Would you join me at Romans 2:1.  We are studying the first 5 chapters of Paul’s letter to the Romans.  Paul is teaching about how God has answered our deepest need in the gospel.  What it means for us to be a peace with God - to be put into a right relationship with God.  All of which is online if you’d like to listen to where we’ve been.

Where we are going this morning - here in chapter 2 - we are continuing  what we began looking at last Sunday - Paul’s teaching that apart from God we’re in serious serious trouble.  All of us - without exception - all of us are deeply enmeshed in the sin of this world.  Apart from God stepping in and rescuing us we have no hope.

Thank God that He does step in and we do have hope.

Would you read with me 2:1-5.

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.

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 do them yourself—that you will escape the judgment of God?  Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?  But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed.

Verses 1 to 5 can be summed up as Man’s Partial Justice.  Which is the kind of favoritism that we tend to show ourselves.  We generally skew justice in our favor.

Paul beings with a “therefore” - in verse 1 - the therefore is there for to remind us of what Paul just wrote back in chapter 1.

A quick reminder of that:  God revealing Himself to us in His creation.  Look around.  All of what we see is about God revealing Himself to us - God inviting us into a relationship with Him - to seek Him - to know Him.  Yet, man - seeing all that - man chooses instead to trust ourselves - our own whit, wisdom, and working.  Man choosing to go our own way through life.

Paul wrote that God responds to our choice by giving us up to the consequences of our choice.  Not that God gives up on us.  But that God lets us experience the consequences of our choice to trust ourselves not God.  God gives us up to the consequences of our choice so that when we hit bottom - and we will - we will choose to turn to God.

Which is how Paul ended chapter one - this list - along with a description of our sexual and relational brokenness - and the foolishness of our philosophy and religion and intellectual achievements.  Verses 18 to 32 of chapter one are a sad description of where our society is.  An ugly list of consequences - the gutter of where man left to himself - apart from God - where man has ended up. 

Paul’s therefore - continues that thought - the ugliness of man’s sin.  Paul writes, “therefore” - keeping all that ugliness in mind - “you have no excuse.”

Many many years ago I was driving my VW Bug to the beach - down in Malibu - and I was probably doing just a few miles per hour over the limit.  Seriously.  I think the speed limit was 55 and I think I was doing about 57 or 58.

When an officer pulled me over and informed that I had been driving about 70 plus mph - way over the limit he said - and passing numerous vehicles going over the hill - weaving in and out of traffic - driving in an unsafe manner.  He gave me with a slip of paper that I had to sign - promising to appear before the local judge.  A lot of us have been there?

Between getting the ticket and showing up at court I’d had time to think through my defense.  For one thing - my humble little VW Bug was not going to do 70 plus mph going up hill.  I’d gotten it up to 76 once on the grapevine... going downhill.  Which was kinda scary.  But uphill passing cars?  Not physically possible.  Anyway, by time I’d gotten to the courthouse I had a long list of reasons why the judge would be more than happy to dismiss the ticket.

When I got to the court there were a ton of people waiting to go before that judge.  As I waited for my shot at the judge - watching what was going on - the trend was obvious.  Think small town judge.  Judge with a reputation for hanging people.  This judge was out for blood.  The more I listened.  The more I realized that my puny little arguments were going no where.  And - bottom line - I was speeding.  Even if only a little.

The judge asked me, “How do you plead?”  Moment of truth:  “Guilty” - of course.  I had no excuse.

That’s what Paul means here.  You have no excuse.  There is no possible defense you can offer.  You’re guilty.  End of argument.

Paul writes that “you” are with excuse.  The “you” here in verse 1 - “you” is singular.  Meaning that Paul has moved from a planet wide - empirical - generic summary of the mess mankind has made of humanity - Paul has moved to what is very personal:  “you - the one sitting on the comfortable cushy teal colored chair - you have no excuse.”

Meaning that what Paul writes here is something that each of us needs to personally process and own for ourselves.

Have you seen this?  “Just when you think you’ve won the rat race along come faster rats.”  Life is a rat race and the rats are... winning.  What’s hard is to see ourselves as a rat.  Rats are other people.

We can look at Paul’s therefore - his list in chapter 1 - look at the condition of what goes around us - the many ways our society is broken and coming apart at the seams - we can look at the sin - and somehow convince ourselves that what we’re caught up in isn’t all that bad.  But  Paul’s point is that it is.

“You” also are without excuse.  There is no defense for our behavior.  Paul writes, “You who judge - you practice the same things.”

Not that any of us would ever do this.  But its like being in the #1 lane on the freeway - the fast lane - and driving just a tad above the limit.  And a guy zooms up behind us - flashing his lights at us - and gets all ticked because we take our own sweet time moving over.  Maybe as he flies by he might even do some communicating with us.  Our response is natural.  What a jerk.  None of us would ever do that.  Right?

We’re both breaking the law.  But I can’t see my own guilt because the other guy is a worse jerk.

The kind of judgment Paul is writing about here is our tendency to impose our standards of righteousness on others.  Our tendency to be fault- finders - to be negative and destructive towards other people - to our benefit and their detriment.  Judging people harshly.  Being judgmental.

Paul writes that we’re condemning people for the same things we ourselves are doing.  Someone wisely observed that when we point one finger at someone else we’re point three fingers back at ourselves.  If they all are worthy of condemnation for doing what they’re doing and we’re doing the same thing we’re just pointing out how guilty we are.

Are we grabbing Paul’s point?  Stop making excuses.  We all need a dose of reality in order to deal with the reality of where our lives are actually at.

It would be way too easy - while we’re hearing this - to fall into the trap of thinking to ourselves, “This isn’t about me.”  “I’m not that bad.”  “Oh, I suppose in some sense that may be true.  But, I’m not really in that bad a shape.”

Paul writes:  “You are without excuse.”  There is no wiggle room in that.  Each of us needs to stop making excuses.

Its like people who want to loose weight by taking a pill or having a surgery - or maybe they go on some kind of diet.  They loose all the weight and then they gain it all back again.  Why is keeping weight off harder than loosing it?  Because real weight loss means a change of life.  Which is where most people don’t want to go.  We might deal with the surface issues - the symptoms of the disease - our outward behavior - without getting down to the core of what’s really messed up in our lives.

We want results without dealing with the issues.  We want to come across as righteous without dealing with the sin.  So we make excuses.  We point fingers.

People come to church trying to come across as all godly and everything.  And they stiff arm God’s people - not really getting too close - too involved.  Because there’s potential accountability in that.  That might mean dealing with real issues.  Which is why when things get too touchy feely they move on.  Usually blaming the pastor or finding some fault in the congregation as an excuse for moving rather than admitting their own issues.

“Christians aren’t perfect - just forgiven.”  Can be a huge cop-out.

“Sure its killing me but I’m quitting.  I’m down to 3 cigarettes a day.  Have been for the past 5 years.”

“Its not hard core porn.  I’m not paying for it.  Does it really matter what I’m watching?” 

“What’s wrong with a drink now and then.  I’m not getting drunk… too often.”

“Please excuse my French.”

“Its not gossip.  It’s a prayer request.”

“Everyone else is doing it.  Its how things are done.”

How we use our time.  How we spend our money.  Who really is in control of all that?

Have we surrendered all?  Have we taken up our cross?  Have we died to self?  Are we really being honest about the sin in our lives?  Or, are we making excuses and comparison condemning?

Please please hear this:  When we make excuses or comparison condemn - we condemn ourselves to remain in the consequences of our sin because we are choosing not to allow God to deal with the real issues in our lives.

Paul writes - verse 2 - We know that the judgment of God rightly falls on those who practice such things. 

“Well I’m not as bad as they are”  “This isn’t really as bad as all that.” 

Like God is going to buy that as an excuse for us to keep sinning.   “You know, you are so right.  What was I thinking?  I obviously made a mistake.”

Let’s be clear:  God doesn’t make mistakes.  He judges rightly.  He knows the score.  His judgment is going to fall on us because He loves us too much to let us get away with doing these things.

Verse 3:  Do you suppose, O man—you who judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourself—that you will escape the judgment of God? 

“Do you suppose” translates a Greek word that if we do all the word studies and trace it down to its roots it relates to the Greek word we get our English word “logic” from.  Its a Star Trek moment.  Spock:  “To condemn others for what we ourselves are guilty of is not logical.”

“To suppose” is about how we’re thinking this through - or not.  Our considering the reality of the way things are - reasoning all this out.  Do we really think that God is going to look the other way when we sin?  Is that really the defense we want to stand behind?

The Pharisees brought the woman they’d stalked and caught in “the very act of adultery” - brought the women to Jesus.  Demanded God’s decreed judgment to be enacted upon the woman.  Death by stoning.  Jesus instead exposes their own sin.  Their self-righteous judgment backfires before God.  (John 8:1-11)

Verse 4:  Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? 

Sometimes it seems we have the idea that God is kinda like Santa Claus.  Santa Claus is suppose to check his list to find out who’s naughty or nice.  Coal in the stocking verses an orange or iPod touch.  But everyone knows that Santa Claus is going to bring them presents even though they weren’t very good.

We have a tendency to misinterpret God’s attitude towards us - His kindness and forbearance and patience - thinking that God doesn’t care about sin.

Kindness in Greek means... kindness.  Forbearance has the idea of enduring - persevering - hanging in there with us even when we’re not all that hanging in thereable.  Patience is a word in Greek that has the idea of God holding back on leveling us.

Peter writes:  “But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.  What’s that about?  The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness - meaning don’t misinterpret God’s slowness - meaning judgment and wrath will come - but - God - is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.”  (2 Peter 3:8,9)

God is kind to us - hangs in there with us - holds back on leveling us - because God desires for us to repent.  Repent meaning God desires for us to change our minds about how we’re living our lives and the choice we’ve made about God.  180 degree change of mind and direction of our lives.

To stop trying to make excuses for how we’re living.  To stop trying to justify our lives.  To stop being so stubborn about hanging on to our own self-willed - self-focused - so called control of our lives.  Instead to agree with God that we desperately need His salvation and forgiveness - and to turn our lives completely over to Him.

We’re together?

Verse 5:  But because of your hard - meaning hard to penetrate - and impenitent - meaning unchanged - purposefully unrepentant - heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed.

We’re like hogs at a trough.  Eating slop.  Thinking we are really something.  “Pass me another watermelon rind.”  Thinking that Satan’s delusional world of sin - what we’re making excuse for - that all that is really of such great value.  All the time we’re just fattening ourselves up for the slaughter.  Storing up more wrath for ourselves.

It is sobering - if we could ever really grab on to the reality of God’s character and how God does things - how loving and gracious and merciful is God - that His kindness and forbearance and patience is God holding back a little longer.  Not because He doesn’t care.  Not out of weakness.  But out of determination and purpose - that we should recognize the precariousness of our lives - our great need - and out of humble gratitude turn from our sin and turn our lives over to Him.

Regardless of how we may see our lives - in comparison to others - through rose colored glasses.  We need God.  On God’s terms.  Not ours. 

Verses 6 to 11 focus on God’s Impartial Justice.  Take a breath.  Let’s read these together. 

He will render to each one according to his works:  to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; but for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury.

For God shows no partiality.

Paul writes that God “will render to each one according to his works…” 

The word translated “render” in Greek has the idea of paying wages.  In other words what we earn by our works - by what we do - God will pay us.

We need to be careful with that because reading through verses 6 to 8 it almost sounds like what Paul is saying is that our salvation from eternal damnation is based on our works.  Salvation by works.  Kinda sounds like that.  Doesn’t it? 

Which of course would be Paul contradicting Paul - Ephesians 2:8,9:  “For by grace you have been saved through faith - not works.”  Worse - Paul contradicting God.  Not a good thing.

Let’s be careful.  We know that a day is coming when there’s going to be one terrifying courtroom scene.  Every human being who has ever lived - each one us here - are going to be there.  Everything that everyone has ever done is going to be laid out before God and for everyone to see.

Evidence of our relationship with God on display for everyone to see - the works we’ve done.  Evidence presented without any pretense or partiality.

John Stott put it this way:  “The presence or absence of our faith in Christ will be evident by the presence or absence of love and good works in our lives.” (1)

In other words, there are only two choices in life…  towards God or not towards God.  Either we’ve come to the point of trusting God with our lives - trusting Jesus as our Savior - or not.

What we do.  How we live our lives is going to be rooted in whichever of those two choices we’ve made.  Either we’re a person who’s repented and  is living seeking after God - seeking to grow closer to Him every day - yearning for God - longing to do what is right before God - seeking after what He offers us in Jesus - glory - honor - eternal life - or we’re not.

Are we together?  The reward of eternal life… is promised to those who aren’t seeing their good works as an end in themselves.  They’re seeing what they do - not as some great human achievement - but a result of their hope in God.  Their trust isn’t in their works - but in God who rewards those works.  God who’s the only source of glory and honor and eternal life.

Point being:  God knows the choice we’ve made - the root - the source of our works.  Why we do what we do.  God will render to us what is our due based on why we do what we do.

Verse 9:  There will be tribulation and distress for every human being who does evil, the Jew first and also the Greek, but glory and honor and peace from everyone who does good, the Jew first and also the Greek.

The Jews figured that since they we’re God’s chosen people they had an “in” with God.  In a sense they were using their status as Jews as an excuse to live however they wanted and to look down on everyone else as being spiritually “less than” who they were.

Paul is saying that - when it comes to God’s judgment - that isn’t what’s going to cut it with God.  It doesn’t matter if we’re Jews or Greeks - and in this context Greek means everyone else who isn’t a Jew - us.

It doesn’t matter if we’re part of Creekside or a Baptist or Methodist or a Lutheran or a whatever - whether we were raised in a Christian home or not - if we tithe 1% or 100% or if we’re a church 1 day a week or 8 days a week - whether we sing hymns or chorus or screamo and throat singing.  All that isn’t the bottom line.

Bottom line - verse 11:  God shows no partiality.

Partiality means God isn’t concerned with how He’s trending on YouTube.  He’s not counting the number of “likes” on Facebook.  He’s not concerned with what the polls or surveys are saying about the decisions He’s making.  God’s justice can’t be bought off with our excuses. 

Deuteronomy 10:17:  “For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God, who is not partial and takes no bribe.”  

God is God.  What could we possibly offer God as a bribe?

Whatever we come with - wealth, power, status, ethnicity, nationality, heritage, culture, philosophy, religion - all that counts for nada - zip.  However we might compare ourselves with others will mean nothing.  Our own self-estimation counts for nothing.  Not even a smidgin.  Or a tad.

At the end of days - each of us standing before God as the judge - everything that we’ve ever done is going to be placed on God’s scale and weighed against the character of the one holy righteous God.  God’s holy character is the true standard of righteousness.  Not the righteousness of other people or even our own conscience. 

If the weight of our righteousness fails to tip the balance in our favor, we will be found guilty.  Period.

Do you see what Paul is getting at here?  God is intensely concerned with how we are living our lives because of our relationship with Him.  The works - the way our lives are lived - based on the choice we’ve made - either to live in our self-defending - world of self-delusion - or to live in honesty and openness before God.  

One of the reasons we hang back from pursing any real change in our lives is a fear of what that may mean.  “I know what I’m living in now is painful.  But at least that pain is something I know.  Honesty - change - I have no idea what that may mean.”

Paul is showing us two possible sets of consequences based on our choice to stop making excuses or not.  Our choice of honesty before God or not.  Our choice to let God deal with the core of our lives - our deeper issues - or not.  Glory and honor and eternal life verses tribulation and distress and wrath and fury.  All of what God offers us verses all of where our lives are without Him.

We need to see that reality.  What God offers us is infinitely better than where we might be living without Him.

God being impartial give’s us hope.  Two reasons - among many - but two for us to act on as we head out of here to out there.

Hope giving reason number one:  At least we know where we stand.   It may be ugly.  But its honest.

Anyone recognize this man?  Jeffrey Dahmer.

Let me read for you some of what Philip Yancey writes about Jeffrey Dahmer in his book:  What’s So Amazing About Grace?

Dahmer, a mass murderer, had abused and then killed seventeen young men, cannibalizing them and storing body parts in his refrigerator.  His arrest caused a shake-up in the Milwaukee police department when it became known that officers had ignored the desperate pleas of a Vietnamese teenager who tried to escape by running, naked and bleeding, from Dahmer’s apartment.  That boy too became Dahmer’s victim, one of eleven corpses found in his apartment.

In November of 1994, Dahmer himself was murdered, beaten to death with a broom handle wielded by a fellow prisoner.  Television news reports that day included interviews with the grieving relatives of Dahmer’s victims, most of whom said they regretted Dahmer’s murder only because it ended his life too soon.  He should have had to suffer by being forced to live longer and think about the terrible things he had done.

One network showed a television program taped a few weeks before Dahmer’s death.  The interviewer asked him how he could possibly do the things he had been convicted of.  At the time he didn’t believe in God, Dahmer said, and so he felt accountable to no one.  He began with petty crimes, experimented with small acts of cruelty, and then just kept going, further and further.  Nothing restrained him.

Dahmer then told of his recent religious conversion.  He had been baptized in the prison whirlpool and was spending all his time reading religious material given him by a local Church of Christ minister.  The camera switched to an interview with the prison chaplain, who affirmed that Dahmer had indeed repented and was now one of his most faithful worshipers. (2)

Most people find that troubling.  Grace for a cannibal?  It would be so easy for us to say, “Nope.  Not that easy.  Not after what you did.  God is forgiving.  But grace is for average sinners.  Not someone like you.”

Reading what Paul wrote in chapter one it would be easy to say, “Yep - those are sinners.”  Coming to chapter two isn’t so easy.  Its hard to think of ourselves with same standing before God as a Jeffery Dahmer or and Adolf Hitler or the jerk in the car behind us.  But, like Dahmer - and every sinner who has ever lived - we all need God’s kind of grace - His forgiveness.  His healing.

We may not like it.  But God is impartially honest with us because He desires - by His grace - to forgive even us - to heal us - to put right our relationship with Him.

Hope giving reason number two:  We know where God stands.   What God will render and why.

Is the glass half empty or half full?  Good news or bad news?

Take your pick.  We could focus on the wrath and tribulation and distress part of what Paul writes.  Which is 100% certain.  Its coming.  Or - much more hopeful - we can focus on the glory and honor and peace and eternal life part of what God promises.  Which is 100% certain.

God will render to each one of us one or the other.  God will - hear the certainty in that - He will render to each one of us according to our works - the basis of how we’re living our lives.  The choice we’ve made.  Honesty before God - agreeing with Him that we’re sinners and we need His salvation offered in Jesus - or our ongoing excuses - trying to deal with our sin and its consequences by our own whit, wisdom, and working.

Which is one question we all have to have answer.

Hear Paul again:  “Therefore you have no excuse.  For God shows no partiality.”

Question:  When you stand before God as your impartial judge what defense will you offer?

_________________________

1. Cited by Gary Vanderet, Judging The Judgmental, sermon from Romans 2:1-16, 03.21.1999, PBC Cupertino

2. Philip Yancey, What’s So Amazing About Grace?, Zondervan, 1997, page 95