Romans 2 This is a text that
is absolutely baffling in some respects and the reason that
I say that it's baffling is because it's a segue between the chapter
1 and the chapter 3 and because of these silly numbers and chapters
and verse headings It is very aggravating because we want to
subject the scripture here to a division for which Paul has
not intended it to have. Let me give you an example. It's
very easy, as we read through scripture, to see the introduction
of the letter, the first seven verses. And then we see the prologue
of the letter, which would be the outline of the argument of
the theology that Paul is going to teach. And then we see the
causation of that and the outcome of what Paul is teaching, starting
in verse 18, for the wrath of God, and so on and so on and
so on. And then we see the essence and the push and the press of
the gospel being the only hope that man has. Against the wrath
of God and so that God's wrath and his justice is coming against
all the ungodly of which we once were and because of his grace
and kindness we now have eternal life in Christ and So when we
get to chapter 2 Paul is just continuing. That's why he starts
out there therefore And since they didn't see fit to acknowledge
God, then what did God do? He gave them up. He gave them
up. He gave them up. And therefore,
because He gave them up, those people who are unbelievers, by
rebellion, choice are Experiencing the reality of the justice of
God's holiness righteousness and wrath therefore Now he's
talking he was talking about someone Now he's talking to someone
in chapter 2 Therefore you have no excuse. Oh, man. That's what
we went to last week is that there is no excuse for the reader
and There's no excuse for the reprobate, and there's no excuse
for the reader to assume or to presume that they could escape
God's vengeance and God's wrath for any reason except through
the power of the gospel. And so when we got down through
verse 11, we learned that God shows no partiality. And here's
the reality of what we're about to hear as we move into verse
12. is that Paul is writing to the
Christians who are in Rome, of which some are Israelites. Some are Jews from the tribe
of Judah, living as Jews. He is writing this because he's
going to very eloquently and very articulately say later in
this letter that there is no person that lives in the world,
that has ever lived in the world, who is not guilty before God.
And that's what he's established here, and that's what he's establishing
here in Chapter 2. That the Jew is guilty, and the Gentile is
guilty before God. Matter of fact, let's put that
in the proper context. The Jews are guilty, and the Gentiles
are guilty, plurally. and particularly, so that there
is no difference there. But now Paul begins to argue
about the difference, because what's going to take place in
the reader's mind is for the Roman, of which Paul is also
a Roman, but for the Greek Christian of Rome, they're going to begin
to think this way. They're going to say, oh, you
know what? I am not as good as a believer. As the Jewish believer,
because I've not had the law of God. I've not followed the
law of God. I've not practiced the law of
God. I've not known the law of God. I've not been able to live
according to the law of God. I've not had the oracles of God.
I've not had anything to do with God. So that's what the Greek
Roman Christian is going to think. And the Jewish Roman Christian
is going to say, hey, we finally arrived at where we've been working
for for millennia. We finally arrived to where we
are because, man, we have sort of stayed the course. And Paul's
about to dust that reality wide open for them. He's about to
tear it out of the pages of their mind. And he does so because,
as a Jew and a Roman, He in turn is the very audience of the writing
of this particular passage. So that he would say, just like
the Apostle James would say in James chapter 3, not many of
you should be teachers' brethren. He's talking to believers. For
those who teach, he doesn't say those. He says, we, inclusive
of himself, the writer, we who teach, will be here to a stricter
standard or stricter judgment. That means the characterization
of how we'll be looked upon and how we'll be judged by those
who hear what we have to say is stricter. It's not about condemnation
of the Lord. Though we do know that false
teachers are going to be strictly judged, they're going to be judged
as unbelievers, just like the rest of unbelievers. So therefore,
now, in this chapter, Paul is beginning to say that the way
that men are judged is by their works. And this is where it gets
really tricky. Because in our vernacular as
evangelical people, We have come to consider the works of our
flesh in righteousness something that effectually causes God to
have love for us. Now, when we get to chapter 4,
we're going to be able to see what living by faith looks like.
And then by the time we get over on into chapter 8 and further,
we're going to really start to relax a little bit. But right
now, there is a tension in our spirit. There should be. Right
now, there's a tension in our minds. There's a tension in our
lives, even in our bodies, going, oh my gosh, is there anything
that I can do that pleases God? Or am I even born again? Because some people could teach
this text as if you don't exhibit certain types of fruits in your
life, which means obedience to the law, which you're a non-believer.
But that's not what Paul's arguing. Paul, as a matter of fact, arguing
against that because he's establishing that anyone who trusts in the
works of their own lives are actually condemned by God, and
those who don't trust in the works of their lives, they're
also condemned by God because they've broken the law. And so
that once we've broken the law of God, there is no then not
breaking the law of God. Do you understand? So once I've
broken the law, I'm always a lawbreaker, and I'm always guilty of breaking
the law, no matter how much not breaking the law I've done in
the last 6,000 years. I'm still guilty of breaking
the law. But for some reason in our culture,
evangelical Christianity has taken the gospel of grace and
the commandment, and the exhortation, and the rebuke, and the training,
and the counsel, and the correction of Scripture, and has turned
it into what we could assume is another gospel. So we've got
to be very careful to hear the word of the Lord as it is given
to us tonight for the sake of our joy, for the sake of our
understanding, for the sake of our experiencing the reality
of redemption by faith alone in Jesus Christ. So let's look
at the word of the Lord here in verse 6 and go down through
verse 16. He, he's talking God as a subject,
will render to each one according to his works. To those who, by
listening to this contrast, there's two groups. To those who by patience
in well-doing seek for glory and honor in mortality, He will
give eternal life. But for those who are self-seeking,
who do not obey the truth, but who obey unrighteousness, there
will be wrath and there will be fury. Verse 9 there will be
tribulation and distress for every human being who does evil
the Jew first and also to the Greek But verse 10 glory and
honor and peace for everyone who does good first of the Jew
then also to the Greek For God shows no partiality let me stop
there, and then we're going to go in I actually taught this
in part last week and What's happening here as a way of reminder
so that when we get into before all have? Who have sinned verse
of verse 12? We need to recognize that works
are judged and paid accordingly And what Paul is doing here is
he's not teaching a doctrinal truth you hear me Paul is not
teaching a theological truth Paul is not teaching a That if
you follow the rules of God, you will have eternal life. And
Paul is not teaching that if you do not follow the rules of
God, you will not have eternal life. You might say, well, that's
what he says. No, that's not what he says, because we're not
through with the thought. That's what he says there if we stop.
But if we keep going, we will see. So let's unpack verses 6,
7, 8, 9, 10, 11 very quickly as a way of reminder. Verse 6
is those who work by patience to seek what? Well-doing. To
seek glory and seek honor and seek eternal life. He will give
eternal life. Now some commentators would come
to the table and say, see, if you are all born again, you will
obey the Lord. OK. I know a lot of unbelievers
who obey the Lord. So, I mean, that's a given. Duh.
If you're alive, you'll be breathing. All right, great. If your eyes
work, you'll be singing. If your ears work, you'll be
hearing, and so on. So there's nothing, there's not
a, there's not some taught-on magic formula here that we all
said, well, if we follow after Christ, if we obey the Lord,
then we'll sing guitar live. Great. But that's not exactly
true, is it? It's not true at all. And to
some people, because they are higher critics and a little bit
ignorant of reading proper English, they come to the table saying,
let's just segment that text out. Let's create an entire doctrinal
treatise on that particular section of verses. And let's teach people
that if they do what the law requires, they will have eternal
life. Let me tell you something, beloved. The Bible teaches us,
and we'll see in a minute in verse, well, not in a minute, but in
a couple of weeks, we'll see in chapter 3, a minute. that there is none that seek
after God. There is none that are good. No, not one. So that this thing that Paul
just said is an impossible reality. It is a hypothetical argument
to produce in the hearts of the self-righteous all around. And
we're doing all right. That's why I wrote it. That's
why I wrote it. He didn't write it to tell you
that if you follow all the rules, you have eternal life. Because
see, in reality, yes, if you could be holy before the Lord,
you could gain eternal life. But beloved, if from your zygote
state, what is that? That's your fertilized egg. From the point you are entered
into your mother's womb as a person, with a soul, you obeyed God perfectly. For 50,000 years, you would still
go to hell. You hear that? Why? Because you have an earthly mother
and you have an earthly father who gave you a sin nature that
is an abomination before God. People that believe that man
are inherently good to listen, we have a lot of labels in our
culture today. We hear a lot, in the contrast of sovereign
grace or Calvinism, we hear that the antithesis of Calvinism is
Arminianism. as a doctrinal position. It's
not really. As a matter of fact, to date,
I know two true Armenians. I know two, literally, Armenians. Two of them. Trey knows them
also. And I know a Wesleyan that's pretty close, so maybe I have
three people in the entire world of people that I know in the
entire life that I've lived that are Armenian. But most people don't fall into
that category. Most people fall into the category
of what we would call Pelagian, which was the name of another
theologian who was an absolute heretic, who to this day, if
the Lord did not give him grace, is suffering the pending judgment,
waiting. Why? Because he believed that
man had all that he needed inside of himself to come to faith,
because man is good. The same thing that Charles Finney
thought, the same thing that D.L. Moody thought, the same
thing that Billy Graham thinks, and the same thing that most
people think. They are not Arminians, they are Pelagians at the core
of their theology. And if they do not repent, believe
the gospel, they will not have eternal life. Just like if any
good Calvinist holds to his Calvinism rather than to Jesus, he will
not see eternal life. This scripture here, if we remember
in verse 11, God shows no partiality. This is not purpose to teach
that we are able to work for our salvation. This is an apologetic
against the obedience to the law in primer as a hope for the
unbeliever. In verse 8, it says there what? That those who are self-seeking,
Those who do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness there
will be wrath and fury now the self Let me just stop and we
change that the well-meaning Jew at the time would read this
and go yeah, that's right These Romans better pay attention to
what he just said because you know we have obeyed and we are
right with the Lord and these guys better pay attention and
So see what Paul's doing. He's setting up this argument
for his audience to take sides, and then he's going to pull the
rug out from under them, and they're going to fall into the pit of unity.
And their unity is going to be in their guilt before the Lord.
So he says that there are those who are vain and self-indulgent,
self-seeking. They do not obey the truth, but
obey unrighteousness. And in turn, they earn fury and
wrath forever and ever and ever. In verse 9, it's a recapitulation. It's a restatement of the same
idea, that there will be fury and wrath and tribulation and
distress. What does he say? For every human
being who does evil. Now is it making sense? Now is
it making sense? There will be fury. There will be tribulation. There
will be wrath. There will be distress for every
human being who does evil. The question then is, who among
us has not done evil? Who among us has not done evil? hands in the air Certainly not
mine. I'll nail them to the floor in
case you might think I'm accidentally raising my hand as I scratch
my ear There is no way to stand before God and say that we have
done no evil so who they tell are the people of verse 6 They
do not exist in the world As a matter of fact, there is only
one person that has ever existed in the world who has followed
after verse 6 and has thus satisfied the holy requirements of God,
and his name is Jesus of Nazareth, who is the Christ, born of a
virgin named Mary, in the city of David. He's the only one. He's the only
one there who has ever fulfilled that verse. Verse 10, well, and verse 9 there
continues, it says, anyone who does evil, first to the Jew and
then to the Greek. And then he repeats himself again,
alternate order of this, what we call, chiasm in literature.
But glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good, first
to the Jew and first to the Greek, for God shows no impartiality.
So God is telling the Jews there that if they do evil, then they're
guilty, just like the Gentile. And they're guilty, and they
will suffer wrath. And then they say, God shows no impartiality.
So there's still this mindset amongst the readers Some of them
thinking that they do well, and some of them well known in their
hearts that they don't do well. Now think about where we are
individually right now tonight. We are in the party of those
who, well, if we were talking about our humanity, and our seeking
glory, and our seeking immortality, and our seeking well-doing, are
we in that camp? No. not in our humanity, not in our
flesh, not in our ability, not in our desires, but we are in
Christ. So of course there's some transformation
that happens, but that's not what Paul's arguing here. Paul's
not saying, let me see your life. Paul's not saying that if you
live a life that looks holy, you're holy. Paul's not saying
that. Because if he was saying that,
I'm shutting the book and I'm never reading Paul again because
he's contradicting himself over in chapter 3. He says that no
one is justified by the works of all. This is not talking about salvation. This is talking about guilt.
And Paul's establishing the guilt for every person that's ever
lived. That's why it's not something that we should take. out of its
context and build an entire system of theology around it. No one does good. This is
not a doctrinal argument, but it's the beginning of a hypothetical
setup. It is to make the Jewish reader
fall prey to their own heart and disclose the condition of
self-righteousness. It is to make the Gentile reader to go,
wow, I'm in trouble. I haven't followed it at all.
The Jew's got an upper hand on me. Showing that the Jew that
if they do evil even though that they are a Jew they still have
no excuse before the Lord but in verse 11 there's no partiality
look at verse 12 for For is connected to God shows no partiality for
all who have sinned Without the law now. There's two groups here
that Paul's going to argue so there's a group that has no law
all have sinned without the law and will also perish without
the law. So let's talk about this. Who
are those without the law? The Gentiles. What do you mean?
God gave the law to the Jews and they kept it for themselves.
They hoarded it. But as Jesus says, you shut the
door of the kingdom of heaven. You shut people out. You've got
a whitewashed tomb. Snakes, dogs, sons of Satan. All sorts of horrible things. And those who are without the
law will sin or perish without the law. And those who have sinned
under the law will be judged by the law. Verse 13, for it
is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God,
but the doers of the law who will be justified. Now, here
Paul has repeated himself again. So I could, if I wanted to be
a sneaky little pastor and control every one of you, I could say,
if you're not following after God and if you're sinning at
all, you're probably not saved. I could say all sorts of things.
If you're not reading your Bible four times a day, and praying
in your closet, and tithing 75% of your income. I mean, we don't
talk about tithing. We just go get it all. And serving
your neighbor, and cutting your enemy's grass. If you don't do
all these things, you're just lost. And what you'll do is you'll
go home and you'll say, man, you're right. Pastor's right.
We better get up tomorrow and start doing all this good stuff
so we can be right with God. Now, that's not what Paul's talking
about. Paul is arguing That there is none who is righteous
Because if we can stand here and say I am doing what is right
Because I'm a doer of the law and I'll be justified we're lost
See, that's how we know who's lost and who's saved. Well, how
do we really know? We persevere But how do we measure
one's salvation in the context of the local church, by their
profession? And the profession is always on their lips. And
their profession is when they do sin, we see a work of God
in their lives, but their profession is not, wow, I'm so glad I walked
away from that evil, now I'm right with God. No, thank God
for the sacrifice of Jesus who served as my replacement on the
justice, with the justice of God, that I might be righteous
because He is righteous, you see. That's the gospel. That's why it's called gospel.
Good news. It's not good news, beloved,
if we are walking unto the ends of futility for the sake of our
salvation. If we are saying, well, I am
able to work and stand justifiably before God because I do the Word
of God. Beloved, we will do the Word of God. We are doing the
Word of God tonight. We're assembling together as
we've been told to do. We're hearing, we're learning,
we're gleaning, we're praying, we're worshiping. Worshiping
Colossians 3 takes place when we get together It's not justifying
us before God Because we've already failed the law we've already
Decided in rebellion we've already been declared guilty before our
birth David says in sin was I conceived in iniquity was I brought forth
and all my sin is forever before me I What does that mean? Same thing John would say in
his first epistle, around the first few sections of chapter
2, or before that. If anyone says he's without sin,
he's a liar. He does not practice the truth.
But these things are written, beloved. What does John say?
These things are written, beloved, that you may not sin, but if
you sin, If you sin, you have an agony with the Father. Jesus
Christ the righteous, who is our propitiation, you see, God's
satisfaction of his justice against us, God's righteousness fulfilled
in the person of Jesus Christ. Oh church, how often so many
believers stay stagnant in a misunderstood reality, sitting under false
teachers who are trying their best to be right, but cannot
see because they're blind. In so many organizations that
are called churches, where people are told that if they walk rightly,
then they are right. The Bible doesn't teach that
at all. And I fear to say that I believe
that sometimes the way people are so headstrong, yes, there's
ignorance, yes, there's false teachers who lead us astray.
Friends, don't believe that everybody who has the wrong understanding
of the gospel is lost because the people of Galatia had the
wrong understanding of the gospel. But they learned it right, correctly,
because God saved them. The people of Thessalonica knew
the truth of the gospel because God's Spirit opened their hearts
and minds and regenerated them and birthed them anew. And the
reality of the gospel came alive to them. And to receive the word
of God is not the word of men, but from the Lord, from the Spirit. With power, Paul says, you receive
the gospel of Jesus Christ that we proclaim. But yet he wrote
both of those regions, the region of Thessalonica and the region
of Galatia, because there were invasions of false teaching going
on. One in particular about being
able to say that the Lord Jesus had already returned and that
those who were dying now were stuck in a state of soul sleep. And for the Galatians, it was
the Judaizers who were coming in trying to say, yeah, we believe
in Christ alone also, but now if you want to truly honor the
Lord, you must practice circumcision. To which Paul said, those people
are forever anathemized. They are forever cut off from
Christ. Eternally. Why? Because they added one little
thing to the Gospel of Grace. Let us not add our work to the
gospel of grace. Let the Lord be true. Let the
Spirit of the Lord be the one who is the one walking with us
and gets all honor and all glory and all praise for every good
thing that we do. For if there's anything we do
in our flesh, For any reason it is not pleasing to God, but
only the one who lives by faith is pleasing to God For even in
the greatest moment of his so-called good doing and obedience It is
only because Christ obeyed that God does not smite us in the
very practice thereof Hallelujah Paraphrase verses 14 and 15 is
a paraphrase. I've labored this text for a
week, and I don't like this Like it because it's hard for me to
pave it the way that the Bible teaches it and my flesh so hard
wants to go into the things that I've always been taught from
childhood and hold to the traditions of men and And I'm always fearful that when
the truth of God's word comes, and it's one of these, that people
are going to go, man, I can't track with this. This is too
much. I'm out of here. And as a shepherd called by God, the
worst thing that could ever happen is some of you leave. I'd rather
get killed by a train. No offense to him. Parenthetical, verse 14, 15. Here's the setup. For when Gentiles
who do not have the law of our nature do what the law requires,
they are a law of themselves, even though they do not have
the law. They show that the work of the law is written on their
hearts while their conscience also bears witness, and their
conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them on that day
when, according to my gospel, it's a ceremony. God judges the
secrets of men by Christ Jesus. What Paul is saying, It's a very
unpopular reality. The doctrine of this letter,
as it introduces itself before it gets to the end of chapter
3, basically tells us what Jesus has already illustrated in the
Gospel narratives, which is, broad is the path that leads
to destruction, and many go that way, but narrow is the gate that
leads to righteousness, and few will find it. To hear me beloved
y'all listen to this children listen to what I'm about to say
You are not going to have eternal life because your parents brought
you to church You only have eternal life if
you believe in Jesus Christ who took your sin The world is as a majority is
going to perish and Most people who live in this world, throughout
all of history, are going to go into a Christless eternity. Do not presume, because God is
kind, that He is going to overlook His wrath and His justice and
have mercy on unbelievers. He will not do it. He will not
do it. He will not have mercy on those
who are of the right pedigree. He will not have mercy on those
who are of the right lineage of pastors. He will not have
mercy on those who hold to a specific doctrine. He will not have mercy
on those who are deacons or pastors or teachers. He will only have
mercy on those who cling to the mercy seat, who is Jesus. on which God poured His wrath
out fully to pay for the sins of His people who by faith live. The wages of sin is surely death.
Some people say, well, I'm a believer. Look at me. Some people say, well, I have
eternal life because I will live for the Lord. I had somebody say
that to me last week. You believe in Christ? Yeah,
I live with the Lord every day. I want it so hard to step on
his toes. Literally. Just to see if he'd
cuss me out. He probably would. What's a living
for the Lord look like? I pray we're all living for the
Lord. I pray we're all living for the
glory of Christ. In all that we do, in all that
we say, whether it be in our bodies, in whatever you eat or
drink, live for the glory of Christ. What does it mean? What does
it mean when somebody says, I'm OK? See, I don't sin as much
as I used to. Or I'm OK. I serve the Lord with
my life. From what I've heard recently
that I've heard my entire life, I gave my life to Jesus. I'm
fine. Well, that's sad, because you
gave your life to Jesus, and it's not worth having. Jesus, on the other hand, gave
His life for you, beloved. See, that's what's worth having.
The life of Christ and His obedience is worth having. The life of
Christ and His death is worth having. The life of Christ and
His resurrection and His glorification is worth having, because Christ
is all that we need. Verse 12 it teaches us as I've
already read that all who have sinned without the law will also
perish without the law It doesn't matter if we're ignorant or not
I didn't know that was illegal. I'm sorry you're going to prison
anyway I mean I couldn't burn down my house. I was tired of
it. No, it's arson. I don't care if you own it or
not I can't go out there and take
those mashed potatoes. I was hungry. I didn't know I couldn't
have them. I thought this was a free market. That's what I learned
in college. No. Free market doesn't mean
you can take it out of the market without paying for it. You can
freely pay for it. Or not. This means that whether
they know what they ought to do or not, they're judged by
the standard of the law. And the law is what? God's holiness. We get that I'm making stuff
up. You just you gotta trust me. It's in here Romans chapter
3. What's in me? To the law of the prophets manifest
for the holiness of righteousness of God is manifested apart from
the law of the prophets though They bear witness to it. What
is the law for to manifest the witness of God's righteousness,
which is internally dog just with the word Cohesive with this
holiness, which is a display of his intrinsic worthiness God
is God because he's holy and God commands all People to be
holy as he is holy or pays the penalty and we pain the penalty
because our father Adam will build against God In a state
of innocence he chose not to believe God and he rebelled why
Because he loved the creature rather than the Creator just
like Paul has argued already in Romans 1 and No man has ever measured any
in any way toward the standard of God's holiness ever Not even
an inch In that funny how we like to say especially funerals.
Oh, you're such a good man. Don't say that at my funeral
You can say I was a good breakdancer You get you can say I was a good
soul singer You can lie about any other thing, but don't tell
the people that sit there that I was a good man and Don't tell people that I was
a good Christian. Tell people that I was a sinner
saved by the grace of God through Jesus Christ. And that if it
weren't for His mercy, I'd be dancing in the flames of hell
sometime in the future. Get your theology right. But that today I'm in the bosom
of my Lord because He was merciful to me. Nobody's ever measured any not
even an inch toward the holiness of God Second part of verse 12
those who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law
So those who are ignorant of the law They're still judged
by the law and those who know the law are going to be judged
by the law and they cannot answer it They cannot do it So the ones
who have it and the ones who do it will be judged the same
as those who don't have it and don't do it You see that? Those
who follow the law will be judged as if they have followed the
law. And guess what? They haven't. So they're guilty
of not following the law. And those who haven't and don't
follow it, they're just as guilty as the ones who have followed
it. And those who have never heard it and followed it anyway,
because it's on their heart and on their consciences, they're
guilty just like the ones who haven't and have followed it.
Because they don't have it and have followed it, but yet they
haven't followed it. See why this is so frustrating? But this
is the hypothetical that Paul has established here. It's a
hypothetical argument to lay down any excuse. To what he'll
soon say, every mouth may be shut. I saw somebody fighting
on Facebook today. I was reading a post on some
doctrinal things. And this dude got this big, long
tree of teeth and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And the guy
said, be quiet. Heard. I love that. No, shut up. I mean, you know, it's just,
that's all he said, be quiet. We're not even gonna get that.
There is nothing, there is nothing that we bring to say to the Lord,
I've done my fair try. Look at what I have. You know
the thermometers that you put in the front of a building? You
fill them in as you earn money for the new wing in the hospital,
or the cancer treatment thing, or the boot club, or whatever
it is. You know what I'm talking about. You fill them in. Fundraisers,
that's what it's called. I'm like, what do those things
come from? Sometimes we feel so silly. But sometimes we feel
like we've got this thermometer, and we're just working. We know
we're never going to fill it up, but we're really getting there. We're really
walking a little bit closer to the Lord today. We're just getting
a little bit higher. I want to go lower, and we're
going to stand there and say, look, I didn't get all the way
where I should be. Look where I am. No. No. Because every righteous work
that we do just sort of stays at the bottom. Every good word that we say to
the Bible, it never fills up the thermometer. It never fills
up the pie chart. It never fills up the piggy bank.
It never comes to credit to anything but judgment. But the righteousness
of Christ filled it up already. The reason we can't fill it up
is because it's already full. Christ's righteousness has already filled
our account. So how, if you have an account that's full, can you
add anything to it? And if you had an account full
of gold, why would you want to put poop in it? That's just for the kids,
see if they're listening. You say poop, everybody snickers. If you had pure water, why would
you want to put the dogs swimming in it? If you had life, why would
you want to put death in it? If you had holiness, why would
you want to put disobedience in it? Those who have sinned under the
law will be judged by the law. But doesn't it say that the doers
of the law be justified, not just the hearers? Yes. And oh
my goodness, if I have to go back to my first year in seminary
and have the argument, who's right, Paul or James? Yes. They both said it. What does
James say? Be not just hearers, but also
what? Doers. So people say, well, now we're
back to square one. Are we listening? I like what Jesus says in John
6. John 6 is powerfully doctrinal. There's stuff in there that blows.
It's an apologetic in John 6. When I get to John 6, I am going
to break dance up here. I'm not even going to use the
podium. I'm going to get my wireless mic out, whether it squeals or
not. I'm just, I'm going to move. Because John 6, those people
actually ask Him, ask Jesus, what must we be doing to do the
work of God? And Jesus says, this is the work
of God, that you believe on the Son. There are many people who like
to argue, well, you know, doing right gets you right. That's
wrong. Doing good after you're saved secures you. That's wrong. And some people say, well, doing
good doesn't matter at all. That's wrong. And some people
say, well, doing is not required at all. We just sin, sin, sin.
That's wrong. It's all wrong. It's about Christ
and His work. He who is faithful. He who started
what? The good work. In Ephesians 2, you are God's
workmanship. Created in Christ Jesus to what?
Do good works, which is first and foremost and most of all
in all ways. What? Believing on Him. In John 3, the latter part of
the discourse with Nicodemus. What does Jesus say? What does
the Scripture say? This is the judgment. The light has come,
but people love the darkness rather than the light, for the
works are evil, taught in the Nicodemus. You won't come to the light,
because if you do, you'll get to see that your righteous works
and all your teaching of the law, as the teacher of all Israel,
are darkness. It doesn't count for anything.
It doesn't help you anywhere. It doesn't go anywhere. Quit
trusting in those things, Nicodemus. You gotta have a supernatural
overhaul and become something new, and you can't do it. The
Spirit's gonna have to do it in you without you, and without
your consent, and without your decision, and without your will,
you see. Verse 15, it says, "...they show
that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their
conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts
accuse or even excuse them of the day when, according to my
gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus." See, what Paul is really arguing
is three things in this text, and I'll give them to you in
closing. First, Paul has argued a lot of things, but the ultimate
Press. Three points. The first one is
that the law is the measure of judgment, whether one has it
or not. The holiness of God is the measure
of judgment. God's not going to judge me by you and you by
me, and line us up and say, OK, you're a little better than this
one, and put us in holiness order. Who'd be at the first of that
line? None of us. There's one place, and it's last
place. And we're all in the last place spot. We're in the righteousness
spot only if we're in Christ's spot. And even then, there's no holiness
order. There's no righteousness order. There's no, oh, this is
a greater believer than this believer. We're all the same
in the context of God's judgment because we're all guilty. And
we're all the same in the context of God's mercy because we've
all been given mercy and we don't deserve it. So the law is a measure of judgment,
whether we have it or not. Gentiles don't have the law.
The Jews did. They're both guilty. Whether they did or they didn't
do it. The Gentiles that did it and they didn't have it, they're
guilty. The Jews that did it, that had it, but didn't do it,
they're guilty. The ones that did it, we're not going to go
through that again, right? The second point that Paul argues
here is that the law is on the heart of man whether he admits
it or not. Every human being knows the holiness of God and
knows the existence of God, but we by our works of unrighteousness
suppress the truth. And one of the greatest works
of unrighteousness, as we'll see as we go forward with Israel,
with Jews, is that they have the work of unrighteousness of
self-righteousness. They have the work of unrighteousness of
pedigree righteousness. I'm a Jew. I'm good. the Pharisees,
that Jesus would even say in Matthew's Gospel, unless your
righteousness is greater than that of the Pharisees, you cannot
enter the kingdom of heaven. What is he talking about, perfection?
Nobody can measure up to the Pharisees' lifestyle. I mean,
for the love of all things holy, they had the Bible in their face
and taped to their heart. I mean, who does that? You might
embroider it on a pillow and stick it on a wall, but I don't
know that any of you have walked around here with an embroidered
John 316 in your face. Unless you're at a football game,
you might paint it on your forehead. Why and what that means, I have
no idea. Or if you're rooting for your home team, Philippians
413 might be on your forehead. The Gentiles do have the law
by nature. The Gentiles do have the law in their conscience.
The Gentiles do what is required by the law because they know
what is right. We don't get rewarded for obeying God. Gentiles are a law of themselves.
In verse 15 it says they show that it's written on their hearts.
And they prove by their consciences that the law is true. The third
thing that Paul argued here, this is the final thing, is that
the Law of God, as it is measured and as it is assuredly on the
heart of every man, is going to be revealed in the Day of
Judgment. So that none of us, listen to this, none of us can
lie to ourselves. But even if we do, we cannot
lie to God. So if we sit here tonight with our hope truly resting
in ourselves, God knows that. And you know, sometimes when
we lie to ourselves long enough, we might believe the lie. Beloved, nothing is hidden from
Jesus. Jesus knows the sincerity of
our hearts, which is absolutely hardly any. Jesus knows the weakness
and the frailty of our unbelief. Jesus knows just how small...
He said mustard seeds were the smallest things that people could
see. If you think your faith is bigger
than mustard seed, it's not. Your faith is about the size
of an electron. And so is mine. What's an electron?
It's not a transformer. It's a very tiny thing. But it's not about our faithfulness,
it's about God's faithfulness. The Gospel is about what God
has done to secure the salvation of His people, not what God is
offering that we must go snatch from Him with all of our best
intentions. And nothing can be hidden from
God. Why then do we pray as though God doesn't know? Have you ever
thought about that? We pray and we don't even confess
our sins to Him in practice that the Scripture teaches us, as
Jesus taught us to pray, because we somehow say, well, if we say
it then God will know. He knows! He knows your unbelief. He knows your sin. He knows who
we are indeed. He knows us better than we know
ourselves. And beloved, there is nothing,
nothing, nothing that can take His love away from us. Nothing
that can separate us from the love of God who is in Christ
Jesus. Do you understand that that's an amazing work of God?
If Jesus holds up the universe by the word of His power, how
much more amazing He says that Jesus seals His people by His
Holy Spirit. That He indwells us. That where
He is, we are. And that where we are, He is. We're not alone. We have the
Word of God. We have the Spirit inside. And
when we find ourselves in the darkness of unbelief, no matter
what it looks like. Maybe it looks like marriage
problems. Maybe it looks like worry and fear. Maybe it looks
like unbelief. Maybe it looks like we've got to take control
of certain circumstances. But whatever our unbelief looks
like, Christ is faithful. Because if it was up to us, we
would never be able to stand in the day of judgment. We would
never be able to argue that we obey the law because we can't.
We would never be able to argue that we overcame our guilt with
all the recent obedience, because we didn't. We would never be
able to argue because of our pedigree, or because of our teaching,
or because of our service, or because of who we are. We cannot
escape judgment because of what we've done. We cannot escape
judgment because of the knowledge that we've gained. We cannot
escape judgment because of who we are. We escape judgment because
of God's mercy on us and what Christ has done for us, so that
we are all Guilty. And as we prepare to close this
time out, if you look at verse 17, you see, 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 are 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 the darkness,
an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of children, having
in the law the embodiment of the knowledge of truth, then
you, then who teach others, do you not teach yourself? So now Paul is just going to
go right to the Jew. And he's going to ask them a
whole lot of questions, and he's going to say that the name of
God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you Jews. Because
they did not teach. They stood as light, but they
were true darkness. They stood as beacons of righteousness,
but they were really wicked. Not because of the things they
did, but because of whom they were. And their only hope is the gospel
of grace, the power of God for which Paul said he's not ashamed
to profess and to preach and to proclaim, because it is the
power of God unto salvation, first to the Jew, then also to
the Greek. So that we rest in the sufficiency
of Christ as our all-satisfying, powerful Savior. And so in that
we rejoice, beloved. And as we leave this time tonight,
I pray that we would truly rejoice knowing that we have a Savior
that certainly saves, and a Savior that has overcome all the darkness,
all the evil, all the sin for the sake of His people. He's
paid for it, and nothing, nothing can change it. Let's pray. What a glorious truth. Lord, there's really not much
else to be said, except we praise you for who you are. And I thank
you, Lord, for your comfort. And I thank you, Lord, for your mercy. I thank you for
your grace, Lord, that I could get through this text. And I
pray that if I've spoken in error, that it would be revealed to
us in our hearts by Your Spirit and through Your Word, that it
might be fixed. I pray that if we've received
it wrongly, Lord, that we would satisfy that dissension through
prayer and meditation on Your Word, that we would see the truth.
And I pray, Lord, that we would not come to the table of philosophy and think, well
now, what does it mean about this? For Lord, you were not
teaching us about salvation, but you were teaching us about
guilt. And we're guilty. Father, you say we're holy before
you, when we know we're not, because Christ's righteousness
has been counted as ours. Because our sin has been put
upon Him, and you crushed Him. and it pleased you because you
love your people. So Lord, let us leave this moment
with joy and hope and worship. In Jesus' name we
pray. Amen.