The gospel of Jesus Christ is good news because God and man can have relationship and fellowship. This gospel involves the relationship of two entities: God and man. Last Sunday we shared about the holiness and justice of God. The demand of God is for us "to be perfect even as our Father which is in Heaven is perfect."

The other part of the equation in salvation is man and therein is a great problem. While God demands perfection, man in and of himself is totally sinful. Thus, the question that rocks eternity: how can a holy and pure God have relationship with sinful man? We’ll answer that later, but let us see the basis for our statement that "man is totally sinful."

Who makes such a statement? One thing I know for sure is that man didn’t. We feel much better about ourselves and have a higher view of ourselves than that. Our basic premise about ourself is that "I’m ok, you’re ok." The fact of the matter is that I’m not ok and you are not ok.

So, let’s look at the issue of Man. And when I think of man, I ask the question the Psalmist asked in Psalm 8: 4 "What is man that You are mindful of him, and the son of man that you visit him?"

Who is man?

Man was created by God.

Job 10:8 "Your hands have made me and fashioned me."

Genesis 1: 27 "So God created man in His own image;…"

Like God, we have understanding, will, a conscience, soul, and a spirit and have been made more valuable than animals and other created beings of God.

How do I know he is a sinful being?

He was not created sinful because when God made man he declared of His creation, "Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good." (Genesis 1:31)

But man became a sinner because in the image of God he had a free will that he used to choose his own path.

He disobeyed God (Genesis 3: 1-12) and blamed others for the sin (Eve blamed God and Adam blamed Eve).

We are even sinners because of what we don’t do. James 4:17 "Therefore, to him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin." We make the choice not to do things we know we should do; thus we sin.

Man is a sinner because of the nature he was given by his parents.

Genesis 5:3 "Adam begat a son in his likeness."

Psalm 51:5 "Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in my sin my mother conceived me."

Job 25:4 "How then can man be righteous before God? Or how can he be pure who is born of a woman?"

Romans 5:12 "Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned-"

I know man is sinful because of the issues of the consequences we deal with.

Sin came with shame/guilt and with punishment. The shame and guilt is seen in that Adam and Eve were hiding from God because they were naked (Genesis 3:8,10). They were punished just as God said they would be if they sinned (Genesis 2:17). They immediately died in their close, intimate relationship with God, then they begin dieing in their bodies and relationships with one another finally resulting in Cain killing Abel and then they eventually died in their bodies.

The punishment of sin is death.

"The wages of sin is death." Romans 6:23

"The soul who sins shall die." Ezekiel 18:4

Everyone has problems with guilt, shame, aging, and death. So, we are all sinners.

Galatians 3:22 "But the Scripture has confined all under sin."

So, if we declare that we are not sinners, then we are liars and the truth is not in us. I John 1: 8 "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us." And we make God a liar. I John 1:10 "If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us."

Why would I say that?

Because all that we do is sinful and the more we do the more sinful we become.

We have this feeling that we can do "good deeds" and it will be counted for us as "good." But not according to not God.

Hebrews 6:1 says that we have been saved "from dead works." That means our works (deeds) have no power to produce anything good or living. They are dead.

Not only are they dead, but they are dirty. "But we are all like an unclean thing; and all our righteousness are like filthy rags;" Isaiah 64:6

What we do that we think is good is actually filthy rags in God’s eyes. These rags are to be discarded because they are not useable.

And because of the truth of God’s word about breaking the law. You see, we believe if someone doesn’t do a few bad sins that he is a good person. But listen to what God says. James 2:10 "For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all."

If you "stumble" in one part of the law then you are guilty of breaking all the law. If I tell one lie, then I am as guilty as he who murders, commits adultery or steals.

Because of this one breaking of the law, we are cursed. "For as many as are of the works of the law are made the curse, for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who does not continual in all things which are written in the book of the law, to do them.’" Galatians 3:10

So, the conclusion… Romans 3: 10-12 "There is none righteous, no not one; There is none who understands. There is none who seeks after God. They have all gone out of the way; They have together become unprofitable, there is none who does good, no, not one."

Since God is a holy and just God and man is a sinful man, the two cannot exist together; thus man is separated from God.

Habakkuk 1:13 "You are of purer eyes than to behold evil; and cannot look on wickedness."

God has always separated Himself from sin. He did so with Adam when He sinned and He did so with His own son, Jesus, when he became sin on the cross.

All of this is bad news, very bad news because it means we are forever separated from God with no hope on our part to ever do any better or make a way back to God.

But remember, you can’t have good news until you have bad news. And since we have bad news, then we can have good news and that is the gospel. God made a way through His son who was both God and man and through Christ, we have hope.

I will speak more about this next Sunday, but now, trust not in yourself, but only in Christ.

"Dear Lord, I recognize I am a sinner and cannot change myself or better myself. I know you are the Son of God who loves me and has made a way for me to have a relationship with God. Forgive me of my sin and change my life. I believe in Christ alone for my salvation. I give Jesus the control of my life and will follow Him the rest of my life, in Jesus name."

Invitation Hymn: "Without Him"