If you would please open your Bibles to Romans 2. Romans 2. As you're turning, let me mention that we are planning, God willing, this Sunday afternoon, at 3 p.m. to have a baptismal service over in Sevierville, that First Baptist Church, Sevierville. 3 o'clock in the afternoon, we have Lauren is planning on being baptized and also another young man. So if there are other folks who are saying, well, I'm interested in that, well, then talk to your houseparents and get an opportunity to talk to me. I'll be around between now and then, and I'd be happy to talk with you about baptism. If that is something that you're understanding now that you're a follower of Jesus, you need to do that. Because Jesus says so. Then let's follow through. Let's follow up. So be in touch. And be in prayer. for those who are going to be baptized, and for relatives and friends who plan on attending in order to witness that glad event. Alright? Our text is Romans 2. This is God's Word. You therefore have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge the other, you're condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things. Now we know that God's judgment against those who do such things is based on truth. So when you, a mere man, pass judgment on them and yet do the same things, do you think you will escape God's judgment? Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, tolerance, and patience, not realizing that God's kindness leads you toward repentance? But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God's wrath when his righteous judgment will be revealed. God will give to each person according to what he has done. To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor, and immortality, he will give eternal life. But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger. There will be trouble and distress for every human being who does evil. First for the Jew, then for the Gentile. But glory, honor, and peace for everyone who does good. First for the Jew, then for the Gentile. For God does not show favoritism. All who sin apart from the law will also perish apart from the law. And all who sin under the law will be judged by the law. For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God's sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous. Indeed, when Gentiles who do not have the law do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law, since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness in their thoughts, now accusing, now even defending them. This will take place on the day when God will judge men's secrets through Jesus Christ, as my gospel declares. Now, if you call yourself a Jew, if you rely on the law and brag about your relationship to God, If you know His will and approve of what is superior because you were instructed by the law, if you are convinced that you are a guide for the blind, a light for those who are in the dark, an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of infants, because you have in the law the embodiment of knowledge and truth, you then who teach others, do you not teach yourself? You who preach against stealing, do you steal? You who say that people should not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? You who brag about the law, do you dishonor God by breaking the law? As it is written, God's name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you. Circumcision has value if you observe the law. But if you break the law, you have become as though you had not been circumcised. If those who are not circumcised keep the law's requirements, will they not be regarded as though they were circumcised? The one who is not circumcised physically yet obeys the law will condemn you, who even though you have the written code and circumcision are a lawbreaker. A man is not a Jew if he's only one outwardly, nor is circumcision merely outward and physical. No, a man is a Jew if he is one inwardly, and circumcision is circumcision of the heart by the spirit. not by the written code. Such a man's praise is not from men, but from God. Well, what advantage is there then in being a Jew? Or what value is there in circumcision? Much in every way. First of all, they've been entrusted with the very words of God. What if some did not have faith? Will their lack of faith nullify God's faithfulness? Not at all. Let God be true and every man a liar. as it is written, so that you may be proved right when you speak and prevail when you judge. But if our unrighteousness brings out God's righteousness more clearly, what shall we say, that God is unjust in bringing his wrath on us? I'm using a human argument. Certainly not. If that were so, how could God judge the world? Someone might argue, if my falsehood enhances God's truthfulness and so increases his glory, why am I still condemned as a sinner? Why not say, as we are being slanderously reported as saying, and as some claim that we say, let us do evil that good may result. Their condemnation is deserved. What shall we conclude then? Are we any better? Not at all. We have already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under sin. As it is written, there is no one righteous, not even one. There is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away. They have together become worthless. There is no one who does good, not even one. Their throats are open graves, their tongues practice deceit, the poison of vipers is on their lips, their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness, their feet are swift to shed blood, ruin and misery mark their ways, and the way of peace they do not know. There is no fear of God before their eyes. Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God. Therefore, no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law. Rather, through the law we become conscious of sin. But now a righteousness from God apart from the law has been made known to which the law and the prophets testify. This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished. He did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus. Where then is boasting? It's excluded. On what principle? On that of observing the law? No, but on that of faith. For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from observing the law. Is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles too? Yes, of Gentiles too, since there is only one God. Who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through that same faith? Do we then nullify the law by this faith? Not at all. Rather, we uphold the law. May God add his blessing to this reading from his holy and inspired words. In Romans chapter 1, Paul says, I'm not ashamed of the gospel. It's the power of God for the salvation of those who believe. And then he begins to talk about God's wrath being poured out on these wicked, wicked people because our society is just full of wicked people. He was able to say that almost 2,000 years ago. And when we read it today, it's like reading today's news. I mean, it is a description of current culture. And the reason is it's a description of man's heart. Because after he outlines all these gross, evil, sick, twisted perversions, then he lists, as we saw yesterday, a number of things that kind of hit us, like greedy, and envious, and deceitful, and disobedient to parents. And he puts those things on the same level with the stuff that we like to say, oh, scandalous, murder, sexual perverts, all these horrible things out there. And God says, you too, you too. So in chapter two, he begins by saying, and don't forget the chapter divisions came much later. The book of Romans is to be read straight through, okay? It's not like, well, okay, glad we're done with that. Some of you were kind of scandalized this morning. I read two chapters. When is he going to stop? He's not going to go all the way through the whole book of Romans, is he? No, not this morning. But I want you to understand. Paul's making an argument, and the argument flows, and he says, I'm not ashamed of the Gospel because God's wrath is being poured out, but there is salvation through Jesus Christ. We have good news, but you can't really appreciate the good news unless you understand the bad news. And the bad news is you need a Savior. The good news is God sent one. Okay? So in chapter 2, he begins by saying, you therefore have no excuse You who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge the other, you're condemning yourself because you who pass judgment do the same things. I do not. I've never killed anyone. Jesus says, have you ever hated anybody? If so, you're a murderer. Oh, I was a virgin when I got married and I've never committed adultery. Oh, have you ever lusted? Well, Yeah. OK, well, then you're an adulterer at heart. All of us. Are by nature sinners in our natural state. We are hostile toward God. Now some of us just kind of let it all hang out and we just do all kinds of obnoxious stuff and don't care what anybody else thinks and others of us. Have a lovely veneer. I grew up in an era of veneer furniture. Some furniture in the 1950s even had formica as a veneer. And they could make formica that looked like marble, or they could make formica that looked like wood, but it was still plastic. The great thing about it is you didn't have to worry about getting a ring on the wood if you set a wet glass on there, or if somebody spilled something, you just wipe it up with a paper towel, which was another great invention. Okay? Doesn't make things necessarily clean, but it makes the spills less obvious. And so, you know, I grew up around phony-looking stuff, and I fit right in. Because I learned early on how to outwardly try to look like I was a good guy. I was often taken places by my parents who had to visit parishioners and stuff. Dad was a pastor and part of pastoral ministry is you get out there and you go into people's homes and you Let them know that God loves them and that you're there for them because you're representing the Lord in that situation. And you want them to know that they are cared for, really cared for by God. But they had this little boy who was with them. I was born late in their lives. Mom was 43 when I was born. Dan was about to turn 48. And so here's this middle-aged couple carrying around this little kid with them. And I mean, they still had to do ministry and I got to learn how to sit still. I was told that sometimes people will offer things that they don't really want you to take. And so you need to, you need to say no, thank you. And if they really mean it, they'll offer again. Okay. So they say, would you like some less than such? You say, Oh no, thank you. And if they want you to have it, they'll say, are you sure? I just made some. Then you can say, well, okay, thank you. Because they really mean it. If they say, would you like some? And you say, no, thank you. And they go right on to other things, you know, they didn't really mean it to begin with. So as a child, I learned that I needed to say, no, thank you. But I also learned there were certain ways that I might be able to get them to offer again. So when a jar of candy or a dish of candy was sitting on the coffee table in the living room where my parents were trying to visit with someone, I would simply stare at the candy dish, transfixed, until finally someone would notice and say, oh, Jimmy, would you like some candy? And I would say obediently, oh, no thank you. And if they said, are you sure? I'd be happy for you to have some. Then I'd look at my parents to see if it was OK with them for me to get some. And sometimes they would say, which meant yes, and sometimes they would shake their head ever so slightly and I would say, no thank you. But even when I had to say no thank you, I would continue to stare at the candy dish, hoping for the magic third offer. Three strikes and you're out, three offers and I'm in. Now all of this posing over candy was really representative of a larger pattern of life where I learned from an early age how to behave. The problem is that doesn't clean up your insides. That doesn't fix what's going on here. So I was a amazingly cute, sweet, Child. Really, I was. Jimmy. Little Jimmy. I knew how to tie my shoes. I knew how to button my buttons correctly so that they were lined up correctly. Not one of those little kids down the street who was always getting the button in the wrong hole. I knew how to present. But the problem is, on the inside, full of dead men's bones, as Jesus would say about the Pharisees. Let me tell you something. Whether you look real good on the outside or whether you look real lousy on the outside, you are lousy on the inside until you know Jesus. Jesus is the only one who can clean us up. He's the only one who can save us. And that's Paul's point. If we're standing around talking about how terrible everybody else is, we're missing the fact that we have a problem. Those of us who pass judgment on others are condemning ourselves because God is the judge and those people aren't the only ones who are guilty. We're guilty. What ought to amaze us is not that God stays His wrath on them, but that God would choose to save us. Now I'm just telling you, I often see wicked people doing wicked things and I don't understand why God doesn't just destroy all these wicked people. forgetting for the moment that if God just destroyed all wicked people, I would have been destroyed. And that the reason, according to 2 Peter 3, that God doesn't go ahead and settle all accounts right now is because he's not willing for any to perish, but he's drawing his own to eternal life. He is right now in the process of saving folks whose names were written in the book of life before the foundation of the world. God knows his own. And folks, if God had not stayed his wrath, I would have been destroyed. And so would you. So when we don't understand why those people are getting away with it. We need to realize a they're not. There will be a judgment. And be the only hope for them is the same as the only hope for you and me. So Paul makes the argument in chapters two and three. that all who sin apart from the law will also perish apart from the law. And all who sin under the law, this is chapter two, verse 12, all who sin under the law will be judged by the law. For it's not those who hear the law who are righteous in God's sight, it's those who obey the law who will be declared righteous. Got it? OK, so now I understand God's going to separate all the people who obey the law. Always doing the right thing. Those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality. He's going to give them eternal life, so we're going to. We're going to get over here on this side of the line. We're the ones who always do good. We always by persistence do the right thing and seek God's glory and. and His righteousness, and we always do. So we're gonna get eternal life, we're over here. And then over there, on this side of the line, those who are self-seeking, who reject the truth and follow evil, there'll be wrath and anger on them, okay? So we're over here on the good side, they're over there on the bad side, because we obey the law, and they disobey the law. I think I got it now. No, no, no, you didn't get it. You took that section out of context, keep reading. What he says is, no one, chapter three, verse 20, no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law. Did you hear that? How many people are over here on this side? Well, I do a lot better job than that person over there. Yeah, but you're still on the wrong side of the line. You may be closer to the line than that person is, but you're still on the wrong side of the line. If you tried to jump the Grand Canyon and you managed to run so fast that you made it 30 feet out into midair before falling 2,000 feet to your death, would that really be a great accomplishment compared to somebody who only made it 10 feet off the side of the cliff? Oh, look at how much further I made it. I mean, you're still dead, aren't you? And so at that point, you see, all of a sudden we look pretty silly judging other people. Well, I'm a lot better than that person. I do a lot better than they do. I'm a much less self-centered person than they are. I would like to tell you about myself. Actually, I'm tired of talking about me. Why don't you talk about me? You know, I mean, there's just something so intrinsically messed up about us. We actually deserve God's wrath. Let me just tell you, that is a very hard concept for most people in the church today to embrace. Because most people in the churches, in my experience, still tend to feel that basically God loves us because we're good. I mean, nobody's perfect, by the way, that's not true. God is nobody's perfect, but, uh, we're not like those folks. I mean, let's just be real clear. Our church is made up of good salt of the earth people. Well, Jesus does say that believers are the salt of the earth. Jesus even says that believers are the light of the world. So I guess he's giving us a pretty good description there. He's giving us a description of what we are when we are in Christ. It is Jesus in us that makes us the light of the world. He's the light of the world. The reason that we are salty salt is because of God's character being worked through our lives through the ministry of the Holy Spirit. It is only in Christ that we are righteous. He is our righteousness. It's not something we generate in ourselves. I want to be sure I got this right. Jesus died on the cross, paid for my sins, so now I've been forgiven. And so if I work really, really hard, I can turn myself into a good person now. No, you cannot pick yourself up by your bootstraps. Every single day you need to be utterly dependent upon the grace of God. Or am I not supposed to? Seek to do the will of God? Yes, of course you are. But it's only possible in the power of the Holy Spirit. As you surrender to Him, as you obey Him, as you depend upon Him, it is not something where God takes you to the starting point and then you run the race from there. I love Paul's description in his letter to the Philippians. He says, forgetting what lies behind, Straining toward the mark I press on to lay hold of that For which Christ Jesus laid hold of me Here I am entirely Devoted to doing God's will but held by the one who rescued me I'm kept in his love That is the basis of my confidence I So Paul says in Romans two and three, that if you do all the right stuff and you don't do any of the wrong stuff, you'll get eternal life. Then he says, now, just in case any of you think you might actually be in that category, let me be real clear. There's nobody, nobody who's reading this letter who fits that description. What shall we conclude then? Are we any better? Well, isn't there benefit to being a Jew? Yes, but does it make us better? No, not at all. We've already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under sin. As it is written, well, he takes a bunch of these verses out of context. Yeah, but when he puts them together, it's pretty impressive, isn't it? And actually they are in context. If you go back and you read the surrounding verses, you find out this is a description of humankind. There's no one righteous, not even one. There's no one who understands. There's no one who seeks God. All have turned away. They've together become worthless. There's no one who does good, not even one. Golly, is that really a description of the human heart? Yes. Yes, that's why God didn't say, well, I'll just save the good ones. There aren't any. There aren't any. There aren't any. Our only hope is Jesus. He's our only hope. He's not just the hope for the people who are really bad. He's not just the hope for the people who are really good. He's the only hope for any. Because we're all bad. No one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law. Rather, through the law, we become conscious of sin. But now... A righteousness from God, apart from the law, has been made known, to which the law and the prophets testify. This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. Did you hear that? That's the basis of our salvation. It is entirely by grace, which we receive through faith in Jesus Christ. Nobody's gonna get saved by keeping the rules. We're only saved by God's grace. And we receive his grace when we trust in Jesus Christ. We are justified freely by grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice. He did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus. Why did Jesus have to die on the cross? Because there was no other way for us to be saved. If God had not required payment for sin, punishment, wrath, if God had not required that, God would not be just. But if God was simply just, we would all be destroyed, because we all deserve hell. So God was able to maintain His justice and justify us by sending His Son to take our place on the cross of Calvary. And so God presented Him as a sacrifice of atonement through faith in His blood. Where then is boasting? It is excluded. On what principle? On that of observing the law? No. But on that of faith. We maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from observing the law. since there's only one God who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through that same faith. Does this nullify the law, Paul asks? Not at all. Rather, it upholds the law. You remember what we said early on about reassigning values, changing the price of things, deciding this isn't really such a bad sin. That is what happens apart from Jesus Christ. We have to change and undermine the truth of what God says in His law. Because what God says in His law is that we've all sinned and we all deserve hell. And when we recognize that and we put our hope in Jesus, It doesn't undermine the law. It doesn't nullify the law. It validates the law. It upholds the law because it says God's standard hasn't changed. And apart from Jesus Christ, you and I would be condemned. So, do you know the good news? Have you trusted in Jesus Christ? Or are you still hoping to get into heaven based on your performance? Stop staring at the candy dish. God is offering you a wonderful gift. It's eternal life through faith in Jesus Christ. Don't miss out.