Romans 2:1–3Scripture
Everybody turn to Romans this morning. Last week we kind of went, did a little introduction. We talked about all sin, the sin that we see specifically listed out in chapter 1, where we're looking at the Gentiles or pagans of the world, those who are full of sin, and we see that the effects of sin then reduce us to foolishness. But chapter 1 is not the only type of person that we see. Paul then moves on, in an attempt to be able to wrap, or allow the gospel to wrap its arms more fully around all men, he then speaks of those who attempt to be justified by their good works, and so he says then to those people that is a sin still worthy of an eternal hell. And then he says that all people are doomed if not for Christ. That's the good news, then, isn't it, that we have a Savior? No matter how good you are, you still fall short, but God remedies this by sending us Jesus Christ to die on the cross, resurrect, and overcome death, that you too might overcome the death that comes through a life of sin. That's the good news.
And so he goes through painstaking effort here in the first three chapters, which probably some of you are wondering if we're moving a little slow, because it's getting a little heavy, to let us know that there was great need of a Savior. And honestly, the heavier your heart becomes week after week, the more good the news will be once we get there. But there's a problem in the world, you know there's a problem, and sin has been let loose like a rabid bulldog off a chain in our culture. I saw just the other day, we're putting, we're actually putting on display sin, not just in media, not just in movies, now on, I think it was, I can't remember the channel 4, there was a special spot in a news section where they let a transsexual do a song and strip naked and do obscene things right on TV.
That's the world we live in now. Some of you may not know that, and I would say congratulations that you don't see these things pop up on social media and whatever. But not only has sin become prevalent in our culture, but we are now giving it a platform and we are celebrating it. We're celebrating something that is abhorrent to God. And many of us, we might
Point 1Private sin is still seen by God
Say, "Well, that is important to me," but many of us celebrate these types of sin in our private life, but
Just because no one sees it doesn't mean it's not as abhorrent to God.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 3:09
That's good stuff right there, because some of us can dress up nice on Sunday and we can come and we can act a certain way and we can put on a good smiling face for a little while, but in the private recesses of our life, people tend to think that sin in private doesn't affect other people, so it must not offend God. Listen, God sees everything. There are those who in private live like sinners and in public put on a good face, like those he talks about in chapter 2. They are doing the same things, but they dress up nice in public, right?
That might be one of you. Some of you today, I would say the percentages are probably pretty good that there is someone here today that in their private life they act one way and at church they act another. I'd say there's a good fighting chance that in our private life we act one way and at work we act another.
I would say there's a good chance that as parents, in front of our children we act one way, and when we're away from them we act another.
And God says, I believe in chapter 2, speaking to us, "I see everything. How can I judge if I do not see? So I see who you are." I think that's important. Romans 2:1–3 says this, I'll jump right into the Scripture, and I'm going to point out a few things. I actually titled my sermon today "God Is Judge."
I thought that was good, because that's just the facts, right? Romans 2:1–3. He switches his attention to those who are self-righteous, who want to do good works to be justified by their good works, and he begins to speak to them and say to them that they're just as much at risk of hell. And he says it in this: "Therefore you have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges, for in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the very same things." Now, I'll pause here. I don't have time to talk about this today, I will talk about this more next week, but I want to just stop and say that in the Bible, and you could probably do some study
Point 2There is right judgment and wrong judgment
This week on your own, I would encourage you to do that, there is a right judgment that a man should have, and there is a wrong judgment that a man should have.
There are scriptures in the Bible that command us to use right judgment, and then there are scriptures like this, it says "Judge not, lest you be judged,"
And there are scriptures like this, specifically this says, oh man, you are not judged, only God is Judge. So our responsibility, then, okay, when we see two different things like this, is to understand what is right judgment and what is wrong judgment. Right? The goal here is not to walk away and say, because this is typically the way this goes, "I'm in sin, I have problems, and someone judged me, you can't judge me." Well, the church is supposed to call people out of sin, so I can't judge whether or not you're in sin unless I use judgment to do that. There's a right judgment, and it's for the sake of calling people out of it, not for the sake of comparing yourself with somebody to look better than somebody so that you can be justified by being better than others. That judgment's wrong. But judging man's fruit, judging if they're in sin that I might call them out of sin, this judgment is right. So it's very easy to move from a right judgment to a wrong judgment. It is the attitude of the heart.
What do we know about our heart? We know about our heart that it is infinitely wicked above all things and it cannot be trusted. Right? That's the facts.
That's why all of you here today should be thankful that God's judge and not your neighbor.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 7:25
All right, because here's what would happen if a man judges, if man judges, they will judge you according to what is right and wrong, and they will make excuses for themselves. You're doomed. And people probably that are worse than you are, okay? But God judges based on Christ. Actually, Jesus, it actually says Jesus is the Judge. So your homeboy Jesus, you know, the guy you love to hang around with and cuddle with and he's your homeboy and you love him, he's going to turn and judge you. The squishy Jesus, you know, the soft little teddy bear Jesus that you guys celebrate and you worship, he turns and judges, and he sends people to hell, because only he can judge, because he walked as righteous in the earth and he obeyed the law. God is Judge. But Jesus actually just, we'll talk more about that as we get into next week specifically, and so I'm excited about that. It says, "We know that the judgment of God rightly falls on those who practice such things. Do you suppose, O man, you who judge those who practice such things and yet," and this is the key, "do them yourself, that you will escape the judgment of God?" Now, you can see this from two angles. Number one, they believe in a salvation by works. They believe in what we would call today legalism. "You guys are so legalistic," I don't know why I use that voice when somebody's being sassy, but it's just my go-to voice. Or, I'm saved because of the works that I do. They thought that because they were in a nation and because they kept the traditions and because of their physical identification and their religious identification together that they were exempt. Last week we talked about Jews. They believed that because they were Jews that they were saved, or in other words, because of the group they were a part of they were saved. We talked extensively last week about the foolishness of thinking that because you're a part of church and you come to church that you're saved. Because you don't get to ride on your parents' belief, you have to believe. You don't get to ride on your pastor's belief, you have to believe. And being a part of a movement that loves Christ does not mean that you love Christ just because you're there. And so the Jews were guilty of this, and we are guilty of this today as well. They would say, "Well, I'm chosen by God. God chose me." And they expected to be regarded and treated, get this, not as individuals, but they expected only to be dealt with as far as a whole nation was concerned. There are people in church today, and I field questions all the time, specifically with younger people, and the question that is, "If I do this sin, can I still be a Christian?"
That's not the right question. The right question is, if you love God with all your whole heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength, why are you trying to do something that breaks his heart and excuse yourself for it? That's the right question. But I find that we don't ask questions out of our love for God, we really ask questions out of our hatred for God. So it is framed, "What can I do against God and still get away with it?"
So even in asking the question, the way you frame the question tells on whether you love him or whether you hate him. Are you with me today? So Paul is talking about this, and he's calling us to not take advantage of the mercy of God. They expected to be treated with mercy, and honestly, I believe that the Jews had become so common with God that they presumed upon his mercy and his goodness, and they made decisions based on how he had been merciful in the past, and they took advantage of him. Be careful to not take advantage of the good nature of God, because he labors for a season and then he turns you over to the sin that you love.
So there was no consequence to their personal sin at all, because they were under a sort of national salvation. Some of us believe this about our family and believe this about our church. You could also say that they believed not only in salvation by their works but salvation by their covenant. I talked about the other last week, I want to talk about the covenant part this week. We talk about covenant, what are we talking about? In other words, they not only believed in legalism but they believed in what we would call sacramentalism. Now, what is a sacrament? Here's some sacraments: baptism, communion, there's more, let's just start right there.
And by these things, they believed, by these rituals, by this action, they were in a covenant with God and saved because they performed these sacraments.
Let me give you an example. There are some places that will baptize babies. When a child is baptized as an infant, that is a sacramental act by which that child enters into a covenant. There are some who believe, not all, there are some who believe that when we do that, when we baptize a baby, that we baptize that baby into a covenant with the Lord and they are saved, that the belief of the parent then is transmitted to the child, not by a choice, not by belief, not by necessarily covenant of them individually with God, but because they are a part of a family or have parents that are believers, they are then baptized into their parents' belief. There are people today in the church that believe this. There are people today in the Protestant church that believe this. You believe if you're born into a family that loves God that automatically you're in, and that's dangerous. They believed that their work saved them, and they believed that their acts saved them, their sacraments. There are churches today that believe that communion saves.
The Catholic, here's the Catholic Church's statement on communion: "The faithful reception of the Eucharist," and I quote, "is necessary for salvation for those who have reached the age of reason. Jesus makes this clear in John 6." This is why whenever someone that is a part of the Catholic Church then does not make a choice or makes a decision or acts in a way or creates a policy in our government in a way that is contrary to the belief of the Catholic Church, they are exempt from communion. This is a radical move. In other words, it is the way that the church turns people over to the devil.
We don't hold here at Echo Church that sacraments save us. Sacraments are merely a way of us celebrating and remembering the price that Christ paid on Calvary's cross. That's what baptism is. Baptism doesn't save you. It is but a visual, an outward sign of an inner work that has already taken place. We know that the thief on the cross didn't take communion and wasn't baptized, but that day he was still in paradise with the Lord. How many of you think that's good news, right? Because your works don't save you, and the sacraments of the church don't save you, and you can come and listen and you can think that you're his, you can take the sacraments, you can be baptized, and what I believe the Apostle Paul is saying is the sacraments and the actions and the works, that's not what saves you. Your heart turning from sin and towards God is what saves you. I'm afraid today for people in the protestant church around America specifically, because we have fallen into a sort of works-based theology that says, "If I do these things, I'm safe."
Listen,
The only way you're safe is if your heart turns to Christ and you make him Lord of your life, not homeboy of your life.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 16:56
Lord. Not buddy of your life. Lord. There's a difference.
There is a difference. There are people like what we see in chapter 2 today. They've been baptized, they go to church, they belong to a church, they keep the rules, and they act moral on a moral basis. Outwardly they're self-righteous, they try to do what's right, and they just don't think they're going to be judged. They really don't. It's basically true, they just don't. One theologian said this, and I want to read this: "There is some kind of still small voice in everyone that constantly convinces them that in the end it's all going to be okay."
That's why you hear people so often say, "Well, God would never send me to hell for that little thing. I mean, I've been a good person, mostly.
I mean, this is about percentages, right? I mean, so if I'm more good than I am bad, then I'm safe." It's not about your moralness. It's about Christ's.
It's about Christ's.
The moral self-righteous people, frankly, are the hardest people to reach.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 18:33
They're much harder to reach than the reprobates we hear about in chapter 1.
That's my opinion, you don't have to agree with it, that's just the way I feel. Try to present the gospel to someone in the church who thinks they're saved by their good works, and then try to present the gospel to someone in prison who has a mind that has been turned over to all kinds of crazy things, and you see who's most receptive of the gospel. I've found the people in the church, since they know everything, they really know nothing.
You don't want to have an open mind to such a degree that everything falls out that's in there, but you do it and think that you know everything. That's good stuff. So Paul goes from the reprobate in chapter 1 to the moral people in chapter 2, and with great force and great clarity he points out that the ethical, moral person, even the Jew, is going to find himself in the same hell as the Gentile pagan idolater if he keeps going the way he's going.
In fact, if the heathen, if the heathen is without excuse, then Paul says this in the first three verses, then the Jew is even more without excuse. Now, I want to stop here for a moment. I want to say this: the entire chapter of chapter 1 of Romans we hear over and over again that every single person he lists on that is without excuse. They know what they're doing, without excuse. In other words,
God doesn't judge people on what they don't know, he judges them on what they know.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 20:11
And then he comes around for the uppercut and says, "And everybody knows."
And then so then he compares the pagan, even the pagan, even the people that are furthest from God, even the people that have rejected God and turned away and he's turned over to sin, that have a reprobate mind and they have no hope of returning, that even they know what they're doing, they know it's wrong, they know they'll be condemned, and they continue to do it even though they know, and they encourage other people to do it. Listen, Paul then moves to chapter 2 and he speaks of those Jews and he says, "You know even more." And some of the ones that he spoke to here would have maybe actually known Jesus personally, or of him, or heard of him from somebody close to him. Are you with me?
And so even more they should know. That's really important. In other words, if you've been in church for a long time, you know what you've heard, what is right and what is wrong, and you've heard about Jesus and you've heard about God, and you've listened, and you've sat in Sunday schools, and you've sat in a small group, and you sat in church, you have less excuse than anyone, and you'll be held more accountable for what is right and wrong.
Now listen, you guys, most people can get on board with this. Leaders, pastors will be held to a higher level of accountability. Everybody's like, "Yeah, I preach it, brother, you're doomed, you know?" Like, they're just like, all about that, they're all about that. But did you know that if you sit in church every single Sunday and you presume upon the mercy of God and take advantage of that, do you know that you should know more than even the pagan, and you'll be condemned even more? That's what it says here. It's crazy. Now, there are six principles, and I want you to write them down, and I'm only going to talk about two today because I don't have time, and then I'm not going to talk about the rest. You know why?
Because I don't have time. But I'm feeling, you can go and you can figure out the other six, other four, two, nine, six, four, anyway. Here are the six principles of the judgment in the first 16 verses. Maybe I'll talk about more, maybe I won't, I don't know, tonight or today, I just want to talk about the first two, and here's what they are, okay. The first three are knowledge, truth, and guilt. So the first three: knowledge, truth, and guilt, and the last three are deeds, impartiality, and motive.
These words, if I can put it simply, these words are how God judges.
It's one thing to say God judges and it's quite another thing to see how God judges and what his basis of judgment is. So we see God judging by knowledge, truth, and guilt, with deeds, impartiality, and the motive of a heart. Thank goodness, because sometimes I do dumb stuff and I really don't mean to, and it's good he can check our motives
Point 3God judges by what we know
When he judges. First one, knowledge. Let's look at the first one in verse 1, here's what it says. We see knowledge. "Therefore you are inexcusable, O man, whoever you are, who judges, for when you judge another you condemn yourself, for you who judge practice the very same things." Sorry, I accidentally did that in the King James, and I don't, trying to translate, and that's it just is what it is. Let me, here we go. Come on. "Therefore you have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges, for in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the very same things." Now here, it begins with "therefore," and I talked about this last week, but for those of you who weren't here, I want to kind of maybe bring, why does it say "therefore"? Why does he connect chapter 1 and chapter 2?
In chapter 1, verse 18 through 32, that section is also true of the people in chapter 2, that they are both without excuse. That's the connection. All right, "therefore." In other words, Paul's saying, therefore, the ones I'm about to talk about in chapter 2 are just as much without excuse as those in chapter 1 that I listed, that long list of people. In other words, specifically because they know the truth. Everybody say "know the truth." The end of verse 20 says they are without excuse. Now go right to verse 1, chapter 2: "therefore you also are inexcusable." Did you catch it? See the connection? So if you go back to chapter 1, Romans 1:20, it says they are, that they are without excuse, and then we move on to chapter 2, verse 1, and there's a connecting word, "therefore." What's it connecting? It's connecting those that are without excuse listed out in chapter 1 and those that are without excuse listed out in chapter 2. That's the connection. In other words, they have knowledge of what's true and they're without excuse.
That's how he judges. He judges according to our knowledge, and everyone knows what's right and wrong. That's what it says.
So you, in other words, you don't get to stand before God and say, "I didn't know." He's like, "No, you read Romans, right?
I warned you." You know, so you don't get to stand before me and have that can't be your defense. You know, "Yeah, but I don't know." Yeah, you do.
And
If you'd have read your Bible while you're on earth instead of listening to podcasts, you'd have known that.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 27:17
You know, and you can't use that excuse when you stand before the throne. That's good, that's good. That was kind of a low blow, but that was good. In other words, because they know the truth, the end of verse 20 says they're without excuse. Now go right to verse 1, chapter 2, and it says again, "Therefore you're also without excuse." Oh man. Why?
Because they know the truth. You might want to know that the Jews who would be exposed to this chapter would have even known of Christ, and that would have even put them at the very top of the inexcusable list. Hebrews 10, which we just came out of about a year ago, Hebrews 10, people would receive the much severer punishment because they had counted the blood of the covenant an unholy thing and trampled underfoot the blood of Christ. That's what it says in that Scripture. You see, they were at the top of the inexcusable list because they knew Christ, they knew what was right, and they still trampled underfoot his sacrifice every day when they turned their face away from him and ran towards sin. If you look at verse 32 at the end of chapter 1, it says even the pagans know the judgment of God, "and they who commit such things are worthy of death." Let's look at it, though. "They know God's righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but they give approval to those who practice them." Listen, what the Apostle Paul is trying to do, this is very important for you, as he presents the gospel, everyone is without excuse. Now, parents, we should love this for those that have kids, because one of the things our children do whenever they get in trouble is they start making excuses. How many of you have ever, are you with me? And they just come and they're just like, "Well, this will, this happened, and this, well, I had a bad day, I punched the dog, but I had a bad day, and this person treated me this way, this person treated me this way, and it's just a dog, I didn't hit you." Yeah, because you'd be dead. God is saying to us through the Apostle Paul that you don't get to make excuses when you stand before him in the end like you do to your parents and your friends and your teacher. You don't get to stand there and make an excuse.
Some of us think if we have an excuse that it makes it okay. It does not make it okay.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 30:14
Even pagans know the truth. And then he goes on to the next statement, it's powerful: "For when you judge another you condemn yourself." Now, I just want to stop here for a second and say this: if you have enough knowledge to judge another person, then you basically condemn yourself, that you know that's wrong, and if you're judging another person because of something they do is wrong and you do the same thing, you then have condemned yourself, because you've said, "I know it's wrong" by judging that other person. Does that make sense? So it'd be best to not judge people, because in judging you out yourself on what you know, and God judges you based on your knowledge. That's what he's warning you of here. This is really good. This is really good.
And what this means is not don't make proper evaluations or use right judgment. You're supposed to, this is what makes it hard, you're supposed to make a proper evaluation of things. It even tells you to do it later on in Matthew. If you go to Matthew chapter 7, let's just turn there. I wasn't going to do this, I was just kind of mentioning it, but let's just turn there. I think it'll be good for us to read through some of this. I'll kind of, i'll skim through it a little bit. This is one of the most quoted, when someone ever gets caught doing something sinful or wrong, this is quoted immediately: "judge not, lest you be judged." That's what's quoted, and they're quoting Matthew chapter 7, and it actually says, "Judge not, that you be not judged.
For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged." This is where the Apostle Paul is kind of bouncing off this and going, you're proving that you know it's wrong, and he judges by your knowledge, by what you know. "And with the measure you use it will be measured back to you." This here we see is the wrong type of judgment. But if you go on in the chapter, we see peppered back and forth, we see the wrong judgment to use, and we also see us being commanded to use right judgment.
If you go down, it basically says, right in verse 3, "Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own?" It doesn't say not to take the speck out of your brother's eye, it says take yours out first. All right. Part of the way that we disciple is by calling people to holiness and out of sin. We can't do that if we've got a plank in our eyes. So he says take the plank out of your own eye that you might be helpful to your brothers and sisters who are in Christ. How many of you, if you have your sister come visit with your niece and she runs out into the road, how many of you will just, and the mom's not, your sister's not paying attention, the mom's not paying attention, and the child runs down the road, how many of you will yell to the child, "Come back"? You'll do that. You don't go, "Well, that's the mom's problem, let the child die because they're a part of the family."
And because you love people, that's what we should be like, brothers and sisters in Christ.
If we see somebody going down a destructive path, it is our responsibility, yes, duty, to yell out that's dangerous.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 33:49
But in the church today, we're offended when people yell at us and tell us not to go on the road. We're offended when people tell us that we're in sin and that's dangerous. We're offended by that. Listen, the family loves each other and not to use right judgment to help call people out of those things, it's just the way it is. You don't judge yourself compared to them so that you can be justified because you're better than them. That's the wrong judgment to use. But you use judgment like, "Oh, they're running into the road, they're going to die, stop that." That's the right judgment to use.
Then he goes on and explains it even more here in chapter 7. It says this: "You hypocrite, first take out," how does he know that they're hypocrites?
You're not supposed to judge. "How dare you judge me." Can you imagine the person reading this, "Don't judge lest you be judged, you hypocrite"? How do you make that judgment? Because there's a right judgment and a wrong judgment, right, even in this text. And then it goes on, it says, "You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye." Then he goes on, "Do not give dogs what is holy," how do you know what is a dog, "and do not throw your pearls before pigs, lest they trample them underfoot and turn and attack you." And then listen to this, listen to this, you go all the way down to verse 15: "Beware of false prophets," how can you, how do you know, you can't judge, "who come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will recognize them by their," what? How dare you judge, "their fruits." That's not what it says. It says we use sound judgment to judge their fruit, but we don't judge them in a way where we compare ourselves against ourself that we might be justified before God. That's the wrong kind of judgment. And I feel like that is really important, because people are going to listen to verse 1 and 2 and go, "See, don't judge me, you have no right to judge me."
You're right. I have no right to judge you and compare myself to you in hopes to be justified before God. You're right. But in regards to calling you out of sin, I have every right, and matter of fact, it's my duty, as someone who is a part of the family of God, when I see them running towards destruction, is to call them out of that. Jesus did it repeatedly in the New Testament. The apostles did it repeatedly in the New testament. In all the epistles, Paul, and most of them are written by Paul, and these epistles that Paul wrote, he is correcting the church because they're running towards stupid consistently. Yet it's the same person who judges what people are doing that's saying, do not compare yourself by yourself in order to be justified by God. Do you see the difference? Now, what this means is not don't make proper evaluation. You're supposed to make proper evaluation of things. In other words, if you show that you can judge everybody else, then you show that you ought to be judged in the same manner and by the same standard. If you know it so well to apply it to other people, you better make sure it's going to be applied to you. That's why James 3:1 always says stop being so many teachers, for theirs is a greater condemnation. I mean, that makes me nervous, man.
Some people ask me, "Shawn, why have you changed some of your positions since starting the church?" Because there will be a higher level of judgment for the things I've done, and let me tell you, ladies and gentlemen, I want people to be here, and I want this place to be packed out, and I want people to be a part of this family, but I do not want people to be here more than I want to please the Lord, and it is my heart's desire to make sure that we are faithful, and let me tell you, there's just quite honestly some things that, my goal is to be biblical in what we do, and it's not easy.
I mean, not easy. Why should it be condemned? This is the key. The end of the verse says, "for you who judge are doing the same things." If we look at Matthew chapter 5, let's go back to chapter 5, and maybe you can mark it for later, in here we see the story of the rich young ruler, the rich young man saying that he has obeyed all the law since he was a child. This kind of false religion cannot actually restrain the sin in the heart, rather it makes it worse with self-righteousness. He's saying, let me just stop here and say this, I think this is really important.
When we hear the story of the rich young ruler, one of the things that happens is there's this dialogue that breaks out between Christ and the rich young ruler, and the rich young ruler is trying to justify himself by his obedience, his outward obedience, it's outward, everybody's outward obedience of following the law. One of the things that was a topic of conversation in this was that he said, "I have not murdered anyone, I have followed all the law since I was a child." So Jesus asked him, "Have you murdered?" He said, "Absolutely, I have never murdered, I followed the letter of the law." And then Jesus says to him, "Have you thought negatively or spoken negatively of somebody?"
And, "Yes." He goes, "That's murder." So let me break this down for you. Let me break this down for you. This is what I believe the Apostle Paul is saying: none of you have the right to judge. You're like, "Well, I can judge somebody who murdered, because I don't murder."
Wrong. Every one of you have murdered. You've murdered people in your heart. So the Apostle Paul is letting us know, that's why only God can be judge, because only God has fulfilled even the letter of the law.
You do not get to justify yourself by your good deeds.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 40:55
You do not get to justify yourself by all the good things you've done, because we are lawbreakers, we are lawless
Point 4God judges by truth, not your truth
Until we come to Christ, who empowers us to live different. The second thing that God judges by is truth. Let me just stop here and say, not your truth, the truth. That's tricky, you know. We want to know what the main reasons, I believe that this whole "well, there's your truth and there's my truth" that's come into our society, I believe it's come through the church, actually, is that we want to create a new truth because we want to be based according to our truth, not God's, and that's a problem. Like, that's a massive problem. Second principle of judgment, that is the principle of truth, verses 2 and 3.
We see this. Let's read them together: "We know that the judgment of God rightly falls on those who practice such things." Or, "But we are sure," says Paul, "that the judgment of God is according to the truth against them," everybody say truth, "who commit such things." That the judgment of God is according to truth against them who commit such things, same things that are in verse 1, which are the same things that are in chapter 1. We are sure. We know. We are sure, and we know, oidamen, that's the Greek word there, which means to know something that is commonly known, not having special revelation, but the knowing that you know what is right and wrong. That knowing, there is common, general revelation. It means generally people just know. People know, you just can't go out and be killing people, that's not good. People just know that. That's general knowledge. It's not specific knowledge, meaning that only people in the church have certain knowledge about what's right and wrong. Everyone knows it. It's general. They know. That's the Greek word that's used here. I mean, it is an obvious, basic principle that judgment of God is going to be according to truth. Why? Because God cannot lie and God is truth. That's his nature.
"Shall not the judge of all the earth do right?" We'll be judged according to what is right. Chapter 3, verse 4, it says this, and I think this is important: "Let God be true though every one were a liar." Listen to this: let God be true and every man a liar.
Another way of saying it is only God can judge. No man can judge you, because men are liars. And they are, you with me here today?
God is true. That is his nature, and he will judge everything with truth. In 9:14, Paul says, "Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid." God never does anything that isn't right. God never makes any evaluation that isn't correct. And if you go back to the Old Testament again and again, the truthfulness of God's nature is revealed. In Psalm 9, and I love this, and I stayed on this most of the week, Psalm 9 says, "For you have maintained my just cause, you sit on the throne, giving righteous judgment." And then verse 8: "And he judges the world with righteousness." There's also another one in Psalm 96, verse 13: "Rejoice before the Lord, for he comes to judge the earth. He will judge the world in righteousness and the peoples in his truth." I love that. I love that. See that, that totally refutes this "your truth, my truth" thing.
He will judge the people of the earth with his capital-T truth.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 45:39
Why is the Apostle Paul saying all this? Here's why. Here's simply why: that we might fear the Lord and turn towards him.
These chapters here at the beginning of Romans are trying to strike fear in the heart of people that they may turn to God for their hope.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 46:09
If you find yourself this morning, and listen to me, you find yourself this morning in the heaviness of these texts, these chapters, feeling overwhelmed and turning away from God but towards sin, you should be concerned, because the goal of this is to turn people's hearts away from sin and towards God, because he is our only hope. He's our only hope.
There is something in us that wants to exonerate ourself all the time, right? Write these phrases down if you can. Here's some phrases, I was thinking about this week, and you might be able to think of some more. "Oh, God would never do that. He would never send me to hell." Or, "I'm a good person." Or,
Point 5Do not presume on God's mercy
"It'll be all right in the end, it'll all work out, so I'm going to do whatever I want." Now listen to me,
I'm afraid in the church that we've gotten so used to mercy that we take advantage of it.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 47:25
We have gotten so used to God not killing us because of our sin that we linger in sin intentionally. Yet the Bible says that the wages of sin is death.
Every time you sin, God has a perfect right to snuff your life out, but we presume on his mercy that he will not strike us. The Apostle Paul is saying be careful with this kind of life. Now, I was raised in the South, and it was fire and brimstone and all that stuff, and they would try to scare people into a decision. I don't think that decision is real, but listen,
The gospel is scary. It's good news, but it's scary.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 48:36
First, God has provided a way for the most depraved and horrible sinner to turn to him, to repent, to change their mind about what they're doing and turn to a Savior who is Christ. But I'm afraid that those, especially in the church, those especially in the church, we have gotten so used to God not killing us, God not punishing us, and his mercy and his forbearance, that we take advantage of him and we do what we please, hoping that his mercy will last another day. The Apostle Paul is saying don't do that.
Do not become so common with the mercy of God that you take advantage of the mercy of God. The Apostle Paul in another book says, "Should we sin that grace may abound more? Absolutely not." What he's saying is do not take advantage of the grace of God so that grace might increase. That is not what a Christian does. If you're a Christian, you do not do that. It's simple. I don't care what people say, I only care what the Bible says, and the Bible says you can't do that. People say, "Well, he's not going to kill me, it'll be all right, he's so gracious, he's loving, he wouldn't do that." But instead of us, out of love, being grateful for his graciousness, we tend as human beings to trade on it and distort it for our personal desires.
Listen to me, there's a word in the theology world that is this, you can write it down and look it up and read all of the facets of this, and this branches out beyond its definition into our current cultural context, and the word is fatalism. When I talk about people taking advantage of the mercy and grace of God, i'm talking about a fatalist. They are in our churches and they are in this world, a fatalist. Specifically, most fatalists tend to be people who believe in predestination, in other words, God's chosen some to go to heaven and some to go to hell, and so we can live however we want because he's either chosen me or he hasn't. So that lends itself, that type of theological position lends itself to becoming a fatalist. But there are some people who don't believe, they're more free-will theologians, and they believe that it is our choice, but even though people are free-will, believe in the free will, they take advantage of the grace of God and take advantage of the mercy of God, and they decide and set their face like flint to continue in sin and doing it, hoping that God's mercy won't run out before judgment comes, and they live how they please, presuming upon God's grace and mercy. That's what a fatalist does.
There are fatalists in this building. The Apostle Paul is saying if that's you're just as doomed as the people in chapter 1.
So what's the hope? Put your faith in Christ. That's the hope. That's the only hope.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 52:13
"Well, I don't know that I could ever live and not sin." First John says you will not make a practice of sin. In other words, it will not be premeditated. You will not sit down and weigh the cost and choose sin. If you're a believer, you won't, and you won't continue to practice that sin over and over and over again. You won't do that. Some of you are like, "Well, I actually been wrestling with sin and I don't want to do it and I'm trying to quit." Okay, good. Quit. You're like, "Well, it's going to take time for me to quit." Yes, it will. That doesn't mean you're not a believer, but the time that you meditate on "should I do this? No, I shouldn't do this, God wouldn't be pleased if I do this," and you struggle with that time should become greater and greater. It's dangerous to premeditate, to think about sinning and then just go and do it against God. John's saying be careful about that. Will you sin? Will you sin and not do it premeditating, meaning somebody cut you off on the road, you go and you get mad, you don't even have to flip the bird, you can sit in your heart saying all kinds of things about that person, you can smear their character and murder them, "Idiot, what's the matter with you?" You just murdered them in your heart.
That's not premeditated, that's not premeditated, you just responded. If you do that, are you a Christian? Yes, you can be a Christian. If you've been in the church for 10 years and you have, let's say you have an addiction, let's just say pornography, because that's the number one drug, maybe it hits a small, pornography hits a big part of the church, so let's talk about that. You have an addiction and you're struggling with that. The Bible says if you love God and you've repented, you've turned towards God, and the Lord Jesus Christ is your Lord, not pornography, simple. It's simple. You're like, "Well, I want to make a different truth. My truth is, my truth is that I can love pornography and love God." But you're not judged by your truth, you're judged by the truth. Are you with me today? And our fruit and our actions, they tell on what we love. They tell on it. That's what Paul's trying to accomplish here today. You're like, "Man, Shawn, this is heavy, where's the hope?" The hope is Christ. That's the hope. Turn to Christ. Don't turn to sin when you hear this because you're heavy-hearted. Turn to Christ. In verse 3, chapter 4, First Corinthians, Paul says this, with me: "It is a very small thing that I should be judged by you or by any human court."
And then he says this, I love this: "I do not even judge myself." What is he saying there? He, in other words, is saying, I personally am not even qualified to judge myself. Why? Because every man's a liar and only God is truth, and how can I judge myself?
Man's judgment does not square with the facts, but God's always does. And the problem with the moralist, you see, is that a moralist thinks he's okay because, as Paul said in Corinthians, later in Corinthians, he is judging himself by himself.
I'm going to read something and then we'll close. It's this in First John 3:20. I'm going to close with this thought. First John 3:20 says this: "Beloved, if our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and he knows all things."
I mean, if our conscience is self-condemning, in other words, because everybody has a conscience, so some of you have been feeling convicted about the choices that you've been making, so God has given us a conscience that we might know what is right and wrong, and it condemns us, it's self-condemning, can you imagine then how condemning God must be with an infinite, holy knowledge of everything? When we as believers have a limited knowledge, how much more condemning is a God who has infinite knowledge? If your conscience condemns you now for the things you do wrong, how much more would God?
He has built in us a conscience. A
Conscience is like pain. Pain calls you to stop what is hurting your body. Conscience is in the spiritual world what pain is in the real world.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 57:45
Pain is there to get you to stop. Your conscience is there to get you to stop. It is the proverbial stop sign in the spiritual. Conscience does the same thing pain does in the spiritual dimension, and if our conscience is telling us that we're evil, if our conscience is condemning us and telling us to stop doing what we're doing, if we have more questions than we have answers, if we're wondering if it's okay, your conscience is saying stop.
If our conscience condemns us, and our conscience is a part of our fallenness, can you imagine how God must condemn us, who is unfallen and eternal and holy and perfect? And so what he's saying in verse 3 is this: do you think you, of all people, who know God's law and condemn it in others, do you think that you can break it and escape judgment? So what is he doing here?
Because all of us have to go, "No, I've broke God's law." What is he doing here?
He is trying to get everyone to see we all need a Savior.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 59:17
All of us. All of us. The gospel is for all of us.
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