The First Thing We Need to Know

From The Good News We Almost Forgot by Kevin DeYoung: 

• The first thing we need in order to experience the comfort of the gospel is to be made uncomfortable with our sin.

From The Heidelberg Catechism Lord's Day 2:

Q. From where do you know your sins and misery? 

A. From the law of God.

• Romans 3:20 Therefore by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin.

Q. What does God’s law require of us? 

A. Christ teaches us this in a summary in Matthew 22: 

• You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. 
• Deuteronomy 6:5 “You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.”  

This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it, You shall love your neighbor as yourself: On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets.

• Leviticus 19:18 “You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the children of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD.

Q. Can you keep all this perfectly? 

A. No, 

• Romans 3:10 As it is written: “There is none righteous, no, not one.” 
• Romans 3:23 …for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. 
• 1 John 1:8,10 ...If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, & the truth is not in us. 10 If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His Word is not in us.

I am inclined by nature to hate God and my neighbor.

• Genesis 6:5 Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. 
• Genesis 8:21 And the LORD smelled a soothing aroma. Then the LORD said in His heart, “I will never again curse the ground for man’s sake, although the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth; nor will I again destroy every living thing as I have done.” 
• Jeremiah 17:9 “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?” 
• Romans 7:23 But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. 
• Romans 8:7 Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be. 
• Ephesians 2:3…among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others. 
• Titus 3:3 For we ourselves were also once foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving various lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another.

From The Good News We Almost Forgot by Kevin DeYoung

• I'll be damned, discouraged, and dismayed if being a follower of Jesus means nothing but a new set of things I'm supposed to do for Him.  Instead, my following Jesus should be, first of all, a declaration of all that He has done for me.