We move into this chapter of
this letter. It's going to be almost redundant
in some ways because the doctrines that are taught in Romans chapter
1 prepares the reader, remember, for the rest of the letter. So
we see the outline that Paul establishes in Romans 1, and
we see the arguments that Paul establishes in Romans 1, namely
that the righteous wrath of God is going to be poured out particularly
on each individual who is an unbeliever because of their unrighteousness. And it is just We also see that
the gospel is the remedy for God's justice, because God in
His justice is right to bring judgment against sinners. So
that if we are to escape justice, if we are to escape wrath, if
we are to escape the vengeance of God, there must be something
that God does to satisfy Himself. For the guilty cannot satisfy
God. So God must do something to satisfy
Himself. And the power of God, which is
the gospel of Jesus Christ, shows us as a reminder, I'm saying
this again, but to remind us, is that the gospel is not just
the story of redemption, but it is the power of redemption.
It is through the hearing of the gospel of Christ that God
saves lost people. God has not called men to reform
themselves. God has not called the world
to transform their morals. God has not called for us as
human beings to get it straight and get in line and follow after
Him in order to be saved. God has commanded all men everywhere
to repent and believe the Gospel. And then long before that, God
commanded Adam and Eve and every person who has since existed
in the world to be holy, for He is holy. the level of holiness
that God requires is absolute perfection. So that none of us
stand this morning before God justified because of our obedience,
because of our passion, because of our love, because of our zeal,
because of any way that we've followed even in our flesh, or
even by His power that we've been made righteous by obeying
that which He's commanded us to obey. God has established
us as righteous because Jesus Christ obeyed the law. Jesus
Christ suffered in place of sinners, so that God then, in His power,
has given eternal life to those who cannot find it, who do not
want it, and who have no power to do either. So we get to the
end of chapter 1, and last week we saw, as I restated verse 32
of chapter 1, let's look at it there and read down through verse
11 of chapter 2 together. Though they knew God's righteous
decrees, verse 32 of chapter 1, that those who practice such
things deserve to die. They not only do them, but they
give approval to those who practice them. Therefore, you have no
excuse, O man, every one of you who judges. For in passing judgment
upon one another, you yourself are condemned, because you, the
judge, practice the very same thing. We know that the judgment
of God rightly falls on those who practice such things. Do
you suppose, O man, you who judge those who practice such things
and yet do them yourself, that you will escape the judgment
of God? Or do you presume on the riches of His kindness and
patience and forbearance, not knowing that God's kindness is
meant to lead you to repentance? But because of your hard and
impenitent heart, you are storing up wrath for yourself on the
day of wrath when God's righteous judgment will be revealed. He
will render to each one according to his works. To those who, by
patience and well-doing, seek for the glory and honor and immortality,
He will give eternal life. But for those who are self-seeking
and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will
be wrath and fury. There will be tribulation and
distress for every human who does evil. The Jew first, and
also the Greek. The glory and honor and peace
for everyone who does good. the Jew first, and also the Greek. For God, and in the eyes of God,
there is no partiality. He shows none at all. That's
my emphasis on the last phrase. It's not what the Bible says.
God shows no partiality. Now here what we see, I believe,
is a grand irony. Because we've already heard that
God will pour out all of His judgment on all wickedness and
unbelief and rebellion and unrighteousness and sin, which is all one thing.
It's all evil. We've learned that the gospel
is our only hope. And we've learned that those
who say they do not believe that God is, lie purposefully because
God has made Himself known. and that they suppress the truth
of the knowledge of God through acts of unrighteousness, whereby
then they bring more judgment upon themselves." Now consider
this for a moment. Isn't this enough that Paul would
argue this very passionately and perfectly? Isn't it enough
to then show that God would turn those over to reprobation, that
He would seal their consciousness, that they cannot be saved? I
want you to think about that for a moment. I want you to think
about the idea that the gospel is a free offer. I want you to
think about what that means as a well-meant offer that's just
freely exposed. Somebody needs to come and believe
in Jesus. Well, that's what the world has done to the gospel
of Jesus. That's what the devil has done to the gospel of Jesus.
He's made it a well-meant offer. He's made it an opportunity for
people to just come and grab hold of the brass ring that God
so passionately holds down, desperate for some to grab. But friends,
that's not what the Bible teaches at all. The Bible teaches that
God in His infinite power reaches down into the depths of darkness
and snatches people out of His own prerogative. He snatches
people from darkness and puts them into life. He snatches people
out of death and He brings them to life. He puts those who are
deserving of judgment, He puts them in the place of safety. And we have to make sure that
we understand this is what Romans 1 also argues before we move
into Romans 2. Because there is a duplicity
of audience in Rome during this time. Paul specifically talking
to Roman citizens who he himself was also a Roman citizen and
also a Jew. So it is very likely and very
comprehensible that Paul would consider the fact that some Jewish,
ethnic Jewish people who were also Roman citizens were part
of the Church of Rome. I want you to hear this. And
it's very likely that as Paul got through writing the first
chapter, of course it wasn't the first chapter for Paul, you
realize that, right? It was just the beginning of
his letter, the introduction. As he wrote the introduction
to this letter, it was very likely that some of the Jewish Roman
Christians of this era, would have said, that's right, those
wicked people, God's turning them over to reprobation. Look
what they're doing out there! Look how they dress! Look how
they live! Look how they talk! Yeah! We're
not like that. But Paul's already said that
there's people who are slanderous, consumed with passions that are
evil, covetousness, maliciousness, Haters of God, boastful. I mean,
a whole list. I mean, it's a terrible list
of wicked things to which we'd all do well to pay attention
that our name, if names were set aside these things, would
be on almost every one of these sins. See also, or for example,
see James Dippens. Or see Trey Mason. I'll pick
on Trey. He's on the front row. Or see whoever. It's not Scott
Miller in here, is he? But if he was, he'd be guilty
too. Who is that? I have no idea, I just made it
up. Everybody's guilty before God.
Everyone is guilty before God. And it is not a truth that should
put us in a hole and make us cower and go, oh, woe is me,
I'm just guilty, I'll never be good enough. That's true. But
the gospel is the power of God out of that guilt. Though the
guilt is true, and though the guilt remains in the context
of the deservability of the judgment, And the actions of the guilty,
God has done an amazing thing because He took Christ's righteousness. Listen, He took Christ's obedience. He took Christ's holiness. He
took Christ's perfection. And He said, you know what, you
silly, adulterous, covetousness, coveter, adulterer, murderer
James. bit of the purity of the righteousness
of my Son Jesus, I credit to you. I credit to you. And all of the
wickedness that you have, all of the wickedness that you are,
all of the sin that you will ever commit, the very essence
of your existence, the hardness, the darkness, the depravity,
I'm going to take it and I'm going to impute it to Him. That is the gospel. Pure and
simple. Kindergarten gospel. We are saved
because God the Father has put the righteousness of Jesus Christ
as a human being in obedience to the law on our account. And then our evil and our sin
and our wickedness has been put on Jesus' body. But there are still some folks
There's still some shafts, some goats, some dogs that can sit
amongst the people of God and have their spiritual heads held
high and look down their noses at the world and say, look at
the wicked. Let me tell you a couple of things
about the wicked. We are part of the wicked if
we're not in Christ. And when we're in Christ, we're
still guilty as the wicked are guilty. But because Christ took
our punishment and we took His righteousness on our account.
I want to help you understand there's a difference. We didn't
become righteous. Or has anybody become righteous?
No. But we've been credited righteousness
because Christ is righteous. so much so that it's a certain
thing. The emphatic position of Paul on that is that we are
the righteousness of God. But the wicked, in comparison
to the saints, the only difference is that God did something powerful
to the saints and for them and on their behalf. It wasn't because
we were smart enough to see it. It wasn't because we did the
right thing to approve of it. It wasn't because we came to
accept it in a certain way in our power and in our flesh? No,
not at all. It's because God is a God of
mercy. God is a God of grace. God is a God of kindness. So
that any one of us who sit in the kindness of God, as we consider,
hear this, as we consider the wicked, we must not hate them. Why would we hate them? And you
might say, well, that's obvious. Well, it's not obvious to many
who profess Christ. It's not obvious to many who
sit on high theological chairs and look down as a tennis judge
to see if the ball actually touched the net or not. It's not obvious
to some of them as they treat unbelievers with disdain. When
Jesus in His humanity even cried to the Father to forgive those
who crucified Him. It doesn't mean that they were
saved, but it does mean that the pure heart of humanity and
obedience to the command of God is to love your enemy, and to
bless them, and to pray for them, and to beg God's mercy upon their
life, and to proclaim the gospel to them. Amongst the church, the scripture
teaches us in Titus to be patient with those who doubt. to be patient
with those who are in error, to be kind and gentle and long-suffering
that God would help us be those who help them grow. And such
were the Jews of the day of Paul. They were the ones who felt,
well, I know he's talking to the Romans there. He's just helping
the Romans see what kind of position they were in, you see. See, we've
already saw that the gospel is the power of God and the salvation,
first to the Jew, then to the Greek, then to the Gentile. So
that if Jews had salvation, it was the power of God, which is
the gospel, for which Paul, the Jew of all Jews, was not ashamed.
But just to make sure that... The Jews of this day understood
and the Greeks of this day understood that Paul is not talking just
about Gentiles. Paul continued to pin these arguments
that we know as chapter 2. And Paul says, therefore you
have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges. Now what
does it mean to judge? Have you not heard? Judge not
lest you be judged, for in the same manner in which you judge
you shall also be judged. So first, take the log out of
your eye that you might see clearly to take the speck out of your
brother's and something of that nature. The Bible doesn't say
that there's not to be judgment, or judgment calls, or discrimination,
or things of that nature. That's what discernment means.
We see something, we consider it, we make a judgment. You're
in traffic, you see an exit with hardly any cars, your GPS is
saying turn left, but left is a cliff. You're thinking, you're
going, you make a judgment. I'm just going to keep going.
Or I'm going to get off here. Or I'm going to go this direction.
I'm going to stop for a pit stop. You're in the JCPenney or wherever
it is, you might buy your clothing, the Goodwill, and we're looking
and you say, OK, does this look good? Does it look good on me?
You put it on, you look in it, you make a judgment. You say,
no, I look like a clown, or I look like a beauty queen, or I look
like a Mormon. I don't know what they look like,
but either way, you make a judgment. Or you see the guy standing on
the side of the road with a big backpack that's about four feet
tall and he's thumbing, trying to thumb a ride. And you've always
been taught, don't pick up hitchhikers because they're dangerous. But
this guy, he's only got two swords and one machine gun. And there's
only one severed head over his shoulder. So he's not killed,
at least one person. So he's probably not a mass murderer.
He probably got the guy he was looking for. So you make a judgment.
Let's stop and pick him up. No, you look at him and you go,
no, I'm going to pick him up. We make judgments all the time.
And when the Lord has made a judgment, for example, God made judgment
all through chapter 1. Does He not talk about the judgment
that He's made? He's judged every man guilty
of being sinful. And therefore in His righteousness
and in His justice, His judgment is that the recompense of wickedness
is His wrath forever eternally. So God makes the judgment. Is
it ever wrong then to agree with God in God's judgments? No, I
think it's a very wise proposition. I think it's a very wise proposition
to say that which God says is probably something that I would
do well and place my bets on agreeing with, if you are a betting
type. So, as we come to, then, this
judgment idea, what does Paul mean? Does he mean when you see
people who are in sin, you should just say, oh, it's not sin, it's
not for me to judge? No. He's saying don't judge them
in this context. Look at their wickedness. They
deserve God's wrath. You see the difference? As if
we don't? As if we aren't just as guilty
as our neighbor who is lost as a goat? Lost as a ball in high
weeds as my pastor from Tennessee used to say? Lost in the dark
and don't know where they're going? Are we not just as guilty,
just as worthy of judgment? Yes. So we're not passing judgment
as though we are the judge, for God is the judge. God is the
one who comes and makes this judgment. We already see that
we don't give approval to those who do these things. We don't
give approval to sin. So He's not saying, don't make
a judgment. He's saying, don't be the judge. As if you're innocent. Let's
look at it ecclesiologically. That means within the study of
the church and the fellowship of the church. What we see in
the pastoral epistles is that those who are spiritual, what?
Correct those who fall into sin. What does that mean? That means
if we see someone in sin, then we go to them and say, hey brother,
hey sister, We're here to help you. Let's don't follow this
path because we're in Christ. We're no longer slaves to this.
Why? Because sin, even as a believer, is destructive. It's damaging
to the name of Christ. And so we make judgments on that.
But let's continue there. Every one of you who judges,
for in passing judgment on one another, you condemn yourself.
Why do you condemn yourself? Because you, the judge, practice
the very same thing. So I believe that what Paul is
trying to establish here is not just for Jews, but especially
for Jews, who in some way might have felt that they were a little
superior in their spirituality because of the lineage of their
heritage and the history of their religion. To which Jesus came
on the scene and said that Judaism was a shadow and now it was finished.
It's over. It's a worthless, false religion that worships
a worthless, false God. Judaism worships Satan. Jews worship Satan, and they
call him Jehovah. They call him Yahweh. Why would
you say that? I didn't. Jesus said it. Jesus
told the Pharisees that their father was the devil, not Abraham. Paul will say over in Romans
chapter 9 that it is not those who are of the siblings of Abraham
who are Israel, but those who are in Christ who are Israel.
Paul would reiterate the identical thing to the people of Galatia,
to the region of Galatia. And so the Jews felt authoritatively
smug, spiritually if you will, when hearing such things as chapter
1's list of sins. I can grasp this a lot easier
than most of you because I've lived in the San Francisco Bay.
And by name, Paul lists homosexuality as the premier sin after worshipping
or not thanking God and not believing in God. Homosexuality. And I
remember distinctly when Proposition 8 was on the ballot, and many
people in the evangelical world, and there's a quote, quote, quote
coming up in the air for those who might listen to this later, evangelical,
who made it their mantra, their banner, to turn their nose up
and to look down upon the gay community to such a degree that
they were without hope. Oh, you know, those people. They
called it over there or the city. And it was a dogmatic view, a
bigoted view of that those people in the city are beyond hope. Let's just pray imprecatory prayers
against them so God can go ahead and smite them and get them off
the face of the earth. We want our earth to be pure.
Well, then you better get on a boat and get off of it then,
you see. And I'll never forget the looks that I got when I said,
if you voted a certain way because you hate homosexuals, then you
sinned before God and you violated the very commands of Christ,
and I beg for you to challenge yourself if you are even in the
faith of Jesus. And that was probably the wrong
thing to say, but I was angry. I said, but if you voted in a
certain way because you want to uphold the name of Christ,
you want to see people come to faith, you want to see an established
focus, I said, then you did well with your conscience. And I mean,
I had a lot of backlash on that statement. For more reasons than
one. Theologically, because I just
really pushed the people into a corner about their faith, because
of what they did or didn't do, rather than in whom they believed. And then secondly, because it
stepped on some toes. But that's the type of person
that Paul is addressing here. The person that would look at
the wicked and say, well, I'm not that wicked. Look at those
nasty people. I'm above that. And not even
know that they were thinking that way. Many who feel proper
in their living. So-called repentance, if you
will. They live in such a way of repentance
that they honor the Lord in every breath. To which, you know, Fellow
family members of old would say, everybody's butt stinks. Why
do you think you're so special? Something of that nature. Some
people would feel safe and secure in their condemnation of sin.
I mean, do you know these people? And at the same time, maybe we're
not these people, but maybe we'll look down on these people and
then become these people. Isn't that crazy? Maybe we're
self-righteous and haughty. against the people who are self-righteous
and haughty, and then we become the very people of Romans 2.
So what is the approach? Well, we'll see. Paul says in
verse 1, everyone who judges, you should be judging honestly
that the Lord is right in His judgment. But if we pass judgment
on our own hearts, we are self-condemned. Why? Because our sin is awful.
We often say, I would never. You ever said that? I would never
do that. I would never say that. I can't believe those people
would do such a thing. But beloved, don't ever say never. Because the minute the ur comes
out of your mouth, you might be standing in the middle of
it. And you might think the aroma of that plop is on somebody else's
foot when it's really on yours. And I looked through, isn't that
funny? Our sin is just as bad. So if
we judge, we need to recognize that we have practiced and may
be, listen, may be practicing the same thing. The great irony
there, this question that he talks about in verse 2, he says,
we know that the judgment of God wrongly falls on those who
practice such things. Do you suppose, look at verse 3, do
you suppose, oh man, You who judge those who practice such
things and do them yourself, that you will escape the judgment
of God. So here Paul questions. He questions here and he questions
again in verse 4, do you presume? So do you propose or suppose
that you would escape the judgment? He's already said there in verse
2, you know the judgment of God rightly falls on those who practice
and give what? approval to those who practice
such things. But the questions that I think need to be in our
mind tonight is this. Number one, a statement. God's judgment is righteous.
It's good. And if it's good, and God's judgment
is good, and God's wrath that comes from His judgment is good,
and the object of God's wrath is deserving, then why in the
world would there ever be grace? Who deserves it? Nobody. Nobody. Now why did we receive
it? Why did you receive the grace
of God and believe? That's a question that I think
every Christian should be able to answer very quickly. And the
reason that you believe is because God had mercy on you and He brought
the Gospel to you. and He quickens your heart, and
He regenerated your soul, and you have believed all the work
of God. That's why you believe. Because
God has saved you through the work of Jesus Christ, by the
Spirit, through the Word. That's how you know. That's what
the answer is. It's not because you chose. It's
not because you acted. It's not because you established.
It's not because you understood. How can you understand that which
your mind is hostile toward? How can you understand that which
you cannot seek after? How can you find something that
you cannot seek? Because God found you. That's why the Gospel
is the Gospel. What then is the guarantee of
this mercy? What is the right approach for humanity to God? What is it that we hope in and
what is it that we hold on to? See, it's very easy. And a lot of people could take
this text and they could turn it into this self-righteous behavior
modification sermon. We could say, and I could come
to most people and say, now you better straighten your life out
and you better walk with the Lord or else. And what does that
do? That shocks your system, doesn't
it? You say, oh, I better do something. I better quit smoking
and drinking and cussing and hanging out with girls who do.
I better change my life. Sorry, old joke. I'd better do some things better
for God. I'd better study the Bible. I'd better become a preacher.
I'd better be a missionary. Hallelujah. Praise God. I'm coming.
I'm selling it all. And what do we do? We become
busy about the work of something that's not required of us for
salvation. That's not what Paul's arguing
here. Paul is trying to establish the reality that all has sinned. He takes too long to get to it.
If we get to chapter 3, verse 23, he tells us right up, all
have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. But He's
wanting the Jews to understand that they've sinned. He's wanting
the Holy to understand that they've sinned. He's wanting the Romans
to understand that they've sinned. He wants everybody to know that
the Greek and the Jew are equally guilty before God, and that's
the purpose of this letter, of this portion of this letter. So our approach, humanity's approach
toward God is a position not of, okay, here I am, let me get
the ticket. No, it's, have mercy on me. Have mercy on me, a sinner, worthy
of judgment, worthy of death, dead already. Have mercy on me,
God." The right approach that we should have toward God is
a God of pleading, an approach of trembling. And if that's the
case for how we should approach God and His holiness, how should
we approach as humanity, as a whole, with each other? Well, there's
a lot of things that teach us that in Scripture, but unfortunately,
humanity in their deadness cannot do what God has called us to
do. But as the church, we now have the wisdom of God, Jesus
Christ, our righteousness. to help us discern when we are
haughty in our spirit towards someone. And you know what we
do? We don't stop being haughty. How do you do that? Can you stop
being angry? Can you stop yelling when you're
mad? Can you stop hating roaches? Can you start loving rats? Can
you stop being upset when the dog pees on the carpet? Or when
children throw a drink down in the middle of the minivan? No. You can get over it. You can
work through it. You can have all sorts of forgiveness
and cuddle time and anything else that needs to happen to
make everybody love each other again. Dairy Queen is a good
option. It hurts your feelings. Let's
go to Dairy Queen. But you can't stop being that.
So where's our hope? How do we approach this? Let
me tell you what we ought to be thinking right now. There's
no room for our glory in good deeds. There's no room for us
to glory in our obedience. There's no room for us to glory
in these deeds that we sort of pull off half-heartedly, or sometimes
99% right, and think they're good, because they're not good.
Because all have sinned, including us, this very day, this very
moment, if we were to sit here and we were to ask ourselves,
are we going to just pray, Lord, show me how I've sinned against
you today, we would all have a laundry list of sins. So if not sinning were to get
us to heaven, none of us are going. We do not honor the Lord in all
things. We do not give Him glory in everything we say, do, look
at, hear, listen to, feel, consider, contemplate, worry, embrace,
eat, drink, wear. We do not thank Him. Paul says,
although they know that God exists, they do not thank Him and honor
Him as God. We worship the creation. We worship
our pets. We worship each other. We worship
the stuff we have. We worship the money we make.
We worship everything earthly. We glory in the things that are
made. We glory in our understanding of them. We glory and hold fast
to the things of this earth as if they matter, as if they have
some kind of substance when they're nothing but things that are passing
away. We subject our opinions We subject others to our opinions
as if they care to hear them and think that we're right and
we're justified in being rude sometimes because we know best
as if we're God Himself. Now, how many of us are guilty
of that? If you've been on Facebook today, you've been guilty of
it whether you type it or not. I promise, if you've driven down
and seen some church signs in the area, you go, oh, we're guilty
of that. Sometimes we securely feel that
if things were done our way, the world would be a better place.
If people would just know how we think things ought to be run,
we could straighten it all out. If our spouses would just obey
us and submit to us, the world would be a better place. Vice
versa, we could all say those things. Sometimes we appraise
a situation of someone else's worth based on our own standards,
not the standards of God. What is the reprobate worth?
A lot. Why? For God is glorified in
His destruction. It's valuable. You see, we often
think that value is tied to position. Value is tied to purpose. And
if you want a purpose-driven life, go around telling people
that their purpose is to be objects of reprobation. You know, God
has a purpose for your life. He's going to cast you into hell
and be glorified in it and then shudder in your bones because
you should be too. I should be too. Do you suppose, O man, you
judge and practice such things and yet you do them yourself
that you will escape the judgment of God? Do you suppose that you will
escape the judgment of God? Or do you presume on the riches
of His kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that
God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? Let's talk
about those things in verse 3 and 4 for a second. Do you suppose
that you will escape the judgment of God? being you have and still
do the things that are listed here? What is this supposed to
do to the Christian? Man, where's the encouragement?
It's there. We've already heard the Gospel.
We've already heard it's about the grace of God. It's about
His love and His kindness and His patience with us and His
mercy. And that Christ took the fullness of His wrath on Himself
that we might be free. So that's the point that Paul
wants to really emphasize. He wants to really emphasize
the guilt of all humanity. He wants to emphasize that we
don't need to even have a mindset that there's something in us
that might have been worthy of salvation. Because God is going
to be glorified in bringing judgment on the reprobate. And God is
glorified in bringing salvation to the elect because He brought
judgment on the righteous. See, we need to see ourselves
in a true light. Not as a worthy light, but as an unworthy light. We
don't ever need to see ourselves in greater standing than any
other man or woman. We don't need to say, oh, because
I believe this, or I believe Calvinism, or I believe predestination,
or I believe in sovereign grace, that I'm, man, I've got it made,
I'm better than somebody that doesn't. No, let's pray and beg
the Holy Spirit of God to take the gospel to these people, maybe
out of our own lips, with kindness and patience and long-suffering
and pleading, not arrogance and haughtiness. And self-righteousness,
because haughtiness is self-righteousness. Pride is self-righteousness.
Arrogance is self-righteousness. Being right is self-righteousness. Verse 4, do you presume on the
glorious riches of God? Are you sitting down just presumptively
going, oh yeah, I'm made, man. God's kind. He's not going to
hurt me. God's too loving of a God to bring judgment against
me. Look at me. Now, that's a really
dangerous thing to say. But how close are we in that
sometimes? And how close were the Jews in the day of Paul's
writing? We know what they did. We know
what the Judaizers would do. They'd come to some sense of
faith and profess Christ, and then they'd come into the region
and say, you know what? You've got Christ. That's great. He
is Messiah. But you've got to circumcise.
Or you've got to baptize. Or you've got to read the King
James. Or you've got to read Augustine. Or you've got to read
this. Or you've got to wear shoelaces.
You've got to cover your head. You're saved by faith and grace
and all that good stuff but Jesus alone. But if you really want
to honor God, if you really want to be really saved, you've got
to do these things too. And what does Paul say? The argument
of the Judaizers to the people of Galatia were that they weren't
adding to the gospel. They were saying, the gospel,
and then this is even better, so do this too. They were saying,
faith alone, and then follow this rule. They were saying,
it is only through Jesus Christ, but this is really a mark of
a true believer. You know what Paul said about
them? That they are cut off from Christ eternally. No matter what
they walk around saying, oh, we believe in Jesus, and they're
trying to sell the little guillotine or whatever it is that they did
the circumcisions with. Walking around doing all sorts
of manner of preaching a gospel that is Christ plus something
else. What is the plus something else?
Condemnation. That's what the plus something
else is. The plus something is. Plus obedience is condemnation.
Plus baptism is condemnation. Why? Because when it gets to
the end of the day, and we kick off our shoes, and we sit at
the edge of our bed, and we say, oh, thank you, God, that you
saved me by grace. Thank you for your loving kindness.
And thank you so much, God. I'm so glad that I was baptized.
Woo! I feel secure now. And we go
to sleep. So glad I was circumcised. I'm
so glad I'm in this part of the church. I'm so glad that I've
got this kind of Bible. I'm so glad. I'm so glad. I'm
so glad. And the Bible says that those
people are cut off. Cut off. God is not too good and too kind
to be righteous. He will, in His goodness and
in His kindness, put the reprobate in hell and it will be right.
And nobody's going to be crying over their place. According to
the imagery of Revelation, at the Day of Judgment, the saints
worship in absolute peace and joy when multitudes are cast
into the lake of fire. Imagine that. Imagine that. Sometimes we see ourselves, well,
I'm a follower of Christ. People just should follow me.
People just follow me as I follow Christ. Well, we're not Paul.
We're not an apostle. Everything that comes out of
my mouth is probably 80% hogwash. You better filter it before you
drink it, because that's gross. By the Lord's grace, I pray I
never make an error, but if I do, hey, I better fix it when I see
it. When Paul spoke, he never made an error. Why? Because he
spoke by the power of the Spirit completely. When the apostles
wrote, they didn't make mistakes. That's why what they wrote is
in here and what I wrote is not. What happens to Betsy? There's
a lot of garbage that I've ripped through the years that should
just be burned. And one day it will. Don't you know? We shouldn't
presume that God is too kind. Don't you know that God's kindness
was to lead us to repentance? See, there's that word. Oh, see,
see, see. It's about stopping our sinning. That's not what
repentance means, y'all. It has nothing to do with stopping
sin. Why? Because what does that look
like? Show me. How many people in here can say
they've stopped a certain sin? They've just done away with it
forever. It's not a temptation. It's not on their mind. It's
never happening, and it's never going to happen again. Well,
even if we could raise our hand, we dare wouldn't because we'd
just be like, oh. Even if we could raise our hand,
the very fact that we know that that sin is no longer in our
lives, which I would argue that it probably is, maybe it just
not manifested, we've still committed it, so we're guilty of it. We're
guilty of it. We're all guilty of unbelief.
We're all guilty of murder. We're all guilty of idolatry.
Even if we never are murderers, and we are now believers, and
we are never idol worshippers again, we're still guilty of
those sins. So, repentance can't be talking
about that. What does the word mean? Well,
thanks to the Holy Roman Church, and that's a joke, Thanks to
Rome, we believe that repentance became penance, which we could
actually start walking in a way that was worthy of God's attention
and affection. Repentance, by definition, means
a change of mind. That means that we no longer
think the same way we do about the sin that we are. We no longer
say, well, I can satisfy my flesh, or I can stop and I can do things. So repentance not only comes
with a change of mind about sin, it also comes with a change of
mind which is an awakening, which is the rebirth, listen, about
self-righteousness, which is sin. Sin is not just the evil
things we do that's marked as evil in the world, immoral. Sin is also unbelief. Sin is
also self-righteousness. Sin is also thinking that we
can warrant the grace of God through any work. The sinner sees his sin as damnable. The sinner sees his sin as an
abomination, not attractive. We see sin and repentance, thereby
we abandon the security of the flesh. Uh-oh, how do we do that? Give me the list of how to abandon
the security of the flesh. You ready for it? It's real simple.
Faith alone in Jesus Christ. Faith alone in Jesus. We don't
print out the Ten Commandments and put them on the refrigerator
and work on the first one. And when we get it, work on the
second one. We don't put little flashcards. Y'all laugh, but
that was written in a Baptist journal. Application in adult
Sunday school class. Just work on them and you get
it. Go to the next one. There's only ten. Hallelujah, we're on number nine.
It's faith alone in Jesus. There's no self-sufficiency.
There's no self-righteousness. There's no self-glory. There's
no self-power. There's no self-ability. There's
no self-repentance. There's none of this stuff. It
doesn't mean that. God's kindness is to lead us
in our minds being changed. And do you know what that's called?
It's called regeneration. So our mind being changed about
the truth is because we've been born again. It's the same thing. It's not us getting it all together
and then God says, well, by golly, he got it now, poof, and turns
us into a believer. No, God goes, you're dead, wake
up! And we're a believer and then
we work it all out and we learn and we begin to juggle all these
things and we think a little bit and we realize we're just
fools and then we hear the Word of God and the Spirit teaches
us and it's a lifelong journey and we're up and down and up
and down and up and down, but even then we're always at the
bottom of understanding. The greatest theologian that
will ever live in this life as a human being is still at the
bottom rung of the ladder of theological prowess. Because we've seen nothing yet. And forever we will learn the
glories of Christ. Forever we will be learning in
eternity the mercies of Christ. Forever we shall learn His ineffable
majesty. We will always be learning So
that when the Scripture teaches us that these dead men that are
highly moral and highly religious, but they are dead. See, Paul
right here is referring to dead people, not believers all of
a sudden. Did you see that? Look at verse 5. The cause of
your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for
yourself on the day of wrath when God's righteous judgment
will be revealed. What in the world? Friends, there is no condemnation
for the believer. Romans 8, 1. And it comes after this incredibly
schizophrenic treatise about how do I do this and not do this,
and I want to do this, but I can't do that, but I do this. And everybody
and all the scholars and their higher critics, man, they really
made a mashed potato salad out of that text. Well, that was
before Paul was saved. Well, Paul says before he was
saved, he was spotless before the law. Righteousness of God, the grace
of God came. Oh, what wretched man am I! Where
am I going to find salvation? Who's going to help me in this
time of need? Where am I going to come? What am I going to do?
Oh, it is Christ! It is Christ alone! It is through
God's grace in Jesus Christ. Therefore now there is no condemnation
for those who are in Christ Jesus. So Paul in verse 5 is not calling
Christians hard. He's calling these people. who
trust in their self-righteousness and their obedience, lost. And He's saying to them, it's
not just about all these wicked things, it's about the wickedness
of unbelief, because you're not trusting in my grace, you're
not trusting in Christ, you're not trusting in my Son, you're
trusting in yourself. And by doing so, you may be living
rightly, not. But having this heart, you store
up wrath for yourself because God's judgment, remember, is
going to be revealed upon the unbeliever. The wicked, the liar
who says there's no God. Those who practice homosexuality.
Those who worship false gods. Those who suppress the truth
by works of unrighteousness. Those who consider themselves
worthy of grace. Those who consider themselves righteous. Oh, the
Gentile and also the Jew, primary target of this chapter. For our
application, it is most likely those who profess Christ, who
are leaders in the church, who are pastors in the church, who
are deacons in the church, who are Sunday school teachers in
the church, who are members of the church, and they live a good, right...
Let's see, what's the word I'm looking for there? They live
a good moral life. A what? Ethical life. There we
go. They have good Christian, Republican,
American ethics. And as my grandmother used to
always say, they're going to bust hell wide open. if God does not reach them in
mercy through the gospel of Jesus Christ. It was in verse 6 and
we're done. It says God's judgment will pay
each one what they deserve. Each one what they deserve. The
Jew, the Gentile, remember? First to the Jew, then the Gentile.
What's there? The first thing is the Gospel.
It's the power of God. It's only through the Gospel
of grace that one can escape. No matter who you are or what
position you've been in your entire life or what lineage you
come from, it is only through Jesus Christ and faith alone
in Him that you can have salvation. The Scripture here in verse 6
quotes Psalm 62, 12, by the way. It says, "...and He will render
each one according to his works." And Psalm says, "...and that
to you, O Lord, belongs steadfast love, who will render to a man
according to his works." And some people could take that
out of the context and make it a pretext and put it on a pillow
and embroider it on a nice napkin or stick it on a picture and
put it on the wall. And say, see, I'm going to work
rightly before the Lord so that I can be honored and blessed
and I can get repayment. You know what repayment for the
works of man are? Death. Death. We're already guilty, so no matter
how much good we do, we're not going to earn anything from God
but death. It's not like Islam. It's not
like Buddhism or Confucianism or any of the other Eastern religions.
It's not like the Jehovah's Witnesses cults or the Mormon cults or
the other unbelieving cults who like to take the name of Jesus
and apply it to their satanic demon. and said that if we do
everything that we're supposed to do, then God will honor us
and we're going to work our way into salvation. Even as the professing
believer in the Evangelical Church of America, when they put their
trust in their work, friends, most of the time it's because
they're not born again. Yes, there's an immaturity that comes.
There's a famine in the land for true gospel preaching. There
is a famine in the land for exposition. Who wants to move to Claxton? Why is it so hard to find exposition? God have mercy on us to keep
us together and keep us assembled under the banner of Christ and
the grace of God. That we might not ever lose sight
of what God has done on our behalf. Because if we think that what
we are and what we do is going to accomplish something blessed
from God, we have another thing coming because God is going to
repay every person for everything they've ever done. And we are
guilty of violating every law that He's ever commanded. So
there's no work of man that pleases God. There's no work that can
save his soul. The work of Christ is the measure through which
grace is bestowed. Did you hear that? The work of Christ is the
measure through which grace is bestowed, not the actions of
man, and certainly not the heart of man. So man is judged, and
he will be paid for every good thing he's done and every bad
thing he's done. Every bad thing is his to bear, and every good
thing is for his condemnation, for they do not measure to the
requirement of holiness. Did you hear that? Consider this and deeply understand
that God has never called for man to walk rightly unto salvation,
but the command of the law is to reveal the glory of God's
everlasting grace. And there are two groups, verses
7 through 11, and there are two groups. 7 and 8 says, those who
by patience, in well-doing, seek for glory and honor and immortality,
He will give eternal life. For those who are self-seeking
and do not obey the truth, but obey in righteousness, there
will be wrath and fury. Again, He delineates these two, divides
these two. There will be tribulation and
distress for every human being who does evil, the Jew and the
Greek, but glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good,
the Jew first and also the Greek. Now let me just tell you so that
you'll know that as we get into this text next week, the good
that is talked about here is believing by faith in Christ.
Believing, following by faith, trusting by faith, loving by
faith, living by faith. The righteous shall live by faith. That's it. God works out all
things to the praise of His glorious grace. If you believe this today,
it is because God has met you in mercy. Let's pray. Lord, it's difficult. These passages
that we've been hearing our entire lives are just parsed and soundbites and other
ways that just don't make sense to prove man's point and to prove
man's argument. Father, I pray Your mercy on
our ears and our soul and our minds that we could understand and that we could see, and that
we could believe. Father, in the darkest of our
days, in the most sinful attitudes of the core of our soul, Lord,
Your grace is there. And it is not for us to stand
and say, I will do better, God, for even in the greatest of bests. It's still not enough. We must
believe in Jesus Christ. We must trust that You have saved
us through the Person of Jesus Christ, Your Son. Father, I pray
that our children would hear this message every time we gather. They would see it lived out in
our homes as we sin against each other and ask for forgiveness.
That the emphasis would be that the Gospel is our only hope. There is only one way to life
and it is Christ. So, Father, as we leave tonight,
I thank You. I thank You for Your mercy. I
thank You for Your righteousness. Lord, I thank You for the cross
of Christ, that through Your Word we have believed because
You are kind toward us and merciful. And our only response is to praise
You for Your grace. And it's in Jesus' name we pray.
Amen.