Jan. 22, 2017 Striving For Righteousness by Pastor Josh Sheldon

We continue in Romans, this morning's text. Chapter 2, verses 17 and 29 were read to you a moment ago.

And I have a goal, which God willing is the goal, the purpose that the

Holy Spirit had when He had Paul pen these words. Understand that this is not my thought, but the thought of God in His scripture by the gospel from me,

His servant, this morning to you. And before we delve into these words from the

Apostle Paul, verses 17 and 29 of the second chapter, I need to give you, just right up front, my goal in this preaching.

What I would have you, as a takeaway, take away from here, and it's simply this, do not be self -reliant.

It's simply that. Do not trust yourself to bring yourself to God. You have no effort you can make that's going to impress

God. It is not how you were born. It is not where you're educated. It's not how much salary you make, or the wonderful home you live in, or anything in you, or about you, or because of you, that can bring you to salvation.

This gospel that is the theme, the point, the goal, the purpose of this entire book of Romans.

If I can break down anything this morning, and Lord willing, I will break it down if you have it, I will break it down if I have it, is self -reliance.

Self -reliance has to go. And this is what Paul is arguing for here. As we've been going through this book of Romans, you've noticed

I've been very careful to stay mostly, not completely exclusively, but the vast majority of the time, right on the verses before us.

Not giving you the answer that comes later. And that's because I need us to wrestle with the problem, or the question, or the issue, or the controversy that Paul has for those original readers right there.

Now, we've all read the book of Romans so many times, we can jump ahead. And we know that the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus.

We can't get there yet, that's several chapters up. We need to focus and wrestle with what is before us.

The hymn we just sang, Christ has regarded my helpless estate. Christ, speaking of the gospel, him on the cross, who

I spoke of this morning before we prayed, he's regarded my helpless estate. Let that word stick in your mind as we go through these verses.

As Lord willing, we unpack chapter two, verses 17 and 29 of Romans. It is simply this, we're helpless except by the spirit of God.

All our effort, all self -reliance simply has to go.

It's abolished, it is demolished by this gospel. As we continue in Romans this morning, it's important for us to remember the apostle

Paul is writing to a believing church. He's writing to a believing church, one whose faith was proclaimed throughout the world.

It's like they're famous for just the way they came together, the way they believed, the way they lived out, understood, and acted out their faith.

Spoken of throughout the world, this is a believing church. He describes them as loved by God and called to be saints.

Loved by God, called to be saints, we have to put those together. He's preaching to a church loved by God and called by God to be saints.

We must remember as we go through these verses, that's who he's written this to. The original first century audience,

Rome. Loved by God, called to be saints. And as we work through this letter, we're going to see, and I think

I mentioned it when we first began preaching this series some weeks ago, we'll remember, we'll see that there was no particular problem, there was no great issue or controversy in the church that he needed to correct.

Now they weren't a perfect church, there is no perfect church, except for the one we'll inhabit in heaven, if that could be called a church.

But like the letter to the Ephesians, because they didn't have this one overriding issue that needed correction,

Paul is able to simply set forth the gospel itself, the doctrine, the theology behind it, the gospel of what

God has done for man in Jesus Christ. Now I mention this because the verses that have our attention this morning can too easily be cast with a polemic tone, as though Paul were castigating the

Jewish members of the church in Rome. I don't believe this to be the case. Remember that the motive of his argument is that of a diatribe, a style of rhetoric where a hypothetical dialogue partner's questions are answered.

And we know what the questions are by the answers that are given, not by them being explicitly laid out for us.

But that's the method that Paul is using here. It's an effective way of argumentation, so long as the questions that are embedded or assumed in the answers are meaningful.

Now he's answering questions that people might have in their minds. God willing, you have on your mind this morning.

But as we go through the verses, 17 and 29 of chapter 2, remember this, a diatribe, which is what

Paul is doing here, is not a polemic. It's not a negative argument against someone, though it is an argument against something.

These verses are kind of a demolition derby against the Jewish tendency to trust in just having the law.

The Jews, the Israelite nation, the first people known as the people of the book, meaning the Bible, primarily in their thinking, the

Jewish thinking, the Bible being the Pentateuch, the core of it, the first five books where we get the law.

The Jew Paul discusses all this with is not the same as the Jews in the church, though.

The Jews in the church are the saints. They're loved by God. They are Christians. They're believers.

The man, the assumed partner in Paul's dialogue, in this diatribe, is not.

He represents a Jewish nation, and he's not a believer. He has not succumbed to the gospel. The hypothetical participant in this argumentation or in this section needs to be shown his error and its solution in the gospel.

The solution in the gospel. Here's why I began the way I did, trying to get rid of our self -reliance, because the gospel demands no more self -reliance, but simply

God -slash -Christ reliance. What is

Paul doing here? Remembering that he wrote this letter to Romans. It was first read in a service, maybe much like what we're having here, where they gathered together, and somebody got before a stand, laid out

Paul's letter, and read it to them. Well, the believing Jews here, this is written particularly to Jews who believe in the

Lord Jesus Christ in these verses, the believing Jews are confirmed for having broken free from their dependence on national origin, and most especially two of the hallmarks of being that people.

Possession of the law and circumcision. They're being confirmed that they have moved away from reliance on those things because of the gospel, and now relying on Christ and Christ alone in the gospel.

Their hope properly placed there. So remember as we go through this,

Paul speaking to a presumed partner in this dialogue. We begin with this idea of Jewish privilege.

Chapter 2, verses 17 to 20. This idea that Jews have a special privilege with God for all the things that they had because of God.

We think of being chosen by God. You're the chosen people of God. We know that in Exodus.

We know that in Deuteronomy. God says, I didn't choose you because you were greater in number than other nations. You're the smallest.

You're the weakest. You're the least desirable of all nations. I chose you because, well,

I chose you because I did, and yet that choosing, that election of God tend to swell the hearts with pride.

I know as a young Jew, when people would tell me about the gospel of Jesus Christ, it was simply my answer.

No, we're the chosen people. I don't need any of this. You all go ahead and take care of that yourselves and go to church and believe this gospel and repent and do all these things you do, but my goodness,

I'm Jewish. God chose me. I'm going all the way back to Abraham or whatever.

It's an idea of Jewish privilege. It's an idea that this choosing of God was somehow because we're worthy to be chosen.

If you call yourself a Jew, I want to read those verses again up to verse 20. I know Conley just read them to you.

And rely on the law, boast in God and know his will and approve what is excellent because you are instructed from the law.

Understand that these qualities that are being boasted of here are because of knowing the law from God.

And if you are assured 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.

And of course we'll go on with the rest of the argument later. Well, you know, in the verses just before this, 12 through 16, we won't go through them again, but in those verses, which were our last topic,

Paul established all men as being equally guilty under this law, this law that's being discussed here.

It had been written on the hearts of Gentiles and so they knew its righteous requirements as attested by the pricks of conscience.

And that same law, though in greater detail with the inclusion of the civil and the ceremonial law, was given in writing to the

Jewish nation. Though as we argued before earlier in this preaching series, people knew this law before it was given from Sinai.

It was written on the hearts of all nations. Now it says you rely on the law.

That sounds like a good thing, doesn't it? To rely on the law of God, to count on it, to put confidence in it.

I mean, after all, it is from God, is it not? Let's rely on that. That sounds like a good thing. Psalm 19 says the law of the

Lord is perfect, reviving the soul. And he goes on to extol

His many virtues. You see, the law really does something. The law really can do something in us.

Psalm 119, which Conley just read one strophe of it, eight verses, it goes on for 176 verses, and it's an extended dissertation on the wonders and the glories and the goodness and the sheer, can we say, practicality of God's law.

You see, reliance on the word of God in the law is a good thing. Verse 18 speaks of knowing the will of God, approving what is excellent.

And this because we know what? We know what is in that law. Therefore, it's good. Therefore, it's to be approved.

Therefore, it is excellent. And in verses 19 to 20, it is put to use.

We do something with it. Or they did something with it, I should say. Guide to the blind, light to those in darkness, instructor of the foolish, teacher of children.

In a word, what are they saying? In a word, because I know this, I approve of what is excellent because it's

God's law, and I have that law, what? I can help you.

You see, I can help you. You don't know God's law, you Gentiles, is what this imaginary partner is sort of saying.

Absent God's law, you're blind, you're stumbling aimlessly from place to place. You have no purpose because you don't know the

God who alone can give you purpose. You're in darkness, and God's light shines elsewhere than your current path.

Let me show you the way to go. The fool said in his heart, there is no God. Let me help you.

I'm an instructor of fools. The wisdom of God is my special heritage because I have in the law the very embodiment of truth.

So come, child. Let me show you a better way. This is sort of what they're saying with all those proclamations that Paul was saying, that you think that you're the instructor, that you're the guide because you have these things.

That's sort of what they're saying. Come on, come to me. I'll help you. I'll show you the better way. And that's kind of a heady list, isn't it?

They purport to be able to fix everything by guiding others into the wonders of God's word. What qualifies them for all this?

What would qualify someone to take such a position? It sounds sort of presumptuous.

Paul only mentions that they rely on the law, and they boast in God.

They rely on the law, and we got to ask for a second. Rely on the law for what?

For what? Is it to make me better? We rely on the law.

We look to God's word and the precepts it gives and the dos and the don'ts and the negatives and the positives and all that detail.

Well, I've been arguing we should rely on it because it's the word of God. It's from God.

Want to be better? It can do that. I freely proclaim to you the law can do that.

Do what the law says, and you'll do better. Do most of it sometimes, or some of it most of the time, and just like all of us, including myself, you do better.

Make better decisions. If every time we had to turn left or right, choose our words, make any sort of decision, be it big or small, if we stopped, look to God's word slash his law, wouldn't most of our choices be better if not all of them every time be better?

It can do it. But see, Paul's not trying to make people better.

The gospel is not about you being better.

He's trying to get people saved. One of the things we can be saved from is this constant effort to better ourselves, to make ourselves acceptable to God.

Stop is what Paul's saying to this hypothetical dialogue partner. Just stop.

You're spinning your wheels. It can't be done. One of the first pillars that needs to be knocked down is this idea of self -reliance.

Self -reliance. They had the word of God, the law from God, and yet they were self -reliant.

I'll do it. I'll get it done. I'll try harder. I'll make myself better, and I'll make myself gooder, and I will just be more holy because I'm going to take care of it.

Now, here's a great evangelism program, isn't it? This is why we shy away from what we call legalism.

And what is legalism? Is legalism simply preaching the law? No, that's not legalism. Legalism is preaching that you can do it, that you just need to try harder.

You just need to make yourself better, that God's going to be happier with you if you were just more consistent in this or that or the other.

That's what legalism really is. Deadly. Deadly to the gospel.

I want to talk about an evangelism program that this might lead to. We're going to go knocking on the doors here in Lakewood Village, and we're going to have with us a brochure, and it's going to have emblazoned on the top of it as we hand it to the person who opens the door, and it's going to say something like,

The Path to Betterness. Do you want to do better than you're doing? Well, sure you do.

Want your life to work? Well, of course, everyone does. But you're wandering aimlessly like a blind man.

You can't see because your way is all darkness. You want to know how to stop making all those foolish mistakes, how to stop acting like a child?

I've got your answer, and we need a drum roll now because we're evangelizing. The answer is just do it.

Just do it. All of God's law is holy, and I'm a great expert in it, and it boils down to 613 precepts, which we can get you in a memorization program tomorrow.

And how does it work? It's simple. Just try harder.

Just get to work at it right now. Get hold of your bootstraps, give them a good yank, and off you go.

The law yourself. Just do it.

And say, we have worship at 11 o 'clock, so come on by and we'll teach you all about it. Well, that's sort of the only evangelism you're left with.

That's the only thing you're calling people to if this is the way we go, if you're this dialogue partner, this

Jew representing Jewish thinking generally that Paul is interacting with here. The question is, who can do that?

Who can really do that? Paul is going to labor deep into this letter to prove that no one can.

We flub up all the time. We can borrow from James. He says, if you want to get to God, I'm paraphrasing here, by keeping the law, go right ahead.

But you have to keep it all. Every jot, every tittle, every precept.

If you think it's a big one or a small one, it doesn't matter. You have to keep it all because if you stumble at one point, you've stumbled in it all.

It can't be done. Now, I've been very careful as we're going through this book and we've barely gotten started to not borrow the answer from the chapters to come.

I want Paul's questions to hang upon us. I'm going to break that here just once.

Well, it's my manuscript. I'll do as much as I want, but I'm trying not to borrow ahead because I really do want

Paul's issues to be your issue. I want you to wrestle with the question he's trying to get you to ask.

For by works of the law, no human being will be justified in God's sight since through the law comes knowledge of sin.

The law was meant to be done. That's true. The law was meant to be done, but the doing of the law was never intended to bring righteousness before God.

Now, it's the righteous law of God from a righteous God. But God, in giving that law, knows that no one can do it, no one but his son,

Jesus Christ, who is tempted in all ways as we are, yet without sin, never violated this word of God ever, in the smallest or the biggest things.

It doesn't matter. God knows we can't do it. It was never meant by us to be done.

We can't. What was its purpose? Through the law comes knowledge of sin.

It was meant to prove the impossibility of it, to make us despair of ourselves, to get us in that poor estate from the hymn,

Christ has regarded my helpless estate, to force men to fall down before God, say, God, I know your word.

I can read your word. I know I need to do it, and I try so hard, and yet I fail.

God, help me. That's what the law's supposed to do.

Give you knowledge of sin to show you that you simply cannot accomplish the righteousness that is needed to be able to stand with a free conscience before God.

And to prove this thing that I'm arguing for here, to prove it, we only need to follow Paul's assessment of their performance.

Remember, the theoretical participant is the Jewish nation generally. It's no polemic against Jews or Israel.

It's no blanket condemnation against them. His heart for them is such that sorrow and anguish for him is almost unbearable.

There's some borrowing from my head a little bit, but you know where I'm at there. So in that vein then, listen again to what

Conley read to you just a few moments ago. Verse 21. You then who teach others, do you not teach yourself?

While you preach against stealing, do you still? You who say that one 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.

Stealing and adultery, robbing temples, you know, they generate a lot of opinions from the commentators and the scholars on just what was meant, how the original audience heard that, especially that thing about robbing temples.

That's a really tough one. And so, mostly

I'm going to let you figure it out yourself. Read it in your Bible, see what he's saying. Get the background commentaries if you want and see what it meant 2 ,100 years ago.

I'm not going to do that this morning. I'm afraid it would distract from the main argument.

See, there's a simple route that makes this fairly easy to follow. And I've been saying it in several different ways, but if you rely on the law, if God is your boast, why don't you just do it?

If it's that good, do it. The three examples he gives here just represent the overall problem.

How can you tell me to follow a law that you don't obey yourself? If it's impossible for you, how can you expect me to do it?

And if this accomplishes what you say it accomplishes, which is a good standing before God, what about all the failures in it?

How can you tell me what to do when you yourself don't do it? The hypocrisy is obvious.

But he doesn't call them hypocrites here. He just lets it hang there. It's almost ridiculous. I don't mean in a ha -ha funny sense.

It doesn't work. It's illogical. And it's deadly.

No one wants to be lectured by someone who only criticizes but never does what they tell you to do.

Now I want to take a little bit of an excursus for just a few moments. And this idea of people telling others to do something and saying that this is

God's way, this is the holy way, this is what you ought to do, this is what quote -unquote a Christian should do and therefore you need to do.

And then you who's been told this, you happen to know that that pastor steals.

Or that person sitting next to you in the pews has an adulterous heart or even action. And so you know that they're just a bunch of hypocrites.

And you say something and all of us have heard this. I don't want to go to church. You know why? Because they're all just a bunch of, what do they say?

Hypocrites. I'm not going to ask for a show of hands. I'm seeing the nods.

I'm seeing the affirmations. We've all heard this. And it's an argument that I personally, and maybe this is wrong of me and I stand to be corrected, not right now.

But I'm tired of it. I'm tired of it. People come in, you come to my church, tell me that we're a bunch of hypocrites and that's why you're not going to sing.

You turn around and walk out. Why'd you bother us for in the first place? It's a silly argument.

It's a defense against something. The gospel. You see, we know we're all hypocrites and we don't just say, well yeah, but we're forgiven of our sins.

Therefore, Paul's going to crush that kind of a thing later. We're not going to borrow too much a head.

But here's the problem with that. Have you ever said that? Have you ever heard that?

The problem with that is not, well you're right, I'm a hypocrite and I need to repent of that again. The problem with that is, and this comes from what came before, even if you know my every violation of the gospel that I beg you to believe, even if you could prove that my faults against it are with my knowledge of it and my intention to violate it, even if you could positively prove all of that, which you wouldn't have to work very hard,

I would be willing to admit much of this, but even if you could, you still have no excuse.

Chapter two, verse six. We handled this a few weeks ago. It says that God will render to each according to his own works.

You will not be judged by what I have done or not done. You will stand before God on your own.

And pointing at me as a poor example of Christ or a Christian, pointing at me and say, well if he had done better,

I would have believed. So therefore, Lord, you don't get to condemn me. That's not gonna fly. That's not gonna go anywhere with God.

Pointing at me will avail you nothing. There's no excuse for you. There's no excuse for me. The heavens declare the glory of God.

The wrath of God is being declared from heaven in this gospel. And pointing to anyone else, even if you could prove every violation of the gospel that I've ever committed, when you stand before God, you only get to point to yourself.

And have you fallen victim to this gospel? Do you believe the gospel of Jesus Christ, which has been declared by him in his word?

That excursus, this brief excursus, is only for you who in your heart know that you have not repented of your sin and come to the

Lord Jesus Christ. And somewhere in your thinking, you think you're justified in that because all the

Christians you know are less than you think they ought to be. I would gladly admit that we probably are and we all should be better.

But I will authoritatively tell you because the Bible tells you, not me, the scripture. That's no excuse.

And God's not gonna hear that argument from you. He's not gonna answer back and go back and forth with you on it. You will stand before God on your own works, not mine.

What's Paul arguing here? Is he saying that all unconverted Jews are hypocrites? That they always and only violate the law that they say they love and say others should also?

No, his conversation is with this imaginary partner whose errors are intentionally exaggerated as a way of dramatizing the nation's misunderstanding as a whole.

Perhaps your misunderstanding. And we could all step into these shoes of this one that Paul's arguing with if you have any self -reliance at all.

That's where we're going with this. They are, as chapter 2 verse 13 puts it, hearers of the law, not doers.

They know it, the law, but how to do it they cannot find. They can judge others, but not themselves.

They have a keen eye for your faults because they know the law which exposes those faults.

They can tell you just what to do about it because they know this law. But they're inoculated themselves against seeing their own faults, that that very law that exposes your faults exposes in them.

They're defended against that. They stand opposed to Jesus Christ's demand that before the speck is removed from a brother, that speck of violation of a precept that you know that maybe they forgot, you've got it and there it is, but you don't see the log in yourself.

It's all this from having a law on which they rely and a God in whom they boast, all the while disobeying the law on which they rely and so maligning the reputation of the

God who they say they love and boast in. Do you see how

Paul is arguing here? They say they rely on these things, this knowledge of the law.

What we'll come to next, any self -reliance, anything we have in us.

Were you raised in a Christian home? Your parents were Christians? Perhaps you were christened or baptized as a child and you rely upon that, that's self -reliance.

Have you memorized lots and lots and lots of scripture, can quote it in any given moment, any given context, any circumstance?

You rely upon that? Your education, your salary, any prestige you have?

Paul's trying to knock those foundations out from under you. There's a final grade that they get here from Paul.

It's in the next verse, verse 24, For as it is written, the name of God is blasphemed among the

Gentiles because of you. Now we mentioned before when Paul uses the word for, he's answering something and something up above, something that came before the for is therefore being answered in what follows.

The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you. Why? Because you preach and proclaim this law, you show it forth as coming from a

God in whom you boast and then you don't do it. And that causes this assessment, this condemnation if you will.

The name of God, the God you say you boast in, the God who gave you this law that you know and that you love and you rely upon, the name of God is blasphemed among the

Gentiles because of you. Now what is this? This is a rendering of chapter 52 and verse 5 of the prophet

Isaiah. Let me read that to you. Now therefore what have I here, declares the Lord, seeing that my people are taken away for nothing.

Taken away, speaking of the exile. When Babylon came to Jerusalem in 586, destroyed the temple and took the people captive.

My people are taken away for nothing. Their rulers wail, declares the Lord, and continually all the day my name is despised.

Continually all the day my name is despised. Now the Lord through Isaiah is here explaining why this captivity, why this exile, why this destruction of the temple actually happened.

They said they were his people. They knew and they relied on his law. They boasted about the God who chose them.

And they did not do as he said to do. And as the Gentiles looked on, they placed the same value on God and his word that Israel's compliance implied, which is to say they blasphemed

God because even his people seemed to actually despise him by not obeying this

God they claimed to love and that they would wish upon you that you should follow him as well.

And then didn't do as he said. It caused blasphemy to be declared against God.

Isaiah goes on to say that one lesson of the exile would be that they would realize that God is actually

God. Therefore my people shall know my name. Therefore in that day they shall know that it is

I who speak. Here am I. This is the result of the behavior detailed in chapter two verses 17 to 24 of Romans.

To represent God like this is to blaspheme his name, a charge that can hardly be more grave.

Can you imagine standing before God as one who lived a life declaring to be one of his people?

And God looks upon you and says, no, you didn't represent me.

You showed forth none of the image of my beloved son Jesus Christ. Because of you my name was blasphemed.

One of the worst charges we could have, if not the worst. All this purported love of God and his word, it has consequences when it's not done.

And Paul goes on, again speaking to this imaginary person as representative of the nation as a whole, there's another consequence to all this.

Not just God's name being blasphemed, if that's not serious enough. But they are stripped of one of their most, if not their most cherished symbol of national pride and inclusion in that nation.

Circumcision. It's actually, in a sense, taken away from them because of all this.

For circumcision indeed is of value if you obey the law, but if you break the law, your circumcision becomes uncircumcision.

Becomes meaningless. The symbolism of it is completely negated.

Circumcision had and it has a long and a cherished place in Jewish history and we're not gonna go into much detail about it, but I want us to understand and remember it's first mention was in Genesis 17 when

God restates his covenant with Abraham and he seals it with this very sign. I wanna read to you when this occurred.

Now, those of you who are familiar with the book of Romans, don't jump ahead about how this came before the law.

We want Paul's issues to hang with us for a while. With Genesis 17, as for you,

God speaking to Abraham, you shall keep my covenant, you and your offspring after you throughout all generations. This is my covenant which you shall keep between me and you and your offspring after you.

Every male among you shall be circumcised. You shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you.

He who is eight days old among you shall be circumcised. Every male throughout your generations, whether born in your house or bought with your money, from any foreigner who is not of your offspring, both he who is born in your house and he who is bought with your money shall be circumcised.

So shall my covenant be in your flesh, an everlasting covenant. Any uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin shall be cut off from his people.

He has broken my covenant. And this, of course, is codified in Leviticus chapter 12, verse 3 from Sinai.

It was codified. Circumcision was a unique sign given to the unique people that signified their separateness from others.

And more than just being separate, it signified that they're given over to the Lord. Not just taken away from your company, but given to God's.

That's what circumcision was. And it became a point of pride. And if you read through the Old Testament, whenever they talk about these uncircumcised

Philistines, if being a Philistine, a Gentile, a pagan wasn't bad enough, they were that, but they were also uncircumcised.

It becomes a national symbol, which, of course, it should have been. But a symbol of pride.

And the separateness that it signified then became arrogance.

Something got forgotten. Something got forgotten in all this, in all this Jewish history and tradition about this great sign that God gave them.

The yoke that braced the sign with the covenant. The yoke that got, it was braced together with obedience to God.

God said, before, walk before me and be blameless. Walk before me, follow my word.

Do what I give you to do. That's related to, it's tied together with, it's welded, if you will, with this outward sign.

It signified that they're given over to the Lord and they are members not just of a nation, but a nation formed by covenant, by the word of God, by the demands that God made upon the people of that nation.

The sign without obedience means nothing. That's what verse 25 in Romans 2 teaches us.

The practices were done on eight day old babies, so obedience wasn't yet an issue, and we're not gonna take an excursus into infant versus credo baptism, because that's not

Paul's point. It's the same principle as in verse 24 in Isaiah 52 .5.

The people of the circumcision, by their unfaithfulness, cause God's name to be held in disrepute, which is the exact opposite of what should happen when the people behave in accordance with all that the outward sign signified.

Moses told Israel that when you follow this law, those who look on, the pagans, the

Gentiles, those uncircumcised nations, will wonder what a wise

God it is that gave this people such a word as this, and caused them to behave in this way.

Of course, that was not the case, which is why Isaiah warned of the coming exile, this disaster that came upon Jerusalem, which is why

Paul says to the church today, and then in Rome, God's name is blasphemed among the

Gentiles because of you. As far as circumcision, they may as well not have had it at all.

The next couple of verses that Paul gives us must have been just stunning to them. A man who's uncircumcised keeps the precepts of the law.

If a man who's uncircumcised uncircumcised Philistine, if you will, if he does what you were supposed to do, if he keeps the law that is signified by the sign, his uncircumcision will be regarded as circumcision.

It turns it all around, that's pretty clear. We don't have to take that apart very much to understand what

Paul's saying. Then he who is physically uncircumcised, that Gentile, that one who keeps the law that you don't keep, he who is physically uncircumcised but keeps the law will condemn you who have the written code.

Remember the Gentiles, what code are they going by? We covered this a few weeks ago. The law of God written on their heart.

He keeps the law, he will condemn you who have the written code and circumcision. You've got it all.

You've got your national identity. You're one of the chosen people. And yet this uncircumcised

Gentile is going to be looked upon God as though he were what you purport to be.

Tables are completely turned. He will condemn you who have the written code and circumcision but break the law.

Gentiles who would never submit to the right according to Acts 15 and the entire book of Galatians, they are not required to, but they turn the tables on the

Jews. If the Jews with the sign in their flesh intact fail to keep the law, they are uncircumcised.

That symbol of national pride is gone. It means nothing and God sees it as if it never was.

But if Gentiles with no sign keep the law, God sees them as if they have it. This has to crush

Jewish pride then. This has to crush our pride now. What I say at the beginning, on what do you rely?

On what performance will you go to God? Is it an outward sign?

It's because you take better care of your body than the one next to you? Eat better? Exercise more?

Are you a better steward of the funds, the money, the salary that God has given you? Is this on what you rely on?

You can see where this goes. We could talk about the school you went to, the quality of your resume, your position in a company, anything.

Do you rely on that? You can see where that goes.

You can see what I would say about it because of what Paul in God's word says about it.

What then was the sign about? We had the written law and the written law was meant to show something.

It meant to do something. It was meant to crush self -reliance, to make it clear to you that you cannot yourself attain to the righteousness that the law describes and the sign of circumcision, the sign of being

God's separate people and obedient to Him. And if that's not working, what's the answer?

Where's the hope? The hope is that the work of the Holy Spirit in the gospel is the true meaning of the sign.

The work of the Holy Spirit in the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ is the true meaning of the sign.

A Jew, verse 28, who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical.

Again, is that a stunning statement? Wait a second. You're saying it's not outward and physical?

We know it is. It's done outwardly and physically. Paul's saying that the outward and physical means nothing compared to the inward, the spiritual, the intended lesson of it.

Verse 29, a Jew is one inwardly and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter.

And by letter, what does he mean? He means by the law, the doing of the law, the self -effort in the law is what he's talking about there.

The heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter. His praise is not from man but from God.

A man, a Christian, a Gentile, during a Bible study at our home many years ago, he claimed by this verse that he was actually a true

Jew. That's not what Paul's saying here. If you're born a

Gentile, you're a Gentile. And you are a Gentile unless you come to become a proselyte in Judaism.

That's not what Paul's saying here, that you want to become a true Jew, that you want to have this spiritual circumcision, declare yourself a completed

Jew or anything like that. He's still speaking to his diatribe partner. He's driving that nation away from confidence in the flesh.

The entire program of trying to attain righteousness by the law is being brought to a halt. Their reliance on possession and knowledge of the law has only magnified their inability to keep and do what they preach.

Circumcision, true circumcision. All that circumcision was ever meant to be comes to this.

It's a matter of the heart, by the spirit, not by the letter.

Matter of the heart, and this heart has to be the heart, the new heart of Ezekiel 36.

This has to be the regenerated heart of Titus 3, 5. For according to his mercy he saved us, not by our works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy, his mercy, his own free sovereign will cast down upon whom he will by the washing and regeneration of the

Holy Spirit. That's the heart. That's what circumcision should always have made them yearn towards.

There's no new ground here. Deuteronomy 10, 16. Moses says, circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart and be no longer stubborn.

Jeremiah 4, verse 4. Circumcise yourselves to the Lord. Remove the foreskin of your hearts,

O men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem. The law was meant to show us our inability.

When we get to Romans 7, we're going to explore that in great detail. With just what we have here, what's right before us, though, we can see that unless the law is fully obeyed, it does no good.

It does no good. Paul asks, essentially, how can you presume to tell others what to do if you don't do it yourself?

The question's a good one, and it applies to us today. The law is not meant to bring righteousness.

It is a righteous law because it comes from a righteous God, but unless it's done, it avails nothing. And if you try to do it, its purpose then is to show you that you can't.

And then what? To repent of being unable? Yes. Repent of your sin.

But there's an answer to this. Jesus Christ, the beloved

Son of God who came as God to live as man, and He was God and man,

He lived perfectly under this law. With every breath He took,

He obeyed the law of God. He, where we're unable, was able.

He, where we give into sin, He was tempted as we are, yet without sin. The answer is by faith.

Believe that what He accomplished in obeying the law, He accomplished for you.

And that when He went to the cross, the perfect Lamb of God, an unsullied, unblemished sacrifice because He never disobeyed

God ever, and so He was a perfect and efficacious sacrifice to God.

Believe that that was on your behalf. And then the promise of Scripture is a new heart, a circumcised heart, and all the promise of God that Paul is speaking of here that was missed by them.

This has to be done by God. It has to be done by God. Moses anticipated just what

Paul wrote in these last two verses thousands of years before then. And the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring so that you will love the

Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul that you may live. This is a work of the

Spirit of God. It's the Spirit of God that makes you able to repent. It's the Spirit of God that makes you able to believe that by repentance and falling down before the cross of Jesus Christ, you will be saved, you will be forgiven.

That's all a work of the Spirit of God in circumcising the heart. Matter of the heart, by the

Spirit, not by the letter. Does the Spirit make us perfectly compliant with the law?

Well, of course not. Experience tells us otherwise. I've never heard anyone actually claim that.

Circumcision of the heart is the new heart of Ezekiel 36. And that's

Jesus Christ. That's what all this points us to. We're justified.

We're declared not guilty before the law by faith in Him, in Jesus. He obeyed it, and if you believe this, then that is the

Spirit circumcising your heart. If you believe that, then the

Spirit is working in you. It is by Him applying to you the benefits of Jesus Christ's perfectly holy life and His sacrifice of Himself for your sins, for all your sins, not by works of the law, but by faith, for by grace you've been saved through faith, that not of yourselves.

It's the gift of God, not of works, not of anything you do, not of your compliance, not of your believing even, but because of Jesus Christ and what

He did. And there's the circumcised heart. And this is what

Paul would have this whole nation, that's represented by this dialogue partner, believe.

Do we throw out the law? No, we'll get to that as we work through Romans. We don't throw it out. We just despair of doing it.

Do we ignore the law and its righteousness? No. We rely on Christ to have accomplished that righteousness on our behalf.

That's the gospel, not by works of the law, but by faith, a work of the Holy Spirit of God in the heart.

Let's end with a couple of comments very quickly to remind you that Paul seems to be castigating

Jews generally, and this is often preached as a polemic against them. Paul has no sympathy for a works -based righteousness, nor any patience with any path to salvation, except total reliance on Christ.

But here in verses 70 to 29 of chapter two in Romans, where he addresses this imaginary dialogue partner,

I think he's reassuring the church, most especially the Jews in Rome, loved by God and called to be saints, that they're on the right track, that they haven't given up anything, but that God, by his

Spirit, has fulfilled in them what he always intended to be fulfilled by Jew and Gentile alike, that Christ has regarded my helpless estate and has shed his own blood for my soul.

For the rest of the church at Rome and for all of us here today, the question is the same. And with this,

I really will close. In whom and what are you trusting? Where is your hope?

Is it in your wonderful Christian upbringing, your birth into this or that religion, your resume, your school?

None of this will avail anything. Only by the Spirit of God can the true circumcision occur, and by the

Spirit of God, your hope and your trust and reliance in yourself and anything you do, take it away and replace it with something that truly is efficacious and beautiful and glorious, which is

Christ's obedience to all of this on your behalf. And that, brethren, is the gospel.