People are fundamentally evil, but they still try to carry out virtues in order to disguise themselves. However, trying to cover their evils with a tiny virtue is like trying to cover up the sky with the palm of a hand. Human beings are themselves filthy and obscene, and so how can we say that people are virtuous? What goodness is there in human beings? On the contrary, people have to confess their wickedness and receive the perfect remission of their sins as white as snow by believing in the Word of the Bible, which is the Word of God. And then, after having become righteous by receiving the remission of their sins, they have to pursue the true goodness of God, not the hypocrisy of human beings. They have to throw away all their hypocrisies and evils, and they must then follow the true goodness of God.

How do we know that we are filthy and obscene beings? It isn’t by the fact that we have committed such sins in our own acts, but rather, we realize so by the fact that when we reflect ourselves upon the Word of God, we cannot help but admit that all those evils are indeed found in our hearts.

“But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God” (John 3:21).

Jesus washed away all our sins with His baptism, His blood on the Cross, His death, and His resurrection. Therefore to believe in His baptism and His death on the Cross is to be saved from all sin. This is the faith of redemption.

https://www.bjnewlife.org/en/sermons/sermonsDetail.php?idx=2964&findLang=English