Let's start in verse 25 of chapter
2. The word of the Lord says, for circumcision
indeed is of value if you obey the law. But if you break the
law, your circumcision becomes uncircumcision. So, if a man
who is uncircumcised keeps the precepts of the law, will not
his uncircumcision be regarded as circumcision? Then he who
is physically uncircumcised but keep the law will condemn you
who have written code and circumcision but break the law. For no one
is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and
physical, but a Jew is one inwardly. And circumcision is a matter
of the heart, by the spirit, not the letter. His praise is
not from man, but from God. Then what advantage has the Jew? Or what is the value of circumcision? Much in every way. To begin with,
the Jews were entrusted with the oracles of God. What if some
were unfaithful? Does their faithlessness nullify
the faithfulness of God? By no means. Let God be true,
though everyone were a liar, as it is written, that you may
be justified in your words and prevail when you are judged.
But if our unrighteousness serves to show the righteousness of
God, what shall we say? That God is unrighteous to inflict
wrath on us? I speak in a human way. By no
means. For then how could God judge
the world? But if through my lie, God's
truth abounds to His glory, why am I still being condemned as
a sinner? And why not do evil that good
may come? As some people slanderously charge
us with saying, their condemnation is just. Now let's just say on
the onset, this is probably one of the most problematic, conglomerate
in the book of Romans. Until you get over to chapter
9, this is one of those things. Matter of fact, if you really
think about it, Paul starts chapter 9 right here. He starts right
here, and then he fills in a whole bunch of other stuff, and he
goes, oh, let me pick this back up, and he gets right back into it. There
are many, many, many, many things that we need to deal with to
effectively say we have tackled this text. Because of what I
want to do with this letter, we are not going to verse by
verse every single thing that's here. Otherwise we'd be in this
5, 6, 7, 8, 9 years. So we're reading through Romans
in the same manner that we read through Revelation, and we're
taking it precept by precept, thought by thought, rather than
word by word, verse by verse. It's still exposition, but it's
done in a more meaty manner, in larger chunks than in small,
tiny, bite-sized pieces. Forget the idea that the three's
there, and recognize that Paul is continuing the conversation
about the fact that the Jews in his audience had a sense of
pride and a prestigious self-righteousness in their own minds because they
were Hebrew people. Keep in mind also that from a
righteous standpoint, from a point of view of morality and obedience,
from a human point of view as Paul puts it, that those Jews
who were now Christians by confession were very righteous people. Also keep in mind that at this
time in first century Palestine, the people who were rejecting
the gospel of Jesus by large population were ethnic Jews. Okay. We have some things here
at the end of last week, at the end of chapter, actually the
week before, at the end of chapter two, that makes us question some
things. And I want to just reiterate
what we looked at there, for when it talks about circumcision
is of value if you obey the law, I want to just sort of put this
in the right position that Paul is arguing. He's saying circumcision
is of value if you obey the law. Let's change that to something
that's more relative to our to our day. Let's say baptism is
a value. If you obey the law. Okay. We
can understand. Oh, you've been baptized. You've
confessed that you're a Christian and you're walking in the word.
Good at a boy. All right. That's not necessarily
the same parallel that Paul's dealing with here, but it is
something that we can relate to. Or we could say, okay, you've
confessed Christ. You've joined the church. So
you better follow after Christ. All right? So there's things
there that will help us see the picture that a Jew would hear
when he talked about circumcision. But see, the way the Jew looked
at circumcision is the same way the Jew looked at the obedience
to the precepts of Moses. It's the same way that the Jew
would look at their own lineage. It's the same way that a Jew
would look at his entirety of his nation and say, we are in
the covenant of God because we are Hebrew people. And we are good Hebrews because
we are circumcised. And we are obedient, ergo we
are worthy of God's righteous eternal life. Which Paul has
already said, no, you're not. You're guilty. And so he's continuing
to show that there is a guilt for the Gentile and a guilt for
the Jew. It's interesting that this week
I had someone ask me, is it better fitting according to this text,
verse 28 and 29 of chapter 2, that we call ourselves Jews rather
than Christians, as we see in Antioch and Acts? To which I
responded, Jew is a short phrase for those who were from Judah,
known as Judeans, who were ethnic Israel, but they were called
Jews because of where they came from. not because they were the
people of God. So that there is no Jew that
has ever been synonymous with a person of God. But the very
name is just a geographical and ethnic name. So when we think
about the Jew, and we say that circumcision is of value if you
obey, but if you break, the circumcision becomes uncircumcision. Why?
Because circumcision represented a covenant. Circumcision represented a change
of heart. Circumcision was an outward sign
of something that was truly happening on the inside, and that something
is something that God had done through His decree and said,
these are my people, I will be their God. But then Paul argues, this is
a restatement of a couple of weeks ago, that those who are
circumcised, and though they may follow after the Lord in
some sense of a covenant, or even feel as though they are
part of a people who are the people of God, but yet they disobey,
guess what? Their circumcision is really
uncircumcision. It's worthless. It's just an
outward sign. It's like saying, I'm a Christian,
but I hate the church. Or I'm a Christian, but I worship
idols. Or I'm a Christian, but... And
the list goes on and on and on. So then, he then says in verse
27 of 2, he who is physically uncircumcised but keeps the law
will condemn you who are circumcised, who have the law and circumcision,
but break the law. So then what Paul did, if you
remember, is he now has established that no matter who you are, circumcised
or uncircumcised, no matter who you are, the obedient to the
law or the disobedient to the law, you're guilty before God.
And that no amount of circumcision, which was what? Obedience to
the law. And no amount of uncircumcision, even in obedience, mattered.
It did not matter. For no amount of obedience in
any way, from any direction, would justify a man. That's what
Paul is arguing. So that no longer can anyone
stand before God and say, I have done what you've required of
me because we haven't done what you've required, what he's required
of us. And so then he goes to say in verse 28, for no one is
a Jew who is merely one outwardly. In other words, the Jew is not
the one who actually has obeyed the law and is circumcised. The
Jew, if in the context there meaning those who consider themselves
the people of God. But this is the only place where
this is used, and it's not done in a positive way. It's done
in a negative way, a way of illustrating that those who were Jews had
a false sense of security, had a false hope, had a false religion,
and actually worshipped idols, which even in their obedience,
as best they could, felt that it was worthy of some accolade.
But he says the Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter
of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter, which is the
law. And his praise, the man who is the true Jew, this is
the only time that Paul will ever say this in that context,
his praise is not from man, but from God. So, we know that What's
that teaching? Because we know what comes. We
know the Gospel. What Paul is now doing is setting
his readers up to understand that the Jew has no real advantage
in the economy of grace. But the question that he asks
is a question of the rebuttal that's natural when it comes
after what Paul just taught. Look at verse 1 of chapter 3.
But what advantage then has the Jew? Or what is the value of
circumcision? And in verse 2 he says, much
in every way. What does he mean by that? Much
in every way the Jew has an advantage. And much in every way is circumcision
valuable. Wait a minute, is he contradicting
himself? No, he's not. But he's going to show the reader,
he's going to show us, but specifically he's going to show the Jewish
Christians here that what they thought was their advantage and
what they thought was the value of circumcision was not at all.
That what they put there in their mind as their, what do you call it? As their
foot in the door, really was not a foot in the door. And that
who they were really was not something to brag about. And
so he goes on then to say, much in every way, and he explains
it. First, he says, to begin with,
the Jews were entrusted with the oracles of God. So this whole
rest of this night we can talk about that. The oracles of God.
So Paul now says it's not because you obeyed, it's not because
you were circumcised, it's not because you were Jewish, or that
you were Israel, or that you were ethnic Israel. It's because
you had an advantage because you have the word of God. You
had an advantage because you were being given the oracles
of God. You've been given the prophets. You've been given Moses. You've been given the chronicles. You've been given the scriptures. So you are at an advantage. Now
the irony is that God gave Israel the Scriptures for what? For
what reason? God gave Israel the Scriptures
so that they may be a light shining in the darkness, but Israel built
a wall around themselves and hid the Kingdom of God. Jesus
would even say in the narrative of the Gospels that you shut
people out of the Kingdom of God in two ways. One, in that
you did not take the Word of God out to the nations because
you condemned them from the very beginning because they weren't
Jews. Wow! Talking about hatred. Talking
about wickedness. And then secondly, you're supposed
to be a light to the nations through your worship of me, but
yet you did not worship me ever. You never worshipped me. You
never worshipped in truth. You worshipped your doing. You worshipped... Here's how
God would put it. Or here's how Paul would put
it. You worshipped your worship. You worshipped your worship.
You worshipped your religion. You worshipped your faith. You
had faith in your worship. You had faith in your lineage.
You had faith in your obedience. You had faith in the letter.
You were not alive, but you were darkness. But you had an advantage
because you had the oracles of God. We see that in the Psalms.
We see it all throughout the Old Testament. We see it in Matthew
and other places in the New Testament. I mean, we could just go on,
but here's a couple of Old Testament references that came to mind.
Psalm 147, 20. The psalmist writes, he has not
dealt thus with any other nation. They do not know his rules. And
then praise the Lord. That's what it says after that.
So God has not ever dealt with another people like He dealt
with Israel. God did not reveal Himself to any other people.
God did not go to Babylon. God did not go to Persia. God did not go to any other place
in Asia. God did not go to any other people.
God went to Abram. And through Abram, Israel was
birthed. Through the lineage of Abraham and Sarah were the
nation of Israel. And God kept His oracles there. Now, this brings to mind the
idea that the evangel, the good news of Jesus Christ, that's
unto salvation. When the scripture says that
faith comes through hearing, in this very letter in chapter
10, seven chapters away, faith comes through hearing and hearing
through the words of Christ. It always brings the question
to many people's minds, so what happened to the nations Listen
carefully. What happened to the nations
of the Old Testament who never heard the Word of God? They perished. They perished. They perished
in their sin. They perished in their unbelief.
But you know what? So did Israel. Israel, who had
the oracles of God, still perished in their unbelief. So then how
in the world is God able to say, these are my chosen people? How
in the world is the Scripture able to say that Israel are the
chosen of God if Israel perished over and over and over again? Paul's giving it a little peek.
The Jew is not the one who is a Jew outwardly. but is the one
who is the Jew inwardly, that his praise is to the glorious
grace of God. It's the exact same thing he
teaches the people of Ephesus. For you once were alienated.
You once were like the rest of humanity. You once were dead
in your trespasses. You once were far from God. You did not know the Word. You
did not have the truth. You could not see. But God, being
rich in mercy because of the great love with which He loved
us, what does it say? Caused us to be born again to
a living hope through Jesus Christ and His resurrection from the
dead. Listen, beloved. There is no benefit, even with
Israel. Those who did not hear the Word
of God perished, and Israel with the Word of God perished, because
the only way that they did not perish is if the Spirit of God
brought them to life. And how did He do it? Through
the Word, by the Spirit. He brought them to life in the
sense that when they would know with their minds the truth, the
Spirit of God would awaken them. We're in this in John 3 for the
next three Sundays. We're going to deal with what
the new birth is and how it's effectual and what it does. So Old Testament Jews who were
born again were born again in the same manner through which
New Testament saints are born again. Old Testament Israel were
not saved because they were in the right ethnicity. They were
saved by the grace and the mercy of God through the hearing of
the Word of God, trusting fully in the sufficiency of God as
Savior, trusting that God would provide the lamb. Friends, the Scripture shows
over and over again that even though they had the oracles of
God, that God, even though they hid it as a whole, God purposed
Israel to be his people, not ethnically, but spiritually. So that we can understand that
what Paul will later teach in Romans 9 and 10, and then also
in the book to the region of Galatia, the letter there, is
that those who are in Christ are Israel. And that those who
are in Christ are the ones who are what? The chosen of God. Not those who are ethnically
Jews. But the question then goes to
this in verse 3. What of some who are some? Who's
some in that text? Some are the Jews. The Jews were
entrusted with the oracles of God, so they had an advantage
there. But what if some were unfaithful? Now, I think Paul's... I mean, he's just not trying
to teach something here. He'll teach it in a few verses.
But what he's trying to do is just not really slap them too
hard yet. A couple of breaths away, he
says, there are none righteous, no, not one. So he just gives
the benefit of the doubt for the sake of the argument, the
sake of the rhetoric that he's establishing here. He says, what
if some were unfaithful? So the Jew reading this would
go, you know what, there are some of my brothers and sisters who
have not been faithful Jews. There are some. I remember, you know,
great uncle so-and-so. He never wore the phylacteries. He never came to temple on time.
He could afford a lamb, but he brought flour instead. He's a
cheapskate. He was a terrible Jew. But what's the unfaithfulness
that Paul refers to here? Is it about following the precepts
of Judaism? Is it about doing the things that God had commanded
Israel? No, not at all in any sense is Paul talking about the
unfaithfulness of those who didn't follow after the right rules. He is saying, what if there were
some who were unfaithful in that they did not believe God? and
that they did not believe in God, and that they did not believe
by faith. He asked the question, what if
some were unfaithful? Does their faithlessness nullify
the faithfulness of God? Now let's ask that question in
a more expounded way. The reader who is Gentile will
read this and go, well, if they're God's people, why are they rejecting
a large number of Christ, their own Messiah? Why is this taking
place? God must have made a mistake.
Aren't those his chosen people? They're faithless. So the indictment
then would be, has God failed? No. God is not on the hook for unbelief. God is not the cause of sin. God is not the giver of depravity. It is the natural way. It is
the natural consequence of rebellion. It is the natural essence of
the human condition. Because we are sinners, we will
eventually sin. But Adam and Eve have sinned.
and therefore they bring death into the human nature, and they
bring depravity into the human nature. So Israel's unbelief
is their own. It's their own. And what God
is showing is that He's not faithless at all. As a matter of fact,
Paul would even argue later, am I not a Jew? Yet God has saved me, Romans
9. But we have a very confused and
convoluted idea that nationally that there are people who are
the elected God. Not so. As a matter of fact,
in some current events, there's been a great discouraging fodder
in the blogosphere and social media when it comes to the idea
that there are institutionalized sins on which God is going to
bring an institutionalized justice. Well, I will say this trying
to be kind. As a matter of fact, I've had three calls today from
Australia on this matter, and I haven't taken any of them.
I don't have time to talk about it. God doesn't care about bringing
recompense against America. God is not going to worry Himself
about the government of Israel. God is not going to pour punishment
out on Canada because Canada didn't repent, or America didn't
worship, or Israel was faithless. That is one of the most asinine,
ignorant things that the devil has ever perpetrated in our culture. Why be so harsh? Because these
types of things, over the last 60-70 years, have shrouded the
gospel of Jesus Christ to such a degree that I believe that
we, as in the evangelical world of the United States, are just
as guilty as Israel was for millennia of shunning people out of the
Kingdom of Heaven because we preach a racist, bigoted, Specialized,
particular redemption of a separated people who are as guilty as everyone
else in the world. That's why. You might think,
well, I don't really get what you're trying to say. Good! Stay
away from it. Don't deal with it. Don't look
it up. Don't go to it. You know, don't
look over there. Everybody does, you know. Don't
look in this box. It might kill you. I've got to
know what's in there. But friends, if we were in the world out eating,
or in a cafe, or at another church gathering, we would find ourselves
in conversations eventually with someone that would say to us,
you know, well all these storms, all these hurricanes, all these
earthquakes, all this rioting, all this wicked sexuality. It's
because God's judging America. God has already judged America.
God judged America in the 17th century. God judged America in
the 5th century. God judged America in the 1st
century. God judged America in the Garden
of Eden. the right judgment against all
humanity in the garden. And he says, you shall surely
die. Get out of your mind the American-European
model, not of storms, not the spaghetti models. Get out of
your mind the spaghetti model of a favored national people.
God is not a respecter of persons. God did not respect Abram when
he snatched him out of Ur. God did not respect David when
he pulled him out of the fields. God did not respect Moses when
he plucked him out of the river. God doesn't respect America,
or anyone in it, or any other nation, or any pastor, or any
priest, or any benevolent ministry. God respects none of us because
all of us are guilty. And God is not faithless because
there are people who don't believe, especially Jews. Don't take my word for it. Look
at verse four. The questions are, what if some
weren't faithful? Does their faithlessness nullify
the faithfulness of God? By no means, he says. By no means. Let God be true,
though everyone were a liar. As it is written, that you may
be justified in your words and prevail when you are judged.
We visited last night in our theology class about the decrees
of God. more relative to our lives and
to our understanding of scripture. And we visited in Isaiah 46 and
we're learning to do theology contextually, not just out of
a textbook. And when we see that God is God
and there is no other and there is none like him, and that He
does all that pleases Him, and He speaks, and everything that
He speaks comes to pass, and all that is decreed comes to
pass, and that God is instrumentally supreme and sovereign in the
work of everything, inclusive of a bird flying from here to
there, and a man walking from there to here, and a hair falling
from our head, and the scales of our skin falling to the floor,
and we call it dust. God is sovereign over it all. God is just. And God is right. Do you know why? Do you know
why we can't argue against what the Scripture teaches about who
God is? Paul says it right there. Because every man is a liar.
Every man's a liar. Raise your hand if you're not
a liar. Liar. You'd say, we're liars. We believe lies. We perpetrate
lies. We continue in lies. The Jews
were unfaithful. They did not believe. They did
not trust in God. They refused to have faith. But
He is faithful. What is He going to be faithful
in? His covenant promise to save Israel. And see, that's what
Paul understood supernaturally all of a sudden. And he will
argue later, God is not unfaithful because I am a Jew and I'm saved,
but it's not about my Jewishness that makes me Israel. He starts
it here. It's not about your circumcision.
It's not about your Judean heritage. It's not about your obedience
to the law. It's not about the fact that you've had the oracles
of God. It's the fact that God has chosen Israel out of no one. As God elected Abram, from moon
worship, so God elects each of us to be Israel out of death. This is so contrary to what we
believe in pop culture, to what we believe in evangelical circles.
Men who have long been dead for decades, who paved the way to
dispensationalism, and the idea that God deals with people differently
in certain times, and that God has a special place in his heart
for certain individuals based on their bloodline. It's baloney. It's antichrist. It's antithetical
to the gospel of grace. And it is why the gospel is offensive
to the Jew. It's why Paul, with much zeal
and with righteousness, went after Christianity. It's why
Paul was there and rewarded, I'm not a word, but approved
of the stoning of Stephen. It's why the council of the Sanhedrin
were convicting and turning Christians over, their own people over to
Rome, to be fed to animals for a wage. for entertainment, and
to be hung on a cross and crucified. Because the idea of grace offends
an ethnic Jew. How dare you tell me, like we
talked about Sunday morning, how dare you tell me I am in
darkness? Hasn't Paul already said, are
you sure that you're a guide to the blind? Are you sure? Aren't
you to be the teacher? You can't teach what you don't
know. You can't shine light that's not in you. You can't give what
you don't possess. If you're hungry and I don't
have food, I can't feed you. Beloved, we can't come to God
except the Spirit bring us to life. And this idea of ethnic
speciality needs to cease. Paul here, And God, in His covenant,
never intended for it to mean that all of those of Israeli
descent are going to be His people. Never meant that. But that's
what they thought. And that's what they went to
the hill to die on. Every person in this world is
a liar. Every person in this world is
a sinner. Every person in this world deserves the justice of
the wrath of God. And God has decreed and is justified
in His words and is prevailing when He judges because we are
guilty. We are guilty. And God is right
and true in His judgment against Israel and Judah and the Judeans,
because they, above all people, had His oracles and still would
not believe. Then Paul asks another question. So what do we think? So the unfaithfulness of Israel served to display the faithfulness
of God. It doesn't nullify His faithfulness. But if our unrighteousness...
So their unfaithfulness is unrighteousness. Unbelief is unrighteousness.
Sin is unrighteousness. Sin is lawlessness, as John would
argue. He says, but if our unrighteousness,
if our unbelief, if our sinfulness serves to show the righteousness
of God, what shall we say? What's he mean there? That if God is righteous and
judging us as wicked, is not our unrighteousness, is not our
wickedness in some sense righteous? Because it displays God's righteousness.
You see that? See how silly that is? Chapter 7 and 6 of Romans really
emphasizes this. Is God unrighteous to inflict
wrath upon us? And Paul parenthetically says,
I speak in a human way. He's not talking about the judgment.
He's talking about how we as human beings deal with understanding
this. Sin and those who sin are unrighteous.
And sin shows, if you will, the righteousness of God because
God brings justice. Listen to this. God brings justice
against wickedness. He brings justice against wickedness. So therefore, in our unrighteousness
and the unrighteousness of the unbelievers, the righteousness
of God is displayed. But he asked the question, is
God unrighteous? And Paul says, look at verse
6, "...by no means." If God is unrighteous to bring judgment,
how can He judge the world at all? If He can't judge Israel,
how can He judge the world? Now imagine the idea of the word
world from a Jewish perspective. As a Hebrew person, when we hear
the word world, they would hear Gentiles, they would hear unclean,
they would hear lost, they would hear reprobate, they would hear
the wicked ones. For God so loved the world in
response to Nicodemus' ignorance. In John's writing to his first
epistle, and not for ours alone, but for the world, Jesus is now
what? Propitiation. He's going to introduce
it here in Romans 3 in a minute. But if our unrighteousness is
stirred, how can God judge the world if He was unrighteous? But look at verse 7. But if through my lie God's truth
abounds to His glory, why am I being condemned still as a
sinner? These are confusing texts. Take
it slow, piece by piece, and we'll build upon this every week
for the next few weeks. Because it's all one argument.
So Paul then posits the idea, or expressly pushes the idea,
that through his lie, God's truth abounds to His glory. How? Because
if I lie, I'm guilty, and God and His righteous wrath against
me is glorified. Someone like that, do they? What shall we do with it? If,
through my lie, God's truth about His glory, if through my sinfulness,
God is glorified, why am I being condemned as a sinner? Now see,
I'll be honest with you, church. It's hard for me to follow this
argument, because it really is stupid. You're saying Paul's stupid?
I'm saying he's being very elementary right now. And the reason sometimes it's
complex for us is because it just doesn't make sense that
he would even say that. Because the Holy Spirit inside
of us gives us understanding to know our guilt before the
Lord. And we would never charge God with being wrong for judging
us, and we would never charge God for saying that we have condemnation
if because of our wickedness He's glorified. Only an unbeliever
does that. You see? Only an unbeliever looks at their
life and says, well, if God's glorified of my sin, then it's
worth something. Why am I being condemned? If God purposed my
sin for His own glory, why am I to blame? But as a believer,
that doesn't make any sense. It's dumb. Now philosophers would
argue against that, and I think most philosophers who claim to
be Christians are lost because they do not hold to the truth
of Scripture, but rather to the wisdom of man. They don't confess
Christ as truth, but their understanding of truth as the truth. And not
all of them, but some. I know some good philosophical
minds who were born again. And they relegate their mind
in its proper place, in the garbage, that Christ is our righteousness
and Christ is our wisdom. Why am I still being condemned
as a sinner? Paul asks. And he goes on and says, why
not do evil that good may come? Why not just do wrong that the
good of God's glory may come because of it? Now, we start
to see something here at the end of verse 8, and then I quit. He says, as some... He says,
why don't we ask this question? Why not do evil that good may
come? As some slanderously charge us
with Satan. You might think, who says that? Let me tell you who says that.
You've heard the word hyper grace. You know the word hyperactive.
We all have children and we see them. And they're moving. We've heard hypersensitive. So hyper can be good at times,
hyper can be a negative trait at times. But friends, there
are pockets of people who contemplate the perfection of grace to such
a degree that they actually teach that there is no grounds for
following after the teaching of Scripture. And there are some
people who, if they hear me say, we need to obey what Paul has
taught us in Romans 4 for the sake of our unity and for the
sake of our worship and the sake of our prayers and the sake of
our maturity, they would say, now you're preaching wrong. No, I'm not. I'm preaching grace. And then there's a whole handful
of people all in the different venues of that. It's sort of
like a big, long, that thing they put at the gate where horses
are. There's a bunch of horses and they just come out one by
one at different times. There's a lot of different views,
but they're all standing on the same slab of dirt. Paul says their condemnation
is just. Paul says that those who say
that it's okay to do evil, Paul says that those who would warrant
the idea that you can just sin because God is a God of grace,
just sin. Go ahead and sin. Let God get
to it. That they are condemned and that
their condemnation is just. At the same time, we who are
saints, when we find ourselves in sin, The Bible also teaches
us that there is no condemnation for
those who are in Jesus. The point is that we can't be
like the Jews who believe that our obedience warrants some effectual
justification or some evidence of justification. And at the same time, we can't
be these antinomians who say, that means no law, that there's
nothing for us to do as Christians but sit on our hands and trust
Jesus. Yes, salvificly, faith alone,
sola fide, in Jesus Christ alone. Period. And then we live by what? By the law? Never. Romans 6,
never we live by faith. For the righteous shall live
by faith. That means we walk if we're sinning or we're not
sinning. We live by faith in Christ. For there are some who
do not live in faith who aren't sinning the way they walk in
certain seasons. But even that righteousness,
or even that good work, or even that kind thought is sin before
God. For the righteous works of man
are wickedness before a holy God. Filthy rats. For only when we walk by faith
are we fulfilling the call of God and the work of God. And
by the Lord's grace, we'll see that as we continue to go through
this. And it's not about having a balanced view. Let's don't
write the next book and call it the balanced view of works
and grace. No, that's heresy. The balanced
view of grace is it's grace alone, alone, alone. And what are our works? Our works
are for God to work out in us. Our works are for us to see and
understand and to establish as the Lord sees fit as we learn
the Scripture and as we walk together with each other. Let
me tell you something, church. One of the biggest sins we have
in the church of America, and I pray to the Lord above that
it's not part of who we are as a people, is that we don't concern
ourselves with correcting each other, but rather we walk away
begrudged because somebody else has sinned in front of us. are
against us. Evil, evil, evil. We are one body. If my hand is
cut open and on fire, The rest of my body is paying attention
to it. And I can promise you the other hand is going to put
the fire out and put some mercuricrum on there and sew it up and put
some aloe vera or whatever it takes to get this thing feeling
right. How much more important is our body and the unity of
the faith to walk together in grace and forbearance and maturity
than my hand is to my body? Much more important. Why? Because
Jesus even uses the hyperbolic analogy that if our hand causes
us to sin, chop it off. If our eye causes us to sin,
pluck it out. You know what? We can't pluck out the people
of God. We can't chop off people from
our lives just because he or she may be not living the way
they need to live. That's why church discipline
is an ongoing process. But back to the point. God is glorified and is not to
blame for unbelief. And there is no evil that is
ever good, even though God brings about good through it. Namely,
His wrath. In Romans 4, we'll see that God
with much patience. What if God with much patience
endures vessels created for destruction in order that He might show Glory
through what? Patience. I mean, we all like
the vindicating punisher. We all like that guy. We like
the judge that is judge, jury, and executioner. We love to see
those stories. Bad guys, they do something heinous
and they walk around the corner and there's the superhero and
he zaps them all and sends them to an eternal hell right there.
And we're going, yes! We forget we're guilty. And sometimes we look at the
sins of others and we forget what John would teach in John
chapter 5, 1 John chapter 5, that we ought to see our brother
stumbling and we ought to correct them, we who are spiritual. Why?
For we go and we pray for the sins that do not lead to death.
That means we pray that God would help us to grow and mature. We
don't pray for the sins that lead to death, which is unbelief.
We don't say, God, help my sister walk worthy of the calling when
she's not in the call. We don't want manipulated behaviors. We don't want alteration and
manipulation of morals. We want people who are regenerated
and born again by the power of God, and we walk together in
that understanding. And so we see, that God is glorified
in His patience against wickedness. Because it was because of God's
patience against wickedness that He allowed us the season of faith. And when God continues to stay,
His execution, His wrath, others who are in the fold will also
come to faith. And so it is a glorious thing
that God is just. and that God is patient, and
that God is vengeful, and that God is righteous. And I am thankful,
beloved, that God has given us the understanding to know the
difference. Let's pray. Lord, Your Word is so rich. Father, I pray that as these
things sit in our hearts, in our minds, that the overarching truth of
it all will come to head over the next few weeks as we see
this unfold and we see the argument make more sense. And Lord, I
pray that we wouldn't just be here tonight so that we could
hear some Scripture and sing some songs, but Father, that
we would be in tune with each other's needs. That we would speak the truth
in love. that we would come to understand
Your power in creating Your church. All of us together, weak in some
ways and strong in others, by Your grace, that we all are learning
from each other. Even in weakness, Father, we
learn from those who sin. And we learn what restoration
looks like. And we learn to be cautious that
we might not fall into the same temptation Father, let us learn
from the Scripture to become a people, a church, a family,
through the good and the bad, the easy days and the difficult.
Father, I pray You continue to protect us from the enemy, that
You would not allow unbelief to be a root of bitterness in
any of us that we might divide. And Father, that we would seek
out the truth in love, And we would not be tossed around
like children, but be anchored to the rock of a fence who is
Jesus Christ. And I pray for our children,
Lord. I pray for our children every time we gather. First and
foremost, Father, that through Your Spirit, You would cause
them to hear, even when it seems like we can't. And then also, Lord, that we
would take the Scripture home with us and we would teach it.
I pray for the men of this church, Lord, that as often as we can,
that we get together and that we pray for each other and that
we invest in each other's lives and we're able to talk candidly
about life as it is in Christ. And I pray for the women, Lord.
And I pray, Father, that as they gather, Lord, that they would
be strengthened in that way, that they would be sharpened.
That as we go to our homes, as we go into our communities, that
we would recognize that there is a void in the church, in this
culture, of older people serving and teaching the younger. And
there's a void of younger people listening to their elders. We
have a bad epidemic, Father. You know of how social media
and culture has been teaching the future generations. Let the
church change that. We grab hold of our youth. We
grab hold of our children. We grab hold of the teenagers
amongst us. And we teach them truth. We correct
them with gentleness. And we grow each other. Those
parents who have graduated their children out of their homes teach
us who still are laboring in tears, wondering if we're going
to survive it. those who have struggled in their
marriages, Father, taking the knee of prayer and the table
of instruction to those who are struggling to keep theirs alive
this very day. Father, above it all, make us
a people of prayer, that we might pray that Your will be done and
that we would labor for one another as we give our lives, as we give
our resources, as we give our thoughts, sometimes our comfort
for the sake of our unity. We praise You, Father, for this
first world in which we live. Let us not take too much of it
in so that we do not lose sight of Your glory. In Jesus' name,
amen.