Sunday Sermon: The Tragedy of Hypocrisy (Romans 2:17-24)

You're listening to the preaching ministry of Gabriel Hughes, pastor of Providence Reformed Baptist Church in Casa Grande, Arizona. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday on this podcast, we feature teaching through a New Testament book, an Old Testament book on Thursday, and our Q &A on Friday.

Each Sunday we are pleased to present our sermon series. Here is Pastor Gabe.

Romans 2:17-24 and the Tragedy of Hypocrisy

Thank you, Becky. In our study of the book of Romans, this week we're up to Romans 2, verses 17 to 24. But that's a section that I did not preach on. I was away that particular Sunday, and one of our other elders picked it up.

So for this week on the broadcast, you're going to hear from a guest preacher, Alan Nimbasha, one of the other elders at Providence Reformed Baptist Church in Casa Grande, Arizona. He's preaching this week on the tragedy of hypocrisy.

And I hope this ministers to your soul. Here's Brother Alan reading our text, Romans 2, 17 to 24.

But if you call yourself a Jew and rely on the law and boast in God and know His will and approve what is excellent because you are instructed from the law, and if you are sure that you yourself are a guide to the blind, a light to those who are in darkness, an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of children, having in the law the embodiment of knowledge and truth, you then who teach others, do you teach yourself?

While you preach against stealing, do you steal? 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, for as it is written, the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.

Prayer for Conviction and Honoring Christ

Let's pause for prayer. Our Father in heaven, we are grateful, we are delighted for this gracious occasion that once again you have granted to us that we will be able to spend time looking upon the sacred page.

And we ask now that in these few moments that are before us, that you will speak to us, speak with the voice that wakes the dead, and that Jesus Christ, our Savior, will be honored and glorified, that the Holy Spirit himself will be present to bring conviction of sin, and at the end of the day, we all might have occasion to look back rejoicing at the goodness of God to us.

So we pray now that you will come to us and do very graciously with us because we ask this message in Jesus' precious name, amen. Now one of the most difficult things that I have been able to do as a Christian is to share the gospel with people who are religious.

I am very, very sure that a number of you, in fact only yesterday, there was a lady with her son as we were leaving the house, she knocked at our door, and so I said, what can.

I do for you?

She said, we are from the Jehovah's Witness. So I said, unfortunately I'm leaving, but I have spent all my life talking to Jehovah's Witness about the gospel. The Apostle Paul was a missionary. He was a preacher.

You know how he spent his life preaching the gospel of our Savior, the Lord Jesus, wherever the Lord led him. He preached the gospel both to the Gentiles as well as to the Jews. One of the things that he found that was very painful for him as a preacher of the gospel was that the Jews actually rejected the gospel.

Now it really pained the Apostle Paul. As we will come into Chapter 9, the Apostle Paul will actually confess that it was an issue that constantly brought sorrow to his own heart that the Jews, who are the very people of God, had turned their backs and totally rejected the message of the gospel.

So that when they listened to the Apostle Paul preaching, and they listened to the Apostle Paul explaining the gospel, they agreed with him partly. They agreed with him as long as he was castigating the Gentiles and saying that the Gentiles have rejected God, and as a result of that rejection, they will be judged and they will be sent to hell.

The Jews said, yes, that is absolutely correct, Paul. Therefore, the Gentiles will go to hell, but they said, not us, because we are the descendants.

Of Abraham.

We are the Jews. We are the chosen people of God. So it is not true about us. It may be true about the Gentiles who have no God, who have no hope in this world, but we as the Jews, we are the chosen people of God.

We have been favored by God. We have Abraham as our father. He has given us the temple. God went out of his way and rescued our race from Egypt. So, yeah, you are right to say that the Gentiles will go to hell.

You are right to get them that they are under the judgment of God. You are wrong when you say the same thing about the Jews, and that is where we find ourselves in Romans chapter 2. The apostle is determined to show to the Jews that the judgment of God is going to fall not only about the Gentiles, but the judgment of God will also affect, in fact, it will be even more severe for the Jews.

In Romans chapter 2 and in verse 1, he says, Therefore you have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges. For in passing judgment on another, you condemn yourselves, because you, the judge, practice the very same things.

That is basically his argument to the Jews, that yes, although you agree with me about the case of the Gentiles, I want you to know that that same judgment that is going to fall upon the Gentiles will fall upon you.

He says, because there is no partiality with God. See, the Jews made the mistake to think that the reason why the Gentiles were going to be judged is because they are Gentiles. And the reason why they are going to be saved is because they are Jews.

They can trace their ancestry to Abraham. And the Apostle has to correct them. He says, no, no, no, no, no, they are being judged because they live a sinful life. And in exactly that same way, that's the reason why God is going to judge you, because of.

Your sinful conduct.

That is how God is going to judge you. And God's judgment is according to the truth. He is going to scrutinize your life in the light of that revelation that he has given to you, and he is going to judge you.

So, briefly then, in chapter two, there are three excuses that the Jews think will stand in their favor. The first one, as I've already said, it is the fact that they are Abraham's descendants, that they are Jews, that they are the chosen people of God.

And then when you come down to verse 17, after Paul has said, no, that would not suffice, the second excuse they use is that they have the law. God has given them the law. And because God has given them the law, they will not be judged.

And the apostle is going to argue with them and show them that is not the case. And then finally, which is what God willing we should be able to see next week, they have.

A third argument.

And the argument is that they have been circumcised. And because they've been circumcised, they are the people of God, and there is no way that God's judgment is going to fall upon them. So this morning, then, I call your attention to verse 17, where the apostle directly begins to speak to the Jews.

So we know that from this one, he actually has been speaking about the Jews, but it is only in verse 17 that he actually mentions them and says to them, as he approaches them, 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 have been 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 the children, having in the law the embodiment of knowledge and truth.

And that is probably the most comprehensive description of how the Jew viewed themselves and thought of themselves. That they had the revelation that God had been pleased to give to them, and because they had that revelation, they therefore concluded that they would not suffer the judgment.

Now, I have said this in the past. I recall that there was a, you remember the late Larry King, and he had a program on TV, and that he one day was interviewing a very well-known preacher. And Larry King, being a Jew, asked the preacher, Do you think that the Jews are going to be.

Saved?

And it was very unfortunate that in that moment, the preacher failed in his duty to give a biblical answer, because all he needed to say is that as long as they are trusting in the Lord Jesus, they will be saved.

But you see, it can happen to any of us that you can give in to the fear of man, that he probably felt he might be accused of being an anti-Semite if he said anything other than what he felt they wanted to hear.

But the truth of the matter, nonetheless, is that if the Jews are going to be saved, they are going to be saved because they are trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ. There is no Jew who is going to be saved just because they are Jews.

And this has been the problem with many of the Jewish people. This was the problem of the Jews in the days of Christ. And the passage that we read in John chapter 8, this was consistently their argument when they met with our Savior, the Lord Jesus.

They said, We are Abraham's descendants. We don't need anybody, much less yourself, to set us free. We are Abraham's children. And so the Lord Jesus Christ is at pains to show them that they are not the true spiritual children of Abraham because they have not or they are not behaving as Abraham did.

And they keep insisting that because of the fact that they descend from Abraham, all will be well. Now, the advantage of the Apostle Paul telling us what he's telling us here in Romans chapter 2 is that he himself was like that before.

That's exactly the way he thought. That's exactly the way he believed. You remember when he witnessed Stephen being stoned to death. The Bible says he consented. He agreed with the fact that Stephen needs to be put to death because once again, according to him, we are Jews.

We are Abraham's descendants. We have the temple. We have the law of God. We have circumcision. Surely, we will be saved. And Paul used to think like that. But God, by his wonderful grace, intervened in such a wonderful way in the life of Paul and showed him how wrong he had been.

That in that moment when Stephen was being martyred, in fact, it was murder that was being committed. And Paul was guilty of murder. That Stephen, the man of God, who had been pleading with the Jews and trying to show them unless they see that their only hope is in this one who was crucified, that unless they abandon any other ground and stand only upon the foundation of Jesus Christ and him crucified, they would all perish and go to hell.

And to tell them that truth is not being antisemitic. It is, in fact, the greatest favor any Christian, any Gentile who is a Christian, can ever show to the Jews, to point them that there is no other foundation laid other than that which has already been laid and Jesus Christ and him crucified.

That if anyone will not turn and embrace and believe and look only to Jesus Christ, whatever else that they can say about themselves will not suffice in the day of God's.

Judgment.

The Danger of Hypocrisy in Preaching

And so this morning, the Apostle Paul now, he brings his argument why just having the law will not be enough to save the Jews from the judgment of God. And his argument is this, that the problem here that you have is the problem of hypocrisy.

It's the problem of hypocrisy. It's a problem that is very well known to all of us as human beings. But it is especially a problem that is found within the church, the problem of hypocrisy. And I would hasten to say it is the problem that is especially to be thought of to those of us that stand in the pulpit and preach to others, the problem of hypocrisy.

And what the Apostle Paul is saying to the Jews in these verses is basically this. You see, there's a difference between preaching the gospel and teaching any other subject. For instance, teaching maths or teaching physics or any other subject that you can ever think of.

The difference is this. You see, if I'm teaching maths, it doesn't matter what my character is. You know, I can be a liberal, I can be a conservative, or whatever else is there in between. It won't matter.

All that matters is that I know maths or physics. And I can explain to you Pythagoras' theorem or anything else that I have to say. But if you are a preacher of the gospel, it is extremely important that you not only preach to people, but first and foremost, that you preach to yourself.

There is nothing greater than the things that you tell others to do. Please make sure that they are the things you in fact believe and practice. If it is merely a matter of you telling other people what to do, the things that you yourself are not doing, it will not be long that God is going to expose you and once you have been exposed, the contempt that will come upon the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ is absolutely heartbreaking.

No wonder the Apostle James warns that not all of us should be teachers, because those of us that teach will be judged with greater strictness. You who have been telling your friends what to do, were you doing them yourself?

Or you were just content with telling others? As I have said once again, you are like a signpost that is saying, this way to California, but you're not going there yourself. You're just showing other people this is the way to California, but you're not going there.

That's exactly what happens if you are a hypocrite, if you are busy preaching the gospel, but not preaching. So Christianity is not a theory that you just teach anyhow. It is God's saving message for guilty sinners and that message must come first and foremost to yourself.

It must come and have an impact upon your life. It must come and convict you of your own sin. It must come and expose you that you cannot save yourself and it must show you that you must cling to Christ, cling to the cross, cry to the Savior and the Savior must come and completely transform you from the inside out.

Then, only then are you qualified to stand at the street corner and call other sinners to come and find food because you have found it yourself. There is evidence in your own life that the power of sin has been broken.

There is evidence in your own life that your life has been transformed, that you can sing with the hymn writer. There is power, power, wonder-waking power in the blood of Jesus because that blood has washed you first and foremost from your own sin and this is the argument that the apostle has with and he says to them, listen to this when he comes to verse 21, you then who teach others, do you teach yourself?

That's the first question he asks. You who says that people must not steal, do you steal? That's the question. You who say that one must not commit adultery, are you guilty of sexual immorality because of lust in your heart?

So he says you see, it's not just enough that you have the law that God has given to you. Look at your heart. Does your heart comply with what God has in fact said? I imagine that you were arrested because you drove through a red light and then you go and you stand before Judge O 'Neill and then imagine that you actually say to Judge O 'Neill, you know, it's true that I drove through that red light but let me tell you something about me.

I actually have a copy of the law in my house that says don't drive through the red light. I've had it ever since I was born because it was given to me by my father and he by his father so I know what the law says.

Don't drive through the red light. Do you think that Judge O 'Neill is going to be happy with that excuse? In fact, he will say to you it's even worse that you know and knowing what the law says, you went ahead and disobeyed.

You went ahead and rejected what the law says to do what you want. This is what the apostle is saying to the Jews. You know, it is a great blessing that God revealed himself to you. It is a great blessing that God has given you the law but that is not what is in question.

What is in question is, is your life in agreement with what God has revealed? God in his grace has given to you and your people. That is the question. It is the question. Remember what James has said.

If you keep the whole law and then fail in one point, what happens? You have broken the whole law. Contrary to your expectation that because God gave you the law therefore you're going to be saved. Contrary to the expectation, the truth of the matter is that your judgment will even be greater because you have been given that privilege.

No Reliance on Privilege, Heritage, or Religion

So what can we learn from this passage? The first thing that we learn from this passage is that we cannot rely on the many wonderful privileges that God has given to us. But on that day when we all stand before the judgment seat of Christ to give an account of the way that we have lived in this body, we cannot say to God, you know what?

My dad, my mom and dad were Christians and they taught me the Bible from infancy. They prayed over me. They prayed with me. I learned to pray from them. So I've loved the Lord Jesus Christ. I don't even remember when I started loving him.

You cannot say that. The question is, have you been transformed? Has the Lord Jesus Christ worked the miracle of salvation in your heart? Is there something of inward grace in your life that leads to the fruit of the spirit as you spend your days on earth?

I hope nobody's going to say, you know, I actually was reformed. I'm a reformed Christian. You know, I believe the 1689. I'm not an Armenian. I believe the truth, the gospel as it should be. Again, the question is, if you are truly reformed, is there evidence for that in the way you live?

Is there evidence that you have been transformed because of the way you conduct in your life? Evidence of God's grace having changed you. Do you have that or you are content to rest on the many privileges?

I recall when I came to the U .S. in 2007, there was a lady that I met in 2008 when there was that election who was not a Christian, but was so waked up at the fact that Obama is a Muslim. I've never met Obama.

I can neither deny nor confirm what his religious pedigree is. The point is, I'm trying to show she was so waked up at the fact that, you know, he's the president and he's a Muslim, and yet she herself is not a Christian, has no interest in the Bible, doesn't even attend a church.

And there are many people who think that because they live in America, America is a Christian country, and so they just have this hope that God will look favorably on them because they live here, where people say they believe the Bible.

Yeah, that's what I believe. And yet, they have not been converted like little children following the Lord. It's the same problem that the Jews had, relying on the law, the mere possession of it. They think that will suffice.

You know, you may have heard that saying, isn't it, that the road to hell is paved with good intentions? Yeah. Sometimes the road to hell is paved with religion, relying on the mere fact of where you were born and of many other privileges without a reliance upon Christ and him crucified as the only ground on which a guilty sinner like I will find pardon and cleansing and acceptance.

And this is my question to you. Has he come and made you? That is the question. Is Jesus precious to you? Are you the one who can say, give me Jesus or I die. Unless I am in Christ and in Christ alone, there's no hope for me.

It is not that I belong to that church or I read my Bible or I do anything else that is good. And I'm not here to tell you to stop doing anything. I'm just asking you, are you relying on Jesus, the Savior, and has he saved you?

Because if not, your end will be terrible. Your end will be like these people that the Apostle Paul is arguing with. You who says men should not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who say there should be no idolatry, he says there, do you rob temples?

You who boast in the law, do you dishonor God by breaking his law? And then he makes that quotation from Isaiah in chapter 52. For the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because that's true, isn't it?

I mean, we should not pay too much attention to what outsiders say about our church, but we should also listen to what they say about us. What do they think about us? Do they think we are just a bunch of hypocrites?

There's no difference between themselves and us. Are they justified in thinking like that about us? Now sometimes it's true, they exaggerate and say things that are not true, but you and I know many times what they say about us is in fact true.

You who say men should not gossip, do you gossip? You who is offended when you hear that someone was backbiting about you, do you backbite other people when they are not listening? Is there a difference in the way you conduct yourself compared to outsiders?

See, this is how they think about Jesus, the picture that you and I give them. They will say, yeah, this is the way Jesus is. These are the born again ones, look at the way they live. This must be Jesus.

I recall many years ago where a man who owned a supermarket said, you know, I think that there must be somewhere in the Bible where it says you can steal, I just haven't found it. And the reason he said that was because he kept firing people for stealing.

And all of them, without exception, when he employed them, they told him that they were Christians, all of them. And so he says, look, if a Christian can steal, maybe I just haven't seen it in the Bible yet.

It must be there somewhere. That is what the apostle says, because of you, the name of God is being blasphemed. For the Jews, for instance, you remember how they kept persistently falling into sin and God sent prophet after prophet to warn them that if they do not amend their ways, he was going to send judgment upon them.

They did not amend their ways. And in time, God sent Babylon. Babylon came and sacked them out of the entire land and carried them into exile. Now you know what the Gentiles were saying, ah, aren't these the chosen people of God?

Now look how they have been destroyed. Their God must be very, very powerless. He could not stand before the Babylonians to rescue them because God is in fact pouring his wrath on them because of their persistence in sin and as a result of which the Gentiles blaspheme the name of God.

So once again, I ask you, is your life worth it? The real deal, are you a real, genuine, born-again Christian? ...is causing the Gentiles to insult God, to blaspheme God, because when they look at you, this is an example of what it means to be born a better off.

So my friends, the apostle here is relentless because he knows this is something that is so important. Life is at stake. It is not enough to have privilege upon privilege upon privilege from God and then you are relying on that privilege.

It is not going to help. You and I who have been in church all our lives, we will be scrutinized even more, not less, more because God has been gracious to you. You have the Bible. How many visions do you have in your house and have you been reading that Bible?

Have you been meditating upon that Bible? Have you been pleading with God saying, God show me the truth as it is in Jesus and write that truth on my heart and grant that I might show forth the fruit of a person who has met Jesus, who has been transformed by the grace of God, who has been forgiven and as a result of this forgiveness, I am so thankful to God, I want to spend the rest of my life living for his honor and living for his glory.

That is the argument of the mere possession of the Bible. Being a member of the church, even if all of us have accepted you and baptized you as a church member, it does not stand in the way of that final judgment from God who knows the secrets of the hearts of men.

And so my friends, I plead with you this morning that you will not rest today in the days to come. You will not rest at all until you are sure you are resting only in Jesus Christ, his precious blood, his death on Calvary as the only ground for your pardon, for your cleansing, acceptance with God.

Jesus, I beseech you, I plead with you, while on others you are calling, do not pass me, make me be like that prodigal in that far country. He says, I am not worthy to come to you to call you my father because I've rebelled against you.

Make me like one of your hired servants. Do you remember the amazing love of God displayed in that parable? He says, the father embraced him, says, bring the best robes, put the ring on his finger, give him the best shoes because he has been welcomed.

So Romans is still in that place where we talk about the bad news. The bad news, bad news is our hearts are corrupt. The bad news, our hearts are deceitful. He is going to turn around at some point to tell us the greatest good news we've ever had.

But for now, he's warning us take good stock of your own heart in the sight of the holy unseen heading to God. Here is the last question. Professor, that's the question. Are you a professor of religion or a possessor of the genuine?

Prayer for Repentance and True Faith

Let us pray. Father in heaven, we thank you for the amazing patience that you have shown to us. But even when we have persisted in our own sin and blindness, that you have not left us without a witness, without warning.

Even this morning, we thank you that you have brought that warning to us. We pray that the Holy Spirit will take that warning and cause us once again to be aroused from our deep sleep in sin, to see the danger in which we stand under the wrath of God justly deserved because of our sin.

And help us, dear Father, to see in the Lord Jesus Christ, the only hope for guilty and unworthy sinners. Grant to us the grace to embrace your son, to call upon his name, to believe in him, to the salvation of our own souls.

As we ask in Jesus name.

You've been listening to the presentation of Providence Reformed Baptist Church in Casagrand, Arizona. For more information about our church, visit our website at providencecasagrand .com. On behalf of our church family, my name is Becky, thanking you for listening.

Join us again Monday for more Bible study, when we understand the text.