Romans 2, What’s Your Excuse?, Dr. John Carpenter

Romans 2 and the Question of Excuses

Romans chapter 2 beginning in verse 1 hear the word of the Lord. Therefore you have no excuse. Oh man. Every one of you who judges for in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself because you the judge Practice the very same things.

We know that the judgment of God rightly falls on those who do such things. Do you suppose oh man? You who judge those who do 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 forbearance and patience 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 glory and honor in 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 being who does evil the Jew first and also the Greek. But glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good the Jew first and also the Greek for God shows no partiality. For all who have sinned without the law will perish without the law.

In all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the Law for it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God. But the doers of the law who will be justified. For when Gentiles who do not have the law Do by nature what the law requires they are a law to 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 God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus.

The Self-Righteous Judge and the Day of Wrath

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 darkness an Instructor of the foolish a teacher of children having in the law the embodiment of knowledge and truth you.

Then who teach others. Do you not teach yourself while you preach against stealing do you steal? You who say that one must not commit adultery. You commit adultery. You who are poor idols. Do you rob temples.

You who boast in the law? Dishonor God by breaking the law for as it is written The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you. For circumcision indeed is a value if you obey the law.

But if you break the law your circumcision becomes uncircumcision. For if a man who was uncircumcised keeps the precepts of the law will not as uncircumcision be regarded as circumcision then he who is physically uncircumcised but keeps the law will condemn you who have the written code and Circumcision but break the law.

For no one is a Jew who is one merely Outwardly nor is circumcision outward in physical. But a Jew is one inwardly and circumcision is a matter of the heart by the Spirit not by the letter. His praise is not from man, but from God.

Excuses, Comparisons, and Self-Justification

May the Lord add his blessings to the reading of his Holy Word. Well, here's a poem. I'll start with a poem entitled all my great excuses by Ken Nesbitt. I Started on my homework, but my pen ran out of ink.

My hamster ate my homework. My computers on the blink. I tripped and dropped my homework in the soup. My mom was cooking. My brother flushed it down the toilet when I wasn't looking. My mother ran my homework through the washer and the dryer.

An airplane crashed into our house. My homework caught on fire. Tornadoes blew my notes away. Volcanoes rocked our town. My books were taken hostage by an evil killer clown. Some aliens abducted me. I had a shark attack.

A pirate swiped my homework and refused to give it back. I worked on these excuses so darn long. My teacher said I think you'll find it easier to do the work instead. Kids learn right away to make excuses because they think it's easier than doing whatever they were supposed to do.

What's your excuse? They're asked and quickly they learn to provide them when they grow up. They still like Excuses. What's your excuse? I don't want to exercise so I'm tired. Or I'm sore. Or I'm too busy.

Too busy watching TV. What's your excuse? I don't want to work on that job. Has no future. Doesn't pay enough. It's a hostile work environment. When the reality is they would just rather live on charity.

What's your excuse? I don't want to study that subject is important. Anyway, I mean who needs algebra in the real world. What's your excuse? I don't want to keep that commitment I made. So it's their fault.

The people I committed to they didn't hold up their end of the bargain. People like to excuse themselves that way they get to do what they want to do and Still feel superior. What's your excuse. Those other people are worse than me.

Excuses work particularly well when they are comparisons, you know, I give or I study or I work. More than he or she does so I'm okay. Even if I give or work or study very little. We like to excuse our bad behavior by comparing it to to worse behavior.

I may have my faults. But I'm better than everyone else around me. I'm the best compared to them. We were supposed to do 100 math problems, but no one did. I did the most? To. This is true of large groups of people to Americans love to excuse themselves by comparing themselves to other countries.

You know someone talks about the problems we have with with crime and sometimes inefficient justice system. A huge debt. And some will automatically reply. Yeah, it's all true, but. We're the greatest nation on God's green earth.

Okay. Now if that's an excuse for not dealing with the problems that doesn't really help anything. Does it just makes us feel better now. Americans aren't the only one who does do this. The Chinese do the same thing.

We're the Middle Kingdom. They say, you know, we're halfway between the perfection of heaven and rest of you barbarians and on the earth. Americans and Chinese have that in common they have in common their certainty.

That they are the best and almost amused that everyone else doesn't know that. Well, you don't understand that we're the best. Compared to everyone else so their faults can be excused. Yeah, we might have our problems.

We're a lot better than you people. That's the way they think so we're excused. Romans 2 is for people who excuse themselves that they were much better than those people at the end of chapter 1. Romans 2 just flows naturally out of what came before even begins with therefore it's because of that.

So really we got to keep it in connection with chapter 1 the Apostle Paul said there in chapter 1 verse 20 that people are without excuse. They should know better, but they've exchanged the truth about God for the gravel.

That golden truth about God for the gravel of their own lust, but then starting in chapter 2 he turns from the openly immoral to the apparently moral. But some of the people when Paul was in into chapter 1 we're saying they like that they agree with everything he's saying.

You know, they're they're shouting. Amen, brother. Paul tear into those perverts. Tell them the truth. They're smug. They're sure of themselves. They're sitting back in judgment. Glad to hear Paul condemning those people.

Okay, because compared to them we're fine. We're great. Then Paul opens chapter 2 speaking to these apparently moral people and says. You too are without excuse. There are two kinds of people that he addresses in this chapter first the Superior Saint and second the scrupulous Sophisticate.

Both he says are without excuse. First he turns with a rude slap in the face against the Superior Saint in the first 11 verses. So you are without excuse there are Kinds of people these are the kinds of people who are just eating up what Paul was saying at the end of chapter 1.

It's he's it's rude in a way to them and shocking because it is he doesn't even bother at first to prove his case. But he just first asserts his Conclusion you are as bad as those people that you love to pour scorn on.

That you love to judge and to assume that you're superior to them. You judge but condemn yourself. Because you do the very same thing. Of course, they would protest. What are you talking about? No, we don't.

We don't do that. We're superior to them. We don't do these things. You've listed we condemn them. Just like you do but Paul is impassioned here for these first five verses. He's really he's on fire tearing into them for this their sense of superiority their sense of Sainthood their assumption that they are the Saints the Holy Ones much better compared to these.

These despicable people he was describing in verse 1 you practice the same things that you condemn in others in verse 2. You know, there is judgment. He talks about the day of judgment the day of wrath.

There is wrath. There's anger of God in this day of wrath coming. That's the anger of God that he said is being revealed. Starting in chapter 1 verse 18. This is continuing the same theme from that God's anger is being revealed against those who live immorally.

But in verse 3 you will not escape the same judgment in verse 4. You presume on the riches of God's kindness and patience. But you don't realize his kindness and patience should humble you and lead you to repentance.

That you need that kindness and patience because deep down you aren't any better than those sinners. That you condemn but instead your heart is hard. You don't repent. You think you're superior that you're a saint one of God's special people above judgment like the rest of the world.

Oh, you may say that you're not perfect that you have and but that you have an excuse sure I'm not perfect, but I have an excuse. Look at how much superior I am to the rest of humanity. Sure, God may condemn them but compared to them.

I'm so much better. He's gonna accept me. But that's the problem. Paul just tears into that attitude. It's hard-hearted and arrogant. It only makes God angrier and angrier with you. That very attitude in verse 5 is causing God to store up more and more Anger against you.

It's like building up money in a savings account being stored up. But this this time you're saving something that you don't want to ever Withdraw. What you are saving is God's anger. His is his wrath is judgment and when the day comes that day of wrath He talks about when God settles all accounts and you've kept that attitude.

That smug attitude all the way to the judgment that to the you're a superior say you're better compared to those people. Then you'll be swept away by the flood of God's lava hot anger Explodes on you and those first five verses Paul begins just gushing out fiery warnings to the superior saint.

Because of their hard and haughty hearts you have no Excuse. This is what it takes to wake up such people from the delusions of their self-satisfaction. And he begins to explain in verse 6 that God will judge everyone according to his works.

Now you might protest but I thought we're saved by grace. Well, yes, that's true about salvation. Everyone is everyone who is saved is saved by grace through faith but everyone who was judged is judged by works.

Their life has opened up and they are shown that they deserve the condemnation they receive. There is grace for those who are saved. There is justice for those who are not in Verse 7 those who he says persistently that is with their life not just a passing Interest that they have for maybe for a few years.

They go to church and they read the Bible and then they get tired of it and go do something else. But those who persistently seek for glory. That is the manifestation of God himself. They're seeking him and they seek honor.

Persistently that is they take God's approval. That's the true honor and Immortality that is the unfading joy of God's presence and they're not being fooled by the passing things of this world the mortal things the things of this world that should go strangely dim that the money and the things and the Gadgets and all the vacations and all that but they're looking beyond them to what is eternal to those people God will reveal the truth of the gospel and they will be saved by grace.

So there's one kind of person he is seeking glory honor and immortality. He's taking the things that come from God. That require us to humble ourselves before God to pursue a God whose glory just outweighs all the riches of this world.

That that's one kind of person. He's humble. He's persistent. He's seeking. Then there's the Superior Saint that this chapter is Mostly focused on he thinks he's a saint. But he is really in verse 8. Paul says in verse 8.

He is self-seeking. The previous person is seeking glory and honor and immortality. This self-righteous Superior Saint is seeking Himself what's to his advantage? Oh, he may be moral. Or at least apparently moral, but they think they're Saints because they think they they live, right?

They think they're disciplined or conservative kind of people. Homosexuals or adulterers or thieves or murderers or criminals of any kind? They're not atheists. They're not a religious. There they are respectable.

They're conservative we would say they're in the South. They're good old boys. They are he calls them here in verse 8 though in reality Self-seeking. And the word there verse 8 comes from the word for for hireling as someone who does a job merely for the pay.

He gets from it. He's an employee he's not a family member. A hireling cares for the sheep because The owner the true shepherd pays him pays him some money to do it. He loves the reward. He loves what he gets for it, but it means he just loves himself.

He doesn't care about cheap. He doesn't care about the shepherd. So these apparently moral people are only moral for the reward. They get from it for exactly the same reason. That they openly immoral people at the end of chapter 1 are immoral for the reward.

They thought they'd get from it both decide. They look at life. They weigh the pros and the cons and they both decide on what will serve them. What's to their benefit? One decides that immorality is rewarding.

They like the sexual immorality. They like the drunkenness. They like all the drugs. They like the Whatever the party lifestyle they choose that because they think it's best for them. The other looks at the same things and thinks no long-term.

The moral life is better. It's more rewarding. Both are self-seeking. Neither are God-seeking and so at heart. Both are the same. You see a clear-thinking person. Can see just look at life and see that what is best for them the most pleasant life in the long-term.

What will give them the most happiness the most comfort is? Morality when I hear the Bible call of righteousness living. Generally by God's ways. It's the most profitable for them. They'll profit the most if they if they love their family.

They're faithful to their husband or wife if they don't steal. They don't break the law if they at least are somewhat religious, even if it means having to get up early on some Sunday mornings. Okay, I don't particularly like those songs and that guy talks too long, but they'll sit through it.

They'll make a rational to look at all the pros and the cons and they'll make a rational cost-benefit analysis and Conclude that being moral and law-abiding and decent more conservative is in their best interest.

They are self-seeking and. That's all. Nowhere in that analysis does God enter in? They're not living morally because they love God and just want to please him because they are earnestly seeking God's glory.

Glory honor and immortality. That's not in it. God's approval. Eternal life with him. No, they don't care about any of that. They only want. They only want. What makes the best income. The best advantage for them.

Maybe what keeps the spouse happy so that they'll be happy. What keeps them from hiring a divorce lawyer. What keeps the kids in line so that when they grow up? They'll get a good job and and they'll be able to support themselves and they won't have to mooch off of me anymore.

Yes, they're they're moral and they're decent and they make great neighbors and friends and citizens. But they couldn't care less about God. They hate God and God knows that God sees their heart. He sees a total lack of interest in him, which is the definition of hate.

He sees that they are that they hate him and God is angrier and angrier with them every day. Every PTO meeting they go to. Every Cub Scout function they support every little league team. They help coach.

Every time they pay their taxes. Every sacrifice they make for their family to keep their marriage alive or to send their kids to college. Every time they go to church and drop a dime and the offering plate without a thought about God.

But only because they've calculated they've analyzed life and calculated that all of that makes for the best life for them. Because they are self-serving superior saints every time they do that. They stoke up God's anger against them a little hotter here in chapter 2.

We can be people who scorn others for their perversions their immorality. Look down on them because we're so much better. We're so much more disciplined. Superior Saints looking down on the people in chapter 1 and yet in God's eyes.

We are no better. For he says in verse 11 God is not a respecter of persons. He doesn't show favoritism. Particularly not on ethnicity. Oh, you're Jewish. Okay when you're in. You come from the right ancestry.

You're American or you're Baptist. You got baptized at the right age your ethnicity or your parents come in the right family. You're in. You go to the church the right one. Are you know someone about the Bible because you think you're one of the superior Saints, what's your excuse?

Do you keep the rules? To the T. You're scrupulous. You're meticulous. You're self-controlled. You're respectable and verse 12 Paul turns to these Scrupulous sophisticates now the person who thinks he's sophisticated.

Who's educated of a higher culture and upbringing than those other poor barbarians. They're these are the moral people. And versus in the first 11 verses, he probably first had in mind, you know to the Jew first speaking to the religious Jewish man.

Who looked on the rest of the world with scorn just look down on them. They're immoral. They're pagans. They worship idols and they get involved all this immorality and sure they understand. There's a few moral people among them, but that's just kind of accidental.

We're the we're God's people we live better. But there were also sophisticated more Greek and Roman people. They were educated in all the philosophies of their culture particularly stoicism. They sought to live good and decent lives to rise above the passions of the drove other people.

Behind closed doors, they would just speak. Oh, so that that Nero he's so immoral with a disapproval him and also Scorn the same indulgences and immorality of their own culture. Just like Paul did at the end of chapter 1 people who didn't have the revelation of God, but they they lived morally.

They were cheering Paul on at the end of chapter 1. Yes. Tell him what it is Paul. What's your excuse. The Superior Saint says in verses 12 to 16 I Have the law. I'm religious that makes me special but Paul says you've broken it.

And so you were judged by it. Meanwhile the the person who doesn't have the law. You know, it's sophisticated educated Roman and Greek people the moral ones. That's what Cicero and these kind of Greek philosopher these Roman philosophers.

They don't guess they don't get off simply because they had no revelation from God they didn't have the law. He's dealt with that already in chapter 1 that everyone is without excuse because there was enough Evidence of God just in creation that they should know to seek after God.

From creation, but they don't instead they made the horrible exchange the gold for gravel and some of those. Some of those threw themselves into whatever lust or an immorality that they thought might give them a thrill but others a few though understood that.

They should be moral people that they should be disciplined and controlled and that is more to their interest. Be scrupulous that's better for themselves. Keep the rules the big decent life be respectable.

They emphasize virtue and discipline. The long-term pleasures of family and marriage and self-reliance. They were sophisticated that is they were wise in a worldly kind of way. Now they demonstrated another proof of the existence of God what it's called the moral proof.

You know that most if not all for that matter Cultures have pretty much the same basic ideas about what it means to be a good person. You you honor your parents you're loyal to your spouse you sacrifice for your children you keep the law you control yourself.

I don't know of any culture that denies any of those things. They may have some different ideas about how you do them, but they all believe in basically the same ideals. You know, that's evidence that that fact.

That is evidence that God's moral law is written on our hearts. You know that every culture has them is proof that they come from a God. Who is there? Now this because our religion taught us in Western culture when those other Asian people they're totally different.

Not really. No the Stoic philosophy that was popular among the educated sophisticated people of the Roman Empire and the Greek culture and the days the Roman the Book of Romans was written that Culture that philosophy would exalt those good things.

Teach people to be wise and just and courageous and Moderate that's self-control. Let me be a just me be a person of justice. Don't be cruel and Just selfish. In China the ethics of Confucius centered around what is called benevolence and I won't try you saying the Chinese words this time benevolence a seriousness generosity sincerity diligence and kindness and What an English best translate I guess it's filial piety.

That's a devotion to one's family fulfilling your obligations to your family. And it depends on your role as a child or a husband or a wife or a parent or a grandparent. Be willing to give and to suffer and sacrifice for the greater good of the family.

That's the Confucian. It's really now just the Chinese ethic. Did you know? Our Chinese people you every you go by all these strip malls, right? There's always a Chinese restaurant there, you know, these people you think they just come from from China to the u .s.

Start their restaurant have a little nuclear family. They're only looking after the sales. No, almost every single one of them if you looked into it is working and that's about all they do is work and They're sending some of their money that they make to some family back in China.

Almost every one of them does that. And they learn that from their culture which comes from their Confucianism. Confucianism was the original. Focusing on the family. Sorry James Dobson. They got it first and each of these cultures.

There's this group of his people. They're they're rule keepers. They're conservative. They're moral. They're dutiful. They're hard-working family oriented. They're sophisticated. Or at least they respect others who are sophisticated and educated.

Who learn the literature and the etiquette and the propriety they keep themselves above reproach and like the superior Saints they look down on those poor barbarians who haven't been able to cultivate themselves like we have Paul says about them that first on the one hand.

They're doing by nature what the law requires. Right, if they're Chinese or Confucius they're honoring their father or mother. Where do they get that from? They're doing by nature what the law Requires now in Singapore someone wrote in the paper there that Westerners are basically barbarians for neglecting their elderly parents.

For how in how their families are falling apart and I wrote a reply. One point I was a regular letter writer to the Singapore paper. I wrote a reply a letter to the editor and in the paper. They're saying that what you call You Chinese Singaporeans what you call filial piety.

We Westerners call honoring your father and mother now admittedly, they they emphasize it more than we do because. Well, after all we are barbarians. Okay, you got us there. We are but but then when people who aren't Christians exalt the things the Ten Commandments talks about that's what they're doing, right?

They're honoring the things are they're living according to the Ten Commandments, even if they don't know them. They show that the law isn't just the product of one culture. That's just the history of Israel and then we got into now in Western culture from Christianity.

It's not just that but that God has written it on human hearts everywhere. And so people who have never read the Bible never heard of it never come in contact with Western culture still live According to it because God put it in their hearts.

People have a conscience that tells them that they are breaking God's law telling that they need to repent just as the law should tell those religious people those superior saints that they need repentance, but they have hard and impenitent unrepentant hearts making things worse.

And so the scrupulous sophisticates often so proud of themselves for their their self-discipline. They're working and working and sending money back home and their moderation. They're pulling themselves up by their own moral bootstraps.

They excuse Themselves we're so much better than those other self-indulgent immoral people. What's your excuse? I'm better than those barbarians. I'm better than those perverts. I'm scrupulous. I'm Virtuous, I paid my way.

I've worked hard. I'm a family man or woman. But Paul says in verse 16 that on the day when God judges the secrets of people's hearts then We'll all see that underneath that sophistication that morality that whatever conservatism that hard work maybe the training of Stoic philosophy serenely suffering and control of all your emotions.

Maybe the cultivation of the Confucian Mandarin who does his duty who serves his family gives himself to them. Maybe the cheery decency of the southern good old boy willing to do you any favor. Conservative moral you drive your car into a ditch.

He'll be there and help drag it out. Maybe the rational self-discipline of a Jordan Peterson or a Tucker Carlson type telling you to take responsibility make up your bed study something you can get a job in doing accept reality and Course be the sworn enemy of lying papacity smugness and groupfake all of that Will be stripped away.

And God will judge them. He'll expose every hidden sin every self-serving motivation that the real reason. You didn't steal. It's not because you didn't want to. Because you're afraid of getting caught.

The real reason you didn't commit adultery. It's not because you didn't have a lot of lust because you're afraid of the trauma of divorce. The real reason you worked so hard for your family was because that was just what you were trained in doing.

You didn't know any different kind of life. The reason you went to church. It wasn't because you love God and you just long to hear his word. It's just what you were raised. You were supposed to do and then There will be no excuses.

No Excuse Before Christ the Judge

What's your excuse? Well, it won't be because you're better than other sinners. Verse 16 says that God will judge the world that day of wrath. He will judge the world according to Paul's gospel by Christ Jesus now by there.

I think means not only is Christ himself doing the judging but that he is also the standard of the judgment. He's the standard of perfection. So the Singaporean Chinese won't be able to say, you know, I'm gonna be perfect.

But I'm better than those Americans as individualistic Americans. The American won't be able to say that. Yeah, we got our problems, but we're better than the rest of those. We're the greatest nature on God's green earth.

No one will be able to say that. Well, we're the Middle Kingdom. We're halfway to heaven way above the rest of the barbarians. Halfway won't be Good enough. The standard will be Jesus and if you don't match that You'll have no excuse.

But what's the excuse. Starting in verse 17. He turns back to the superior Saints again. So the way I read it starts with these superior Saints it goes to the sophisticated People who think they're moral and then he goes back at the end to these to the superior Saints.

They call themselves Jews. They both they have the law that that's what makes them Saints. They have this law that they're God's chosen people. They're only ones they're special Of all people in God's sight.

They're the ones set apart for him. They have the privileged status. It's what that is. They have a status. They have God's Word. They're able to guide others. They're able to instruct the foolish. They have the absolute truth.

They say they have all that. But do their lives show it. Starting verse 21 you say you can teach others then why don't you teach yourselves? You Tell others not to steal. But come on. You steal here Jews for us.

This is applicable to us for Christians church members who live no differently than the world. Who have been told that they are you're among the superior Saints. Now they prayed a prayer they got baptized their church members.

They've been told never to doubt their salvation. Yet they live just like the world as we mentioned a couple of weeks ago professed Evangelical Christians have the highest rates of wife and child abuse.

Now real Christians have the lowest rates. But professed Christians have the highest. By the way, what why don't we take that profession away from them then. Why don't we take the membership away and tell them that they're not superior and they probably aren't even Saints because you're certainly not Living like one.

Why don't why don't we play along with this? Religion that's all about claiming as superior status. We live in a religious culture here that has so much bought into all the things that Paul he is here attacking signs of a of a status.

That give us assurance that give us a sense of smugness that we're better than everyone else like baptism church membership prayers prayed assurances given. And This culture has had made us to lose sight of the fact.

That what matters like here is a new heart. Talks about a verse 29 the inward change by the Spirit. Not by the letter that you keep some rules about a relationship with God. Not respectability with people.

What's your excuse. We have a status. We have today the problem of religion that specializes in dispensing a status. You're a superior Saint you prayed the prayer you've been baptized. There's a kind of religion that dispenses assurance of salvation.

If only you jump to the right hoop, you said the right prayer you've been baptized. Maybe you don't even have to do that some from some still tell you you are now the superior Saint. You've been conferred the special Status and don't ever doubt it.

So now you can bank on God's approval. No matter how you live. Just say yes to a few facts. Say it in a prayer and voila. That status is yours. Just like the superior Saints here thought that they they had the special status.

They had it over the rest of the whole earth. It didn't matter if they did the same things that they condemn and others or at least secretly wanted to do them. They had the status and so they thought God accepts us.

No matter how we live. Or what's in our heart? What that produces is hypocrisy. What's your excuse? I? Said the prayer I've been baptized. I have the signs of a special relationship with God of the status the mark of the Covenant here.

Circumcision for us could be baptism signs of a special status. I'm a superior Saint now I can judge others. Don't have that status. Even if I don't live any differently maybe I hide my sins beneath fakery and Religion, but when no one is looking I'm living just as self-serving Lee as anyone else.

But you're a hypocrite you're an actor. Thinking that you are superior. Thinking that you have this this status that's above other people. Even if you're you're scrupulous you think that makes you better.

That you're superior, but you're not. You're not a saint. You're just acting and people looking at you blaspheme God in verse 24. They say if that's what it means to be a Christian. That's what it's all about.

I don't want it. What's your excuse. We don't have any. We can have the signs of a special status with God we can have the mark of the Covenant. But if that sign doesn't arise out of a true heart for God, it's just if it's just a carnal thing.

Just an outward thing. Something we do for our own interest self-servingly we do it because we're scrupulous that's we've been told to we've been raised to do it. We're the kind that likes to keep all the rules to the letter and.

Then we get to congratulate ourselves for doing so. If that's all it's about. Well, that's empty and that last paragraph from verse 25 Paul says that these things that you've been counting on to give you a special status your ancestry your Ethnicity your sign of the Covenant for us baby baptism church membership a prayer you pray.

That you've been told down gives you that assurance if that is not Done out of an inward change. It's not come from a new heart. If your baptism in water doesn't come out of a baptism in your heart in which you were washed free of sin in your spirit well, then it's useless.

For some their excuse was their ethnicity. They were the chosen people right that they get excused by God. Just because of who their ancestors are and some Christians have even bought into this that yes because one is a Jew.

They get to be God's people and they get some of the promises are just for them just based on that. This is the ethnicity that is being born as you as an excuse. It's a valid excuse to inherit some of God's promises but Paul here.

Think about it. Paul the Hebrew of the Hebrews. He calls himself. He says here in verse 28 that no one is a Jew merely outwardly. What a statement no one. Ethnicity is no excuse. God has no covenant children.

No people around a covenant with God just just because of who their parents are who their ancestors were a real Jew. That is a real a person who is in covenant with God who is one of God's people is one here.

Inwardly here she belongs to God's family because he or she has been born again. By the Holy Spirit the real mark of the covenant is not in the flesh. It doesn't outward act like baptism. The real mark of the covenant is a new heart.