ sails by your heart is not the compass that Christ sails by. No. Why? It's his compass. It's his mind.

He is the one that tells us. We are creatures. We don't tell him how to save mankind. He declares how it would be done. Who has known the mind of the Lord?" And he quotes here, the Apostle Paul does, he quotes Isaiah 40, a beautiful passage.

He alludes to Job and he pulls together the doctrine of the sufficiency of the thinking of God in contrast to the insufficiency of the thinking of man but his mind is beyond our comprehension And then his plan does not need our counsel. His plan does not need our counsel, verse 34. Or who has become His counselor. It's, you know, God does not need our critique. God does not need our evaluation of the way that He is designed to save people.

The cross, the blood, Righteousness by faith alone might be displeasing to your own mind. That you are hopelessly lost might contradict your self-image. Your self-image might have arisen a little bit too high, and you would become the counselor of God. No, I'm not quite that way. What I need is something else.

His plan does not need our advice and it certainly does not need our critique. The role of man is to worship God, to delight in his ways, to humbly say, thus saith the Lord, and rest in it and be happy in it, and not try to figure it all out, to try to make it palatable to a wicked world that's gone so far off course. We so want to please the world that we'll try to redefine the gospel. We'll make it easier. We'll try to relate with people in a way that they can understand.

Well, the gospel is clear enough. We should deliver it. His plan does not need our counsel, and it certainly does not need our rebuttal or our modification. His plan does not need our counsel and His grace does not require our merit, verse 35. Or who is first given to Him and it shall be repaid to Him?

His grace doesn't require our merit. We like to think that we are givers. We like to think that we are givers. We like to think that we have committed our lives to God, and now he would bless us because we have done so many favors for him. This is just the thinking of fallen mind.

Beyond our ability to please Him, we stand in need of grace for everything. Even our most righteous deeds are in need of the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. If you ever thought you did a pure thing in your life, forget it. You never said a pure word. You never did a pure thing.

It was all somehow tainted by sin and his grace Fortunately does not require merit. I Cannot help myself the law cannot help me, my character cannot help me, what can wash away my sins? Nothing. Nothing but the blood of Jesus. You know, man wants to be saved by works.

This is the mind of man. If you had designed the world, you would have designed it differently. You would have designed it so that people would, that the nice people would be saved and the bad people would be rejected. That's the kind of world you and I would have created. And all you would have to do is do three or four or five things, just like all the great religions of the world have designed, and then you would be saved.

If you could just fix this part of your life up and that part of your life up, then you would be acceptable to God. That's man's religion. That's the religion of the Pharisees. The Pharisee stands up and he says, I've obeyed you from my youth. I fast twice a day.

I give alms to the poor. I'm a good person. I deserve to be saved. Today you might say, I am green. I am going to be good to the earth.

I'm going to give back. I'm going to be part of renewable energy sources. I'm going to be good to the world. Doesn't that make me worthy? Absolutely not.

No, no, not one thing, not one righteous act is weighed in the balances. We want to, We want to works by salvation. But here's the problem. God knows something that we don't know about ourselves. God knows The comprehensive nature of our depravity.

God knows that sin has covered everything we've ever done. That we can't do one thing. But that if we've broken one law, we've broken them all. God knows that. And so he's designed a salvation that's not dependent upon my works of righteousness.

If your salvation were dependent on your works, all of us would be lost. There would be no hope for the world. And God has designed a way that would satisfy his wrath and not send the whole world to hell. He's designed a way that his anger would be propitiated not dependent on our acts of righteousness. If we had designed it, it would not have worked because unrighteousness still would have been part of us.

And so God has not given us what we have wanted. It would have been a disaster to create salvation from the mind of man. And so grace does not require our merit. It doesn't require our merit. You know, we've been studying the Scottish reformers, read last week the account in Fox, the Book of Martyrs, of a couple of them.

The two that I read both went into the flames for about five beliefs and one of them, one of them was this. That there is no salvation by works. No salvation by works. In the testimony, in the trials, they were condemned for believing that salvation was by faith alone and not by works. And they were condemned and they were burned by the Roman Catholic Church because they did not understand the counsels of God regarding salvation.

For his grace does not require our merit. And finally, he does all things for his glory. This is the gospel. Again, this is a song of praise about the gospel, that his riches are unfathomable, his judgments are unsearchable, his ways are past finding out, his mind is beyond our comprehension, his plan does not need our counsel, his grace does not require our merit, and then finally, this last point that he makes, he does all things for his glory. Now, I want you to just make an observation about this last sentence.

What grade level is this sentence written at? What grade level is this last sentence written at? It's formed with monosyllabic words, for of Him and through Him and to Him are all things, to whom be glory forever. Amen. It's the simplest, It's the simplest academically almost that you can get.

It's almost like Dick and Jane. It's just a bunch of very short words that are so easy to understand. Isn't that amazing? Wrapping up all of the intentions of God is put right down on the shelf that a little child can understand. Isn't that amazing?

The stooping of God toward mankind and putting things in such beautiful and simple language for us. Everything ends with the glory of God. Of Him, take this, now remember, see how it is. For of Him, of Him, through Him, and to Him are all things. Of Him, everything comes from Him.

It comes out of him. He is the source of all things. Whatever is, is what he has brought about somehow. I don't know how to explain it. Who has known the mind of the Lord?

A man can receive nothing unless it's given him from heaven. By the grace of God I am what I am. Of him, it all comes of him. I just hope that's so encouraging to you in your present walk today. That all that is formed, what is right now, is of Him.

It has come out of Him. You can rest so securely in this world, how easy it is to become stressed out about what is. And yet God has said right here that all things are of him they have come they've descended from him and you can you can you could rejoice in the blessing of the way that God has ordered the world at this very present moment. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change and the mountains slip into the heart of the sea. Because there's a God in heaven and there's a river whose streams shall make glad the city of God.

All things come of, they are of him and then through him everything comes through him everything that has come has has passed through the filter of his own creative will which he has begun from eternity past everything that Everything that is to you now has come through God. You might think that, you know, who's frustrating to you today? Who is making you angry? Who makes you mad? Who has broken up the path of your feet who is exasperating in your life well guess let me tell you this they have come through the Lord Jesus Christ to you their gifts of God they have come through him.

He is a sustainer of all things as all things come through him. David spoke of it in Psalm 104. He said, these all wait for you, that you give them their food in due season. What you give them, they gather in. You open your hand, and they are filled with good.

You hide your face and they are troubled. You take away their breath, they die and return to the dust. You send forth your Spirit and they are created and you renew the face of the earth. May the glory of the Lord endure forever. May the Lord rejoice in his works.

He is causing all things to pass through him to you and he would withhold from you and give to you because all things are of Him and through Him and through Him and to Him. Of Him, through Him, and to Him. That means everything leads to God. The God of glory is what all things point to. You cannot point to one single thing on this planet that is not designed to bring glory to God.

You may loathe it, but this would be not thinking quite rightly about the object of your loathing. The glory of God controls the universe, His will is unstoppable, and what we've read here in Romans that he will bring many sons to glory this is the object of his will he is bringing many sons to glory everything of him everything through him and everything to him is to bring many sons to glory. That's what it's all about, that it would be glorified in his name. So God is the beginning and the end, is the Alpha and the Omega. And because of that we can say oh oh oh the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God how unsearchable are his judgments in his ways past finding out who is known the mind of the Lord or who has become his counselor or who who has given to him that it might be repaid to them for of him and through him and to him are and to him are all are all things.

So let's move to some application. This first one might be a small thing, might seem like a small thing in view of all that we've talked about. But I want you to make an observation here. Is Paul's mind is saturated with scripture. He's praising God and he's pulling, he's pulling from all over scripture and it's just coming through it right that go and do the same memorize the Word of God hide it in your heart dedicate time to it fathers do not let your children's lives go by without hiding the word of God in your heart.

Everything will war against it, but do not allow it to happen, fathers. You are the key. If your children go into adulthood without being able to pull from all over, it would be your responsibility that you didn't do it. Don't do it. Take control over your schedule and your life and do it and it's not legalism to do it okay it is love that would do it Paul is saturated with scripture and he cannot even speak a paragraph without pulling from Isaiah or Job or somewhere else because he has it.

Let's be a people that don't live like the Gentiles and are running around like chickens with our heads cut off, pursuing every other kind of interesting entertainment and activity and accomplishment. Let's don't be like that. Let's live differently so that the Word of God dwells richly in our hearts. Okay. That's not the point of this passage, but the observation just was upon me this week.

Number two, Could it be that we would find more understanding of the purpose of our existence? Why are we created? And could we find more joy in it? We are created for the glory of God. Everything, Everything of our lives is for one purpose, and that is for the glory of God.

Not our own glory, not our own comfort at all, but for the glory of God. One can glorify God just as well on a sinking ship or a sailing ship. God can be glorified just as well in a heated discussion or a sweet discussion. God is meant to be glorified in all things. And you know, have you accepted that all things have come from God?

If you don't accept that, you can't find the happiness that there is in living for the glory of God. It's living for our own glory that destroys our joy and our happiness in this life. I know it's true with me. When I'm concerned with my own glory, my countenance always falls and I get angry at somebody. Are you like that?

I know you're like that because we're all like that. The glory of God is the purpose of all things. It's the way of all happiness and relationship and love. If you're concerned about your own glory, you restrict love in this world. You withhold it.

And you find yourself out of sorts with those who are designed to help you bring glory to God. So find joy in the purpose of your existence. And then number three, put the final nail in the coffin of self-righteousness. Put the final nail in the coffin of self-righteousness. Unfortunately, that final nail would just beg another nail.

We'll just, I'm pretty confident that we'll bang a nail in for self-righteousness and say that's the final nail and then after some period of time we will exalt ourselves above someone and find that there's another nail in the coffin of self-righteousness that is necessary. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't quit pounding the nails. Let's set it deeply here this morning, that there is no righteousness in us. I deserve the wrath of God. I've suppressed the truth and unrighteousness I have sinned there is none righteous and I will quit arguing with God about my nature and my election Number four Embrace embrace and believe the gospel.

Embrace and believe the gospel. Acknowledge worldliness, acknowledge sin, and that we are all under the condemnation of our Creator for our suppressing the truth and unrighteousness. And even though we are religious and moral and nice people, we are rebels against his will and we despise the riches of his goodness. That we make God in our own image and we want him to save the way that we would have him saved. We create a salvation whereby we can save ourselves.

But it won't do any good because God's righteous character demands perfect righteousness. And we don't have it in ourselves. It doesn't exist. And so in order to satisfy His righteousness, He had to find a scapegoat to take the penalty for all of our unrighteousness. So that some in the world would be saved out.

So that all wouldn't be lost in perdition. And this is the wisdom of God. And He's made a way for sinners. And His infinite riches of wisdom, His judgments which are unsearchable, His ways which are past finding out, which come from the Lord, which are not improved by our righteousness or our advice or our gifts of service. And so the wisdom of God, these riches, are expressed in the sending of a son who was born of a woman who was crucified and rose from the dead on the third day as a sacrifice to save sinners from the penalties that they so deserved, to demonstrate the righteousness of God.

For the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, for as it is written, the just shall live by faith. This doxology can be summed up in those words there. Would you pray with me? Lord, thank you for this salvation that you have accomplished for the sending of your Son, how awful it would be if our salvation were dependent upon ourselves, and how helpful, Lord, you have been to us in your own wisdom to bring us a salvation that is consistent with the way the world is made. Amen.