Again, today's passage is from Romans 2, verses 17 through 24. This is the word of God. 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 not 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. Please pray with me. Our Father, we're so grateful for your word. We need your word desperately. Please convict us where we need to be convicted. Encourage us where we need to be encouraged, and transform each of us by the power of your Holy Spirit. For Jesus' sake, amen. Please be seated. Have you ever thought about what the most frightening passage in the Bible is? If you've ever considered that question, perhaps you recount some of the visitations of God's judgment in the Old Testament, like when, consider it, literal fire and brimstone rained down on the people of Sodom and Gomorrah. How terrifying. Or you might think about the book of Revelation where angels pour forth out of their bowls God's wrath upon the earth, some scary stuff there, all culminating in the everlasting pit of destruction where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Well, for me personally, the most frightening verses in the Bible are from the lips of Jesus. They're found in Matthew's gospel in the seventh chapter during his sermon on the mount. Jesus says these terrifying words. Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day, speaking of that future day of judgment, many will say to me, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name? cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name, and then I will declare to them, I never knew you. Depart from me, you workers of lawlessness." This is frightening to me because these are not people who rejected the gospel message. These are not people who refuse to believe that Jesus was the Messiah and Savior. These are not people who will say on that day of judgment, what, those Christians were telling the truth? Jesus is who they said? No. These are people who are confident on the day of judgment. These are people who think they know Jesus. These are people who call him Lord. These are people who apparently seem gifted in ministry. and do many impressive things in his name. And they will be shocked when Jesus says to them, I never knew you. Depart from me, you workers of lawlessness. And they tragically discover in that moment, they did not have the relationship with Jesus they thought they had. They called him Lord, but they did not obey him as Lord. They're sent away from his presence to hell for all eternity. These are people who had placed their confidence in the wrong things. They had a false security that they were saved from judgment. And Jesus says there will be many in that situation, and that terrifies me. In our passage today, Paul addresses this concept of false security. People who think they're saved from God's judgment, but are placing their confidence in the wrong things. Last week, we saw that God is impartial in His judgment. His righteous judgment is coming for all. Paul addresses this sort of imaginary opponent who was listening to all that Paul has to say about the wicked Gentiles in chapter one, and his head was nodding in agreement. Amen, Paul. Those people are wicked. They should be judged. I know we throw these labels around. You may not be familiar. So a Gentile is basically anyone who wasn't a Jew. There were the Jews, and there was everyone else, the Gentiles, because before Jesus, the Old Covenant, the people of God were the Jews. They were the ones to whom God revealed himself and the law. They were the ones who knew the way to God. If you wanted to be a part of the people of God, you needed to become a Jew. So everyone outside of that are Gentiles, typically a name for godless people. who needed to convert to Judaism. Paul's imaginary opponent he's dressing here is a Jew, and sort of a stand-in for many Jews who might be thinking these things as they're listening to Paul. Describe the wickedness of the Gentiles, and again, agreeing with the judgment that was coming for them. But Paul turns the tables on this person, as we saw last week, basically saying, you judge these wicked Gentiles, but you're guilty too. God repays each one according to what he has done, and how each person has responded to the law that he has, whether it's the law received from God through Moses, the Jews, or the law written on the heart, if you're not a Jew, because our conscience bears witness of our guilt before God. Either way, our actions condemn us. Well now, Paul goes a step further with this imaginary Jew arguing with him, and he goes to the heart of the false security that this man has, thinking he will escape God's judgment. And that false security is because of the covenant God made with his forefathers. We will see that neither their privileged knowledge of the law of God, nor their circumcision, their special ritual status and association with the people of God. None of that matters if you're not obedient. And ultimately, that obedience we need, all of us, comes in the gospel. The Holy Spirit making us born again by the work of Jesus. Indwelling us so that we can truly obey from the heart. So false security number one. Mere knowledge does not save you. Let's look at verse 17 again. So again, Paul continues this dialogue with this imaginary opponent. Now again, remember, this was a very special status. Before Jesus, in order to be a part of the people of God, you needed to convert to Judaism, become a Jew. Natural born Jews were God's special chosen people, traced all the way back to Abraham in Genesis 12. They were the people of God. They had the law of God. The knowledge of God was revealed to them. If you wanted to know the Lord, you needed to come to the Jews to see who he was and how he operates. So an incredible privilege for the Jews. And as you can imagine, human nature mixed in with this privilege made some very proud to be a Jew. Ken Hughes writes that many were so proud of this that Jews living in Gentile cities often would cite it as a surname. For instance, I would introduce myself as Lars Anderson, Jew. So you can imagine There were those like this imaginary opponent who leaned on that status, thinking, of course they're saved from God's judgment. I'm not like these Gentiles. I've got the law. I understand things about God that these Gentiles have no clue about. I could explain all kinds of things about God and how he works to them that would make their heads spin. I'm not like those people. I'm not a sinner or an outsider. Like them, I'm in the club, I'm in the family, I'm a Jew, and they presumed upon their status as a Jew. Let's go through these verses together. Please follow along in your own Bibles. Again, verse 17, when Paul says they relied on the law, he's saying that they have put their confidence in their relationship to the law, thinking that will save them on judgment day. Now, boasting in God, as he says, that would be a good thing if it meant, hey, it's all God. But that's not what he means. Boasting in God here means misplaced confidence in their status with God. We see the same thing in the prophets. Micah 3.11, for instance, he's rebuking the leaders of Israel for their sin. He says, they lean on the Lord. Surely the Lord is with us. No harm shall come to us. Again, presuming upon their status. And they had a false security in their reliance on the law that it would make them exempt from judgment. Verse 18, know His will and approve of what is excellent, because you're instructed from the law." So they're saying, we know what's important. We're instructed how to live by God, the right things to teach. We're exposed to these teachings in the synagogue. We know the right things, verse 19. And if you're 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 the law, in the law, the embodiment of knowledge and truth. Paul is not saying here that the Jews were wrong in assuming this role, instructing Gentiles. That was a divinely commissioned role. That's what they were supposed to do. Israel's divine vocation was to be a blessing to the nations. We see this again in the calling of Abraham back in Genesis 12. All nations of the earth shall be blessed in Abraham, in his seed. God put his people Israel in the position to know him, to understand his law, understand his will for humanity, and have their behavior formed by it so they could show others. That's not the problem, their commission. The problem is they've not fulfilled that role. They've failed. that commission. And Paul gives four different phrases here to describe this blessing to the other nations. The Jews were to be a guide to the blind. Light to those in darkness. Instructor of the foolish. Teacher of children. All these things, what he's saying here, hit on the same principle. There's nothing wrong with being a Jew. It's a good thing. It's a special privilege. The problem is relying on this special status for their salvation from judgment. Mistaking their commission and relationship with the law for their salvation. Then verse 21 starts four rhetorical questions that are meant to expose their hypocrisy. You then, who teach others, do you not teach yourself? Okay, hypocrisy was just as distasteful then as it is now. Everyone hates hypocrisy. You practice what you preach, right? Talk is cheap, it's doing that matters. All the special privileges and gifts that Jews have are not meaningful. if they do not respond with obedience. Knowing and having the law is not the same as obeying the law. We see the same thing in the teachings of Jesus. In Matthew 23, Jesus says, the scribes and the Pharisees, the teachers of the law, sit on Moses' seat, so observe whatever they tell you. but not the works they do. Jesus affirms their commission. They teach the law, so listen to them, but don't do what they do because they're hypocrites. Now this teaching of others he's talking about is broken into three examples illustrating their hypocrisy. First, while you preach against stealing, do you steal? We see in the Old Testament the prophets consistently accused the Israelites of oppressing the poor and the disadvantaged, taking bribes, perverting justice, taking excessive interest on loans. We see in the New Testament as well, remember Jesus overturned the tables in the temple because they were robbing people by charging way too much money for the sacrificial animals that are required by the law to do, to use. Verse 22, you say that one must not commit adultery. Do you commit adultery? Here, Paul is likely referring to the same thing Jesus talked about in Matthew when he confronted their view of marriage and divorce. Many Jews tried to circumvent the laws against adultery by their liberal, in fact ridiculous, interpretation of the instructions from Moses. where basically men were divorcing their wives for almost any reason, if they were just displeased with her. But God knows better. He sees through their hypocrisy. That was adultery. Finally, you who abhor idols, do you rob temples? This one's a little trickier to understand, but the most likely explanation is this. They were rightly preaching and teaching against idolatry and false gods, but it was apparently a common occurrence in the ancient world where people would take the valuables from temples of other gods and then sell them. The Jews knew there was nothing to these false gods or temples, so they rationalized, we might as well make some money. when they had the opportunity, so they plundered these temples. But this was prohibited in the law, in Deuteronomy. The Lord said through Moses, you shall burn the images and not take the gold and silver from their temples, lest you be ensnared by them. So by profiting from the sale of these items from the temple, that itself was idolatry. Then it gets worse. In verse 23, 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. Here Paul is saying their hypocrisy doesn't just make them look bad, it makes God look bad. He quotes here from Isaiah, where the context there is the Jews were taken into exile because of their idolatry and stubborn disobedience. And the Gentiles, or Assyrians in this case, who captured them, said their God must be worthless. The fact that we're taking these Jews into exile must mean their God is not very great, not very powerful, because he can't even protect them. And so the God of Israel was blasphemed all because of their disobedience. The implication here, one implication, is that in a sense, These unbelieving Jews are still in exile. Those Jews who have not embraced their Messiah are still in disobedience, and Paul reminds them of that here. Merely having the law, treasuring the law, boasting in the law, does not bring glory to God. Obeying the law does. Now, certainly not all Jews were guilty of all these hypocrisies. This imaginary opponent Paul's dialoguing with is sort of a composite. But Paul's point is simply that possessing the law doesn't save you. These examples he's illustrating that in different ways they did not fulfill their calling to demonstrate God's law to the nations. Now again, some Jews understood they were sinners and needed forgiveness. They followed the law in faith. They were ready for the Messiah when he came. But others, like this composite person Paul is arguing with, were more like the Pharisee. Luke chapter 18 in Jesus' parable when he said to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and treated others, Gentiles, with contempt. Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee standing by himself prayed thus, God I thank you I'm not like other men. extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week. I give tithes of all that I get. But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, God, be merciful to me, a sinner. I tell you, Jesus says, that man, the second man, the tax collector, that man went down to his house justified. rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted." It's interesting that Jesus uses the word justified, the language of justification, being counted as righteous and saved from God's judgment. It wasn't the Jewish leader or teacher that had all the knowledge and felt better than others. Rather, it was the tax collector, the man who knew he needed God's mercy, who was justified. Or consider the rich man. came to Jesus, optimistic that He was keeping all the commandments, but by His penetrating questions, Jesus exposes the fact that He wasn't, in fact, obedient. Regardless of how much you may know the law, when you don't obey the law, it takes away any advantage you might have had on judgment day. Now Paul makes the same argument about religious ritual and association with God's people, the second false security. Let's read in verse 25 together. For circumcision indeed is of value if you obey the law. But if you break the law, your circumcision becomes uncircumcision. So if a man who is uncircumcised keeps the precepts of the law, will not his uncircumcision be regarded as circumcision? then he who is physically uncircumcised but keeps the law will condemn you who have the written code and circumcision but break the law." First of all, if you're new to the Bible, it probably sounds really weird that we're focusing on circumcision. I mean, isn't this relevant for male babies and somewhat private surgery? That's true. But there was a great significance to circumcision for the Jews, because way back in Genesis, the Lord made a covenant or everlasting promise with Abraham, the father of the Jewish people, and the sign of that covenant was circumcision. Probably because the covenant related to the promise of offspring and descendants, a seed. So this would be a perpetual reminder. So beginning with Abraham, Subsequently, all males born into this Jewish covenant underwent this surgical procedure eight days after their birth. And all adult males who converted to Judaism were also required to be circumcised. The sign of the covenant, circumcision, became another way of saying you're a Jew. The circumcised, then, were the Jews, and the uncircumcised, the non-Jews or the Gentiles. So this outward sign or demonstration of belonging to God's people was a big deal to the Jews. One commentator says, Paul here pursues the Jew to his last retreat. The sign alone does not save you from God's judgment either. In fact, it never has. Affiliation or association with the people of God is not the same as obedience. Now circumcision was of course for males only, but the same could be said of women, like Ruth, who became a Jew by latching onto the community and the promises, your people are my people, your God, my God. But if this association was superficial, It's not going to help you on judgment day. If you break the law, Paul says, your circumcision becomes uncircumcision. Now Paul's not speaking literally like you can physically be uncircumcised, but he's saying if you're not obedient to the law, you're outside the covenant. You may have the sign of the covenant, but you'll be judged as outside the covenant. The sign's not going to protect you on judgment day. Again, obedience to the law is what glorifies God. Disobedience renders the sign of the covenant irrelevant. You're no different than a Gentile. We see warnings like this all over the Old Testament as well. Warnings against empty ritual. Psalm 50 verse 8, not for your sacrifices do I rebuke you. Your burnt offerings are continually before me. Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving and perform your vows before me to the most high. In other words, keep your word. Live in obedience out of thanksgiving to God. But to the wicked, God says, what right have you to recite my statutes and take my covenant on your lips? For you hate discipline. You cast my words behind you. If you see a thief, you're pleased with them and you keep company with adulterers. You give your mouth free reign for evil and your tongue frames deceit. Listen to the prophet Isaiah. I do not delight in the blood of bulls or lambs or goats. Bring no more vain offerings. Incense is an abomination to me. Wash yourselves. Make yourselves clean. Remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes. Cease to do evil. Learn to do good. Seek justice. Correct oppression. Bring justice to the fatherless. Plead the widow's cause." We see the same rebuke from Jesus, don't we? The Jews who were obsessed with outward appearance and ritual, Jesus says you neglect the weightier matters of the law, justice, and mercy. Empty rituals and sacrifices, when they're not accompanied by obedience, are worthless. Now, we need to be careful here to remember what time it is salvation history. When we read what Paul is saying to the Jew who depends on circumcision, it's almost like perfect obedience to the law is being required. We need to remember there's been a significant change to these things in the work of Jesus. Let me explain. The Jews are now in a different stage of salvation history. In the Old Covenant, there were many Jews living by faith, obedient to the law. They were circumcised, they followed the law, not to earn salvation, but by faith and belief in God's promises. And they had the sacrificial system, which was part of the law. It's really important. That's how they experience forgiveness of sins and mercy from God. With the coming of Christ, that sacrificial system is gone. There is no means of forgiveness left in the Old Covenant. Forgiveness is found in the cross of Christ alone. It's really important to remember that when we're reading Paul and jumping back and reading the Old Testament. Things have changed. That entire old covenant system has been replaced by the new covenant in Christ. So if you're going to rely on the old covenant now, on this side of the cross, if you're going to rely on circumcision at this stage of salvation history, you need to obey the law perfectly. Because it all goes together with the sacrificial system and those sacrifices are no longer available. Paul says the same thing to the Galatians in chapter 5. Look, I, Paul, say to you, if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you. If you're gonna continue to rely on the old covenant, which is expired, you're choosing a different path than what Christ has brought. His work is not gonna help you. He continues in Galatians. I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision that he's obligated to keep the whole law. In other words, times have changed. The new covenant has arrived. The old is obsolete. It no longer does what it did by faith before Jesus. So if you want to live under the old covenant now that the new has arrived, perfect obedience is required. The only way to be forgiven for your sins now that Christ has come is in his death. as we'll see in the next chapter. So just to be really clear, Old Covenant saints, believers, were not saved by works or perfectly following the law. They were saved by faith in God's promise in the law and the grace demonstrated in the sacrifices which pointed forward to Christ. With those sacrifices gone, there's no more grace left in the Old Covenant, no more forgiveness. So if you're gonna rely on circumcision, and try to live under the old covenant now, you're living under the law with no forgiveness, no grace, and you better be perfect. And no one is. If you break the law, it's as if you're not circumcised because you're not in the people of God. And Paul pivots now in verse 26 to say that the converse, interestingly, is also true. If someone who's not circumcised, in other words, a Gentile, does meet God's requirements, he'll be regarded as circumcised. In other words, he'll be a member of God's people without becoming a Jew. This is new, this is the new covenant. And he makes this even more clear in the last two verses, number three in your outline. Authentic obedience is inward. Let's read the last two verses. Verse 28, for no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical. But a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision a matter of the heart, by the spirit, not by the letter. His praise is not from man, but from God. Obeying the Lord can only be done from the inside out. Or as Paul says, it's a matter of the heart. The Bible uses heart. to mean the inner person, the source of your desires, sort of the command station for the will. How you think and act are driven by your heart, by your desires. That command center or heart, when circumcised by the spirit, makes you born again, and you desire to obey. Back in Deuteronomy, when God was giving the law through Moses, he made it clear then that the only way people could truly obey the law is if he circumcised their hearts. In other words, God needed to spiritually circumcise people in order to change them from the inside so that they would want to obey for the right reasons. And faithful Jews knew this. That's why Jesus says to Nicodemus, you're a teacher of Israel and you don't know what it means when I say that you must be born again? Because regeneration, being born again, is really the same thing as circumcision of the heart. And it's prominent throughout the Old Testament. Faithful Jews knew that physical circumcision wasn't enough. They needed to be spiritually circumcised in their hearts. But Paul goes a step further now in this new stage of salvation history with the new covenant and says that physical circumcision is now expendable. This is new. Because of Christ, the physical isn't even necessary anymore. All that matters is circumcision of the heart. Now Paul doesn't expound on this here, but he's anticipating. what he's gonna flesh out later in the letter. And that is that Gentiles, without becoming Jews, can be saved by the work of Christ, chapter three, and live by the Holy Spirit, and obey God, just like a spirit-filled Jew can, chapter eight. And no longer are external ceremonial things like circumcision, or foods, or certain days observed, those things no longer separate the people of God. Chapter 14. Spirit-filled believers, regardless if they're physically circumcised or not, can be obedient to God and please Him with their lives. Again, Paul just teases this here. but he will flesh it out in detail later. For now, he just makes the point that it is the promised gift of the indwelling Holy Spirit that confirmed God's acceptance of Gentiles into his new covenant. So, in these verses, Paul's using Jew to mean genuine member of the people of God in that old covenant sense. As John Stott says, Paul's redefining what it means to be an authentic member of God's covenant people. It's not outward and visible, but inward and invisible. It's not in the flesh, it's in the heart. It's not affected by the letter or the law, but it's affected by the Holy Spirit. You see, the law was a great gift, but the law did not come with what it takes to obey it. We'll see this later in the letter. But without the Holy Spirit, the law cannot produce righteousness. But this new age of the Spirit that was promised in the Old Testament is Ezekiel 36, Jeremiah 31, where the Holy Spirit will not only circumcise the heart, but will indwell the believer with the power to obey. This is new. All this will come in detail later in chapter eight, but Paul gives us a prelude of this right here. All right, with the rest of our time, I just want to consider some more specific application for us this morning. Tim Keller says, you might feel the force of this passage differently if you replace Jew with Christian. If you call yourself a Christian, You're hearing all this talk of darkness and sexual perversions in chapter one, and you're thinking, good, preach it, Paul. I'm so glad you pointed out the darkness of our culture and the wicked perversions of sexuality we can see all around us. Thank you for telling us that the righteous judgment of God is coming, rightfully so, amen. I'm a Christian, I know the word. I even memorize it. I've been baptized. I go to church very faithfully. I take the Lord's Supper every Sunday. I'm even a teacher, trying to get others to understand the Word. If you call yourself a Christian, first, letter A, do not rely on knowledge. The Jews had the law. They were given a commission to teach others about this amazing God. But for some, despite the great gift of having this knowledge of God, their disobedience caused those outside the faith to blaspheme God. May it never be with us. We have the Bible. Listen to Lloyd-Jones. As you read your Bible day by day, do you apply the truth to yourself? What is your motive when you read the Bible? Is it just to have knowledge of it so you can show others how much you know and argue with them? Or are you trying to apply the truth to yourselves? As you read, say to yourself, this is me. What is it saying about me? Lloyd-Jones continues. Allow the scripture to search you. Otherwise, it can be very dangerous. There's a sense in which the more you know of the Bible, the more dangerous it is for you if you don't apply it to yourself. Are you seeking to obey, end quote. Are you seeking to obey when you read the word? Listen to voice, knowledge alone. even knowledge of the highest spiritual and moral principles does not win God's approval. On the contrary, superior knowledge actually leads to even greater condemnation if it is not accompanied by adherence to that higher standard. This is especially relevant to those of us who are teachers, but all Christians are teachers in the sense of evangelism, right? We have a responsibility to teach others outside the faith about this amazing God, I confess, I felt a certain gravity during moments of my preparation for this message as I looked around my study at literally dozens of Bibles and commentaries and theologies, all of which I'm very thankful for, but oh my. How tragic if my life was so out of whack with the privileged knowledge I have available to me. God forbid people ever think less of Jesus because of me and my disobedience. Every one of us parents are teachers. Paul tells us in Ephesians, we're not to exasperate our children. Let me tell you this, there's nothing more exasperating for a child than a hypocritical parent. A parent who espouses knowledge about God but lives very contrary to that knowledge. It is exasperating and many times leads to unbelief and rejection of Jesus. So sad to see young adults turn from the faith because they're so disgusted by the hypocrisy of their parents. Another disturbing trend in Christianity, as seen recently, that strikes at this unholy separation of knowledge and obedience. I was listening to a conversation a couple years ago. The discussion was surrounding a famous pastor, who many of you would recognize, who just caused a wake of destruction in the spiritual lives of many people, many turning from Jesus as a result. And it was well documented that this man was a bully. and therefore explicitly unqualified to be a pastor by the Bible's clear teaching. And I was surprised in the conversation when one person said, well, he totally agrees with us on complementarianism and other important doctrines we care about, as if to say, as long as his doctrine is right, we should give him some slack on his obedience. No. When the spirit of a man and the actions of a man are completely out of line with the character of Jesus and biblical qualifications, you don't want him anywhere near church leadership. But we can all be tempted, I think. to give slack on obedience if they're on the right side of a doctrinal issue that we care about. Let's be careful about that. Our passage today makes it crystal clear. God doesn't view it that way. According to God, knowledge of right doctrine is no substitute for obedience. Having the right doctrinal knowledge must never give way to spiritual presumption on judgment day. That's a false security. Letter B. Do not rely on ritual or association with the people of God. This is the second false security. If you call yourself a Christian, are you relying on the marks of your association with Christianity? The sign of entering the Old Covenant was circumcision. The sign of entering the new covenant is baptism. Now, while we shouldn't rely on baptism by itself as some reason we're saved, baptism, it's important to know, is a commandment if you're a Christian. So if you're a believer this morning and you've never been baptized, it is a matter of obedience that you are. So please talk to me. Please talk to any of the pastors if you have questions about baptism. Having said that, the mere act of water baptism doesn't save anyone from judgment. Relying on baptism, or church membership, or association with the right Christian group, these things are not unimportant, but they're worthless by themselves. Participation in the Lord's Supper, singing hymns together, God forbid any of these things become empty ritual for anyone at orchard. Keller says this, listen, It is possible to trust in Christianity rather than in Christ. Let's not rely on the furniture of Christianity instead of relying on Christ himself or we will have false security. It is when we trust in something other than Jesus that we move away from the truth. John MacArthur said this, listen carefully. Apostasy, or leaving the faith, always moves the religious focus from the inward to the outward, from humble obedience to empty formality. When you see people, when you see people tragically walk away from the faith, Humble obedience to Jesus and His Word is always replaced by something else. Always. Finally, rely on the Holy Spirit. to obey from the heart. Paul drops some breadcrumbs here at the end of our passage that he'll circle back and revisit in much detail later. But for now, let's just recognize being a part of God's family is not something external. It's not something based on ritual or association. It's not merely knowing the right things about God. Those are all false securities. You must have the Holy Spirit to change your heart. You must be changed from the inside. No matter how much of your own effort or your understanding, none of that's gonna make you perfectly obedient to God, which is what is required without Jesus. The only way to be pleasing to God, to receive praise from God, not men, as it says here, is through the gospel of Jesus Christ. The only true security in salvation comes by the accomplishment of Christ on the cross and the Holy Spirit's application of that accomplishment to your hearts. In the next chapter, Paul will explain this accomplishment of Christ in all its glory. And his sacrifice offers forgiveness for all your sins so that you can be saved on judgment day. Will you turn to Him as your Lord and Savior? Will you give Him your life, give Him all your desires, give Him your heart, that it might be circumcised by the Holy Spirit and that you might become His? You need to be born again and adopted as a child of God, a child who will be accepted by your Father, a child who will be given the power by the Holy Spirit indwelling you. to not only desire to obey the Heavenly Father, but actually be given the power to do so. Jesus is the only true security. He is our only confidence. He is our only assurance on the day of judgment. And what blessed assurance. Jesus is mine. Oh, what a foretaste of glory divine, heir of salvation, purchase of God, born of his spirit and washed in his blood. Please stand as we close. Our father was so grateful for Jesus Christ, our only true security. and we're grateful for the Holy Spirit indwelling us, may we lean on Him to obey you fully. Lord, I just pray for those here who are leaning on something else this morning, whether it's their knowledge, whether it's their association with the church, whether it's their parents' faith, whatever it might be, may they turn from those worthless things by themselves and turn to you alone. but to lean on your cross, to lean on what you've done in your death and resurrection, that they might turn from their sin and embrace you as their Lord and Savior. Make them born again, that you might quicken and circumcise their hearts and indwell them with the Holy Spirit of God. For Jesus' sake, amen.