Turn with me in your Bibles,
please, to Romans chapter two. Romans chapter two. And I want to read from verse
12 through to the end of the chapter. Romans chapter two,
verse 12. Perhaps you'll recall if you
were here or heard what we had to say on a previous occasion. last week that we ended the passage
that we were thinking about with reference to the fact that our
God, the Almighty God, is no respecter of persons. That doesn't
mean to say that he doesn't care what people do, but it does mean
that he does not look upon anyone as more privileged or more blessed
because of where they are or what they have received. He is
looking at all men and he sees all men before him as sinners
in their nature because of Adam's fall and because of the wickedness
which besets us in our humanity. And so he says, the apostle,
in writing to the church at Rome, which would be comprised of both
Jews and Gentiles, he writes to them in chapter two, in verse
11, there is no respect of persons with God. And then he goes on
in verse 12 to embellish this theme a little bit and show us
some of the distinctions that do exist between the Gentiles
and the Jews, but to prove nevertheless that God regards both the same
because all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. So in verse 12, the apostle writes,
For as many as have sinned without law shall also perish without
law, and as many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by
the law. For not the hearers of the law
are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified. For when the Gentiles which have
not the law do by nature the things contained in the law,
these having not the law are a law unto themselves, which
show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience
also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing
or else excusing one another. in the day when God shall judge
the secrets of men by Jesus Christ, according to my gospel. Behold,
thou art called a Jew, and restest in the law, and makest thy boast
of God, and knowest his will, and approvest the things that
are more excellent being instructed out of the law. and art confident
that thou thyself art a guide of the blind, a light of them
which are in darkness, an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of
babes, which hast the form of knowledge and of the truth in
the law. Thou therefore which teachest
another, teachest thou not thyself? Thou that preachest a man should
not steal, dost thou steal? Thou that sayest a man should
not commit adultery, dost thou commit adultery? Thou that abhorrest
idols, dost thou commit sacrilege? Thou that makest thy boast of
the law through breaking the law, dishonourest thou God? For the name of God is blasphemed
among the Gentiles through you, as it is written. For circumcision
verily profiteth if thou keep the law. But if thou be a breaker
of the law, thy circumcision is made uncircumcision. Therefore
if the uncircumcision keep the righteousness of the law, shall
not his uncircumcision be counted for circumcision? And shall not
uncircumcision, which is by nature, if it fulfill the law, judge
thee? who by the letter and circumcision
does transgress the law, for he is not a Jew which is one
outwardly, neither is that circumcision which is outward in the flesh,
but he is a Jew which is one inwardly, and circumcision is
that of the heart in the spirit and not in the letter, whose
praise is not of men, but of God. Amen. May God be pleased
to bless to us this reading from his word. I did give my sermon a title
this evening, and that title is The True Jew. The True Jew. And we will be
thinking, perhaps, as we draw near to the conclusion of our
service, particularly about the 29th verse of the chapter where
it says, he is a Jew which is one inwardly, and circumcision
is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter,
whose praise is not of men, but of God. Before we get there,
let me just draw your attention to something which I think you
probably all have heard before, but which bears repetition, both
now and frequently. The Lord Jesus Christ, our Saviour,
is called by God, the Holy Spirit, the Lord, our righteousness. In Jeremiah chapter 23, verse
6, we read these words. In his days, that is the days
of our Saviour, Judah shall be saved and Israel shall dwell
safely. And this is his name whereby
he shall be called the Lord our righteousness. In your Bible,
if you look up that verse, you'll find that the Lord our righteousness
is in capital letters. And well may it be, for that
is something that we should always be ready to emphasise. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
Lord our righteousness. And that is a wonderful name.
What a name! for anyone to have the Lord our
righteousness. And truly, to a sinner, it is
a name above all names. For a sinner to be able to say
that God himself has declared that Jesus Christ, the saviour
of sinners, is the Lord our righteousness, is a wonderful, blessed thing. And by it, we discover that there
is a righteousness that is obtainable and is available to men and women
like you and like me. Here is one of whom it is said,
he is the Lord God and he is our righteousness. This is a righteousness which
is acceptable to God the Father. Of all the righteousnesses that
people would imagine themselves to have or aspire to obtain,
there is not a righteousness in this world that is acceptable
to the holiness and purity of God, save this righteousness
which he alone accepts. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
Lord of righteousness. He is the righteousness of God
to sinners. Philippians chapter 2 and verse
9 says, Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him and given
him a name which is above every name. that at the name of Jesus,
every knee should bow of things in heaven and things in earth
and things under the earth, and that every tongue should confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father,
that Jesus Christ is the Lord, our righteousness. But this name, that the Lord
Jesus Christ has been given to him, the name which he has appropriated. It's greater than merely a name
that someone is called. Somebody sat down, Conrad, and
decided to give you the name Conrad. And somebody decided
to give me the name Peter, And somebody decided to give you
your name too. Ken, I didn't forget. Why are we called what we're
called? Because someone liked the name.
Because somebody wanted to remember a parent or a cousin or heard
it somewhere on the radio or the television or read it in
a book. And he thought, that would be
a good name for me to call my child. But in Scripture, names
are much more important than that. They're not given at a
whim. They're not given for some abstract reason. The names in
Scripture, and particularly the names of the Lord Jesus Christ,
the names of our God, are much more than simply what someone
is called. And Christ's name indicate a
function. They indicate a character or
a characteristic about his person, something that describes his
accomplishments. So that when we think about the
names of the Lord Jesus Christ, these names are like the key
in a lock, which when turned and examined, open up to us a
door of access into some of the most wonderful and sublime things
that we could ever conceive of upon the face of this earth.
God himself speaks to us through the names of Christ, telling
us wonderful things. It speaks of an office that he
has fulfilled, a demand that he has satisfied, a status that
he has bestowed, that he has given to his people, to his church,
to his loved ones, to his children. The church, his people, are righteous
because he is the Lord, our righteousness. And in Christ, we have a righteousness. And outside of Christ, we have
none. And that is the significance
of this name which the Lord Jesus Christ has been given. And the
importance of this righteousness that we've spoken of here is
especially significant when we read Paul's words here in Romans
chapter two. There is a significance about
the fact that we have been given this righteousness in the Lord
Jesus Christ. Because the apostle is showing
us that outside of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, there
is no righteousness. Oh, there's self-righteousness,
which a man might appropriate to himself, appropriate to himself. There's a righteousness which
we might have recognized by someone who wants to impress us, or who
wants to enlist us, or who wants in some way to be indebted to
us. And they might say, you know,
you're a good fellow. But what does that work? What is it worth
when a preacher or a minister or a priest stands in a pulpit
at the end of someone's life and says, he was a good man.
He was a good woman. Oh, he had his foibles. He had
his little issues. He didn't suffer fools gladly,
that's true. But he loved animals. He was
always nice to old people. What is that worth? What does
that mean when we stand before the holy God? And it doesn't matter what righteous
standard, what law list we identify with or aspire to, we don't speed,
who cares? We don't step on the grass when
the sign says, don't step on the grass. Oh, that's good. That's
fine. Don't pull the flowers. Or don't
steal from your neighbour. Don't take the car that's sitting
at the end of the road. Don't tell lies. Don't bear false
witness. It doesn't matter what standard we apply to our life
as far as the rules and regulations are concerned. It doesn't matter
what our moral standard is. There is but one righteousness
which is acceptable to God, and that is absolute perfection. as righteous and as holy as God
himself. So we made mention I think last
week that it doesn't matter what religious denomination you identify
with or what religion upon the face of this globe you might
say I was born into. It doesn't matter what the rules
and regulations of your group Your norm is every single set of standards
will never attain to the standard of God. But more than that, it
doesn't matter what you as an individual hold to as a set of
standards. You will always come below that
standard in your own actions and in your own works and words. And this is the point that the
Apostle Paul is making here in Romans chapter two. The Apostle
is showing that outside of the gospel, no other standard of
holiness is acceptable to God. and no other standard of holiness
is attainable or achievable by its adherents. whether that's
natural religion or natural understanding of the way things just are in
the world, or whether that's a revealed religion such as the
Jews possessed, because they were blessed beyond all the nations
of this world by the things that they had received, be it the
prophecies of Moses, be it the letters and the Psalms that were
written by the prophets, by David, by others, They were blessed
because God spoke to them as a people when all the other nations
of the world were just trying to get by and live to the best
of their ability. It didn't matter whether it was
Gentile or whether it was Jew or any other moral code. And here we can see the importance
of the question that Bildad the Shuhite asked. Who on earth is
Bildad the Shuhite? Remember Job had three friends. Well, Bildad the Shuhite was
probably the smartest of those three friends that came to speak
to Job. And in the fourth verse of Job
25, he asks this question. And I think that if it was the
only thing we ever knew about Bildad the Shuhite, Sounds like
something out of Lord of the Rings, doesn't it? If this was
the only thing we knew about him, it would be worth repeating
this question that he asked until the very end of time. Because
it is the most important question that a man can ask himself. The most important question that
a woman can deal with in her life. How then can I be justified with
God? How can a man, how can a woman
be justified with God? Or how can he be clean that is
born of a woman? That's his question. And what
a question that is. How profound is that question? the philosophers of the world,
the moralists of the world, the politicians of the world, the
educationalists of the world, the preachers and priests of
the world will never come up with a question more important
than that. Perhaps it's as important as
the question, what will you do with Christ? because it's exactly
the same sentiment. How can a man be justified with
God? Now religion tries to answer
that, as does education, as does philosophy. It tries to answer
that, it tries to come up with an answer, but it falls short
every time. Do you remember what we said
on Sunday about being clean? Remember we spend a little bit
of time reflecting upon the fact that the Lord Jesus Christ said
to his disciples, now you're clean. Now you're clean through
the word that I have spoken unto you. And man can only be clean if
he has a righteousness granted to him? If he has his sin removed
and a righteousness bestowed upon him that is acceptable to
God? How can a man be justified with
God only when he knows the Lord our righteousness? only when
he has been brought into that experience of the grace of God
in the Lord Jesus Christ, having been made fit for the presence
of God. We can be justified only in the
Lord Jesus Christ. So let us see what Paul has to
say in these verses in Romans chapter two. The first thing
he does is he addresses the Gentiles. So from sort of around verse
12 through to verse 15. He's speaking particularly
to the Gentiles or about the Gentiles. And these are people
who ordinarily have never heard anything about Moses' law, who
had not the benefits granted to them that the Jews had had,
who were strangers to the worship of Jehovah, to the rites and
the practices of the Old Testament people, the Jews, the children
of Israel, and who knew nothing of the privileges that had been
granted to that people. Sometimes, although they're called
Gentiles here, sometimes you'll see them called also Greeks,
and effectively it's the same meaning. They're called Greeks
in the New Testament, Gentiles predominantly in the Old Testament,
but also in the New Testament as well. And basically that's
just because Greek was the sort of main language outside of the
Jewish borders. It was everybody else. It was
just everything else that was out there. The Gentiles. They
weren't like us. They weren't of us. They hadn't
the benefits that we have. They weren't Jews like us. They
were Gentiles. And there was a rudeness about
the phrase. And this is what the apostle
is speaking about. He's addressing these Gentiles
and he says, that the strict justice of God condemns the Gentiles. Because although they did not
have the Ten Commandments given to them, although they did not
have the prophets explaining to them the will of God, there
was a natural light that was granted to them by which in their
conscience they had a knowledge of right and wrong. their consciences confirmed the
legitimacy of God's condemnation of them because it didn't matter
what standard of law they lived to. They breached it nevertheless. They always breached it. They always came short, even
of their very own standard, far less the high standard that had
been given to the Jews in the law of Moses. And I think that's
interesting and I think it's important because it means that
the Lord's people, the preachers of the gospel and evangelist,
it doesn't matter where he goes upon the face of this earth,
He can always draw a man's attention to the fact that that man knows
in his conscience that he doesn't deserve God's pleasure. He doesn't deserve God's blessing. It doesn't matter what faith
he has. It doesn't matter what religion he follows or no religion
at all. It doesn't matter because he
knows in his own conscience that he has disobeyed and fallen short
of the very standard that he has as a man or a woman, far
less the standard of God. So that culpability, it is a
universal experience. That knowledge of condemnation
before the holiness of God is a universal experience, and that
can be used by the preacher of the gospel when speaking about
the source, the only source, of a righteousness that is acceptable
with God and obtainable amongst men. So here is a man, he is
a Gentile. He has never heard the Ten Commandments,
never heard them. He's never heard the Gospel preached.
And yet he is guilty and condemned before God. because his own conscience
tells him that he knew that there was a right way to live and he
chose the wrong way. He chose to go against the light
that he had been given. So the Gentiles, says Paul, are
without excuse. Now, to a Jew, that's not a problem,
because a Jew is thinking all the time, these Gentiles are
under God's condemnation and under God's judgment. Look at
the terrible way that they live. Look at the things that they
do. Look at the way that they speak and the way that they act.
And Paul says, that's right, they are. They are, because their
own consciences condemn them. It's true now, as then, the world
over, that the actions, the words, and the thoughts of men universally
condemn them before the holy God. I think there's something interesting
here. It came to me as a little bit of an afterthought, and I'll
just express it to you briefly, and then we won't get too diverted
with it, I trust. It's interesting, I think, that
those people that we sometimes call Arminians or free will preachers,
they often say that because of the death of the Lord Jesus Christ,
which they interpret and understand wrongly as being a universal
death or a universal atonement, that Christ died for all people. If you press them on it, then
they'll say, yes, Christ died for everyone, and he died for
all the sins of all the people in the world. And therefore we
can offer the Lord Jesus Christ as a saviour of all men, because
all they have to do is believe, all they have to do is have faith,
and then the benefits and the blessings of the Lord Jesus Christ's
atonement will flow to them. But that doesn't work, according
to Paul's gospel here. Because men are going to be held
accountable for their sins. If Christ has died for all the
sins of all the people, then theoretically, according to that
way of thinking, the only sin that a man will ever be judged
for is the sin of unbelief. Because every other sin has been
paid for in the cross, and he just didn't accept the benefit
of it. that's not how it works. Christ
didn't die for those sins and those sins will still be carried
upon the shoulders and in the souls of those who have breached
the commands of God or the laws of their own moral standard. So then Paul turns to the Jews
having spoken of the Gentiles and rendered them all guilty
Under God and under his holiness he turns to the Jews and he speaks
of these who are the privileged descendants of Abraham and Isaac
and Jacob. These who have followed David.
These who have listened to Isaiah. These who have hosted My, the
very Son of God in their midst. Jesus Christ for 33 years walked
amongst them. What a blessed people the Jews
were. And he says to them, you had
every benefit. You had every benefit imaginable. Every encouragement was given
to you. Every divine light was set before
you. And what have you done with it?
You've thrown it all away. And you too are condemned in
your sin. You too know in your mind, in
your conscience that you have fallen short of the standard
of God's holiness. And we can specify it and we
can identify it and we can regulate it because here is the law. Then
he goes down blow by blow throughout the rest of the chapter. He says,
you're confident. You think you're a teacher of
the blind. You think you're a teacher of
these people who haven't had the benefits that you've had.
An instructor of the foolish, a teacher of babes, have a form
of knowledge and truth in the law. Verse 20, so you're a teacher. Do you teach yourself? You say
don't commit adultery, but do you commit adultery? You say
don't be an idolater, but do you commit sacrilege? And so
he turns upon them, the laws of Moses, to the point where
he says, you know it's true. In your conscience, these things
rise up against you and they say that you are guilty. You make your boast in the law. But because you dishonour the
law, you dishonour God as well. Verse 24, in the name of God
is blasphemed amongst the Gentiles through you. And again, we can
see that evidence in our society today, and we see it in religious
circles. How often I I found it interesting,
I don't know whether any of you have noticed this, but I've been
telling people recently that if you would like to listen to
the sermons that we have here, the preaching that we have here
at Sovereign Grace Church, you can do it now on YouTube, I tell
them. I say you can listen to the sermon
on YouTube. All you have to do is type in
Sovereign Grace Church, Great Falls. And I've discovered that
when you type in Sovereign Grace Church, the first thing that
comes up is an exposition of improper behaviour that resulted
in a church called Sovereign Grace Church somewhere else. That wasn't us, but, but, hey,
it might well have been. Because if we set ourselves up
as morally right, if we imagine that for some reason we have
got the truth, we are a hostage to fortune. And we who endeavor
to teach others how they should live, do we live like that ourselves? No. What ends up happening is
that if we impose these standards of behavior on one another and
say, do this, do this, do that, then sooner or later, someone
is going to point the finger and say, you said that and you're
a hypocrite because you've been doing exactly the same thing.
And that's just the nature of law. It was then, it was in the
day of Paul, and it will be until the end of time. Our righteousness
can only be in the Lord Jesus Christ, and we must always be
looking to Him. for our peace with God and acceptance
with God. If we ever turn and look in ourselves,
look to ourselves or imagine that by the way that we live
we in some way recommend ourselves to others as an example, the
seeds of our own destruction are already sown in our lives
and sooner or later they will come to fruition. Here is a man who has studied
the Ten Commandments, heard the gospel, witnessed the miracles. He's seen the deliverance of
the children of Israel over the centuries by God. He has seen
the open manifestation of the divine glory, whether it's in
the pillar or whether it's the pillar of fire that led the children
of Israel or the manifestation of the glory of God in countless
deliverances that happened for the people of God. And yet in
his soul, he is dead because of sin. And all he has now is
this formal ritual that he follows week by week, month by month,
year by year, maybe going to the ceremonies, maybe going on
a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, maybe doing something about a special
bread that he eats without any yeast in it. But in his soul,
he's dead because he hasn't found true righteousness. He's merely
following some sort of pattern of obedience. Their very teachers
were hypocrites. And Paul says that you're more
culpable, more culpable because you were given more light. Do
you know that there's not going to be any difference of glory
in heaven? For the people who love the Lord
Jesus, who get taken up to glory, there won't be any degrees of
reward in heaven, but there will be degrees of punishment in hell.
Because those that had more light and sinned against it, there
will be a deeper part of hell for that individual. If we have greater light, then
there will be greater judgment. America, it imagines that because
it's got a gospel church or a Christian church on every road end, that
it's a Christian country. They've sinned against the light
that they've been given. And there will be judgment that
will flow from that. And that's the same wherever
the gospel goes. It's a double-edged sword, the
gospel. Paul says, who can understand
this? Who's fit for the significance
of this double-edged sword? You know, that's why we should
be careful about aspiring to be a preacher of the gospel.
Because you take that gospel to a man or a woman, you are
giving them a greater culpability before the Holy God for having
rejected that gospel. and yet we must carry it because
it is the only way of salvation to those who are sinners before
a holy God. Paul ends this section by talking
about circumcision and he says it's of no benefit to you if
it's merely the cutting of the flesh in an external way. If
it's just that cutting of the flesh then it's just a right
of the Jewish religion. It was designed to testify of
covenant blessings that were given to Abraham. But if you're
not a possessor of those blessings, then you can get cut all you
like. It doesn't mean a thing. And we find that today also. People follow a pattern, follow
a ritual, follow a code. And they assume that because
they've carried the mark, that in some way that makes them acceptable
to God. How many parents rush away with
their children to get them baptised, to get them christened, to get
them brought into the church as if in some way doing that
makes them an inhabitant or an individual in the kingdom of
God. And many people have been baptised,
even as adults, upon profession of faith, and yet it is a meaningless
ritual except it is brought about by an internal reality and a
spiritual reality. In fact, we could say that like
the Jews, it's worse than meaningless because it brings true worship
into disrepute. when they say, yes, we've done
everything that is needful, and yet they are still obviously
outside of the kingdom of God. Outward religion is no better
than heathen idolatry, and each, whether it's Gentiles or Jews,
or formal Christianity, is condemnable before God. Perhaps you noticed
in verse 16, as I was reading a little earlier, that there
is a phrase there which says, according to my gospel. Well,
this is the good news. This is a good news part of the
service and the sermon. Now, because Paul is reminding
us that while he has proved here the culpability of all men before
God, whether they had the Ten Commandments or whether they
didn't, whether they lived according to the light of nature or whether
they had a light granted by revelation. All are guilty before God due
to sin, due to Adam's nature. And yet there is a gospel, there
is good news, even for the worst of sinners, for all sinners. There is good news, there is
grace, there is mercy, and there is peace in the Lord Jesus Christ. There is a righteousness that
can be obtained. A righteousness that flows not
from personal obedience, but comes as a free gift from God. A righteousness that was won,
that was won by the Lord Jesus Christ when he died upon the
cross and is freely bestowed upon those people for whom he
died. And I want to spend the last
couple of minutes of the time that we have available this evening
just thinking about this point. He says in verse 29, he's speaking
about who is a true Jew. He is a Jew which is one inwardly,
and circumcision is that of the heart, not of the cutting of
the flesh, but of the heart, in the spirit, not in the letter,
whose praise is not of men, but of God. Who is a true Jew? Who
is a true Jew? The Apostle says the true Jew
is a spiritual man or a spiritual woman. A true Jew is one who
is spiritually alive, one who has been quickened by God the
Holy Spirit. It's nothing to do with genes,
nothing to do with genealogy, nothing to do with national pedigree,
nothing to do with who your parents were or your mother or your father,
nothing to do with whether you've been brought up in a particular
religion or way of doing things. That's not what it is. The Jews
had all the blessings imaginable. But they were not true Jews because
they were not spiritual. Only a true Jew is that one who
is one inwardly. An internal holiness received
from the Lord Jesus Christ in whom we trust and in whom we
rest. And true circumcision isn't the
cutting of the flesh, but it's an inward change that has been
effected by God himself. It flows from a rejection and
a repudiation of all forms of self-righteousness and a reliance
upon the Lord Jesus Christ as our alone righteousness. That's true circumcision. It
speaks of a conversion. It speaks of a change that has
been effected, that we have been, as it were, cut off from that
old way of life. We've been cut off from that
old emphasis and motivation and changed by God himself to recognise
where our true hope and our true peace is to be found. We rely
upon the Lord Jesus Christ as our righteousness and a change
of heart, a circumcision of the heart is ushered into our experience,
into our consciousness, into our awareness when we have faith
in the Lord Jesus Christ and trust in him and rest in him
and rely upon him. Paul seems to emphasise this
true Jew identification, perhaps because the word Jew, coming
as it does from the word Judah, it means praise. So the true
worshipper of God is what he's talking about here. Not the worshipper
that has an idol and worships the idol ignorantly, knowing
that there's something up there that he's got to appease, but
not knowing how to get there. Or not because the Jew had this
true God revealed to them by the prophets and yet did not
understand the spiritual significance of that. But here is a true worshipper,
one who is worshipping God, having been circumcised in the heart
and brought to spiritual life by God the Holy Spirit. A true
worshipper, a true Jew. The word Judah comes from the
fact, again, that the mother gave the name to the son, one
of the children of Jacob, and he was called Judah because it
was, I praise the Lord. He's given me this son, I praise
the Lord. But hypocrisy mocks God, it doesn't
praise Him. Hypocrisy mocks God. Or you can
sing the hymns. You know, we can come here together,
or any church can gather wherever it likes, or any religion throughout
the world, and it can sing, and it can pray. And perhaps most of that worship
doesn't get any further than the ceiling. It certainly doesn't
extend into the court of heaven, not into the presence of God,
because it's not true worship. Except it comes from a circumcised
heart. Except it comes from a spiritual
source. No hypocrisy mocks God, it doesn't
praise Him. prayers and worship that ascend
into the air, they don't go to the presence of God unless they
come through the worship of a heart that has been touched by the
righteousness of Christ. And works, men's best works,
men's good works, that they pat one another on the back and say,
well done, well done. You've given a lot, you've done
a lot, you've sacrificed much. Has God impressed? And free will
religion, it employs all the Bible language just as the Jews
did. Or they would have given you
a lesson in Moses law if you had asked them to teach you something,
to show you something. They knew it all, but what did
it mean? And we can employ the Bible language,
but it's a mockery. And it's no better than the Jewish
hypocrisy of Paul's day. A true Jew is one who's regenerated
in his soul and he brings forth spiritual worship and praise
to God. And spiritual praise, we've said
it before, spiritual praise is essentially thanksgiving to God
our Saviour. That's the highest praise that
we can bring to God is simply saying thank you. Thank you. Thank you for what you've done.
acknowledging our indebtedness as sinners and our indebtedness
to Christ as our sin-bearer. A true Jew worships God aright
because he worships in spirit and in truth. And he practices
obedience not in obligation to the law, Not because he wants
to have good works, but because he wants to emulate his saviour
and follow in his footsteps and be ever more like him in his
attitude and in his life. And he wants to follow him, trusting
him, day by day. answering the call of God who
makes us willing in the day of his power to praise the Lord
our righteousness. And I've got one final thought
and it kind of made my own heart leap a little bit when I thought
about it so I hope you get something from it too. Because here, right
at the end of this passage, I think, is one of those statements where
you read it and you say, nah, it can't mean that. It can't
mean that. It must mean something else.
And what is it? He is a Jew which is one inwardly,
and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not
in the letter, whose praise is not of men, but of God. You see that? The true Jew gets
God's praise. Isn't that extraordinary? The
true Jew praises God. But the true Jew gets God's praise. Doesn't get man's praise. No,
man looks at him and says, oh, he's a fanatic. He's got too much religion. He's got too much concentration
on this small part. He's just a fanatic. It doesn't
get the praise of men, but it gets the praise of God. God who
created the heavens. God who created the millions
of galaxies that contain millions of stars, of which our sun and
our solar system is just one little one, and he created everything
and he threw it out there beyond what we'll ever conceive of. And he looks at you, and he looks
at me, and he says, that's praiseworthy. See that right there? That's
praiseworthy. And God himself praises us. I think that's extraordinary.
I think that's amazing that the great God, who is lauded by angels
and archangels, who is glorified in the courts of heaven, who
has armies at his disposal, praises you and praises me. What does it tell us? Well, it
does tell us not to expect the praise of men. Not for our faith,
not for our insistence on spiritual reality and religion. Because
the natural man is only taken with outward things. He gets
impressed when he sees outward things. Bigger, faster, brighter,
more sparkly. That's what men like. That's
what the world likes. So if you can build a mega church
and fill it with mega people, that's impressive. That's what
men like. But God, you see, he doesn't
look on the outward appearance. He looks in the heart and he
looks to see whether that heart is circumcised. The elect, the church, True believers
in the Lord Jesus Christ, they will and they do receive praise
from God. He searches our hearts. He knows
our hearts. He loves his people and he blesses
his people. He honors his people. He watches
over his people. He safeguards us in every state
and every condition into which we come in this world. And he declares, well done. Good and faithful servant, thou
hast been faithful over a few things. I will make thee ruler
over many things. Enter thou into the joy of thy
Lord. What a wonderful privilege we
possess, brothers and sisters, as we think upon these things. that the Lord Jesus Christ himself
has become the Lord of Righteousness. And while it was at God's initiative
and God's doing and while he opened our eyes and made us willing
and has taught us these things, Yet he delights upon them so
much that he's prepared even to acknowledge and honour us,
his people, and bless us with every blessing in heavenly places. I trust that these things are
an encouragement and a blessing to your heart and that we can
go from this place this evening and into the workplace tomorrow,
carrying them with us in our minds and in our spirits and
with a little bit of a skip in our heel because the Lord Jesus
Christ is our righteousness and God the Father delights in us
because that's the case. Amen.