Calvary church is
dedicated to doctrine, and we want you to experience
the life change that comes from knowing God's word
and applying it to your life. So we explain the
Bible verse by verse, every chapter, every book. This is Expound. Good evening. You need to know it is my
distinct honor and privilege to be among those who
will take time out of the middle of their week
to come and hear God's word and worship together. God bless you. Let's turn in our Bibles to
the book of Romans chapter 1. It is our practice to go
through the scriptures verse by verse, chapter by chapter,
book by book, all 66 books. I think I mentioned
last week this is my, I believe, seventh time
teaching the book of Romans, and every time I go through
it there's more I learn. Let's have a word a prayer. Lord, essentially we
have been praying. We've been talking to
you in the songs that we have been offering up,
these worship songs. We've been telling you
that you are worthy. We have been telling you that
your love is incomparable, and now Father we are asking you
to open our minds, our hearts, our understanding to
comprehend what you have spoken through the apostle
Paul who gave us this incredible treatise
called the book of Romans, this Magna Carta of
the Christian faith. We pray that we
would understand it, because even though
it is breathtaking and it is marvelous,
it is at the same time difficult in some places
especially more than others. And Father we just
pray that your Spirit would make it understandable
so that our hearts can rejoice in the simple truth
that our lives would be changed because of it. For we ask it in
Jesus' name, Amen. I remember the first time
I went to the city of Rome. I had longed to go
there for years. It was a lifelong dream. Rome the eternal city
has been inhabited I think almost for 3,000 years. There were so many sights
I wanted to take in, and when I saw it, it really
truly was spectacular. It's a modern city. Ruins are still there, though,
the Colosseum, the forum, many of the fountains, the place
where Paul was incarcerated. It's a thrill to go there. Paul the apostle
also wanted to go but for a very different
reason than Skip Heitzig. He had an agenda on his mind,
and he announced in chapter 1 that he had wanted to
go there and planned to go there on many
occasions but was hindered. And eventually he does go
there, as we saw last week, but not like he planned. He went as a prisoner. So God made sure that all of his
expenses were paid by Caesar, and he became a prisoner taken
on a grain ship from Caesarea and sailed to Rome, where he
stood trial before Caesar Nero. Now I wanted to go to Rome. Paul wanted to go to Rome. Probably you wouldn't
mind going to Rome, but it's difficult
for us to really understand the kind of
anticipation and stirring in the hearts of ancient people
when they thought of Rome. Rome in the ancient world
was the center of the world. It was the center
of civilization. Interestingly it had become
by the time Paul writes this a center of Christian faith. And we say it's
interesting, because it's a church that though
Paul writes to it, Paul never had gone there. Paul had never established
a church in Rome like in so many other places. And we saw last week
that probably a church was started as a
result of the visitors to Jerusalem on the
day of Pentecost when the church was
born in Acts chapter 2. Because there's a listing of all
of the various groups of people from around the world that had
been at the feast in Jerusalem, and it says visitors from
Rome both Jews and proselytes were converts to Judaism. So there were people
from all over the world. They saw the Holy Spirit
and heard the Holy Spirit poured out in that city. They went back to
Rome, no doubt started some kind of a Bible study, some
kind of an evangelism group, whatever. But by this time a church
has been established and is growing. Now by the time the
apostle does go there in the 28th chapter
of the Book of Acts, he will be placed
under house arrest. He will give home Bible
studies from that place, and the gospel will be
firmly established even more. We last week, I purposed-- I told you to go through
chapter 1 and 2 with you. We made it through chapter 1
verse 23, so I didn't make it. But we always say it
doesn't it matter, because we always pick
up where we left off and we mosey on from there and
stop when the clock has run out and then pick it
up the next week. But eventually, we
are going to make it God willing if the Lord
does not come back before then, we'll make it through
the entire book. There is a theme. I don't want you to lose track
of the theme we announced last week. The theme of the Book of
Romans is the righteousness of God revealed in
the Gospel of Christ. The righteousness
of God revealed in the good news, the
gospel, the good news about Jesus Christ. Now I told you
last week that when Martin Luther was
an Augustinian monk and he heard that phrase,
the righteousness of God, it really bothered him. Because he took it to
me-- not having really studied the book
of Romans yet-- he took it to mean that
God is righteous and nobody can approach that
kind of level of righteousness. So in God's righteousness,
He's going to judge the world. Then he read the book of
Romans, as he studied it, and he came to that
beautiful section here in Romans chapter 1,
the just shall live by faith. He understood the
righteousness of God is actually the righteousness
whereby God converts a sinner. He gives to you, He imputes
to you his righteousness. You don't earn it. You don't try to approach it. You don't try to do good
works in order to get it. You receive it. So He confirms His
righteousness upon you, whereby when you believe in him
you are made right with God. That's the idea
of righteousness. You are made right with God. So it is a term, the
word righteousness, found in this book no less
than 60 times, righteousness. I know that sounds like
an old fashioned word. You may want to
translate it right. It is being right with God,
in right standing before God. That's the idea, and it
is used some 60 times. I know we ended in verse 23,
but I want to go back, kind of, overlap just a little
bit, to underscore this idea of the
righteousness of God and the Gospel of Christ. So look again at verse 16. "For I am not ashamed
of the Gospel of Christ. It is the power of God
to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew
first and also for the Greek. For in it, the righteousness
of God is revealed. So the righteousness
of God is revealed in the Gospel of Christ. That's the theme. It is revealed
from faith to faith as it is written the
just or the righteous or those who are right with
God or right before God, the just shall live by faith. So eternal life is not earned. It is received. It is given by God
as a free gift. It is not a fee. It is for free. It is not produced by us. It is received by us
and produced by God. Now beginning in verse 18
that theme is introduced. Remember what I told you last
week that the Book of Romans can be divided into
four distinct sections, section one, the wrath of God,
section two, the grace of God, section three, the plan
of God, and section four, the will of God. And I gave you those
divisions last week. He begins in verse 18 by
saying for the wrath of God is revealed. That's the first
section of the book. After the introduction,
the preamble comes the first major theme,
the wrath of God is revealed. OK, so this is going
to help you when I tell you about the audience
that he is writing to. Paul is writing in his
mind to an audience that he can see in his
mind but comprised of three different groups of people. Group number one, you're
out and out pagan. Now I know that's sort
of an ancient term. It is even seen as
an offensive term, but did you know the
word pagan was devised by the Christians
in the 4th century to describe Romans, unbelievers,
largely Gentile unbelievers, non-Jewish unbelievers. So he writes to the pagan world. That's one group. The other group that Paul is
writing to are the moralists. The moralists
aren't quite pagans. They may be Jewish. They may be Gentile. They have some higher standard
of living than the pagans do. And then the third group
are the religionists, and the religionists
are people who trust in their religion,
their self-righteousness. I do this. I do that. I keep these rituals. I keep these regulations. My Father and mother
raised me this way. And based upon their background
and their religious upbringing, mostly Jewish people,
Paul writes, so to pagans, to moralists, and
to religionists. And he begins by
addressing the pagans, then he goes on to the
moralists in chapter 2 verse 1. Then around verse
17 of chapter 2 to chapter 3, verse
16 right around there, he speaks to the religionists. Then he writes to
everybody, and he says that the whole world
may be guilty before God that every mouth may be stopped. So what he wants
to do is show you and I whether you are a
garden variety pagan or just a moralist person, moral
upbringing, high standard, or you're a very devout
religious person. Apart from Christ,
you're all condemned. There is no hope apart
from the righteousness of God in the Gospel of Christ. So he paints a very dark
picture to begin with. "The wrath of God is
revealed from heaven against all ungodliness
and unrighteousness of men who suppress the
truth in unrighteousness." He wants you to know why
the righteousness of God is necessary. And here's why the righteousness
of God is necessary. The righteousness
of God is necessary, because the unrighteousness
of humanity is a reality. Because we are unrighteous,
and there's nothing we can do to be
right before God. The only hope is for God to
impute to you, give to you His righteousness. So that's the picture
that he paints. And he's very, very up
front about the judgment. If you're familiar with
Romans one and two, it's like wow boom, boom. He's punching me in
the spiritual face. And the reason he is doing
that isn't to make you feel bad but to make you see
that God is good, and he's so good that he takes
a paganistic or a moralist or a religionist once they admit
that there's no hope and says, you know what? There is hope. I'm going to give
you a righteousness you can't earn by yourself. I will confer it on you. Remember Paul said he
is a debtor, right. I'm a debtor both to the Greeks,
the barbarians, the wise, and the unwise. I owe it to the
world to tell them the truth, the whole truth,
and nothing but the truth, so he tells the whole
world the truth. What would it be like if you had
a postal worker, mail carrier, a mailman or a mail woman. Well, I'm sorry. That didn't quite come out right
but a mail delivery person who only wanted to deliver good
tidings, just good news, just happy news. So your mail carrier
sees that your house is going to be foreclosed,
because you have an envelope, and on the outside it says
notice of foreclosure. And that's stamped on
the front, and your name is on the address. And the post carrier
says, you know I'm not going to deliver this letter. I'm going to-- I'm
going to throw it away, because it's going to make the
person who owns a home feel really sad, feel really bad. I don't like making
people feel sad. I only want to
deliver happy news. So I'm going to throw it away. Well, he or she is not being
faithful to their calling. Or if the doctor said, yeah, the
radiologist report is positive and you have a month to live
your cancer is so advanced, but I don't want to
tell the patient that. It's going to make him cry. So I'm going to pat
him on the back, tell him to take two aspirin,
and go home, because I want to make him feel good. Paul is not that kind of guy. He is a debtor. I owe it to people to
tell them the whole truth. So here's why God's
righteousness is so necessary, because man's unrighteousness
is such a reality. And so he paints
that dark picture. Here it is. "For the wrath of God is
revealed-- verse 19-- because-- and we read a few of these
verses then stopped-- because what may be
known of God is manifest, shown, revealed in them. For God has shown it to them. For since the
creation of the world, His invisible attributes
are clearly seen. They're unmistakable,
being understood by the things that
are made, even His eternal power and Godhead
so they are without excuse." The apostle was
talking about something we call general Revelation. God has revealed himself
generally to the world by the world itself. You look around, you look around
at the universe, the earth, the biosphere,
the cosmos that we live in it looks like a finely
tuned place that we are in. And so you concur
by looking around, this design must
have had a designer. There must be a God-- a God who loves people
and has ensured that they can live in this environment. One will lead you to the other,
and Paul is saying it has. God has revealed
himself generally, and I even quoted last
week that Psalm, Psalm 19, where David said the heavens
declare the glory of God. The firmament shows
His handiwork. Day unto day, they
utter their speech. Night unto night,
they reveal knowledge. There is no speech or language
where their voice is not heard. So the idea is there's not
a person on the planet that has an excuse. You live in the jungle,
you live in the desert, you live by an ocean, you
live up in the mountains, there's enough information
in the physical world by general Revelation to make
a thinking person realize with great obviousness
that there is indeed a God. So he says verse 20,
they are without excuse because although they knew God,
they did not glorify Him as God nor were thankful. But they became feudal
in their thoughts, and their foolish
hearts were darkened. In other words, at some
point in pagan history, there was a deliberate
refusal to acknowledge the Revelation of God. And so when they did that, when
they shut down that Revelation, their moral capacities
were darkened. They had reduced the level
of God to be like people. They made images. They made God to look
like images of people. They made little statues, and
they worshipped those images. That's idolatry. So they're made in
the image of God, but they're making God in the
image of mankind, of humans. So they're turning away
from the Revelation of God and reducing God to their level,
so their morals were darkened. And notice in verse
21, it's interesting, because he just sort
of throws this in, but I don't want you to miss it. So when they're turning
off the Revelation of God, it says nor were they thankful. Now that makes sense,
because if you deny God, if you start denying God and
say, well, that's not God and there's no evidence of
God, then pretty soon there's nobody to thank. You've ruled God out. So you don't-- you're
not a thankful person. This is why as believers we
should make it a point, a habit to be thankful on a daily basis,
to be reminded God is good. God has given me breath. God has sustained me. And in the very least,
thank you, Lord, for that. Thank you for another day. Now some of you may roll
your eyes and say, Skip, what are you in the dark? Don't you know this whole
year has been a pandemic and an economic freefall? What is there to
thank God about? Well, I'm glad you asked. Let me tell you a little story. In World War II when the
ten Boom family was arrested for hiding Jews in
their house and they were taken to the concentration
camps, when Corrie ten Boom as a young girl
and her sister Betsy were placed in a concentration
camp as punishment, they went from one concentration
camp to another concentration camp to the worst of all,
Ravensbruck, the worst that they had experienced. And while they were
in Ravensbruck, the barracks were overcrowded
and flea infested. And yet one morning Cori and
Betsy ten Boom as sisters were having their little
devotional Bible study together in prayer time,
and they happened to be reading that day 1
Thessalonians chapter 5, verse 16, 17, and 18. "Rejoice evermore. Pray without ceasing. In everything give thanks. For this is the will of God in
Christ Jesus concerning you." Betsy closed her
Bible, looked right into the eyes of
her sister Cori, and said Cori we need to
stop right now and thank God. Cori said, I won't do it. I refuse to thank God. I'm in a concentration camp. Have you noticed? This place that we're
sleeping in is flea infested. What? Thank God for the fleas. That's what she said--
thank God for the fleas? Yet what they noticed unlike
the other concentration camps is they had a certain
freedom in Ravensbruck to have prayer meetings
and Bible studies, and they didn't know
why till months later they discovered the reason
is the guards refused to come into their barracks
because of the fleas, which awarded them a certain freedom
for prayer and Bible study. What thank God for the fleas? Uh-huh. "Nor were they thankful
but became futile or empty in their thoughts, and their
foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise,
they became fools. The word fools is a
very interesting word in Greek, moras. You know what that sounds like? That's exactly where the
word comes from, morons. "Professing themselves to
be wise, they became morons, and they change the glory
of the incorruptible God into an image made like
corruptible man and birds and four footed beasts
and creeping things." It's ludicrous. It's even hilarious
were it not so eternally sad how people look
around at this universe, and they don't get it. And they say, yeah, it's amazing
how everything just so happened to be the way it is. It's just one of those
fortuitous occurrences of accidental circumstance. Really? You're telling me
It just so happened that the temperature of the sun
is 12,000 degrees Fahrenheit and that the Earth is 93
million miles away from the sun giving us the temperatures
that we enjoy on the earth. If the Earth were as close as
Venus, we would all burn up. If we were as far away as
Mars, we would all die of-- we'd freeze to death. You're telling me
that just so happened? You're telling me
It just so happened that the Earth spins on its axis
365 and 1/3 times as it makes this journey around the sun? Why? Why not 30 times? If it was 30 times,
our seasons would be 10 times longer
than they are, and life couldn't be
sustained on this planet. The alternate freezing and
burning would be too much, but it just so happened. And what's really
wild it just so happened that the Earth
is tilted on its axis 23 degrees, which gives us those
four seasons that we do enjoy. And it just so happened that the
Earth land mass to water mass is what it is. They tell us that if the
oceans were just an eighth larger, just an eighth
more larger than they are, an eighth, we would have 4
times the amount of rainfall on the Earth and the
Earth would flood. If the oceans were half
as much as they are, we would all on Earth
be in a drought. You couldn't grow anything,
but yeah, it's amazing how it just so happened. It didn't just so happen. It was just so designed by God. You'd have to be a moron
to say it just so happened. At least according
to Paul, professing to be wise they became
morons, "and they changed the glory of the
incorruptible God into an image made
like corruptible man." Now notice the
progressive degeneration. "They began making idols of
human beings, men, and then birds and then quadrupeds,
four-footed beasts, and then creepy things, insects. It didn't get any
lower than that. If you go to India-- I've been there five times-- in their pantheon of gods,
they have 33 million gods. I don't know how you keep
track of that many gods. Now they're not really
gods or goddesses. They're fake. They're made up. There's only one
true living God. But if you go there and
you see even to this day the grotesque forms of
worship that people engage in front of trees and
statues and on the streets of these weird looking
gods and goddesses, you see this come
to fulfillment. Therefore, verse 24--
we better get going. All that was catch up. "Therefore God also gave
them up to uncleanness in the lust of their hearts
to dishonor their bodies among themselves, who exchanged
the truth of God for the lie and worshiped and served
the creature rather than the creator who is
blessed forever, amen." Now contrary to what
people in universities, even high schools,
general education will teach you, which
is man started low and then gradually we ascend
generation after generation, right. We're getting-- we
start low, primitive man and then now we're
getting so sophisticated. That's what we think. That's part of the lie. We actually started much
higher, and we fell. Mankind started
who they knew God, but they didn't
glorify Him as God. And each successive step
with each generation seems to betray that truth
that we go from high to low. We go from familiarity
with God to vanity, from vanity to idolatry, and
from idolatry to immorality. Notice this. "For this reason, God gave
them up to vile passions. For even their women
exchange the natural use for what is against nature. Likewise also the men leaving
the natural use of the woman burned in their lust for
one another, men with men, committing what is
shameful and receiving in themselves the penalty of
their error, which was due." An errant theology will
lead to an errant sexuality, because when you get God
wrong, you get humanity wrong. When you get humanity
wrong, you get everything humanity does wrong. So it all begins with having
the proper orientation Godward, toward God. When you get that wrong, that's
where the degeneration process takes place. Now I want you to notice
something in verse 2006. It says for this reason God
gave them up to vile passions. For even their women
exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. The word nature is the
word fusin in the Greek. We get the word
physis from that, which means the created order
or the natural order of things. Now watch what he does with
the natural order in the very next verse. "Likewise, also the men leaving
the natural use of the woman burned in their lust for
one another, men with men committing what is
shameful receiving in themselves the penalty of
their error, which was due." The Greek language
is much more precise than the English language. It doesn't say men and women. It says literally
male and female, and the Greek language
is unmistakable, the biological male and
the biological female. So to give you a literal
rendering of verse 27, "Likewise, also the males,
leaving the natural use of the females-- it's unmistakable what
he's talking about-- "burned in their lust for
one another, males with males committing what is shameful
and receiving in themselves the penalty of their
error, which was due." Now Paul wrote
the book of Romans from the city of Corinth. You know anything about Corinth? Not a great place. A morally degenerate place. Just above the city of Corinth
was the hill of Aphrodite where 1,000 priestesses left
their temple in the evening and came down into the
city to ply their trade. These prostitute priestesses
would sell their bodies to men and would entice these men to
worship the goddess of love, Aphrodite, by the act of sex. So when Paul writes
to the Corinthians-- so he wrote Romans
from Corinth-- listen to how he
describes the Corinthians. I'm reading out of
1 Corinthians 6. I'll just read it to you. You don't have to turn there. You don't have enough time. "Do you not know that
the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor
idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites,
nor thieves, nor covetess, nor drunkards, nor
revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of
God, and such were some of you." This was your
background, Corinthians. Such were some of you. "But you were washed. You were sanctified. You were justified in the
name of our Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God." So we can never use a practice,
a personal preference, or a personal proclivity
as the will of God. Well, that's my desire,
that's what I wish, or that's the way I was born. Because if you
tell me you do what you do because you
were born that way, I'm going to say you are
leaving the glory of God and exchanging it for the lie. We all have
preferences, and we all have proclivities for a
number of different things. When we follow those
propensities, proclivities, and preferences is when
we get into trouble. On a daily basis,
we have to be saying no to certain things
and yes to other things. So back to Romans chapter 1 and
even as they verse 28 did not like to retain God in their
thinking or their knowledge, God gave them over--
there's that phrase again. God gave them over
to a debased mind to do those things
which are not fitting, being filled with
all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness,
covetness, maliciousness, full of envy, murder, strife,
deceit, evil-mindedness. They are whisperers, back
biters, haters of God-- listen to this list--
violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things,
disobedient to parents. Sounds like I just read a
modern newspaper from cover to cover or a news source. Do they even have
newspapers anymore? Digital news feeds. Undiscerning, untrustworthy,
unloving, unforgiving, unmerciful. Don't lose sight of this
phrase, and God gave them over. Most of the time when we hear
the word wrath, God's wrath, we have in our little
minds like thunderbolts. God's anger, that's
the wrath of God. We fail to realize that
part of the wrath of God is for Him to give people
what they say they want. Oh, really you want this? OK. Like in the Old
Testament, they kept leaving the worship
of Yahweh, and Israel started synchronistically-- that is bringing in with
their worship system of Yahweh, other gods
and goddesses and kind of mixing it all together. And they built idols
and they built altars and they worshipped in Groves. And God said stop that. Don't do that and
kept giving him chance after chance after chance. Eventually He said really? You want idolatry all that much. I'm going to make
you go into captivity into the land of idolatry. You'll go to idolatry central,
which is Babylon itself. And when they were in idol
central, they cried out to God, God, please deliver
us./ and after 70 years, he did bring them back. So part of the judgment of
God is where he lets go. CS Lewis said you could
take all of mankind and divide them into two groups. We did that last week, right. We said the Jews
have two groups. The Greeks have two groups. CS Lewis says, I can divide all
of humanity into two groups. Group number one, those who
say to God thy will be done. Group number two,
those to whom God-- those the God says
your will be done. So you got group number one
that says God your will be done. Group number two, God says
to them your will be done. You can have what
you say you want. And so when people say they
want that long enough, God says, OK, you can have it. And that marks the
beginning of God's wrath that he has stored up by giving
them what they say they want. That moral degeneration
is a judicial act of God. Let's finish out at
least this chapter. "Who knowing the
righteous judgment of God that those who practice such
things are worthy of death, not only do the same
but also approve of those who practice them." If you were to go 2000 years
ago to the Roman Colosseum, you would have
thousands of people not killing anybody
themselves, not throwing spears through people themselves. They wouldn't think of doing it. They wouldn't go home and throw
a spear through each other, but they would happily
go to the Colosseum and watch violence
displayed in front of them. They would enjoy it vicariously,
and they would applaud. They would approve those
who do such things. Yay. That guy got killed. That gladiator got
gored by that ball. Awesome, the lion
tore him apart. Vicious, violent,
cruel, horrible, approving of those
who do those things. Now today we don't have
to go to a coliseum. You can sit-in your
living room, and you can stream a series on Netflix. And you can see vise
and sexuality and murder and applaud for the
characters, approving of them. You can say you approve,
because you pay for it. You're paying the monthly fee
to get that series downloaded. So we have to be very careful. I say, well, I
would never do that, but I will applaud
those who do that. Not only do the same
but also approve of those who practice them. Now having gone
through chapter 1 painting that horrible
picture of the pagan world, you would have a group of
people listening to Paul and go Paul I agree with
everything that you said and point their finger
at those pagans saying those are bad people and
they deserve God's judgment. So while they point
the finger, there are three fingers
pointing back at them. And so Paul now
addresses the moralists, those who have a higher
standard than the pagan world in chapter 2 verse 1. "Therefore, you are
inexcusable, oh man, whoever you are who judge. For whatever you judge
another, you condemn yourself. For you who judge practice
the same things, but we the judgment of God is
according to truth against those who practice such things." We are really good at pointing
out other people's faults while we ourselves
have those faults. I'm convinced that
most of the postings on social media, the
responses that people give-- if they don't like a person,
they'll, say something and they'll point
out why that person's wrong and hypocritical. But if you were to examine the
personal life of the one who posted that, you would
find the same thing. Remember what Jesus taught
in the Gospel of Luke? He said two men went
up to the temple to pray, a pharisee
and a tax collector. And the pharisee prayed
thus with himself. He said God I thank you
that I'm not like other men. I'm not an adulterer. I'm not an extortioner, and I'm
not like that tax collector. He's praying this
out loud to himself. He said, I fast twice a week. I give tithes of
all that I possess. So he's really
talking himself up. He does not see his own
sinfulness, his own problems. He thinks he's great
by what he does. And Jesus said but the tax
collector wouldn't even lift his eyes toward heaven. He stood afar off, and
he beat his breast. And he said, oh God, have
mercy on me, a sinner. Jesus said that man
went away justified. This man is justifying himself
pointing the finger at people like that tax collector. The tax collector, Jesus
said, is justified. So yes, we can point fingers
at people's behavior, but we can never pinpoint
what's going on in their hearts. Only God can. So one was pointing the
finger at the tax collector. God was-- Jesus was
pinpointing the fact that in his heart,
because he believed and he knew that he wasn't
right before God and cast himself on God's
mercy, he went away justified. "So you who condemn
another, don't you know you condemn yourself?" We are hard on-- we are hard on others
and soft on ourselves when it comes to
judgment, right. You know that's just sort of
a basic weakness we all have. We are quick to respond
and say that's wrong, and yet others we'll get-- in Christian circles, it seems
it's OK to gossip and lie and slander, but just
don't smoke cigarettes or drink that beer. Wait a minute. That's incongruous. That's hypocritical, right. And this is what the
self-confident moralist hopes. He hopes that God will
be soft on him, softer than he is on others,
because he's hard on others. He's hoping that God
grades on a curve, because he doesn't on Earth. You can take a situation and
tweak it just a little bit, just change a couple of the
details, and here's an example. David committed adultery. Didn't see that as sin at
first until Nathan came to him and told him a story. He said, Nathan,
there's this rich guy, and he had all
these sheep and he could have taken any one of
them and killed one for supper, but there was a poor guy
who had only one little yew lam He loved that yew lam. It was the family pet. They took it to bed at
night, groomed it, washed it. And the rich guy thought I'm
not going to go on my flock and get a lamb for
supper for my guests. I'm going to take that poor
man's lamb and kill it, and we'll have dinner. And so Nathan's
telling this to David, and David gets all red
in the face and anger and he goes that man will die. Nathan said, really? Well, you ought to
know you are the man. You're that guy. You have all these wives. You have all this wealth. God said he would
have given you more if you'd only asked for it,
but you took one man's wife and you slept with her. Then David broke down and goes
I have sinned against God. Now he saw it. Now he could see it. Before he was ready
to judge the guy and kill a dude
who stole a sheep. Really? Capital punishment
for stealing a sheep. The law just says
restore fourfold. But he says death penalty. Oh, well, you're the guy. You're the man. So it comes back to bite him. "And do you think
this, oh, man, you judge those
practicing such things and doing the same that you
will escape the judgment of God? Or do you despise the riches of
His goodness, His forbearance, and long-suffering not knowing
that the goodness of God leads you to repentance." Hey, when you see God being
patient with somebody else, don't mistake that. God isn't being lenient
with that person. He's being patient
with that person. He was patient with you. He gave you a break. You now believe in Jesus. There was a time you
weren't following him you were blowing it big time. You were falling on your face. You were doing all
sorts of nasty stuff, and now you're a believer. Hallelujah. Now what about other people? If God wants to be
patient to that person, why would you
despise him for that? The goodness of God is what
leads a person to repentance. "But in accordance with your
hardness and you're impenitent heart-- see he's really hammering
the moralist, high standards, but he's blown it himself-- you are trudging up
for yourselves wrath in the day of wrath
and Revelation of the righteous
judgment of God, who will render to each
one according to his deeds. Eternal life to those who
by patient continuance and doing good seek for
glory, honor, and immortality, but to those who are
self-seeking and do not obey the truth but obey
unrighteousness, indignation, and wrath. Tribulation and anguish
on every soul of man who does evil of the Jew
first and also of the Greek, but glory, honor,
and peace to everyone who works what is
good to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For there is no
partiality with God." So once again people are hard on
others but soft on themselves. And when they're hard on others,
you know what they call it? Righteous indignation. We love that term as Christians. It's just righteous
indignation, Maybe. Could be. Nothing wrong with
that, or it could be self righteous indignation. And if it's self-righteous
indignation, it's just indignation. It's just anger, no
value, no holy value. For with God, there's
no partiality. "For as many as have
sinned without the law-- that's the Gentile world-- will
also perish without the law because-- God has revealed himself in the
natural wonders of the world-- and as many as have
sinned in the law will be judged by the law. So you're going to be judged
according to the standard that you live by,
standard that they had. If you're Jewish and
you have the law, you'll be judged by that law. If you are in another country,
you have no Revelation of God, you just have the revealed
atmosphere, cosmos that reveals the power of God. You still have a Revelation,
a general Revelation of God. God will judge according
to the standard. "For not the hearers
of the law are just in his sight or the sight of
God, but doer's of the law will be justified. For when Gentiles who do
not have the law by nature do things contained
in the law, these although not having the law
are a law to themselves." They have a conscience. They're thinking
that's not right. I shouldn't do that. "Who showed the work
of the law written in their hearts, their
conscience also bearing witness and between themselves-- and between themselves their
thoughts accusing or else excusing them in
the day when God will judge the secrets of
men by the Gospel of Christ according to my gospel-- By Jesus Christ,
according to my gospel." So Paul is saying, you guys who
have a religious background, a religious law, a moral
law, the law does not make you immune. It does not grant you immunity. You don't get a free pass
just because you have the law. And remember in Jesus' day,
there boast is we're Jewish. We have the law. We have the covenant. Made with Moses, Abraham,
Isaac, Jacob, rah, rah, rah, but now notice the
next set of verses. Verse 17, "indeed, now he's
writing to the religionist, you are called a Jew
and rest on the law and make your boast in
God and know his will and approve the things that are
excellent being instructed out of the law and are
confident 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 babes, having the
form of knowledge and truth in the law." So notice something. He's writing to these Jewish
people, these very religious and in this case
self-righteous Jewish people, and he's saying, well, there's
a few things you have right. First of all, you have
the right background. He says, indeed, you are
you are called a Jew. Paul boasted that he was Jewish. He gives his testimony in
the book of Philippians, a Hebrew of the Hebrews as
concerning the law, blameless. So you have the
right background. That's good, check. And number two, you have
the right book, right, because he says you
rest on the law. You have the Torah,
the Revelation of God through the Torah, the law, and
you have the right business. You make your boast in God. You know his will. You approve the things
that are excellent, and you teach others. So you got the right
background, the right book, got the right business, but you
have the wrong practice, right. You think you've got all these
things, and that's enough. I'm immune. All I need is the
fact that I am Jewish. "You therefore,
who teach another, do you not teach
yourself, verse 21. You who preach that a man
should not steal, do you steal? You who say do not
commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols,
do you rob temples? You who make your
boast in the law, do you dishonor God
through breaking the law? For-- quoting scripture
now, verse 24-- the name of God is blasphemed
among the Gentiles because of you as it is written." Paul is simply saying this. Do you realize that if
you as a religious Jew don't practice your Judaism,
the Gentiles who look at you are going to dismiss your
religion on the basis of hypocrisy, right? So when David did sin
by committing adultery with Bathsheba and
Nathan came to him that whole story and David
cried I have sinned against God, Nathan said your
sin is forgiven. God isn't going to
destroy you because of it, but you need to
know this, David. Because of your actions, you
have given great occasion for the enemies of
the Lord to blaspheme. All these other nations that are
going to hear of what you did, you who worship
Yahweh, you worship the Lord, all those
beautiful Psalms you gave us, David, the covenant God
made with you, David, don't you realize that
unbelievers looking in are going to look at
your hypocritical life and they're going to blaspheme
God because of what you did. You're giving them ammunition. Or what about Abraham? Remember when Abraham
went to Pharaoh and he was with his
wife Sarah, and Pharaoh took a liking to Sarah,
thought she was very beautiful. It's interesting. Sarah was quite an
aged woman at the time. Let's just keep it at that
but strikingly beautiful. And Abraham was so scared
instead of saying, hey, man, you're honing
in on my wife, he said, well, she's my sister. So Pharaoh made a move on her. And God said, you move any
closer, I'm going to kill you. That's this guy's wife. Well, he told me
it was his sister. So from now on
Abraham's reputation was sullied before Pharaoh
and before the Egyptians. Ruined his testimony
because of that half truth, which was also a half lie. Verse 25, "for circumcision
is indeed profitable if you keep the law. But if you are a
breaker of the law, your circumcision,
that outward sign of an inward change,
circumcision, has become under circumcision. It's a very interesting
and rabbinical way of writing this truth. Circumcision is profitable
if you keep the law. If you're a breaker of
the law, your circumcision has become under circumcision. So here's the formula
that Paul is giving us. Circumcision minus obedience
equals uncircumcision just like baptism minus
obedience equals no baptism. You see if you are relying
on your baptism, a ritual you went through to
be right with God, it's no different than this. So circumcision is profitable. It's a good thing. It's a good statement
you're making, but if you are a
breaker of the law it's as if you were
never circumcised or in the Christian's
case baptized. So let me put it another way. We who are married,
your wedding ring is honorable as long as you
are faithful to your spouse. But if you are unfaithful
to your spouse, it's just a piece of metal. It's just an outward
thing that does not speak of the inward reality. There is no inward reality. That's the idea of that
verse of circumcision. "Therefore, if an
uncircumcised man keeps the righteous
requirement of the law, will not his uncircumcision
be counted as circumcision." So you Jewish people, you
can't look at circumcision as sort of a magic
charm, which they did. I know I'm going to heaven,
because I'm circumcised and I'm Jewish and
I go to the temple. They trusted a ritual. They should have dug a little
bit deeper in their own Torah. Oh, sorry about that
pop-- their own law. In the law, Torah-- if I do sideways, it won't pop. In the book of Deuteronomy,
God says circumcise the foreskin of
your heart and don't be stiff necked any longer. It's not the outward ritual. I want the heart to be affected,
because if your heart is not affected and your
stiff-necked, your hardened, your recalcitrant
against my command, you're not soft to my touch. I can't move you. I can't direct you, then
your circumcision is invalid. Circumcise the
foreskin of your heart and don't be stiff-necked. Verse 27, let's finish this up. "And will not the
physically uncircumcised if he fulfills the law judge you
who even with your written code insert circumcision are a
transgressor of the law. For he is not a Jew
who is one outwardly, nor is that circumcision
which is outward in the flesh. But he is a Jew who
is one inwardly, and the circumcision is that of
the heart in the Spirit and not in the letter whose praise is
not from men but from God." So you could say that
about believers in Christ. A Christian is not one
who is one outwardly, who got wet at baptism. You see when you ask a person-- you've had this experience-- are you a believer
in Jesus, actually you should phrase the
question this way. Are you a follower of Jesus? Because-- oh, I
believe in Jesus. No, are you a follower of Jesus? You'll get answers like this. Well, I've been
raised in the church. Nice. Now answer my question. Are you a follower of Jesus? Well, I've been
baptized in this church. OK, good. Now answer the question. Are you a follower
of Jesus Christ? And you know how
people will hem and haw and give you not the
answer to that question, because following
Jesus Christ is what reveals that the
heart has been changed. Remember outward
sign, inward change. There's no outward
expression in lifestyle. One has reason to
question the outward claim that there's no evidence of
that changed inward heart. His praise is from
men and not from God. So don't be whitewashed. Be washed white. Be washed whiter than snow. Come now let us reason
together says the Lord. Even though your
sins are scarlet, I will make them white, whiter
than snow, white as wool. Don't be whitewashed. Be washed white. Let it be real. Let it be authentic. So he speaks to the
pagan, to the moralist, to the religionist. And in chapter 3 by the
end of that chapter, he's going to say look
basically what I'm saying is, all have sinned and fallen
short of the glory of God. There is none
righteous, no not one. So he paints the picture
dark in these few chapters, and the next section will
be but the grace of God poured out overflowing, always
available to anyone who calls on his name and believes in him. So he tells us the bad
news, so by the time we get to the good news we
go man that news is really good news, But you'll
never know how good it is until you know how bad it was. And so he does that
dark background before he gets to the bright
colors of the grace of God. Thank you, Lord, for
your grace especially against this very
dark background that he paints in
the book of Romans, the plight of all
mankind, all humanity. Whether Gentile not having
any Revelation of God, whether moralist Jewish or
other religious systems who have some kind of a
standard or Judaism itself that got the direct
Revelation of God, True Moses through the prophets,
everyone needs a Savior Lord. Lord, I pray for anybody who
may not know the Savior yet would say yes to the Savior's
call upon their life, claim upon their life tonight. That there would be a release. And Father we pray
that you would use us to bring your truth-- dare we even say it to bring
a revival to this city, to this country. We pray, Lord, that
you will not turn us all over as a nation
to our own wickedness that we see proliferating
on a daily basis. It scares us, Lord. I pray it would frighten
us enough to want to get the truth out, the Gospel
out, to fight for justice where there is injustice, to fight
for truth where there is lying to represent you in this world. In Jesus' name, Amen. For more resources from Calvary
Church and Skip Heitzig, visit calvarynm.church. Thank you for joining us from
this teaching in our series expound. [MUSIC PLAYING]
