Romans 2:6-11

Where have you been? But we're back in Romans chapter 2.

Today we're going through verses 6 to 11. So a small chunk here.

I'm going to read from 1 to 11 because of what we went over last week.

So that way, last week we went over 1 through 5, which is where Paul begins to address the moralists, the legalists.

Well, let's be honest, he begins to address the Jews is what he's doing. Those folks that think that because they are agreeing with what

Paul's saying and because they keep the law, that they're safe. Starting in verse 1.

Or do you presume on the riches of His kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?

But because of your hard and impotent heart, you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when

God's righteous judgment will be revealed. He will render to each one according to his works, to those who by patience in well -doing seek for glory and honor and immortality.

He will give eternal life. But for those who are seeking, who are self -seeking and do not obey the truth but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury.

There will be tribulation and distress for every human being who does evil.

The Jew first and also the Greek. But glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good.

The Jew first and also the Greek. For God shows no partiality.

Now it may seem at first that in verse 6 that Paul is talking about a works -based salvation.

But as you know, as I know, and as we'll see going through, this is definitively not the case.

The point that Paul is making here is a point that's made over and over and over again in Scripture.

It's that God will judge justly everyone by the exact same standard.

Now in the world, we have two groups. There are those that love the

Lord and belong to Him and those that hate Him. The evidence of this is bore out in our lives.

It is called fruit. That's what the Bible calls it. If you'll turn with me for just a moment to Matthew 7, 21 -23,

Jesus says, Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven.

But the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven on that day many will say to me,

Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?

And then I will declare to them, I never knew you. Depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.

There are those that are saved and bear fruit by the Holy Spirit because of what Christ did for them.

And then there are those who do good works in seeking

God's favor. As philanthropic and spiritual as those works may seem,

Paul says that they are dirty rags. Stay in Matthew, in section 12, or section 12, chapter 12, 33 -37,

Jesus says here, Either make the tree good, and its fruit good, or make the tree bad, and its fruit bad.

For the tree is known by its fruit. You brood of vipers, how can you speak good when you are evil?

For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. The good person out of his good treasure brings forth good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure brings forth evil.

I tell you, on the day of judgment, people will give account for every careless word they speak.

For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned. By the same way that we know good fruit comes from a good tree, and bad fruit from a bad tree, we can know which group a person belongs to by their fruit.

And this goes for people outside of the church, as well as inside of the church.

John 5, this is short, so if you don't want to turn, you don't have to. But John 5, verses 28 and 29,

Do not marvel at this, for an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and come out.

Those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of judgment.

And then you also have 1 John, tells us that we are to examine ourselves, not just others.

The scriptures are conclusive on that matter.

I'm not going to knock it off, period. There's no room for argumentation on what

God says about his standard of judgment, and the two groups of people that there are. There are goats, and there are sheep.

And we will be judged by our fruit. Plain and simple.

In verse 7, it says, To those who by patience in doing well seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life.

Now, this question is rhetorical, obviously, but what is the reason that anyone seeks after heaven?

Scripture says that no one can seek after heaven. It's not a matter of may.

May or can. You can't. So what would cause someone who can't seek after heaven to seek after heaven?

Only the Holy Spirit. The fruit that we

Christians bear is not done because we want to get into heaven. It is done by us, by the power of the

Holy Spirit, because we already are. I say that because one of the things that every,

I think probably every, maybe not every, but most Christians struggle with, especially in the beginning, is something that's called assurance.

Those that are elect do not have to struggle with assurance.

Not that you won't, but that you do not have to. You don't have to worry about getting into heaven because you already are.

That is the wonderful thing about the blessing that we have from the Holy Spirit. If you want to turn, you can.

It's pretty far back in Ezekiel 36, 26 through 28, 36, 26 and 28, or 26 to 28.

The prophet of God says here, starting in 26, I will give you a new heart and a new spirit

I will put within you. I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.

And I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.

You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your father. You shall be my people and I will be your

God. That in and of itself takes care of you now.

Sorry. The imagery that this passage brings to mind, that God, in a moment that we didn't hardly notice, that split second in the time that we perceive, that He took out this cold, hard, lifeless heart like a statue and replaced it with a warm, fleshy, life -filled beating heart that brings with it a love for Him.

Another analogy for this, which we see in Scripture, is that we, before that moment, are described as dead.

Maybe a more descriptive word is corpse. And after this moment, we are no longer enslaved to sin.

We're given a new heart made alive. Now, the fruits of the elect that we can look out for, that we are to judge other people by, judge ourselves and our fellow congregants and our fellow

Christians by, are given to us in Galatians 5, 22 and 24, in one of the more comprehensive lists.

Starting in verse 22, But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self -control.

Against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

These are some of the things that we should look out for. And we don't exhibit them 100 % of the time.

We still live in a fallen world and still live in our flesh. But these are the outworkings of the

Holy Spirit through us. And while we can absolutely judge according to these fruits, we are still held to the same standard as everyone else is.

Verse 8, But those who are self -seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury.

Last week we talked about, I had in there talking about the

Greek word that's translated as wrath, and how most people describe it as, or when most people think of the

Day of Judgment, they think of lions and people and all of that sort of thing. Well, the way the

Bible describes it is that people are literally trying to hide under mountains to get away from God.

This word occurs here, fury. He doesn't come back calm and collected.

In fact, he comes back already victorious. White robe and everything, white horse, how it's described.

Anyway. But they can expect his fury. And those that do not have the

Holy Spirit, and those that hate God, they exhibit bad fruit, which is given to us also in Galatians 5, just before the previous list in 19 -24.

Now the works of the flesh are evident. Sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, all things like these.

I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

Now all of these things aren't going to be exhibited together by a singular person, though they may.

That would be especially obvious. Typically, they'll come one, two, three, four at a time in layers, and we exhibit these two because we were once these people.

But the difference between the sheep and the goats is that these particular things to look out for will not be done habitually.

For a person who is indwelt with God the Holy Spirit, you cannot sin habitually.

Maybe for a time, for a season, but you cannot do it habitually because He will not allow it.

The Holy Spirit works to remove sins from us. It is for the same reason that a true teacher in the universal church isn't going to consistently teach heresy.

Cannot. The Holy Spirit will not allow it. But now that we see these things, in verse 9, verse 10 and verse 11, there will be tribulation and distress for every human being who does evil.

The Jew first, and also the Greek. But glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good.

The Jew first, and also the Greek. For God shows no partiality.

Paul phrases verse 9, verse 10, the way that he phrases them for a reason.

To show, one, that while in human courts we may be given a preferential treatment due to race, or wealth, name, or gender, or any other reason.

As he states in verse 11, God shows no partiality.

There is no preferential treatment. To those that are in Christ, this should be an absolute joy.

Because at the moment in which we are indwelt by the Holy Spirit, something else also happens.

All of our sin, and all of the things, all of those works that we have done, all of that bad fruit, is instantaneously attributed to Christ.

Christ takes that upon himself on the cross, and we are given his righteousness.

This is why he had to be who he was. Truly man, and truly

God. I will not say fully, because that denotes some sort of percentage, and it doesn't work that way.

Truly man, and truly God. It truly had to be a human sacrifice.

The only person who could be sacrificed that was sufficient to cover all of the elect throughout all of time and space said space, because we do live on a planet, is

God the Son. Eternal covering had to be given by an eternal person.

Not only does it cover us now, 2 ,000 years later, and however long he is willing to be patient in the future, but also all the way back to the beginning.

But God doesn't look at a person or a people or a nation or a hemisphere and see them as higher or lower or in a separate group.

Not on judgment day. He does not. This is something that no earthly court can boast.

Never in history. There has always been some sort of partiality.

There is a wonderful movie that if you have not watched it, you absolutely should.

It's called 12 Angry Men. It's wonderful.

In the very beginning of that movie, very beginning, this man is on trial for murder, and you never see him.

You never see the court, the case. All you see, the whole movie, is 12 men in a deliberation room talking about it.

But what do most of those men have when they walk into the room? Half of them are already partial.

Well, he came from here. He did this. He has a history of this. Right? And one of the characters convinces all of them that the case is absolutely ridiculous.

No spoilers here. Watch the movie. But that's how our courts work.

God doesn't care who you are or where you came from. His standard is his own character.

And he was gracious to give this back in the Ten Commandments and the law.

But that's a discussion for next week. This, for the same reason, should be a fearful realization to those who hate

God. Joy for us that we're covered. It should terrify those who hate

Him. One thing that any guilty person should fear is an absolutely impartial judge that cannot be bought, cannot be bribed, cannot be swayed in any way.

For God to be partial would mean that He is unjust.

He's unjust. Deuteronomy 10 17.

These are short, so if you don't want to turn, you don't have to. For the

Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great, mighty, and awesome

God, showing no partiality and accepting no bribe.

Job 34 and 19. This is Elihu by the way, talking to Job and his friends.

Who is not partial to princes and does not favor rich over poor?

For they are all the work of His hands. As an additional note, in Romans, we have the phrase, as I said before,

He phrases it a certain way. The Jew first and also the Greek. The second point that I wanted to make here is that He phrases it this way in discussing

God's impartial judgment to denote chronology.

The Jew first and also the Greek. As we read, as we just read in Acts, what happens?

What realization does he come to? You have

Pentecost, and they go out and start preaching and establishing the church, and he says,

I now truly know that God is not partial. He's speaking to pagans,

Gentiles, and the Holy Spirit falls upon them. The Jews first and also the

Greek. This phrase is meant to denote the chronological manner rather than the preferential treatment.

So the knowledge of God and salvation was given to the Jews first, and as a means for the whole world, they have it, and then they give it to the

Greeks at the appointed time. If you go back through history,

I'll keep this part short. If you go back through history and look at what was going on in the rest of the world, at that exact point in time, we have something that never occurred before in human history.

It's called the Pax Romana. You're not familiar with that.

Those words mean the Roman Peace. It's the first time that a person could walk from Rome all the way to Damascus, anywhere in Roman territory, and not worry about being robbed, especially if they were a

Roman citizen, because all of these countries are governed by Rome.

The Greeks had it a little bit, but they had a hard time keeping control.

The Romans, on the other hand, their war machine was feared by everyone, and Lord, give you favor if you decided to hurt someone who was a

Roman citizen, because a legion would be sent to find you.

Not necessarily because they cared so much about their citizens. They did, but because of the display of power that you do not get to do this against Rome.

So this one time in history, the church is founded in Jerusalem, and the apostles get to go everywhere.

They couldn't have done that before. They get to go everywhere that the

Lord wants them to go, and spread the gospel to Asia, and to Greece, and to Rome, and Spain, and all of these other countries all around the world.

But then there's what we read before as another scriptural proof.

Peter opened his mouth and said in Acts 10, 34 and 35, truly

I understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears

Him and does what is right is accepted by Him, or acceptable to Him.

Romans 9, which we'll get to probably in the next four years, Romans 9, verse 14, what then shall

I say? Is God unjust? Certainly not. God cannot show, and this might be a little wordy, this is how my brain works,

God cannot show partiality or give preferential treatment to anyone.

Partiality is sinful. It's called the sin of partiality.

making it unjust, and God cannot sin. It is against His divine character to sin.

God cannot act outside of His own divine character. For Him to do so would mean that He can change, and God cannot change what they say is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

Logically, He cannot be partial. Even with the elect, it isn't partiality.

Some people may teach it that way. That's an error. It's not partiality.

The difference between us, as I said before, is our mediator, our king.

At one time in our lives, we heard a good gospel presentation.

Whether it was the voice in our head as we read it, or because of a missionary, or because of an evangelist, or because of a friend, or a parent.

We heard the law, and at that moment, the

Holy Spirit said, just as Nathan said to David, you, and it scared us to the point that we wanted to crawl in a hole.

Does that sound familiar? Want to hide in a mountain? Not because we felt bad about the fact that we were going to get in trouble.

That's repentance, but it's not, or it's sorrow, but not ungodly sorrow.

We had a godly sorrow. We were terrified because of who we had offended.

That is the work of the Holy Spirit. So, if for some reason, someone here hasn't gotten a good law gospel presentation,

I'll give you a short one, because I can drag it out really long. There are ten commandments, and guaranteed you have broken most, if not all of them.

You're a liar. You ever told a lie? I have. Tens of thousands.

Millions, probably. Guess what? You're a liar. One time, you're a liar.

Stolen something? You're a thief. I don't really have to go farther than that, because just the one offense makes you a sinner, a person incapable of being in the presence of God.

However, though you deserve to be convicted, now and in eternity, and spend that eternity in a place that we call hell, not because of what you did, but because of who you did it to,

God provided us away. Through the sacrifice of His only begotten

Son, the second person of the Trinity, Jesus Christ.

His sacrifice was holy sufficient. I mean holy with a W. Holy sufficient to cover all those who

God chooses. And if for some reason you're just now realizing that, which would be by the

Holy Spirit, then the only thing that you can do at this moment is pray.

Pray that He makes that convicting moment as long as possible.

That may sound funny, but later on when you get to a point to where He has removed the sorrow of those sins, or at least lessened it, you will find joy in it.

And also, everyone else here has been through that, so we know and can help you through it.

Close in prayer. Father, thank you for the absolute wonderful blessing of the