Religious People Need The Gospel - [Romans 2]

The Gospel for Heroes, Religious People, and Everyone Else

One of the favorite things about the Celtics games that I get to attend is the halftime where they show heroes. Somebody that's run into a burning house and rescued someone. The last game I went to, it was someone that went into a frozen pond and rescued a girl.

People rightly say, these are heroes and we want to honor them, and standing ovation. It's quite warming. But heroes need the righteousness of Christ Jesus. If you were to think about people that need God's righteousness, who do you think needs it more?

A Bible teacher or an abortion doctor? A Pope or a parishioner? A chaplain or an occult leader? A policeman or an Al-Qaeda member? Mary the mother of Jesus or Mary Magdalene? Kind grandmother or rebellious drug leader?

Everybody equally needs the righteousness of Christ Jesus. Everyone born except for Christ Jesus is born bankrupt with Adam's sin imputed to their account. Consequently, they are by nature sinful and they need, we need Christ's righteousness.

Let's turn our Bibles to Romans chapter 2 as we go chapter by chapter through Romans. It took about three or four years to get through 1 Corinthians verse by verse. I'm doing something a little bit differently in this series, chapter by chapter because we have so many new people at the church.

I want them to get a good overview before the summer. What does this book, the book of Romans teach? So chapter by chapter, I know it's a little faster but I think you'll be encouraged as you get the big picture and also encouraged to study.

We're going to see that today whether you're self-indulgent or self-righteous, you need the righteousness of Christ Jesus. We're going to see today that William Gernal's words are true. I'd rather be a sober heathen than a drunken Christian.

Chapter 1 shows a lot of bad people. They practice homosexuality, fornication, adultery, they hate God, they're insolent and we all can easily look at them and say, that's right. They're not righteous.

And now in chapter 2, Paul says to all the people who are saying amen, preach it, all those heathens, all those pagans, they're all unrighteous. Now he preaches to people who are religious that you need the gospel just as much as they do.

Who's worse, a pagan or a person who attends Bethlehem Bible Church? By the way, what is it about human nature? We can always find somebody worse than we are so we feel better. And in this particular case, the Romans 1 people are super bad, they're uber bad.

They are so unrighteous, actually it makes us sick. We have much more. We are much more accountable because we have the Bible, we have scripture and we have the truth. So Paul in chapter 2 is going to tell us that if you try as an unbeliever to cloak your self-righteousness with religion, you're doubly damned.

It's one thing to say these things are sinful in Romans chapter 1 and it's another thing to say I do these sins. Religion, if it's not focused on the person and work of Christ Jesus and His righteousness, it just serves to damn people because they think they're good.

I'm going to go to heaven, why? I'm a member of the church. I don't do what they do. I've been baptized, I've been catechized, I've been confirmed. I'm not like those other people. When God's standard is perfection, you want heaven, perfection, well how are we going to get that?

I'm not perfect and I don't have any righteousness and I do unrighteous things. I need a savior. That's exactly Paul's point. As I said in the first service, chapter 2 is like this. It's a sledgehammer because the little veneer that we have, the little kind of plastic covering we have is our religion, if we're not careful, can help us.

I know from past experience, I grew up as a Lutheran and I thought when I would meet people and they would say, well what kind of religion are you? I'd say, well I'm a Lutheran. How do you know you're going to heaven?

Not as bad as those people and I've had some water put on my head and they said a few things. I believe in the spirit of God, I believe in the Trinity and Paul just takes the sledgehammer to that and say, for your own good, because I love you, you need to know the truth.

It's harder for religious people from the human perspective to be saved because they think they're good, they think they're fine, they've given out a few things to God, he's going to be okay. When we're going to learn in chapter 2, if that's the way you think, I'm good with God because I just have given my minimum and I don't need to have faith alone in Christ Jesus, I don't have to repent for my sins and believe in a risen Savior, Paul says, I'm going to try to dismantle your self-righteous hypocrisy because I care for you.

This isn't a chapter where Paul hates people, he loves them and he talks about sin. So let's go to Romans chapter 2 and we'll first get a quick update on chapter 1 and then we'll look at chapter 2, as one man called it, like a bombshell on the theologian's playground.

I mean it is just one of those chapters where you almost just, you need to have a breath. You do need five part series on it just so you can go home and take a breath because Paul is just relentless. Paul has said in chapter 1 verse 16, this is the theme of Romans, it's about the gospel of Christ's righteousness.

Verse 16 of chapter 1, what's the theme of Romans? For I'm not ashamed of the gospel for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, the Jew first and also the Greek. For in it, the righteousness of God, what makes us acceptable, what gives us acceptability in God's eyes is revealed from faith for faith as it is written, the righteous shall live by faith.

Paul says this, chapter 1, Gentiles have no righteousness. Chapter 2, the Jews don't have any righteousness either. Everybody, whether you're a Gentile or Jew, that would make up the whole world back in those days using that language, everyone needs Christ's righteousness.

Good people need the gospel, religious people need the gospel, moral people need the gospel, Christians need the gospel and chapter 2 is about how God judges people who don't have the righteousness of Christ.

This isn't how to get saved, how to get saved is in chapter 3. Chapter 2 is judgment and you're going to need that because hermeneutically, it will help you. How do I interpret the Bible? Chapter 2, it will help you if you realize this is for judgment according to works, not principles of justification.

We know it's for Jewish people because if you look down in verse 17 of chapter 2, he finally calls them by name. Of course, it applies to moral people, to spiritual people, to religious people but he's specifically addressing the Jews, verse 17, but if you call yourself a Jew and rely on the law and boast in God.

The Jew has stood by Paul as Paul has rightly condemned the Gentiles in chapter 1 as being sinful and they've said, amen, preach it, that's right. And now Paul turns to the Jewish person because just because you're a Jew, it doesn't matter.

Just because you're circumcised, it doesn't matter. Just because you have Torah, it doesn't matter. Actually, all those serve to damn you all the more unless you believe in Christ Jesus, the Lord. The Jews here in the vicinity of Rome prided themselves in their privileged position, something that we too as Christians can do if we're not thinking and Paul makes sure you can't achieve your own righteousness and he uses judgment to make that point.

How do you get through to self-righteous people? You talk about judgment. So let me give you an outline today for Romans chapter 2, four facts about God's judgment designed to drive you to the Lord Jesus Christ and His perfect work at Calvary confirmed by the resurrection that you might believe in Him, to drive you away from your own self-righteousness.

And frankly, as I look at you, you all dress up pretty well and you, the ones I've gotten close enough to, you smell nice today and everything and you look good. Romans 2 is more for people who are at the church today because if you were a pagan, you wouldn't be here because you want to be at a church service and so I'm hoping there are some today who if they're here today without a righteousness of Christ Jesus, they realize that my spirituality is nothing.

My religion is nothing. My baptism means nothing. I have nothing to contribute because God judges and God judges every sin. So Paul wants to uncover the veil of self-righteous hypocrisy and he does it by giving us four facts about God's judgment.

God will judge every sin. Have you heard the slogan? Your best resolutions must wholly be waived. Your highest ambitions be crossed. You need never think you're going to be saved until you have learned you are lost.

That's what Paul's doing. He's not being mean, but he doesn't give them the Savior until they realize they need to be saved from something, from themselves and their own idea of righteousness. It's one thing to say to somebody, are you a sinner?

Yeah, sure, everybody believes that. But it's another thing to say, do you know what? It's not just the big sin of murder that damns, but it's greed and it's hate and it's every other sin. Every sin damns.

And it's not God's job to forgive, as philosopher Heinz said. Number one, the first fact about God's judgment designed to drive you to the cross. And by the way, if you already are a Christian, you can be thankful this all happened.

You never came up with this in your own mind. God granted you salvation. This is going to help us. It's going to help us evangelize people. It's going to help root out any unbelievers today. It'll help Christians be thankful.

First fact about God's judgment is that it cannot be escaped. You need to grasp that. Grasp that the judgment of God cannot be escaped. It's also going to help us as we have to deal with our own hypocrisy.

God's judgment can't be escaped. Now take a look at chapter 2, verse 1, and as I read it, I want you to see if you can tell me how it changes from the end of chapter 1. The tone changes. The countenance changes.

The language changes. This is the right chapter division. Therefore, you have no excuse, oh man. Every one of you judges. For in passing judgment on another, you condemn yourself. So you've got enough sense to judge.

But now you condemn yourself because you, the judge, practiced the very same things. All those people in Romans 1 are bad. They're wicked. Look at the change. It's all they and them in chapter 1, and now it's you in chapter 2.

Verse 29 of chapter 1, they were filled with all manner of unrighteousness. They are full of envy murder. They are gossips. Verse 32, though they know God's decree, they not only do them but give hearty approval to those who practice them.

They, they, they, they, they, and then now Paul says you. You can feel Nathan's finger just hitting the sternum. Oh yeah, they're bad. Homosexuals, fornicators, adulterers, they're horrible. We, on the other hand, we keep the law.

We have the law. We're good. We're clean shaven, and we know how to dress. We're not those wicked people. We're decent people. And the finger comes out. The people that are Paul's amen corner for chapter 1, amen, amen, amen.

Now they're not amen-ing so much. Sometimes when I hear people yell amen too much in a sermon, it doesn't happen here, but when they yell amen so much, I want to think to myself, I'm going to say something that was going to get you not to say amen.

You need to listen instead of think amen. We get so caught up in our own selves and our own self-righteousness, it's hard to see the faults in us because we're looking at everybody else's faults. This is exactly what people do today in the media.

When they want to say to themselves, well, you know what, I don't believe in Jesus Christ, and I'm not a born-again person, and I'm not an evangelical Christian, because look at all these other evangelicals.

Look at these teachers on TV. Look at what they do. Look at the scandals. Instead of saying, you know what, God's going to judge me. All these things might be sadly true, but I'm going to stand before God on that day, judgment day.

I can't escape it. It's a tragic mistake to point to other people with a bell-curve mentality, thinking you're going to make it. Look at what the text says in verse 1. You have no excuse. It's present in the Greek tense, which means you continually are without excuse.

Paul's trying to back him in the corner. I have no excuse. Look at chapter 1, verse 20, same thing there. They are without excuse. The Gentiles have natural revelation, and they reject it. Here's a good old stiff arm up your chin, God.

I don't want this general revelation. That's bad to do. When you look at the moon and the stars and the sun and the snow and babies being born, and you go, I don't believe in you, that's bad. But you know what's worse?

To have this book, to have Torah, and then stiff arm God special revelation, the Word of God. You are without excuse. I don't care if you live on Wall Street or the red light district. You break one command, you're guilty of them all.

You need Christ's righteousness. Moral are immoral in the culture's eyes. Look what he does. He says, oh man. Now he's not saying this, oh everybody at Rome, because not all the Roman people thought that.

These are Christian people, but there are some people in the congregation, among them, who thought they were Christians, who were trusting in their own righteousness, and he says, you have no excuse, oh man.

And he's specifically talking to Jews, but the application is for all religious kind of people. You think you're exempt because you're religious? You think you're exempt because you have a phylactery?

You think you're exempt because you have a certificate of baptism? Oh, I love my wife, I love my kids, I work hard, I'm a nice guy, I've never been arrested. That earns you heaven? No. It's worse. It's worse to be a good moral person.

Because if you go ask a good moral person, are you filthy and unrighteous and do you need Jesus's righteousness? The answer is, I don't know who you are, but you're like a born again person. If you go to the jail, do you have your own righteousness?

It's a lot easier to say, no I don't. And here the judge condemns himself. Judging chapter one when he doesn't look at himself. I like the title of Ray Pritchard's sermon regarding this. His sermon is entitled, Mr. I Am Okay Meets His Maker.

And the Jews would say, God loves Israel alone. God's going to judge the Gentiles with one measure and the Jews with another. Jews taught that Abraham sat outside the gates of hell, not letting even the most wicked Jew in.

What do we do as Christians? Once saved, always saved. Verse two. God judges. It's fair, it's just. You can't escape. We know. The shadow of a doubt that the judgment of God rightly falls on those who practice such things.

It's not a matter of God doesn't judge the Jews as a nation. He judges every single person because every sin is against him. He doesn't have one standard for the Jews and another for the Gentiles. That's just a game to play.

Hiding behind privilege and religiosity. Verse three. Do you really suppose, oh man. I mean, what are you thinking? What's in your brain is the attitude. You who judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourself, that you will escape the judgment of God?

Just because you're a Jew or a religious person, you can do those sins but other people can't? You think you're going to escape behind your religious moralism? Paul's just trying to drive them to the cross.

Drive them to the cross. Drive them to the cross. Verse four. Now think of Israel here because that's the context. We experience all kinds of riches and kindness and patience and forbearance, but the context is Israel.

Do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience? What's the goal of God's kindness and forbearance and patience? Not judging right now. Why hasn't God just wiped everybody out right now?

Not knowing that God's kindness is meant to lead you to what? More sin. Wilder sin. Crazier sin. God is patient. Why? Because he wants people to repent. He's a lot different than I am. If I was God and all these people did all these things, Jews or Gentiles, I don't want to smash them.

Luther said, If I were as our Lord God and these vile people were as disobedient as they now be, I would knock the world in pieces. But, see, God is forbearing, patient, kind, even for people who wear self-righteous clothes.

Those would be the people I would despise the most. And yet God is patient and kind. Think about how kind and patient God was to the Israelites. That sums up his relationship to them. Long-suffering, forbearing, kind.

What a merciful God. God's mercy is meant to drive you to repentance. It's the same thing for not just the Jews, but all religious people. J .B. Lightfoot said, The blackest of sin is not righteousness violated, but mercy despised.

God's so kind. For we, even as Christians, we have the Bible. This is the land of the open Bible. God's goodness and kindness. He's protected us. He's preserved us. He wants people to believe. Because there's a limit to God's patience.

Judgment will happen one day. When I was a kid, we got everything on layaway. We'd go to Kmart on layaway. Now kids don't know layaway because you have debit cards and credit cards, although I think it's coming back.

This is God's divine layaway program. Sin now, pay later. When people sin today, Jew or Gentile, and they're not killed on the spot, what does that tell you? God's powerless. God doesn't see everything.

It tells you what? God's kind. God's good. He's not weak. If God is really God, then have him strike me dead with a lightning bolt, and then I'll believe. He's patient. Spurgeon said, Sin and hell are married unless repentance proclaims the divorce.

And if you're here today and you're not a Christian, you can't escape the judgment of God. Fact number two. Fact number two to drive you to Christ Jesus, his life, his death confirmed by the resurrection, drive you to believe, faith alone.

Number one, grasp that the judgment of God can't be escaped. Number two, grasp that it is right. Verses 5 to 10. Grasp that it is right. And again, all this language here is to try to get you to wake up.

You're lethargic spiritually, and it's the wake-up call. When I was a kid, my mom would say, It's time to wake up. I would just lay there, and she would say, I'm going to give you the water treatment if you don't get up.

She would bring some water down and start flicking it on my face and stuff. That was the water treatment. Then I remember I just had to put my alarm clock across the room because it's too easy to just hit the snooze button.

If it's not enough that you can't escape God's judgment, Paul is like, I'm not going to let you hit that thing because you've got to know for your own good. Life and death, heaven and hell, sin, forgiveness, it's all at stake.

By the way, as we go through this, most of you are Christians. If you remember, this is how you evangelize. This is how you evangelize. Don't show them the mercy and kindness and grace of the Savior until they know they need it by preaching to them God's person and work and standards, what He requires.

Now we come to maybe the most horrible, terrifying verse in all the Bible. Verse 5, but because of your hard, of course he's talking to the Jewish moralizers here, but it's for every self-righteous person, but because of your hard, calloused, sclerosis kind of penitent heart, impenitent means unrepenting, you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God's righteous judgment will be revealed.

Chapter 1, these people were sinning. There's a payday on earth temporarily when you sin, chapter 1. But now we're talking about eternal hell. Self-righteous sinners are going to have a date with God's wrath on the great white throne judgment.

It's called the day of wrath because everything about that day is about wrath. Christians are saved and secure because Jesus has made sure He has died in our place and paid our penalty, no double jeopardy for God.

But if you've got one sin not paid for, not forgiven, there's a day of wrath waiting for you. And look what the passage says. It's storing up wrath. That word storing up is where we get our word thesaurus.

A thesaurus is a treasury of words. And here, they're not treasuring words, they're treasuring judgment. It's put another log on the fire is what it is. Treasuring up wrath and future punishment like you're treasuring up your money, hoarding gold and silver and stocks and bullion.

But sadly, it's not that. No wonder Jesus said, You fool, that very night your soul is required of you, and now who will own what you have prepared? So is the man who stores up for himself and is not rich toward God.

Do you really think most people out there living today, your unbelieving friends, think that day by day, hour by hour, they're heaping up and hoarding up and treasuring up judgment for that day that will come?

And that's exactly what they're doing, whether they like it or not, or whether they believe it or not, amassing a hoarded treasure of hell forever, brick by brick. This isn't God flying off the handle.

What does the text say? God's righteous judgment. He recompenses men according to their work. And for the Jew and for us as people who have been around the Bible and the book, we're held to such a higher degree of accountability.

It's one thing if you're living in Sri Lanka and you don't even know there's a Bible. It's another thing when you have the Bible. This is the land of the open Bible. To much is given, much is required.

No wonder some of the writers will say, Could there be people in this room today that God hates more than those who are in hell right now? Because some people in hell right now, they're in hell for Adam's sin, for their own sin, that they didn't honor God in natural revelation.

But there's some people today who have the Bible, who've heard of Christ Jesus, and who won't repent. Just like when Jesus said, It shall be more tolerable for Sodom in the day of judgment than for you.

As I'm listening to myself, I'm just thinking, Who does this? How do you grow a church? Sermons like this? Exactly what the church at Rome needed. Paul's like, I don't know if I can get there or not. I might get killed.

I might get martyred. But here's what you need for essential doctrines. Chapter 1 sin, chapter 2 sin, chapter 3 sin. So when the Savior arrives at the end of chapter 3, you're happy. God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life.

Really? People would say that to me when I was doing all the things I shouldn't as an unbeliever in the 1980s. Great! Glad he could be here. God's my co-pilot. These verses don't have anything to do with how to be saved.

They're to try to tell us we're lost in how God judges. Salvation is in chapter 3. This is how God judges, and He judges according to our works. Verse 6. Equitably. Rightly. Paul says he will render to each one according to his works.

Because if God saves you, you'll have works. Because faith works as an evidence, as a result, as a fruit of faith. To those who by patience and well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, He will give eternal life.

God's going to judge you based on your deeds. That's just an Old Testament principle. Isaiah chapter 3, Jeremiah chapter 17. This has nothing to do with the basis of salvation. That's the next chapter.

This is the basis for judgment. But then we have four terrifying words that show up in verses 8 and 9. In contrast to what we just learned about this eternal life, Paul gives a different picture to those who think their righteousness is good enough.

Think their baptism is good enough. Think their religiosity is good enough. Think their circumcision is good enough. But for those who are self-seeking, verse 8, do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness.

And now look at these words. This is what's in the future of every person who doesn't have the righteousness of Christ by faith alone. There will be wrath and fury, tribulation and distress. No, I'm religious.

No, for every human being who does evil. The Jew first and also the Greek. How about that for a future? Wrath, fury, tribulation and distress. Nahum said, Who can stand before His indignation and who can abide in the fierceness of His anger?

And our response should be what? Help. Have mercy on me. Please, Lord. You're a saving God. Save me. Forgive me. I don't want wrath and fury. And I know I'm going to die. Ezekiel says, The soul that sins will die.

But glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good. The Jew first and also the Greek. Thirdly, the third fact about God's judgment designed to drive you to Calvary by faith alone. One, grasp that God's judgment can't be escaped.

Two, grasp that God's judgment is right. It's equitable. And three, grasp that God's judgment is impartial. Verses 11 to 16. Can't escape it. It's equitable and it's impartial. Verse 11. For God shows no partiality.

No, no. When He sees me, He'll realize I'm a Jew and I'll be fine. No, no. You don't understand. I'm a member of the church. And when He sees me, He knows that. My dad's the pastor. He gets that. God receives that.

Well, the text literally in the Greek, partiality means to receive a faith, face. So you look at somebody's face and you go, Oh, they have a rich face. Because I know them. I know their bank account. They have a very influential face because they're in politics and I know them.

So, I'll just receive somebody based on how they look. No. Deuteronomy 10. God who does not show partiality is an awesome God. You think your wealth is going to keep you out of hell? You think your friendship with pastors is going to keep you out of hell?

You think your membership here is going to keep you out of hell? You think being a Jew is going to keep you out of hell? Verse 12. For all who have sinned without the law, it says Gentiles don't have the Mosaic law, will also perish without the law.

And all who have sinned under Mosaic law will be judged by the law. What irony here where the rabbis would say, You know, we're going to be judged differently. That's actually true. They will be judged differently.

They'll be judged more harshly because they have the word of God. They have the Old Testament. The law and the prophets. The more light you have, the more accountability is there. The less light, the less accountability.

And it says you're going to perish. That's why we need a Savior. Luke 19. For the Son of Man is to come to seek and save that which is lost. Or the Greek word perishing. Do not be afraid of them that kill the body and who are not able to kill the soul, but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in Gehenna.

Matthew chapter 10. Then shall He say unto them on the left hand, Depart from Me ye cursed into the eternal fire which is prepared for the devil and his angels. Ye shall go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal.

Why? Verse 13. For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law will be justified. And I can't do it all. It's too high. It's too hard. It's too holy. It's too insistent.

I can hear it, but I can't do it. I need a Savior. I need someone who could do it. Who did fulfill the law perfectly. Who when God said do, He wasn't like Adam who fell. He actually did it. Christ Jesus the Lord.

God's not calling for limited obedience. Partial obedience. Obedience when you're younger or older. But perfect obedience. Verse 14. When Gentiles who do not have Mosaic law. They don't have the Old Testament.

By nature do what the law requires. Like don't commit adultery. Muslims know that, don't they? Most people in the world know. Lying is bad. Honesty is good. Sex outside of marriage is bad. They've got a law written on their heart.

They know that. Verse 14. Read it again. When Gentiles who do not have the law. By nature do what the law requires. They are a law to themselves. They might not have the Mosaic law. But they know what their conscience says.

Even though they do not have the Mosaic law. Paul is trying to show. You can't get out of this. You need to run to Christ for His righteousness. By faith alone. Have you? I said earlier this year. I said, you know.

Some of you this year I might have to bury. I didn't want that to be true. But it's already been true. And every one of you here is going to die. And then stand before God. And it's not going to be. Well, I was kind of good.

I did a few religious things. My wife did this. And I did that. It's going to be perfection. And unless you look to the Son. Christ Jesus the Lord. By faith alone. Your future is wrath. And fury. And hell.

And indignation. I'm telling you it's the only hope. And by the way. To think that you could be good enough to get to heaven by your religious deeds. It makes a mockery of the cross. Because why would God damn His own Son at Calvary.

If you could be good enough to get to heaven. How masochistic could God be? So Paul wants to make sure there's no wiggle room. Can't get out of this. He reduces people to size so that they look up. So that they look to a Savior.

Verse 15. They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts. These Gentiles. While their consciences also bear witness. And their conflicting thoughts accuse. When they do the wrong thing.

Or even excuse them. You don't need mosaic law for that. Conscience does it. All people are born with a conscience by God. And then who's going to be the judge? It's going to be Jesus as the judge. Verse 16.

Because it's been handed over to him by the Father. John chapter 5. And on that day. What day is that? When according to my gospel. God judges the secrets. The crypt. The cryptos. The hidden things of men by Christ Jesus.

Samuel Johnson said, Every man knows thoughts of himself that he would not tell to his dearest friend. And yet God knows those and will judge you for those. Or your only other hope is to have Jesus judged in your place.