Romans Chapter Two

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Now take out your Bibles and turn to Romans chapter 2.
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Continue our study of the book of Romans today.
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Now I know I've been in and out.
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We just had a lot been going on lately, and Brother Andy's been filling in.
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He filled in last week.
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But my goal is to go one chapter each time I come in, go a chapter through Romans.
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So last time we went through chapter 1, and just to sort of remind you where we are in this book.
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The book of Romans begins with Paul's expression of his desire to visit Rome, explaining that this isn't a church that he planted.
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This is a church that he wants to minister to.
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And he begins to outline for them the Gospel.
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Chapters 1, verses 16 and 17 provide the thesis of the book.
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Paul says, I'm not ashamed of the Gospel, for in it the power of God is revealed from faith to faith.
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As it is written, the just shall live by faith.
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And that becomes the thesis of the book.
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The Gospel is the thesis of Romans.
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And as we said last week, it is the Gospel of God.
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The four letters, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are often referred to as the Gospel of Christ, the Gospel of Jesus.
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The letter of Acts, or the book of Acts, is sometimes referred to as the Gospel of the Holy Spirit.
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And Romans is referred to sometimes as the Gospel of God.
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So, beginning at verse 18 of chapter 1, Paul begins to express the concept of the sinfulness of man.
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And man's sin springs forth from his unwillingness to submit to God and his willingness to turn to idols.
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Paul says, God has revealed His wrath from Heaven against all unrighteousness and ungodliness of men who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.
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And the rest of the chapter is an expression of that suppression of truth.
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Until we get to this crescendo moment at the end of the chapter where it simply expresses an explosion of man's sinful decay.
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It talks about men hating God, being insolent, boastful, haughty, haters of God, all of these things.
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It lifts out a litany of sins and it ends with this very important phrase.
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It says, Not only do they do these things, but they give approval to those who do these things.
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So not only are they sinful, but they're calling good evil, an evil good.
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They've made the terrible exchange of taking what is virtuous and making it sinful and taking what is sinful and calling it virtuous.
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So we ended there last time.
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Now we move into chapter 2 and Paul continues his same thread of thought.
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This same thread of thought actually goes all the way from chapter 1, verse 18, to chapter 3, verse 26.
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And throughout this thread of thought, he begins to weave in the question, and this is a very important question, the question of, well, what about those who have an external visage of goodness? Or what about those who have the law and say, I keep the law? What about them? Are they all right? You know, we know the idolatrous world that's turned against God and hates God and hates everything that God loves.
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We know they're bad, but what about the relatively good people? And in this sense, he's actually going to address specifically the people who have the law.
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Now, we have to understand from a contextual, historical perspective who he's talking about.
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When Paul talks about those who have the law, he's talking about the Jewish people because he's referring to the law of God.
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So in chapter 2, it is my contention and I'm going to show you how I arrive at this conclusion.
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In chapter 2, what he's doing is he's saying even those who have the law are still condemned because they're not keeping the law either.
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The ones who don't have the law are condemned because they have the natural revelation of God whereby they are condemned.
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But the people with the law you would think are better off, but they're not because they still break the law.
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He's pushing towards this conclusion in chapter 3, verse 10, where he says, this is why I told you all are sinners.
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None is righteous.
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No, not one.
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And he's speaking of both Jew and Greek.
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So in a sense, chapter 1 was about the unbelieving Gentiles, the Greeks, and chapter 2 is about the believing Jew, but still unrighteous because of their sin.
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So with that in mind, let's pray and then we'll read the text.
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Father, I thank You for Your Word.
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Thank You for these men.
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I pray that our study today would be fruitful and Lord, that You would use this to glorify Yourself, to raise up these men to a better understanding of what Your Word has to say.
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In Jesus' name, Amen.
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Alright, so chapter 2 is 29 verses.
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We can read through the whole thing.
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I'm reading out of the English Standard Version.
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If you have a different translation, you may read slightly different.
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Therefore, you have no excuse, O 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.
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We know that the judgment of God rightly falls on those who practice such things.
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Do you suppose, O man, you who judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourselves, 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 the kindness of God 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.
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He will render to each one according to His works.
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To those who by patience and well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, He will give eternal life.
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But for those who are seeking and do not obey the truth but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury.
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There will be tribulation and distress for every human being who does evil, the Jew first and also the Greek.
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But glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good, the Jew first and also the Greek.
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For God shows no partiality.
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For all who have sinned without the law will also perish without the law, and all who sin under the law will be judged by the law.
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For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified.
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For when Gentiles who do not have the law by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves even though they do not have the law.
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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.
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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're 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 yourselves? While you preach against stealing, do you steal? You who say that you must not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? You who boast in the law dishonor God by breaking the law.
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For as it is written, the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.
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For circumcision is indeed a value if you obey the law, but if you break the law, your circumcision becomes uncircumcision.
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So if a man who is uncircumcised keeps the precepts of the law, will not his 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.
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For no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor circumcision outward and physical, but a Jew is one inwardly.
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Circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter.
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His praise is not from man, but from God.
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Alright, so ends the chapter.
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May God add His blessing to the reading of His inspired and inerrant Word.
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Alright, so I laid the stage earlier about what we're going to talk about today.
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And ultimately the subject of today is the subject of those who have the law, that is the Jewish people, and their situation as yet having the law, still being condemned.
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I'm going to ask you a question, and this is not a trick question, but maybe will surprise you with my answer, so let me ask and you can just answer whatever you think.
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How many ways are there of salvation? One way.
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What is the one way? Jesus.
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Alright, Jesus said, I am the way and the truth and the life, and no one comes to the Father except through Me.
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Alright, I affirm that, so I want to ensure in your minds that what I'm about to say next is not going to contradict that.
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But it's going to sound like it will, so let's have a serious moment.
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There are two ways of salvation.
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It is Christ, or it is obedience to the law.
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If you are perfectly obedient to God's law, you will be saved, but you ain't.
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That's why there's one way.
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Does that make sense? Alright, that's the point, right? There is only one way because there's only one possible way.
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But, if by theory, you were able from the moment of conception to keep the law of God perfectly, then you would not be condemned.
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But you ain't, you haven't, and you won't.
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And the reason why I'm making this is if we understand that very simple concept, this chapter will make more sense because Paul says that a few times in this chapter.
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In fact, I just pointed out, notice what he says.
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He says in verse 9, There will be tribulation and distress for every human being who does evil, the Jew first and the Greek.
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But glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good, the Jew first and the Greek.
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And you say, okay, well I'm doing good.
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Yeah, you may be doing good right at this moment, but if I took you through the law of God, would you put yourself in the category of good, or would you put yourself in the category of sinner? You better put yourself in the category of sinner because it's where we are.
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And that's the point Paul is making.
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There are those who have the law, and they think that they are better off because they have the law.
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And in one sense, they are because they know what God requires.
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But in another sense, they're worse off because they know just how desperate they are because they know what God requires.
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If you know that God requires of you to be perfect, as I am perfect, isn't that what the Word of God says? Be perfect as I am perfect.
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Be holy as I am holy.
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And you realize, I'm not perfect.
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I'm not holy.
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I need a Savior.
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By the way, if you don't get anything else out of Romans 1, 2, and 3, here's what you need to understand.
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Paul is forcing upon all the world, Jew and Greek, that you all need a Savior because none is good.
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No, not one.
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Not only none is perfect, Paul doesn't just say none are perfect because we all accept that.
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Ah, nobody's perfect.
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He didn't say nobody's perfect.
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He said nobody's good.
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Jesus had the rich young ruler run up to Him and say, Good teacher.
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And Jesus said, Why do you call Me good? Now Jesus was not denying His own righteousness.
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But what He was saying to this young man is why do you call any human being good? You have a wrong view of what is good.
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See, we do that all the time.
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Especially at funerals.
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Man, I tell this, I do funerals a lot.
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I've got to go today at 3 o'clock to meet with the family to do a funeral tomorrow.
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And I probably meet 2 or 3 families a month that I've never seen in my life and I only see them to do the funeral for their family members.
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And you know what they almost always say? Man, daddy was a good man.
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Mama was a good woman.
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She was a good mama.
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She was a good this.
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She was a good that.
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Always.
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You know what you never hear them say? Mama was a wretch and she bursted hell wide open.
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They never say that.
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I mean, and I get it.
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Nobody wants to imagine that mama busted hell wide open.
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But the reality is none is good.
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I say this and I don't say this in any way to be vain or prideful.
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If you come to my funeral, if you outlive me, please don't go up and say I was a good man.
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Say I had a good Savior.
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That's what I want to hear.
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That He had a good Savior.
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And Christ was a better Savior than I was a sinner.
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That's what I want to hear.
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Because it's not about me and my goodness.
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But Paul is here addressing the people who would hold to their goodness, who would hold to their righteousness, who would hold to the fact that they have the law, specifically the Jewish nation.
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And he would say, you are just as bad off as the Gentiles.
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You are just as much...
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And this is why he says God shows no partiality.
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And you say, but wait a minute, God certainly does show partiality, Paul.
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He even says that He does in the Old Testament.
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In the book of Amos, He says, you above all nations have I loved.
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Speaking to Israel.
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Amos 3, verse 2.
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You of all nations have I known.
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Of all the nations of the earth, right? God loves Israel.
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But, when it comes to judgment, God is impartial because He does not allow anyone's sins to go unpunished.
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No matter whether they be Jew or Gentile.
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Because where God is a Father to Israel and He adopts them as His own and He enters into covenant relationship with the nation of Israel, He still holds them to account for their sins in the same way He holds everyone to account because of their sins.
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Because when God sits upon the throne of His box of jurisprudence, His jury box.
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Well, He doesn't have a jury.
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He's the judge.
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His judge's box.
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When He stands as judge, He does so impartially.
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That's what it means when God has no partiality.
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It doesn't mean God doesn't elect.
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Some people try to use that to argue against the doctrine of election.
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It doesn't mean that God doesn't have a special relationship with His elect people, the church, and this and that.
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That's not what not having partiality means.
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What it means when it says God shows no partiality, it means when He judges, all sin is laid before Him.
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And He doesn't say, well, you're mine, so I'm not going to judge you.
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No.
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Everyone's sins are laid at His feet.
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And the only way for those sins to be forgiven is to have them paid for.
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And they will be paid for.
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Either by you or by Christ.
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See, that's why Christ went to the cross.
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He goes to the cross to pay the penalty that you owe.
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And if Christ doesn't pay it, you're going to pay it.
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It says there's a debt of payment that's owed because of your sin.
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What is the wages of sin? What is a wage? It's what's owed.
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At the end of the week, your boss doesn't come up to you and say, here's your paycheck.
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It's a gift.
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You say, it's not a gift.
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I worked for that.
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It's a lease.
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Well, in this sense, it's a payment.
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You deserve to be paid for your sins.
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And the payment of sin is death.
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Christ comes to do what? To die.
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To die on behalf of those who will trust in Him.
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To die to take their place.
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To become the substitute for them.
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He dies and He takes the punishment that we deserve.
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And therefore, we get to have forgiveness.
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Forgiveness means to take a debt and wipe it away.
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The term forgiveness actually involves debt and payment.
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If you think about this, let's say you have a debt that you owe to the government.
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Let's say the IRS, you owe $1,000.
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And the IRS chooses to be merciful to you because of a medical issue or something like that.
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You would get rid of forgiveness.
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They would say we've forgiven the debt and it's over.
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Right? That's what forgiveness is.
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But somebody had to pay it.
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That $1,000, either the government had to pay it, and by the way, the government doesn't make money, they take money.
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So they took money from somebody else to pay your debt.
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Right? Just keep that in mind from a sociological perspective.
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The government don't make money, they take money.
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They don't produce anything.
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You don't buy a car from the United States, you buy it from Ford or Chevy because they produce things.
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They pay taxes.
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The government takes that money and uses it for other things.
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That's a whole other subject.
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The point is, forgiveness is when a debt is owed and it's not charged.
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When somebody hurts you and you offer them forgiveness, they owe you something, they owe you a debt, and you say you don't have to pay that debt.
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I'm forgiving you.
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Right? Even if it's a debt of pain or whatever, you don't owe it anymore, I'm releasing you from that.
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Right? We get forgiveness because Christ pays the debt.
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Make sense? This is all gospel one-on-one stuff.
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But it's important to understand that we owe a debt.
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We can't pay it.
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Christ pays it.
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Well, we could pay it in hell.
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That's the only place.
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We can pay it for eternity.
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Because it's a debt against an infinite God.
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People ask sometimes, why is hell infinite? Because God's infinite.
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You have offended an infinite God therefore it requires an infinite penalty.
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Christ dies as the infinite God-man and takes the infinite penalty upon Himself.
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Yes? We were talking about forgiveness yesterday.
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And I'd just like you to share a little bit more how us that don't have forgiveness in us, how would it affect our Lord Christ? Okay.
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I'm sorry if I look a little uncomfortable.
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I have to get surgery in a week.
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I have a very large kidney stone.
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So I wasn't making faces at your question.
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I'm just dealing with pain in my back.
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So I apologize.
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Okay.
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That's actually a pretty big subject.
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I'll break it down into a couple parts.
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Number one, forgiveness is transactional.
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Therefore, forgiveness does require both parties.
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This is why when people say, well, this person did evil to me and they hate me and I just forgive them.
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You can stand ready to forgive them.
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But until they receive the forgiveness, it's not full because forgiveness is transactional.
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Same way, let's say you steal my watch.
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I don't wear one, but let's say you did.
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And you come up to me and you say, you're wearing the watch.
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I'm sorry for stealing your watch.
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I say, okay, can I have it back? No.
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Well, then you ain't sorry and you're not forgiven.
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So there's a transactional part there.
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Forgiveness involves restitution sometimes.
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If you don't give me my watch back, then our relationship still has a divide.
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R.C.
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Sproul talked about that.
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He said, if you take somebody's watch and you say, I'm sorry, but you don't give it back, you're really not sorry.
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So there's a part of that too.
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And there is a sense in which repentance is involved in forgiveness.
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Jesus told Peter, he says, if somebody sins against you seven times and they repent, then you forgive them.
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So there is an action on their part where they're repenting.
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So there is transaction on the part of forgiveness.
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Now, does that mean that I harbor hatred against somebody who doesn't repent? That's the hard part because the answer is no.
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Because hatred and bitterness is my, that's my part.
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Now, full forgiveness requires that transactional part, but I still, even if they still hate me, even if they're still keeping my watch, even if that's still there, I don't have the right to hate them because the Bible says, even my enemies I'm to love.
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So that's where bitterness, because people will say, well, I've got to forgive them for bitterness.
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I say, you're mixing two categories.
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Forgiveness is transactional, and if you don't get to get through that transaction, that's okay.
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You still don't harbor bitterness.
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You love your enemy.
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So I would say this.
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If you're having trouble forgiving someone who has hurt you, one, ask yourself, have they repented? If they've repented, then keep this in your mind.
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You have done infinitely more to God than they have done to you.
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You repented and God forgave you.
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Therefore, if they repent, you must forgive them.
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That's the principle of the Gospel, right? You've infinitely offended God more than they've offended you.
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Therefore, we forgive anyone who repents.
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And we stand ready to forgive anyone who hasn't repented.
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And I think of the father of the prodigal son.
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When the prodigal son is walking towards his father, it says he ran to him.
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He embraced him.
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He kissed him.
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He put his ring on his finger.
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He restored him.
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Why? Because he stood ready to forgive him.
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He stood ready.
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So that's what I always tell people.
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I say if somebody's unrepentant, then the transaction of forgiveness has not taken place yet, but I stand ready at any moment.
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If that person calls me or if that person reaches out to me and offers their repentance, I would forgive them in a moment because that's what I want to do.
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I want there to be that transactional forgiveness.
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Yes? How does that work with forgiving yourself? Okay, that's a little different because I think you have to come to first the understanding that the idea of forgiving ourselves is...
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and forgive me, this is going to sound callous, but I don't mean it to be.
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That's not a biblical category.
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The Bible doesn't ever talk about us forgiving ourselves.
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It talks about God forgiving us and resting in His forgiveness.
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So I think that oftentimes we do beat ourselves up.
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We do feel guilt and we feel shame and we live in that.
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We have to learn to live in the light of God's forgiveness.
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And in doing so, those feelings of self-guilt, self-shame and all that will begin to fade as we begin to live in the light of God's forgiveness.
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What matters not if we forgive ourselves, what matters is if He forgives us.
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Is that helpful? Yeah, so like I said, I know what you mean by that, but I think the more important category is God's forgiveness.
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Yes? I'm glad you asked that question.
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Now, there's another question that involves me.
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Why do I tell myself I forgive that person for what they did to me or said some real ugly stuff concerning me, but I won't forget? I forgive them, but why do I tell myself I forgive them, but do I really forgive them by holding to the mercy and saying I won't forget? Your mind is in your mind, and it's locked in there.
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It's not like a computer where you can drag things to the junk file and hit delete and it goes away.
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Your brain keeps those memories.
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So what I think is important from a biblical perspective, just like I was talking about with him, is when the Bible talks about God's forgiveness of us, it talks about Him choosing not to remember.
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And what that means is choosing not to hold it against that person.
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God remembers everything.
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God doesn't have the capacity to forget.
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He is the all-knowing One.
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God never learned anything.
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He never forgot nothing.
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But He chooses not to remember it against them.
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So 1 Corinthians 13, this is the passage I will point you to.
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It says, it keeps not a record of wrongs.
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It keeps not a record of wrongs.
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So when I'm dealing with a person that has hurt me, and I have family members that have really hurt me, family members that have done me wrong, and sometimes when they do me wrong again, all those old things come up, and now I'm not just mad about what they're doing now, I'm mad about the 14 other things they did, and I'm now 14 times as mad as I should be.
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That's me keeping a record of wrongs, and I need to realize that and work towards repenting of holding that against them because I'm keeping a record of wrongs, and that's not love.
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1 Corinthians 13 says that love does not keep a record of wrongs.
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Think about with my kids.
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I give my kids a great example.
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My son, I love my son.
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He's in the Air Force.
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He's over in Germany.
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When he was a teenager, he made life a little hard.
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And he wasn't super rebellious, but he did things that just made Mama and me very hard.
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And he has asked for forgiveness.
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I've given him forgiveness, but every time he does something new wrong, I think about all those other things he did wrong, and it's like it compounds it.
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And I have to deal with that in my own heart.
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And I have to say, God has chosen not to remember my sin.
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I have to do that for my son and choose not to remember his sin.
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When I'm dealing with this fresh sin, I'm not going to hold these other things against him.
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It's like double jeopardy in court.
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I can't hold all these things.
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He's already been judged forgiven for those.
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I can't bring that back in as evidence now.
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So it's hard.
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It's not easy.
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Hold no record of wrong.
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That's what love is.
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It doesn't mean that...
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Let me clarify this, though.
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Let's say we got somebody in our life who has entered into our life, and they have a record of abusing children or stealing money or being unfaithful.
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Okay, I'm not going to let the person who's got a history of abusing children work in the nursery.
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I'm not going to let a person who's got a history of stealing money work in the bank account.
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I'm not going to let a person who's got a history of infidelity work in the women's ministry.
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You know what I'm saying? We've got to still deal with people as they are.
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But that doesn't mean we're holding their sin against them.
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That means we're saying, you've got a pattern here that we've got to address.
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And we've got to be careful not to put you in a situation where that pattern is going to perpetuate.
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For sure.
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Yeah, and that...
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Hey, honestly, guys, we all have something in our life that's probably from our past that somebody could say, hey, I'm not going to put you in this job because of your past.
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They're not doing us wrong by saying that.
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They're saying, hey, you've had an issue with this.
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I'm not going to put you in a place where you're going to be tempted.
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They're not doing you wrong.
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They're trying to help you to stay doing right.
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Yes, sir? I mean, I mean, that's just like, you know, work at a bar.
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That's right.
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That's right.
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Or, you know, that's...
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Or be around people who are drinking.
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You know, this is why I'm very careful about alcohol.
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Because I don't think drinking alcohol is a sin.
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But I know how easily people are affected by alcohol.
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So I don't go out in public drinking because I don't want to be to someone else a reason, well, Pastor Keith's drinking a beer.
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I'm going to drink a beer, too.
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You know what I'm saying? That's not a good example for me.
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So I choose not to do that.
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I'm not saying it's wrong for everybody.
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I'm just saying for me, I know how easy it is to, especially in my position, to influence people, good or bad.
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And I don't want to be the reason anybody picks up a drink if they ought not to.
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Yes, sir? Well, you know, by being a minister and being a man of God, you know, and when people see that, you know, you said there's a lot of sin, but when people see someone in that position and they're holding accountable for their sin, that, you know, that you become a stumbling block for those that are looking at you.
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I'm calling myself a man of God, not Christ, but the thing you see is sometimes it will hinder some people from coming to God.
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I think it could.
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That's why I say I'm very particular about when I'm out, you know, especially like at Outback or places I know serve alcohol.
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And I know that we smoke cigarettes here and everything, but I truly know that there are people going to look at that, there are people going to say, well, why are you smoking? I mean, if you really trust in Christ, rest in Christ, you wouldn't be the same about your life.
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Why do you smoke? That's funny you bring that up, because a few years ago I had some guys who were working for me, some of the guys here, and if you ever come work at my house or whatever, I always try to bless you in some way, take you to lunch, do something.
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My main brother over there, we've done some work together.
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And I bought somebody some cigarettes.
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Man, I got all kinds of bad backlash.
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Why are you encouraging them to sin? I said, well, one, I don't think smoking necessarily is sin.
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If I did, I wouldn't have bothered.
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But also, it ain't healthy, but neither is a triple cheeseburger.
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Yeah, I mean, you know, got to be honest.
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But I just remembered that, because I said something about it.
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I said, yeah, I bought cigarettes for a guy, and boy, that was not popular.
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I was very unpopular.
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So, yeah, we do got to be careful.
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We got to be careful, because people assume things.
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Oh, he buys cigarettes for those guys, he don't care about them.
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No, I was doing it because the guy did work for me, did a good job, wanted to, you know.
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Anyway, I'm getting off, I got off topic.
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Alright, so, what we're going to do, I want to look, we can't really go, for the sake of time, we can't go every verse, but I want to pick out a few of these verses to kind of bolster what I've been saying.
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Because, again, I do believe chapter 2 focuses mainly on the people who have the law, specifically the Jews, and how they're using that as an excuse, and it's not an excuse, it further condemns them.
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So let's look first at verse 1.
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He says, therefore, you have no excuse.
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That's the point.
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You have no excuse.
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Oh man, every one of you who judges.
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Now, what are they judging? If you go back up, remember, there's no chapters and verses in the original.
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Paul has not stopped one thought and started another.
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This is a continuation.
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In verse 32, he's talking about the Gentiles.
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He says, though they know God's righteous decree, they practice such things, deserve to die, they not only do them, but they give approval to those who practice them.
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He's talking about people who approve of evil.
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verse 1 of chapter 2, he says, you have no excuse.
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Oh man, every one of you who judges, who's that? They're the ones who are looking at them practicing evil, and they're saying, look at those evil people, look how evil they are.
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He says, for in passing judgment on another, you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the same things.
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See, the point he's saying about the Jewish people is yeah, you look at the Gentile world, and you see them doing all kinds of sinful things.
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Think about this from a modern perspective.
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The church looks out at the world and says, oh, look at the sinful people doing the drugs, doing the sex, doing the violence.
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But then you look in the church, and what do you see? Drugs, sex, and violence.
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And you say, how in the world are you going to condemn them when you're doing the same thing? Now, it shouldn't be.
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The church should be a place where there isn't those things.
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Right.
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We can address that this is one thing pointing at Israel.
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Three is pointing at you.
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That's right.
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And that's a good point because that's really what Paul's saying here.
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He's saying, you're pointing to them and you're judging them, but you practice the same things.
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Now, I will say this.
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I don't think that what Paul is saying here, my brother, Pastor Mike, and I talk about this sometimes, Brother Mike Collier, I don't think he's saying that the Jews did everything the Gentiles did because they did have a culture that was that forbade certain things.
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And so, like at the end of chapter one, it talks about homosexuality, it talks about hatred of parents and there are things like this, and I don't necessarily think everything that was going on in the Greek culture was going on in the Jewish culture.
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Paul's not saying that.
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What he's saying, though, is you're just as much guilty as they are just of other things.
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Sin is sin.
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Yeah, you're sinning, they're sinning, you're all guilty.
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And that's the point of chapter two is everybody, you're judging them This is why we have to be careful as Christians.
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If we stand up and we make a condemnation, like I'll do this, I will condemn the act of abortion because it is the murder of a child in the womb, but I will not in any way say that a person who has an abortion or an abortion doctor or whatever is any more guilty before God than I am because I am a sinner too.
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The same Jesus He needs is the same Jesus I need.
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That's the point.
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You who point your finger and judge don't realize that you are just as guilty.
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That was the problem with the Jewish people.
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They didn't see themselves as guilty.
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We know this from Galatians because Paul...
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I want to show you this.
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Go to Galatians.
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I've got to find it.
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It's when Paul's dealing with Peter.
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Go to Galatians 2.11.
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I'm sorry, verse 15.
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We're going to Galatians 2.15.
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This is right after Paul has opposed Peter because Peter was eating with the Gentiles, but then the Jewish cohort came from James, which is coming from Jerusalem.
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The Jewish cohort comes in.
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Peter sees them and he goes, I can't eat with you guys anymore.
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I've got to go eat with these guys because it was against Jewish law to eat with Gentiles.
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So he went over and he ate with the Jews and Paul calls him out.
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Paul says, you're being a hypocrite.
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You're eating with them when they're not looking, but when they're looking you're not eating with them.
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That's hypocrisy.
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But look at what he says in verse 15.
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This is the key.
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He's talking to Peter.
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Paul is talking to Peter and he says, we ourselves are Jews by birth because they were, Paul and Peter, both Jews.
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We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners.
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Now be clear, this is the same Paul who in chapter 2 of Romans is saying everybody's a sinner.
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He's not saying they're not sinners.
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What he's saying is that the way the Jewish people looked at the Gentiles was that they were sinners simply for being Gentiles.
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That's the point.
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Was their sin was national.
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It was corporate.
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It was indicative of them all.
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That's like me saying, I'm an American, not a French sinner.
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I mean that's kind of a silly way of saying it.
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But the point is I'm including them all, right? Paul's not saying we're not sinners.
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He's saying we are Jews by birth and we're not Gentiles.
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And how do we see Gentiles? As sinners.
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As sinners.
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It is.
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But he goes on in verse 16.
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Let's just stay in Galatians for a moment.
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Yet we know that a person is justified by, not justified by works of the law, but through faith in Jesus.
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So we also have believed in Christ Jesus in order to be justified by faith in Christ, are not by works of the law because by works of the law will no one be justified.
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By the way, if you underline your Bible, verse 16 is very important because Paul is expressing the doctrine of justification by faith in Galatians 2.16.
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We're not justified by works of the law but through faith in the same way the Gentiles are.
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The Gentiles are sinners.
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How are they justified? By faith.
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We Jews are Jews.
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But we're still justified by faith.
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Why? Because we're sinners too.
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So Paul's not saying they're not sinners, but the way they looked at Gentiles was that the Gentiles were sinners by nature.
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They were sinners by national identity.
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In fact, the Jewish people, this is tradition, this is not Scripture, but according to tradition, during the time of Christ, when a Jewish person would go to a Gentile nation and come back to Israel, they would shake the dirt off their feet as they come into Israel because they felt like they were tracking in the dirt of that sinful community back into Israel.
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So they'd shake the dirt off their feet when they entered back in because they saw Israel and the Jewish people as set apart and sanctified as opposed to those other nations.
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This is why they were called dogs.
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Do you remember when Jesus met the Syrophoenician woman and she asked for healing? And Jesus said, why would I take the food from the children's table and give it to the dogs? That was the harshest thing.
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You ever thought about some of the stuff Jesus said? Jesus was tough.
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I've got to be careful.
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He's my Savior.
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Because I would never say anything that He said anything wrong.
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He didn't say anything wrong, but He said some things that were tough.
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Right? And when He said to that woman, who's got a sick child, why would I take the food from the children and give it to the dogs? He's calling them a dog.
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She had a good coming.
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Oh yeah, she came back.
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That's right.
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Jesus was testing that faith, weren't He? He did.
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He's good.
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Jesus knew exactly what He was pulling out of her.
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And what did she say? Even the dogs eat crumbs that fall from the master's table.
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Right? And so Christ knew what He was doing, but He was using a colloquial idiom which was calling Gentiles dogs.
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Because that's the way the Jewish people saw everyone that was not Jewish.
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They were dogs.
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They were sinners.
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Jesus uses that.
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The woman overcomes it.
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Christ receives her and offers that healing.
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But the point of the matter of all this is simply to say, the way the Jewish people saw the Gentiles, they were dogs, they were wretched, they were Gentile sinners, as Paul says in Galatians 2.
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That being in mind, you go back to Romans 2, and with that in mind, it makes Romans 2 help make it sense.
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Because in Romans 2, He's asking the question...
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Excuse me.
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I actually prefer a paper Bible.
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I have my iPad up here.
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I just turned the page.
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Again, going back to verse 1.
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Therefore you have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges.
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For in passing judgment on another, you condemn yourself, because you the judge practice the same things.
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Pointing one finger at them, three fingers pointing back at yourself.
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Now, it goes on.
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Verse 2, We know that the judgment of God rightly falls on those who practice such things.
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Those such things are that list of sins He mentioned.
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And then He asks, Do you suppose you who judge those who practice such things, and yet do them yourself, that you will escape the judgment of God? Or do you presume upon the riches in kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that His kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? By the way, again, I'm one of those guys, I'd underline the whole Bible if I could.
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But that's another one.
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The kindness of God is meant to lead you to repentance.
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Keep this in mind, brothers.
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Brothers, every one of us should be dead by now.
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If we receive the repentance or the recompense of our sin, me, you, everybody in this room deserve death.
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Because the Bible says the wages of sin is death.
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I've been sinning since I was grinning.
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I was a viper in a diaper, just like you.
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Even a little kid, I was a sinner.
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I deserve God's death.
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He's been kind to me for 42 years.
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And that kindness is meant to lead me to repentance.
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The forbearance of God, whereby He has not brought judgment upon me the very moment I deserved it, is an act of grace.
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You are here by an act of grace.
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You're not dead in a ditch.
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But you're here as an act of grace.
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And God's forbearance is meant to do one thing, lead you to repentance.
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That's what Paul's saying.
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He's saying that to the Jewish people.
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God has not judged you yet.
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You are under the grace of God.
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And it's meant to lead you to repentance.
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But it hasn't.
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Look at verse 5.
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Because of your hard and impenitent heart, you are storing up wrath on the day of wrath when God's judgment will be revealed.
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Here's the thing, guys.
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You are either living in the light of God's grace by the mercy of the Lord Jesus Christ through faith and repentance, or you are storing up wrath for yourself for the day of judgment.
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There ain't no other direction.
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You are either looking forward to the day of redemption whereby you will stand before your Lord in glory, or you're looking forward to the day when He says, depart from Me, I know you not.
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And you'll be cast into outer darkness where you will experience the wrath of God unquenching forever.
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People say, what's hell going to be like? I don't ever want to know.
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I don't ever want to know.
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Go ahead.
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Were garments a part of the dusting off? Did they also dust the garments off? I don't know along with that context that I was talking about, but there were things where the garments represented, such as the tearing of the garment was a picture of repentance.
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Putting ashes on your head was a symbol of mourning or could also be tied to repentance.
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If you were mourning over sin, you put ashes on your head.
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That's the whole reason for the Catholic Church and other Protestants that do Ash Wednesday.
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When they put ashes on their head, that's a sign of repentance or preparation.
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I was asking that because I'm in Acts and Paul was trying to reason with these Jews and they're like, if you're unreasonable, you're stripping the garments off.
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He said, I'm innocent.
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Yeah, well that's true too.
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I didn't think about that.
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Yeah, it's the same idea.
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I'm shaking loose of you guys.
45:43
Alright, I'm sorry.
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No, no, you're fine.
45:46
Now verse 6, He will render to each one according to his works.
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Now that's where some people get the argument that Paul's teaching works-based righteousness.
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He's not.
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We know that because of chapter 3.
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We know that because of Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, you just name it.
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Paul is not saying that.
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What he is saying is this.
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When we face God, our works are going to come into play.
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And our works will either be judged righteous or unrighteous.
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And guess what? We're unrighteous outside of Christ.
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In Christ, we are declared righteous and our works do have value.
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You say, what do you mean? Go to 1 Corinthians chapter 3 and it talks about everybody who lays a foundation in Christ builds upon that foundation.
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Some build with wood, hay, and stubble.
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Some build with gold, silver, precious stones.
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When the day of judgment comes, all of that will be put to the fire.
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And that which survives the fire will go on into eternity.
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But that which is burned up will go away, but the person will still be saved yet as though through fire.
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Why will they still be saved? Because their foundation was in Christ.
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That's why you're saved.
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Because of your foundation.
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Jesus talks about that in Matthew 7.
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He says what? He says you've got to have a foundation on stone or on the rock.
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He said because if you build a foundation on the sand, when the wind comes, it's going to knock it over.
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I am the rock.
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You've got to build your foundation on me.
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So I'm going to tell you this.
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Your works do matter.
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Your works don't save you, but your works do matter.
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One day you're going to face God.
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Your works are going to be judged.
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And your works do matter.
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I've heard people say, I just want to get in.
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I don't care if I'm swabbing decks in heaven.
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I just want to get in.
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And I get that.
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I'm with you.
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But at the same time, when we are brought to Christ, we are brought for the purpose of what? To glorify Him.
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But according to Ephesians 2, verse 10, we were saved for good works.
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Remember? For by grace you are saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, but the gift of God, not of works, as any man should boast.
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For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus, for good works.
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So salvation is by grace, through faith, for works.
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God saves you to do good things.
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He doesn't save you to be a knot on a log.
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He doesn't save you to warm a pew on Sunday.
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He saves you to be an ambassador of His Gospel.
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In fact, He tells us that in 2 Corinthians 5, that we have been given the ministry of reconciliation.
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We've been made ministers of the Gospel through the work of Jesus Christ.
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We are to go out and proclaim the Gospel.
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That's our job.
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And I do think that's the gold, silver, and precious.
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Some people say, what do you think the difference is? What's going to go on into eternity? The souls that are reached by our proclamation of the Gospel.
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I do believe that that is a picture of the blessing of our works, that when we share the Gospel and those souls are saved, and we see those people walking beside us in heaven, we will be thankful to God that we were used in the life of other people to bring them to faith.
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Not that we would receive the glory, but that Christ overall has received the glory and that those works go on into eternity because those souls go on into eternity.
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So, keep that in mind when you're out doing hot dogs or when you're out doing anything.
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When you're out sharing the Gospel.
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When you guys go help people and you all do your clothing drives and your food drives and your ministries, you're doing what God has called us to do.
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Yes, sir.
49:40
That reminds me of a story.
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In fact, I don't have time to get through the rest of this.
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I think I've explained it.
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Do this for me.
49:59
Read it this week.
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If you have any questions at the beginning of next week, I'll answer.
50:03
Actually, it won't be next week.
50:04
I have surgery next week, but the week after.
50:05
When we come back, write any questions you have down and I'll answer them before we get to chapter 3.
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Sound good? Yes, sir.
50:11
I'm going to finish with this story because you just reminded me.
50:14
This is important.
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And it's a true story, but I don't know the man's name, so I can't give you a name.
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There was a man who wrote about how he got saved.
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And he said he was going to board a ship.
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He was making passage from England to the United States and he was doing so through ship, which means it was probably a while back.
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People used to travel by ship more than they did by plane.
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So as he was getting ready to board the ship, there was a man who was standing on the dock handing out gospel tracts.
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He wasn't preaching.
50:52
He was just walking up.
50:54
Again, I love to hand out tracts and this is one of the reasons why.
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He was handing out gospel tracts.
50:59
The man took it and he said, I just want you to know God loves you and so do I.
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And he kept walking.
51:03
He didn't preach to him.
51:05
He just gave him the tract.
51:06
The man put the tract in his pocket, finished his boarding, got on the boat, and as he was going on the ship, he reached into his pocket.
51:17
He remembered he had been given this tract and he began to read it.
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And God used that tract to begin to get into his mind to start thinking.
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And by the time he reached the shore where he was headed, he had been converted and he had repented and he had trusted in Christ.
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Now that may sound fanciful, but I know several people that that's happened to even in my own church.
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One of the greatest saints I ever knew was a lady named Sybil Taylor.
51:44
She's with the Lord now, but she was in our church for many years.
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She was in a wheelchair and she was just sitting in a place waiting for her husband one day and a lady came by and handed her a tract and that tract was used to save her.
51:54
She was a godly saint of God in our church for years and years from that one Gospel tract.
51:59
So it does work.
52:01
Anyway, getting back to the guy on the boat.
52:03
He reads the tract.
52:05
He gets saved.
52:06
But he begins to have conversations because he's a traveler.
52:09
He travels back and forth a lot.
52:11
He begins to have conversations with other people and he's telling them about his salvation.
52:15
He's telling them about this tract.
52:17
And they said, I have one of those.
52:19
I got saved in it.
52:20
Anyway, come to find out, there was a whole network of people who had received tracts from this one guy on the shore.
52:29
They had all, by God's grace, been saved and they all began to interact with one another.
52:35
And finally, the man said, I've got to go back and talk to this guy.
52:38
I've got to go back and thank him for sharing the Gospel with me.
52:42
So the next time he's in that area, he goes back to that place where the man is and he's still there faithfully handing out tracts.
52:52
And he walks up to him and he says, can I talk to you for a moment? The man said, yeah.
52:55
They stepped to the side.
52:56
He said, I want you to know you gave me that tract and I got saved.
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He said, and I have talked to dozens of people who have received tracts from you and who have gotten saved.
53:08
And the man began to weep.
53:11
He just began to weep and he says, I've been doing this for 20 years and I never knew that even one person had gotten saved until today.
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The Bible says it is required of a steward that he be found faithful.
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And if we are faithful, we can't help but be successful.
53:41
Let us be faithful to what God calls us to do.
53:43
Let us understand what we do in this life does matter.
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It doesn't save us.
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But when we do work for the King, as the old poem goes, only one life will soon be passed and only what's done for Christ will last.
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Let's pray.
54:01
Father, I thank You for Your Word.
54:03
I thank You for Your truth.
54:04
I pray that we would live for Christ and for His glory.
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In Jesus' name, amen.