Alright, we're going to get started
in Romans 2. Romans 2, verses 12 through 16. Romans 2, verses 12 through 16. Now, this morning, what we'll
see is that in verse 11, it expands upon the principle that God is
no respecter of persons. God is no respecter of persons. And then we see why. In verse
12, why is God no respecter of persons? Well, it's because all
men are sinners. That's what verse 12 is telling
us, is that regardless of who you are, all men are sinners,
and therefore, God our creator and judge, the one who we are
accountable to, who created us and has the right and rule over
us, he's no respecter of us because we're all sinners. We've all
rebelled against him. So verse 12 tells us why, what
I just said there. It says, for as many as have
sinned without law shall also perish without law. And as many
as have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law. And then, it's best if you read
verse 16, right after verse 12. So in verse 12, we saw that everyone
shall either perish without law or be judged by the law. And
verse 16, in the day, when God shall judge the secrets of men
by Jesus Christ according to my gospel. So, verse 12 tells
us why God is no respecter of persons, and verse 16 tells us
who's going to judge men. It's the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the one that's going to
judge us. How? By what measure will he judge
men? Well, by Paul's gospel, he says. And we know that Paul's gospel
in chapter 1, he describes it in three ways. The gospel of
God. It's the gospel of his son. It's the gospel of Christ. So that's Paul's gospel. It's
that which declares to us God's salvation in the person of his
darling son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, verses 13 and 15 that come
between verses 12 and 16, verses 13 through 15, these are parenthetical. They even have little parentheses
in there, which means that you could take them out without doing
any damage or harm to the meaning of verses 12 and 16. But verses
13 through 15, they are given to help explain man's problem. It tells us what man's problem
with his deal is, and that's whether he's under the law, whether
he'll appear under the law or appear without. Law all right,
and so all men are sinners. That's what we see throughout
these verses all men are sinners and any man Outside of the Lord
Jesus Christ who will appear before God because all will appear
before God anyone outside of Christ they will not have a righteousness
to hide him and They may think their works are righteous, but
they will not have any righteousness to appear before the Lord Him,
they will have nothing to boast of, and in reality they are described
as being naked and therefore ashamed. Everything will be laid
bare, meaning it will be laid naked before the eye of the Lord,
and therefore their works will appear naked and insufficient,
unable to cover their sin. Alright? So they're going to
be ashamed in the day of judgment. Our title is, In Christ We Stand. In Christ We Stand. And we'll
just have two divisions. First, we'll see that all are
sinners, And then we're going to see that man's problem is
explained in verses 13 through 15. All right, so let's begin
here. Paul's just declared to us in
verse 11 that God is no respect, he's not a respecter of persons.
There's no respect of persons with God. And he tells us why
God doesn't respect men or honor men or glory glory in man, or
glorify man, and that's what men want, right? They want to
be honored, they want to be respected, and it's similar to ourselves. I mean, we're fallen creatures,
and we get offended when we feel like we've been disrespected,
right? We think that people owe us a
certain level of respect. Well, how much more our Creator,
who is God, and has every right over us and he created us and
he has every right for our love and affection and attention and
worship of him. So God doesn't respect us because
we don't respect him and we sinned against him. We are rebels against
the true and living God. But the Lord lays us all out
in a plane. The mountains are low, the valleys
are raised up. That's what he tells us in Luke
3 that everything is leveled out by the Lord and all men are
sinners so that we understand We don't have anything to glory
in. Not before God, and not over one another either. We've got
nothing to glory in. And so, man, if you notice, we're
always looking for an excuse. We're always looking for a reason
to justify our behaviors and what we've done. And so rather
than fall before the Lord and hear what he's saying, or a sinner,
I'm a sinner, you're a sinner, we are dependent upon His grace
and mercy. Instead of falling down before
Him and seeking His mercy and grace and kindness toward us,
we we are turned sooner, in our flesh we're turned to justify
ourselves and find an excuse for our behavior. So, as long
as no one is challenging us with the truth, we're fine going on
in our ways, but as soon as someone tells us the truth, we feel threatened
in our refuge of lies because we don't like people poking around
and asking questions or just checking around what we're doing
because we feel, all right, I don't want the light shining on me.
No, thank you. We don't want that. But Paul
tells us whether we've tried to come to God and serve God
through the law of Moses, or we're coming outside of the law
of Moses, through some law that we've been raised under by our
parents or by our grandparents or the things we learned in the
schoolyard from our friends or the moors and all those values
that we learned there, however it is that we are living and
saying, this is my role, this is how I do things. the scriptures
teach, Paul is teaching us that however you come you're going
to be judged. All men are going to be condemned
by their works whether they have the law of Moses or they don't
have the law of Moses. So all who come to God outside
of Christ they will receive what they've earned, which is the
wages of sin, which is death. And then he says in verse 12,
for as many as have sinned without law shall also perish without
law. And as many as have sinned in
the law shall be judged by the law. And so the Jew that Paul
is writing to here, he was trusting in his law and his ceremonies,
very outward if you notice. He just was adhering the best
he could to what the law said and what his scribes and Pharisees
and teachers were teaching him to do. And if for some reason
the law wasn't enough, well he could always go back to the fact
that that he comes from the lineage of Abraham and they still trust
in that to this day. I used to work with a lot of
Jewish people and they were very clear. I'm a child of Abraham,
and you're not. And they trusted in that, and
they trusted in their circumcision, and they trusted in the fact
that they didn't eat pork. For whatever reason, that was their
three big things, was being a child of Abraham, circumcised, and
not eating pork. That was their three main things
that they gloried in. They looked at the Gentiles as
being morally insufficient to their glory and what they could
glory in and trust in. But Paul says all are sinners. And we actually do things similarly. If you ever notice yourself when
you're driving down the highway, and you're, you know, say you're
in a 70 mile an hour zone and you're doing about 79 or even
80, you feel good as long as there's someone else in the left
lane going by you a little bit faster. And you feel like, well,
if there's a police officer up ahead, he's not going to look
at me. He's going to look at that guy who just drove past
me going even faster. So we feel like I'm okay because
there's someone worse than me. And that's how we do it with
other people. We look at our cousin or somebody
that we work with or a neighbor and say, well, look at that guy.
He's awful. So clearly God is happy with
me and everything's all right with me because I'm not like
him. And I can see the fruits of his labors and what he's doing. He's getting what he deserves,
but I must be doing alright. So the Lord is teaching us that
all are sinners and all are under condemnation. All will be judged
by God and it will be just because we've all earned that judgment,
that condemnation. So the Jew shouldn't trust in
their law-keeping because even if you've done pretty well in
law keeping, you've broken the whole law. You've offended. Even
if you've offended in one part, you've broken it all. And Paul
reaffirms this when he's speaking in Romans 3. When we go to Romans
3 verse 9, he says, what then? Are we, are we Jews better than
they, those Gentiles? No. and no wise for we have before
proved both Jews and Gentiles that they are all under sin."
So he's really continuing to show us this truth. He's repeating
it over and over in Romans. so that we understand I'm a sinner
just like everyone else and I've got nothing to glory in. I always
need the grace of God. I always need the salvation He's
provided in His Son. And that should keep us humble,
especially towards one another and those without because we
see I'm a sinner just like everyone and I have nothing to glory in.
except Christ, and that's the only one I can boast in, alright?
So, those who do their best and judge those who aren't as good
as they are, they will be sorry in the day of judgment, because
they'll see that they've got nothing, you know, they're a
sinner just like everyone else and brought into condemnation.
And James says it this way, You know, because when we're judging
another, we're being a respecter of persons, right? When we look
at our circle of friends and say, well, we're all pretty good
people, and I'm happy to be with them, I don't want to be with
them because, now, I mean, there's time, there's wisdom in not going
with certain crowds, but to think that we are safe because we're
not as bad as them, that's where we're becoming respecters of
persons. And listen to how James words it, or you can go there
in James 2, verses 9 and 10. It's probably good to see this,
but... It's interesting because people who love the law, they
delight in James and they look to James, but James tells us
in James 2 verse 9, but if ye have respect to persons, and
he words it that way, if you have respect to persons, if you're
looking at others and you're judging by their exterior appearance
or by something they do or don't do, if you're a respecter of
persons, ye commit sin. and are convinced of the law
as transgressors, for whosoever shall keep the whole law and
yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all." The whole thing. So, Paul shows us that, and Paul
and James, that everywhere in the scriptures it's showing all
men are sinners and have nothing to boast or glory in. And then
the person without law, they will also be judged as a sinner
because it says in verse 12, for as many as have sinned without
law shall also perish without law. So what we're seeing is
that the law was not given. to make men righteous. And I
know in religion, in the midst of that confusion, I know that
I heard several times in various ways it was worded, but, for
example, one way was that, well, God wouldn't have given a law
if we couldn't keep it. God wouldn't do that, which is
directly contrary to what the scriptures teach, why the law
was given. The law was given, if you look
at Romans 3, verse 19, Paul says, now we know that what
thing soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the
law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may
become guilty before God. Therefore, by the deeds of the
law, there shall no flesh be justified in God's sight. For
by the law is the knowledge of sin. So God didn't give us the
law because we can keep it. God gave us the law. and we see
the law and hear what the law is saying because we're to know,
oh, I'm not perfect either. I'm also a sinner. I've also
offended God. I've broken the law in this way
and in that way and over here I do it and there's ways I don't
even understand that I'm breaking the law all the time. So it's
to shut our mouths so that we stop boasting about goodness
and mocking others and treating others wrongfully because they're
sinners. Because we're all sinners. We're
all guilty of it. And that's why the law was given. So with or without law, man's
going to perish as a sinner. Now when someone is here and
they hear that truth, and they don't have the Spirit of God,
they usually have one objection or another. There's usually two
objections that they might have. One of the objections is that,
well, for those that have the Law of Moses, they should be
shown grace, they should be shown some kind of favor, some kind
of pass, because God gave them the Law, and they're doing the
best that they can do, shouldn't they be? forgiven of God. Shouldn't they be excused? They
have the law. They're doing the best that they can. And then
the other objection, that's one. The other objection is, well,
what about those people that don't have the law? They didn't
have a chance to do what was right. Shouldn't they be given
grace and given a pass and excused for offending God as a sinner? Because they didn't have the
law, so shouldn't they get a pass? So everybody should get a pass
according to how the flesh judges it. Everyone should should find
some wiggle room before God. And so they're always looking
for that justification. So these objections are the things that
are dealt with in verses 13 through 15. And so, but I would say,
because sometimes people get confused when they look at verses
13 and 15. So if you're confused, you know, one of the things that
people come away with is, wait a minute, is Paul saying that
some people won't go to hell for their sin because they never
heard the gospel, they never heard the law, and so they get
a little confused. All you have to do is go back
and look at verses 12 and 16, and they're very clear that all
are sinners and all will be judged for either their failure to keep
the law or their failure to keep the law. One, the law of Moses,
and one, their own law. All right, so verse 13. Paul
deals first with the Jew, and he says, for not the hearers
of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall
be justified. All right, and so Paul is saying,
well, we know that just because we sit here, right, or just because
we sit really in any of these churches out there where they
preach the law. Just because we're there hearing it and doing
outwardly religious things, whatever they tell us are the things that
we should be doing, he's saying you're not justified by that.
God's not pleased with that type of service to him because you're
trusting in those works and you think that you're better because
you trust in them and that God has somehow how impressed with
that. So the outward form of religion
does not save us. And we'll see that more so in
the next hour in Mark 12 there. But it doesn't save us. And just so we all understand,
because I've been asked before, what does that mean, save us?
Save us from what? What is God saving us from? Or
what are we being saved from? And what we're to understand
by that is because we're all sinners, There's a punishment
for sin. There's a judgment coming for
sin. We've all earned that judgment.
For God to save us, it means for us to be delivered from that
judgment, from the penalty of sin. And he does that deliverance,
he saves us from that penalty, that judgment, hell, through
his son Jesus Christ. That's why Christ was sent, was
to put away the sin of the people. And so Paul's laying out that
we're all sinners, and then Christ came to put away the sin of His
people so that He bore the judgment, He bore the penalty of sin, that
His people and Him, all His people that He came for, they go free
from that punishment, from that judgment in Christ. It's by His
blood that that payment was paid to God so that He's earned our
righteousness. we're righteous in him, all right? So that outward form of religion
cannot save us. And so what we see is that God
didn't give us the law to just play with and to get a good,
you know, just to see a few things and to do our best with it and
then say, well, you did your best, so I'm gonna save you and
you didn't do your best, so I'm not gonna and I have mercy on
you. None of us have done our best.
We've all done our best to sin against him and rebel against
him. That's the best we've done. But it's really, it goes deeper
than that outward performance. And he said to the Pharisees,
Matthew 5, 20, that except your righteousness shall exceed the
righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees. Ye shall in no
wise enter the kingdom of heaven. And I know in religion, You see
that, and what do you do? And what do they teach you? Well,
you've got to even be better than them. You've got to do more
of the law than the Pharisee. It's got to be even more. And
so it's just, they constantly drive you away from Christ and
into the arms of the law, thinking that somehow that's going to
make you righteous. And all it does is make you an
exactor, and a judger, and a respecter of persons. and trusting your
own work, so it causes us to be breakers of the law and greater
offenders of the law and more filthy in the sight of God because
our righteousnesses are filthy rags in his sight. In Romans
3.21 it says, 3.21 and 22, but now the righteousness of God without
the law is manifested being witnessed by the Law and
the Prophets, even the righteousness of God, which is by faith of
Jesus Christ. unto all and upon all them that
believe for there is no difference. All are sinners and the only
way that we're going to be saved and forgiven before God is through
the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ is the righteousness of
the Jew who ceases to look to the law and looks to Christ and
Christ is the Savior of the Gentile who doesn't have the law but
had some type of thing that they were trusting in. and is turned
from that and looks to Christ. So he's the Savior of all men,
regardless. That's the only way that any
of us are saved. And so Christ is answering the
objection of both. Whether you're coming through
the law or you're not coming through the law, Christ is the
only Savior given to men, whereby we must be saved. And in Romans
2, 14 and 15, it says, for when the Gentiles which have not the
law do by nature the things contained in the law, these having not
the law are a law unto themselves. So he's not saying that they
go free. Let me just read 15. Which show
the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience
also bearing witness, and their thoughts the meanwhile accusing
or else excusing one another. And all he's saying is that all
of us have a law that we follow. It doesn't have to be called
the Law of Moses. It's just we all have it and the reality is
we don't even abide by it. We don't even do what we're supposed
to do according to what we think, what we say is the right thing
to do. And you see that there's a some form of law in every culture. I mean, every culture knows it's
not right to murder, and every culture knows it's not right
to commit adultery against your neighbor or anybody, and everybody
knows it's not right to steal from your neighbor or anyone. And so we all have this understanding,
even though they may not have the law, but we all understand
that we've broken it in some way. So, everyone knows. So, in Romans 3, 23 through 26,
we see, "...so that all have sinned and come short of the
glory of God." And he says, "...being justified freely by His grace
through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God hath
set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood, to
declare His righteousness for the remission of sins that are
passed through the forbearance of God, to declare, I say at
this time, His righteousness, that He might be just, and the
justifier of him which believeth in Jesus." And so, because all
are sinners, the glory, the comfort in that is because everyone is
a sinner, God has provided salvation in His Son for His people, so
that His blood has availed. It's what covers our sin. It's what washes away our sin. It's what makes us righteous
before God, because He paid the penalty in my place. He's the one who bore the wrath
of God in my place. Christ is the substitute of His
people. And that's why he was sent, to
be that substitute, to put away that sin for his people, because
there's nothing we can do, there's no law we can follow that will
ever wipe away the guilt and shame of our sin and the offense
that we've committed against God. So that's why God himself
provided himself the lamb to put away the sin, to be the sacrifice
for his people. So man is always looking for
an excuse and so man hates the truth of God and so he hates
the God that sent the salvation that's sent his son, and he hates
the son who was sent the father. He continues to rebel and hate
God. And so the Lord is revealing
to us, we see in that, the need therefore that, well, the only
way that I'm delivered from this delusion and this trust in my
own works, the only way that I'm delivered from that is for
the Spirit of God to regenerate us. That's why God has to be
the one that gives us life. and enables us to see my darkness,
my death, my imprisonment, all the filth that I'm wrapped up
in, only God can deliver me from that. And so it's through that
regenerative work of the Spirit that makes these truths known
to us, makes us to see our need of Him and to see and behold
the sufficiency of Christ His Savior, the land that He's provided. So it's God that gives that life
and that light for us to see and to behold it. And that's
why we see in 2 Thessalonians 2, verses 13 and 14, and why
we go there frequently, because it's so clear to reveal to us
the truth of that regeneration, that it's a work of God. As Paul
said, but we are bound to give thanks all the way to God for
you. So it always goes back to God. He gets the thanks. Brethren,
beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen
you to salvation. through sanctification of the
Spirit, the Spirit setting you apart for this salvation. He set you apart to hear this
gospel, set you apart to believe the gospel, set you apart by
the blood of Christ to be washed in his blood and made righteous
before God. So that Well, where unto or I'm
sorry through the sanctification of the spirit and belief of the
truth Where unto he called you by our gospel to the obtaining
of the glory of the of our Lord Jesus Christ So that call we
see is effectual and that's a good a good verse 2nd Thessalonians
2 14 That's a good verse to show the effectual Calling of the
Spirit of God. We shall hear we shall believe
He shall be brought to know and shall be brought to that deliverance
in Christ because it's the will of God. He's effectual. He does
not fail and he's never frustrated. Alright, so believers, because
of this work, because of the work of God in Christ, we're
ready to stand. We're ready to stand before God,
even now. And when you look at yourself
in your own flesh, you realize, you know, I'm not perfect in
this flesh. And God's not looking to this
flesh for us to be perfect in ourselves. He's not He's not
making us moral exactors of one another. It's not that. The thing
is that we're brought to see is our need of Christ, our need
of His mercy and forgiveness. And so we too deal kindly and
gently with one another knowing that God is dealing kindly and
gently with me and that we continue to need His grace and mercy.
And so he's doing that work in us. And so we see that Christ
has done everything necessary so that God is now just to forgive
us of all our sins. There's nothing wrong with God
forgiving you of your sin because of Christ, what Christ has done
for you in shedding his blood and in bearing that wrath and
shedding his blood under the wrath of God for his people.
So unbelievers, the Jew and the Gentile, with law or without
law, These shall stand before God naked and ashamed." Right? The books will be laid open,
made bare, made naked, made plain, and so all who come in their
own works, they shall be laid bare and naked before God and
shall be ashamed because they have no covering or righteousness.
That's in the day, Romans 2, 16, in the day when God shall
judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my gospel. So we as men and women, we may
think that our sin is well hidden. Those without Christ, outside
of Christ, we may think we've hidden our sin well and that
no one will ever uncover it, right? And usually we hide it
under a justification and think, well, I had to do that. because
of this. And so then I did that because
of that. And so we have this justification
and we think that we'll be able to answer God for those things,
but all those outside of Christ, there is no answer for. A sin
is a sin is a sin. And that's not our hope, that
we can answer each sin, that we can find a justification in
ourselves. Our hope is the Lord Jesus Christ. So all who stand before God in
Christ, they won't be ashamed. because Christ has put away all
our sins. I hope the Lord convinces you
of the effectual work of Christ
our Savior and what He's accomplished, that salvation, that He convinces
you of that and that He gives you that rest in the Lord Jesus
Christ. Rest right there. Keep looking
to Him. Don't look back to the law. Don't
look back to the law of Moses or the law of mom and dad or
anything like that because it cannot save you. for all sinners
and God's provided salvation in His Son, Jesus Christ. Let's
pray. Our gracious Lord, we thank You,
Father, for the grace, for the forgiveness, for the mercy that
You've provided in Your Son, Jesus Christ. Lord, we see in
these passages Chapters 1 and 2, how all men are sinners. All
are guilty before you. Lord, help us break our hearts
that we not trust in these works. And Lord, those of us who have
heard and looked to Christ, keep us, Lord, from looking back to
self, looking to the flesh, looking to some law for sanctification
or justification. Lord, help us to see that Christ
has provided everything necessary for us to stand faultless before
the throne of God. It's in Christ Jesus' name that
we pray. Amen.