and the Gentile. For the most
part of Romans chapter 2, he's been talking to the Jewish audience
of Rome. Also inclusive of himself, as
we saw last week, where Paul would basically say that those
who are holy have eternal life, and those who are not do evil,
and those who do evil have recompense and wrath to look forward to,
whereby we measure ourselves against God's holiness, and therefore
we find ourselves very short of His glory, so that we are
objects of wrath, no matter what our nationality, no matter what
our religion, no matter what, we are worthy of judgment. But we know that the power of
God is the gospel. First to the Jew because they
received it first. They received the gospel way
before the Gentiles did, but yet they would not believe. And
we understand that that was a judicial purpose of God. And then also
the Gentile. And so as Paul gets through with
this first 16 verses of chapter 2, the way we catalog it there,
he tells us that according to the gospel, that God will bring
judgment. And according to the gospel,
that God's law will bear witness to the hearts of men, and that
God knows the secrets of all the hearts of all humanity by
Jesus Christ. Now let's look at verse 17 and
follow along with me down through verse 24. But if you call yourself
a Jew and rely on the law and boast in God and know His will
and approve what is excellent because you're instructed from
the law, and if you are sure that you yourself are a guide
to the blind, a light to those who are in darkness, an instructor
of the foolish, a teacher of children, having in the law the
embodiment of the knowledge of truth, you then who teach others,
do you not teach yourself? While you're preaching and stealing,
do you steal? You who say that one must not commit adultery,
do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob
temples? You who boast in the law dishonor
God by breaking the law. For as it is written, the name
of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you. Let's
keep going, verse 25. For circumcision is indeed 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 keeps the law will condemn you who have the 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 by the letter. His praise is not
from man, but from God. Now this is a very problematic
text. It's a problematic text because
there's two forms of understanding interpretation of a text. The science of interpretation
of any text, whether it's Homer or Plato or the Scripture, is
called hermeneutics. And hermeneutics is the science
of interpreting ancient texts. So if we're going to interpret
the scripture and we think we know what it talks about, then
what we're doing is we're practicing or we're using the skills or
the science of hermeneutics. And one of them, well we won't
go into that, but there are two ways then people, one way people
correctly learn to pull out the meaning of a text in their hermeneutical
process, and then there's an incorrect way in which people
understand the meaning of a text in a hermeneutical process. The
incorrect way is called eisegesis. And we like to make the joke
that that's the way I see Jesus, or that's the way I see it. So
eisegesis actually does something like this. Well, Paul said, but
if you call yourself a Jew and rely on the law and boast in
God in order to prove what is excellent, okay, blah, blah, blah. So what
does this mean to me? That's eyes to Jesus. What does
this mean to me? And what could it mean to you? Maybe it could
be different. Maybe it could mean something
completely different to every person in the world. That's eyes to
Jesus. And if I write a letter to my wife, which I've done numerous
times back before there was text messages, you know, we had sticky
notes. And if I wrote a letter to her,
or she to me, and you found that letter, and you decided, well,
that's what they meant, but you didn't know what either of us
meant, you could be wrong. You can say, well, that means
this to me. That means that to me. I love when people actually
start thinking very deeply about certain music that's written
through the ages. And they say, oh, man, that's
a poet there, and he's talking about this, and he's talking
about that. And then years later, the artist comes out and says,
no, I was just drunk, and I just wrote something weird. It didn't
mean anything. I was just drunk. And everybody goes, well, no,
surely that's not what happened. Surely you're the poet that we
thought you were. No, they interpreted it through eisegesis. And it
didn't mean that at all. But the proper process of hermeneutics,
the proper way of looking at a text, is called exegesis. Exegesis. That's a process through which
you take the scripture, or you take the literature that you're
looking at, and you exegete it. And what that means is that the
meaning of the text comes out of ex par, out of the text. So we look into the text and
we see what the text says, and then out of the text comes the
meaning. Eisegesis, on the other hand,
means we read into the text what we think the meaning is. We put
the meaning there. It is an error every time. And
some people would ask me, especially in Q&As throughout the years,
they say, well, how come we have so many different views on so
many different theological things? And I always answer it this way.
Because people like to read into the Bible what they want it to
say. Or they like to read into the Bible what their grandmother
told them it said, or their favorite minister, or their parents, or
their friend, or their loved one. And what we do, and I always
use Philippians 4.13 in that context. We see that scripture,
which says, I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength.
And we see that scripture predominantly in sporting events. We see it
in prayers and sporting events. I see it, as a matter of fact,
I saw it this week at a cheerleading competition. Somebody put up,
y'all can do this, Philippians 4.13. And it is not a lie to
say that Christ can give us strength to go about our day. It's not
a lie that says that we can even pray for physical fortitude or
health and that God can give us energy or God can give us
health or that God can give us a good night's sleep. But that's
not what the Bible is teaching through Paul in his letter to
the Ephesians in chapter 4, verse 13. It has nothing to do with
what Paul is going to do and experience with his body. It
has nothing to do about Paul being weak and needing some strength.
It has nothing to do about anything athletic. It has everything to
do with the fact that in the context of this writing, Paul
had said that he had had much and he had had little and he
learned to praise and rejoice in both abundance and starvation. So to paraphrase a little bit.
in both wealth and poverty. And he chose poverty over wealth. He chose to have little food
over an abundance. He chose to have homelessness
rather than a palace because in that, Christ was his strength. Christ through Christ. That's
how he endured. That means he stood firm and
pressed into the pain and marched through the storm and walked
through the wall of suffering in poverty and in prison. So the context there then tells
us. So when we exegete a scripture, we want to know who wrote it,
why they wrote it, to whom they wrote it, and what is being talked
about around the text. And what's being talked about
to the people of Ephesus. I mean, excuse me, Philippians.
What am I talking about? People of Philippi. They didn't
give him any money. It's Philippi. So Philippians
4.13. See, nobody corrected me. Y'all need to correct me. Just
follow along with it. The book of Assumption of Moses. So either way, here we are, you
get the point. People would look at it and say,
well, I think that means that I need some strength, we want to win
the ball game. Philippians 4.13, they'll claim that promise, but
it's not a promise. It's not a promise at all, it's a doctrine.
It's a doctrine. That means it's something that
the Bible teaches us about who God is, so therein is theology.
So what happens is when we come to the Scripture, The reason
there are so many discombobulated views is because very few congregations
are taught contextually. That means very few preachers
will come to the pulpit and stay in a book and teach the entire
letter. How dare we use the last third
of a recipe to make something? How dare we use just one ingredient
from a chocolate cake and one ingredient from a can of dog
food and think that we're cooking out of the same recipe. Friends,
doctrine and theology and scripture are more important than dog food
and cake. So we must make sure that we do what is required of
us and we look at the context and the fullness of the context
in every piece of this. It is very easy for the text
that I've read tonight for me to teach you all that you better
straighten up. And you better walk a chalk line
for God. It'd be very easy. It'd be very easy for me to become
anti-Semitic, that means I hate national Jews, and say, you know,
they're just a terrible people and all this, and that's what
this text is trying to teach. It'd be very easy for me to come
to a place to teach you that you could work for your salvation,
as we saw last week. It'd even be very easy for me
to say that you had to become a Jew in order to be saved. Or it could be very easy for
me to say, if you were a Jew, you could never be saved. How
do you get that? Because I could take one verse
out of this context and I could just expound upon it. I could
say whatever my little heart desired and you, because I stand
here and you sit there, you go, that's right. That's how the
world works. That's how cults are born. That's
how false teaching is done. But what Paul is doing, little
words like for, and and, and but, and therefore, and so, are
so important in the context of literature, and in the context
of language, that if we do not pay attention to them, we will
miss the keys of understanding the Scripture. So in verse 17,
the first word of your Bible should be the word but. It should have a contrasting
word there, but. In contrast, but if you call
yourself a Jew, what is he talking about? Paul has said, as we looked
at last week, that only holy people, perfect people can inherit
eternal life. So Paul has condemned Jews and
Gentiles alike already. He said the Jew who follows the
law are going to be judged by the law. The Gentile who doesn't
have the law, they're going to be judged by the law because God
wrote the law in their hearts. And the ones who are judged by
the law are going to be guilty of violating the law. Even though
they followed the law, they're going to be guilty of violating
the law. And those who didn't have the law, they've already
violated it, so they're guilty of violating the law, so they're
guilty before God. And the reality there is not... Why would we
not say we'll see Paul's teaching justification by words? Because
that's a stupid thing to say when he's going to go on and
say right now and in just a minute, in chapter 3, no one can be justified
before the Lord at all except by grace. And then in chapter
9, chapter 6 and 7, and then chapter 8 and 9, he's going to
actually teach against that. And it's even worse for me to
say, you know what obedience is? Obedience is after salvation.
It proves that you're in faith. Does it? And what we learned
last week is what? What is our obedience? What does
it look like? How in the world do we obey God? We do what He
says. Okay, then do it. Have you failed
it? Have you failed today? Have you worried, doubted, lusted,
been angry? Have you even failed the Word?
You've disobeyed God. Have you glorified God in everything
you thought, in everything you put in your mouth, in every article
of clothing that you wore, in every dollar that you spent?
Did you give glory to God? No? Then you've disobeyed God. Have
you loved your neighbor as yourself or have you put yourself first?
Did you get up this morning before the kids got up and treat yourself
to a cup of coffee? Then you're selfish. So you've
disobeyed God. I mean, so we could go on and
on and on. There is no such thing as a progressive
obedience or a progressive sanctification in the context of the gospel
of Jesus Christ. If there were, then we would
rightly boast before the Lord. And that is what Paul is trying
to get across to these Jews here. By the way, the word Jew comes
from the word Judah, which we know. Who was that? Whose child
was that? Leah's. It was Leah's child,
Judah, which means what? Praise God. Praise Yahweh. So
the very word Jew means to praise Yahweh. And they didn't praise
Yahweh. They praised what? They praised
themselves. They praised man. They loved
themselves. And so, Paul said that the Lord
knows the secrets of men by Christ, but if you call yourself a Jew,
look at this, verse 17, we'll just take it verse by verse,
and rely on the law in boasting God. Now let's stop there. What's
happening? He's saying some things. He's coming up with a large question,
actually. And he's setting this up, and
he's asking, if you call yourself a Jew, because you're born as
a Jew, you've lived as a Jew, you've followed the rules as
a Jew. You know, we're in Gospel of John on Sunday mornings. Nathaniel
would have been one of these people. Yeah, I'm a Jew. And
you rely on the law. And you boast in God. Now, where's
the example of this? I mean, we could get into some
deep understanding of Judaism and what that really could mean,
but I believe that in the sincerity of Paul, he wrote this knowing
that the Holy Spirit of God would give understanding even to the
Gentile without a treatise on the history of Judaism. Is it
not obvious? You call yourself a Jew and you
rely on the law. That means you follow the law.
You believe that the law does something for you and then you
boast in God. When do we see Jesus say that
in the Synoptic Gospels? When he talks about the two different
people. We have the epitome of the contrasts that are found
in this text. The contrast of the Jew that
walks right before God and boasts in the law and relies on the
law and boasts in God. And we have the publican or the
tax collector who is also a Jew, ethnically, who then robs his
own people. And their attitudes and their
hearts are completely different. The Pharisee stands and looks
into the heavens and says, thank you God that I'm not like that
person. Because, and notice who he gives
gratitude for, thank you God I'm not like that. So we can
even imply or infer that he is thankful that God has established
in him actions of obedience and somewhat of a righteousness.
But the Pharisees relied on their obedience for their sanctification,
for their justification, for their standing before the Lord.
And so in this story that Jesus tells in this parable, he says,
the Pharisee, thank you, I do this, I tithe and I follow the
rules, and everything's good, and I thank you, God, I praise
you, God, for the fact that you put me in this place. What does
that show? It shows a haughtiness, though they were blind to see
it, self-reliance on self-righteousness and obedience to the law that
they weren't really obeying. They might have went through
the motions, and in the depths of their soul, they might have
thought it was right, but it was not right. Why? Because every
righteous work of man is wicked before God. It does not count
to righteousness. And then the antithesis is the
tax collector, the publican, who would dare not even look
toward heaven, but he bows his head, he rips his clothes, and
he cries out, Oh God, have mercy on me, a sinner. There's the
cadence. Oh God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Jesus says that
this man who cried out went home justified before the Father,
And the other man went home condemned. That's the issue here. You rely
on the law and you boast in God. I mean, the Jews walked around
all the time boasting in God. This is our God, Yahweh, Jehovah,
whatever they called Him at the time in that context. This is
our God. We are His people. We are one.
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So they call
themselves a Jew, rely on the law, and boast in God, and know
His will? Look at all these things. Could
you imagine some Jews listening to this and going, man, you know,
Paul really knows us pretty well. We do rely on the law, we do
boast in God, we do know the will of God, and we approve what
is excellent. Ever been like that? We approve
what is excellent? Some people argue when they isogete
such text, they say, well see this is where, this is the compliments
that Paul is giving. Paul is not being complimentary.
Paul is being sarcastically rebuking. Paul is setting them up that
in their haughtiness, they might go, yep, yep, yep, yep, yep.
And in the end, you see what happens. He says, what does he
say in the very end in verse 24? God's name is blaspheming
because of you all and the way you live. God's name is blaspheming
to none of the Gentiles. Now, you think Jews would understand
what that meant? Yes, they would. And not only
would they understand it, they would have the context of the
Old Testament prophets, both minor and major. Only difference
is how you categorize one minor and major prophet is the length
of the writing. When they would hear the voice of God echoing
through the prophet Malachi, I mean through the prophet Ezekiel,
you've defamed my name among the nations. Paul's about to
reiterate that reality. But why? You approve what is
excellent because you are instructed in the law, you see? Well, I
know the true way to live. Listen to this for a second.
We have a hard time sometimes putting ourselves in the shoes
of this audience because we're not ethnic Israel. We don't live
in first century Palestine, which is where this is in Jerusalem.
It's the region of the Palestinian region. We don't live in Asia
Minor, 2000, you know, 19 years ago or whatever, 18 years ago.
We live today. And it's sometimes easy for us
to do exactly what Paul's preaching against right now, and it's to
go, yep, I know somebody like that. I know somebody like that.
I know somebody like that. Friends, when we see someone
in sin and we think automatically and initially, wow, you know
what, I'm glad I don't do that kind of crap anymore. I'm glad
I got to follow Jesus a little bit better than that. I'm glad
that there's more to my spirituality than that. We have committed
the sin that Paul is barking on here. It's a very, very, very slight,
unobservable sin in our own hearts. We don't walk around seeing that.
Why? Because we don't judge ourselves by the same standard with which
we judge each other. But you approve what is excellent
because you were instructed from the Law. So that's a good thing.
We learn from the Law of God. I mean, Matthew Paul even says
the Law of God is a teacher. He talks about that over in chapter
6 and 7 and 8. And in verse 19, you are sure
that you yourself are a guide to the blind. Look at that. He's
not saying that you are a guide to the blind. He's saying you
are sure. Now think about this for a second. Here is, and this
is where pastors can really stand up and pay attention. This is
where husbands and fathers can stand up and pay attention. Because
we know what the Bible says. We're the head of our home. We're
the paterfamilias. We know that we are the ones
who make the rules and say what's what, and everybody else just
follows in line, right? Isn't that in the culture in
which we live? Yeah, that's wicked. That's not
what head means. Head is the first to do everything.
The first to obey, the first to repent, the first to forgive,
the first to love, the first to die. Husbands, love your wife
as Christ loved the church who died for her. Not love your wife
as Christ loved the church who whipped her into submission or
who made her feel bad in the same way wives submit to your
husbands and everything. Yeah, if we all would just submit
to each other as unto the Lord, there'd never be a fight. But
that's not what we're seeing here. What we're seeing here
is we got some people, myself included, who could very easily
say, man, I know a lot of Bible stuff. I know a lot of theology. I know a lot of stuff about John.
I know a lot of Greek. I know a lot of biblical history.
I've been teaching the Bible for a long, long time. I am a
guide to the blind. You see? It's very easy for us to fall
into that place. And not just on spiritual matters,
but on matters of morality, matters of what we would call righteous
walking, matters that would take us into a position of feeling
like we were superior, though we know that it's by the grace
of God, but we would feel like, you know, one day these people
will mature. And oftentimes we who say one
day they will mature are the ones who are immature to begin
with. Because maturity in the gospel is realizing that we have
an eternal alliance by faith, through faith, in Jesus Christ,
who is our righteousness, not our own walking. Though we may
get older and less interested in being so aggressive, it does
not mean that we are becoming more righteous, just because
we might guide others. The sad reality, though, is that
they were supposed to be the light, right? They were supposed
to be the guide to the blind. I mean, think about a blind person.
A blind person can't go anywhere, can't move around a room that
they're not familiar with. They must have someone to hold
their hand as a light, as a beacon, as an instructor. And if you,
verse 19, are sure that you yourself are a guide to the blind, a light
to those who are in darkness, verse 20, an instructor of the
foolish. It keeps going. You're an instructor
of the foolish. That means you've got so much
wisdom, everybody else is foolish in comparison to you. You instruct
them, you teach them. Master, pupils. This is the mindset. And Paul's not being fond of
it. He is being very harsh because of it. A teacher, look at the
second part, a teacher of children. Having in the law the embodiment
of knowledge and truth. So this big, expressive, it's
still one sentence, we haven't taken a breath yet, it's still
one sentence. And all these things that Paul is saying, that you
Jews are doing, and they at this point are probably thinking,
wow, imagine if they heard this, and there's a long dash right
there, it's like a pause, and the reader of this thing paused.
I mean, in our culture today, if I brought somebody up on stage
and I said, ladies and gentlemen, I want to bring to your attention
a dear brother who relies on the law and boasts in God. He
knows the will of God and he approves what is excellent and
he's been instructed from the law of God and walks in His holiness. He is a guide to the blind and
a light to those who are in darkness, an instructor of the foolish
and a teacher of children, having the law and the embodiment of
the knowledge of truth. Ladies and gentlemen, blah blah,
we'd stand up and clap. I'll sit down and let that
brother talk. The pause box shut in my eyes. That's why it's always interesting,
you know, when I've traveled and spoke in certain places,
and even when Jordi and Lynette's wedding, they went, well, how
should we address you? What should we put on the bulletin?
I said, my name is Jane. Don't call me anything else.
Don't put doctor, pastor, reverend, bishop, presbyteral. Nothing. My name is James. Because it's too easy. If I hear good things too much,
it'll go straight to my head. It'll go straight to my head.
There's something about a man when he's esteemed that makes
him a prisoner. He thinks he's free, but he's
a prisoner to those who love him. Verse 21. You then who teach others, do
you not teach yourself? See? Oh my goodness. I mean, put it in the context
of our little example here. There's this brother, and everybody's
clapping, and I say, now before you teach, have you taught yourself
the sermon that you're going to teach? What's your text? Oh
yeah, Philippians 4. Do you know what that's talking
about? I mean, you rode in here on a $90,000 Lexus, and you had
a driver. Do you know what it means to
have little? I mean, that would be awful. This guy would run
out in the back and start screaming, right? Crying. That's what Paul's
just done. You teach others? How about yourself? And then he goes through a little
list of things. And some people like to argue, guys, please don't
read commentaries on this. It'll make you mad. And you'll
tear up a book. It'll cost 60 bucks. Don't do it. Like, what
are these people thinking? People will actually say, well,
these are just hypotheticals. You know, of course, no Pharisee,
no Jew would steal, adulterate. Yes, they would. That's what
Paul said. Are you doing it? Matter of fact,
in Ephesus, there we go, I can say it correctly now, but it's
not in the Book of Ephesus, in the letter to the Ephesians,
but in Acts, when Paul and Barnabas enter Ephesus, And the preaching
of the gospel is changing people's lives to such a degree that they're
no longer engaging in the economic ventures of the society. So everybody's
going bankrupt because nobody's buying little idols. The people
get upset and merchants of the city get mad and they go into
the square or into the arena and they begin to bring a charge
against Paul and the apostles. And for not a short time, as
what Scripture says, not a small disturbance, for two hours plus
they yelled, Great as Artemis of the Ephesians. Great as Artemis
of the Ephesians is the large chant. I mean, imagine 20,000,
30,000 people, Great as Artemis, Great as Artemis, Great as Artemis.
And finally, when they calmed down, the guy in charge said,
Y'all, y'all are just about to the point where you're unruly.
You're bringing these charges against me. Man, they have not
robbed your temples. They've not done anything wrong.
So by the evidence that there are some people robbing temples,
makes me think Paul knew that it was some of these guys robbing
temples. And that'd be a cool side job.
That'd be a real interesting tent making opportunity, wouldn't
it? If I run into other churches
or cults and I just snatch her off the plate at the end of the
service. Let me get us a new screen now. Next week, putting in some lights. Some fog machines. I mean, you've
seen them. Not free pews and tore-up chairs
and a floor that slants. Do you teach against stealing?
Do you steal? Verse 22, you say
that one must not commit adultery. Do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, you rob
temples, you boast in the law, dishonor
God by breaking the law. You see, he didn't punch every
button, did he? He didn't say the simple ones,
lie, have a discontent spirit, or
Paul's unknown and unseeable sin, covetousness. Now, he goes
straight to the heart of some things that are really bad, because
the readers of this text were doing some of those very bad
things, and they were holding the Christian church hostage,
as well as the Gentile world hostage, not just in this era,
but forever. As long as Israel had been a
people, they held others hostage. You who boast in the law dishonor
God by breaking the law. For as it is written, verse 24,
the name of God is blasphemy among the Gentiles because of
you. Blasphemy. Now that's a very
hard indictment. As a matter of fact, it's not
even an indictment, it's a judgment. He's not saying, I've heard,
or you've been accused. He's saying, you have blasphemed
God. You have blasphemed the name of God because of what you
do. When you tell other people that
they should trust in and obey the law of God for their justification,
for their salvation, and you don't even do it. What do we
tell our children as parents? We tell them to have a good attitude,
and they say, well, you don't. We have the authority to backhand
them into last week. Talking about, what is that movie
that they did so many of? Back to the Future. Back to the
womb, baby. I mean, we just knock them straight
out? My mom used to always say that. Boy, I'll knock you back
the next week. Talk back to me again. And though we might not like
it when we have a bad attitude and we tell our children to watch
theirs, they are correct when they say we have a bad attitude.
But they're incorrect because we tell them not to talk back.
We can talk about that later when they're not in trouble.
Because punishment turns to murder very quickly, son. So Ziploc. You blaspheme God. How are they
blaspheming God? What does it look like to blaspheme
God? That means that what we say we are versus what we do
are two different things. And it could be supposed then,
maybe Paul is talking about behavior. But more than behavior, he's
talking about the heart. He's saying that you might violate
the law in the very core of your being. And he goes through it,
probably, though some of the people who would read this text
would say, wow, you know what, I have committed adultery, I
have robbed temples, I have done this, I have done that. Man,
I'm guilty. But most of them would say, well
I haven't done those things. Just like the rich young ruler
who came to Jesus. What might I do? What can I do to what?
Inherit eternal life. How can I earn eternity? And Jesus tells him in a short
sense. He just recapitulates the law
of God, which in turn is saying you must be holy as the Lord
is holy. And he says, well I've kept all those from my youth.
So Jesus in his response says what? There's one thing you've
yet to do. Take all that you have and give
it to the poor. And the Bible says he walked
away dejected, for he had much wealth. That means he's on a
possible task with this man to take the affection of his wealth,
the thing that he earned so passionately and worked so hard for, and give
it to the people who did not deserve it. Some people would
argue, in an eisegesis, to say, well, see there, if we give our
money away, then we can earn heaven. No, we can't. Jesus was
just calling out the reality that he said, you know, love
the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, strength.
And then the Lord said, man, I've been doing that since my
youth. He says, well, then give your money away. And he's like, eh.
Because the exchange was very simple. Oh, master. Oh, good
teacher. Why do you call me good? Only
God is good. What must I do to inherit eternal life? And then
he goes on and he He goes on with the dialogue, and Jesus
says, you know, go take your wealth, give it all away, and
then you will have treasure in heaven, and commands him. He
doesn't say, then would you come, please. He commands him, then
you follow me. You understand that? You'll have
treasure in eternity, and you'll follow after me. I will take
you to the treasure. The man's like, no way am I trading
all that I've got, the power, the influence, the good stuff
that I have, for the sake of you. I'll get eternal life another
way. And we don't know what the Lord
eventually did with that gentleman. It's not important. What is important
is the fact that after that, Jesus says that it is easier
for the camel, the beast, an animal, to go through the eye
of a sewing needle than it is for a rich man to enter heaven.
And all of the disciples ask the question, you know, collectively,
not at the same time in unison like, whatever. But they ask
the question, they have the question, and one asks, then who can be
saved? And Jesus says, what is impossible with man? What's the
question, what's the answer of Jesus' question? Salvation is
impossible with man. Who can be saved? Jesus said
salvation is impossible with man. Because that's the subject
of the question. The answer then assumes the subject
of the question, which is salvation. Who can be saved? No one. Because
it's impossible with men, but Jesus says that which is impossible
with men is possible with God. The same reality is happening
here. Just like that rich young ruler who lived a pious life,
he was a sinner at heart. So Paul is wanting to get his
audience to really understand very quickly, I know we're running
out of time, but he wants to understand very quickly that
it's not about the outward expression of our doing. I don't fall any harder than
when I feel haughty, that I haven't fallen in a long time. I don't get angry until I've
sort of like, I haven't been angry in a minute. What in the
world? You know, walk in the door. What in the... I mean,
it's just like clockwork. As soon as I think mine and Robert's
relationship is the most perfect in the world, I'll sin against
her. As soon as I'm the best dad that
ever walked the face of the earth, and I'm teaching my children,
walking, and they see me walking in repentance, and what is wrong? I mean, you know, it's just...
And we all have our little bag of sins that we never let go
of. We got out of the bag, open it
up and take a snack out. And it's not going to change
a whole lot. There may be a big gap in between
the times. There may be a different approach.
There may be a little bit of a heart change. And it may be a little bit shorter
in its season. But eventually, eventually beloved,
the root of that sin in action will be in affection. It will
come to our hearts. It will come to our mind. And
the sin is committed when it's there. Not when it comes out
of our mouth. When the heart goes, I hate him,
and before we say it, we've already sinned. And the sin of hatred
is murder, by the way. Thou shalt not kill, thou shalt
not murder. So even if we desire it, we've
already sinned in that way. So we're never obedient, even
if we don't... regurgitate all of our wickedness
out on everybody else in the world and compound the consequences
and the impact, we still are walking around with a little
sack. And Paul is about to say that
here. He's about to show us it's about the heart. It's about the
heart that only God can change. 4. Circumcision. 4. 4. 4. 4. You have been blaspheming
God because you have been walking around talking and living a lie.
You do not love the Lord. You do not hold fast to the heart
of one who has been born of God, is what Paul is saying here,
because you are not a Jew. You are not circumcised spiritually. For circumcision indeed is of
value if you obey the law. See, if you're a Jew, you're
circumcised on the eighth day of your birth as the covenant
sign that you are a child of God. But if you break the law, you're
just hurting yourself. Paul would argue to the Galatians,
which is a lot of different cities, That mutilation of the body is
what circumcision is. It has no spiritual well-being
for anyone. It never did. But if you did circumcise and
you obeyed the law, then by golly, you were a Jew of Jews and you
did it right. But no man has ever done it right. No one has
ever done it right. No one has ever followed the law. And the
Jews adored the fact. Remember Paul's resume in Philippians? A Jew, a Hebrew of Hebrews, born
of the tribe of Benjamin, circumcised on the eighth day, given the
name of Saul by my parents, the first king of Israel. As to the law, perfect. As to Jewish customs, as to this,
as to that, zealot, lover of God, defender of truth, persecutor
of the church of Jesus Christ. Boo! I'm perfect! But he says
he was the chief of sinners in that moment. In those days he
was the chief of sinners, and he kept the reality of himself
as the chief of sinners. The older he went into his ministry,
the more that title is used, the chief of sinners, the chief
of sinners. Why? It's the same thing Jesus
would tell Mrs. Lemus in John 3, that the darkness
that he loves It's the spiritual religion of Judaism. It's self-righteousness
and self-worthiness and piety that he thinks he's walking with
God and that it does anything for his relationship with this
Creator except bring judgment. Circumcision is uncircumcision
when we don't obey perfectly. So if a man who is uncircumcised
keeps the precepts of the law, his uncircumcision would be regarded
as circumcision. Then he was physically uncircumcised,
but keeps the law. We'll condemn you who have the
written code and circumcision, but break the law. And Paul goes
on to continue to say, For no one is a Jew who is merely one
outwardly. No one, let's just put it this
way, is righteous before God. No one is a Christian just because
they do Christian things. No one can measure the reality
of their eternal salvation, or their hope, or the sealing of
their eternity by the fact that they measure how well they walk
in this life. And there's a wickedness that
has pervaded even in my lifetime as a boy up until just about
12, 13 years ago that would teach us that the way we know we are
growing in grace is that we're walking in a place more holy
and more pious and more perfect than we walked last week. And
after a while, we'll begin to stand in the mirror and go, my
goodness, I have arrived. Look how Christian I am. I shuck my own wheat. I grind
it up. I make my own shoelaces. You laugh, but that was us in
our 20s. We took pride in the fact that
we honored God in the way we worked with our hands. And it's
honoring, but we don't take pride in it. The slave that works all
day doesn't get a back rub and a free meal. He cooks the master's
dinner after he worked all day in the field. And then he goes
outside and sleeps with the animals. Those are the words of Jesus.
We as human beings are not rewarded for being obedient to God, but
we are graciously snatched out of judgment because Jesus Christ
obeyed God perfectly. We have so undervalued the Gospel
that we've made it neutered. We have created a moot reality
for the power of God, which is the gospel of Jesus Christ, because
we have allowed the circumstances of culture to dictate what is
true and what is not. We have all become eiseges of
our own making, creating a Jesus of our own desire, so that Many
people stand in this world today, in our culture, in our community,
in our very city, who are professing Christ and who are going to stand
in judgment forever. And if we followed them around...
I used to hear this a lot, you know. If somebody followed you
around all day, would they be able to find enough evidence
to convict you of Christianity? No, they wouldn't. So quit looking. Look to Christ. That's the only
way we're going to be found worthy to stand before God. Paul says
in the Church of Colossae that God qualifies us for the inheritance
of life with all the saints. Verse 29, and the last thing
I'll say. But a Jew is one inwardly, And circumcision is a matter
of the heart. By the what? Say it. Spirit. Circumcision is a matter
of the heart by the Spirit. By the Spirit. Not by the flesh. Paul would use this a lot in
Galatians. Not by the letter. We are not
made right. We are not purified. We are not
sanctified by doing good deeds for the Lord Jesus. We are sanctified
because of the good deeds that the Lord Jesus did. We are justified
because He took our guilt and credited us with His righteousness.
We are secure because by faith we believe in Jesus. Now, no
one has said And when we get into chapter 4, it'll really
settle this. No one has said that we can just sin like we
want to. Where is that? Paul just said, if we say, what
are we talking about here? You're going to teach and then
do what you say you're going to teach about? He condemns that.
He just doesn't want us to put hope in it. He doesn't want us
to think that that's the crux of the Christian faith, is to
walk in a manner that's holy and pleasing. Even though those
words are used, what is holy and pleasing to God? When we
walk by faith, not by sight. And we're going to understand
this more and more and more. Chapter 3 is going to open our
minds in such a way we're going to be like, wow! And I know that
we've gone through it as a church. I know I've used Romans 3 almost
as much as I've used John 3 and John 6. But now we're in the context
of the other two chapters of Romans going through. Beloved,
we are going to see and we're going to breathe easy and we're
going to recognize. What is gratitude all about?
Let's just give a little bit of a hint here. What is thanksgiving? If we love someone, if we are
thankful for them, the outpouring of that is a continual affection.
Praise and worship is about thanking God for who He is. What are we
thanking Him for if we're walking justified? and we deserve to
be righteous. What are we thanking Him for
if we've come to the place where we're good enough that God has
to save us? What are we thanking Him for?
For not turning the channel? For paying for the pay-per-view
thing? For giving us new shoes, new car, new job, new house?
Great, be thankful for that too. What if He takes it away? We're
thankful because God has given us His mercy. We're thankful
because nothing that we are, one iota of our molecular makeup,
is worth saving. But because of God's eternal
love for us, we are worth saving, and the only way we can be saved
is not in us, it's not in me, it's in Christ. It's by the Spirit,
not by the letter. Look at this. His praise. Whose
praise? The Jew that's inwardly a Jew.
The Jew that's circumcised in heart by the Spirit of God, not
by the obedience to the law. This person who praises God is
not from man. You see that? He's not from man. He's been
born from above. grafted in, he's been snatched
out, he's been made alive through Christ by the Spirit. He is not from man, but he is
from God. So the new man is a creation
of God. Ephesians 2, come to mind. For
by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not
of your own doing. What faith? So let's just put
it in context. Let's just rewrite that statement
so we can make sure we do it right. For by grace you have
been saved through faith, and faith is not of your own doing.
It is the gift of God so that you cannot boast before Him.
Because you, in your faith, which is a gift from God, have been
created by God as His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do
good works, which He produced beforehand for you to walk in.
So that every time we find ourselves walking in a manner worthy of
the calling. Every time we find ourselves
in a short semblance of obedience, we do what? We do not look at
ourselves and say, look at me, I'm getting it. We don't do that.
We praise God and thank Him. We thank Him. It is not in me. It's in Christ. I can't believe
I got through all that tonight. Let's pray. Father, it is only
in Christ, Nothing we've done, nothing we
do, nothing could ever please You. But Father, we're pleasing
in Your sight and even in our sin. Lord, You are patient, for
You have prepared us for glory. And there will come a time When
Christ returns and we are set free from the corruption of this
flesh to never sin again, we long for that day. But Lord,
until that day, help us to be humble when we see the fruitfulness
of Your work in our life. Help us to be humble and grateful
because it is just a matter of moments that we would walk away.
And even in the most perfect of days, We are not fully satisfied. We're not fully obedient. We're
not fully in love with You. But Lord, You are working in
us, and You who have began a good work are faithful. You are faithful
to complete it. Father, You will complete us
one day when the Son comes back. We will not stand in judgment,
though we are those who have not obeyed the law. We will not
be condemned, though we are due condemnation, because Christ
has obeyed, and Christ has been condemned, and all of these things
have been done to our account. And for that, we praise You,
that we are not ourselves, but a workmanship of You. In Jesus'
name.