If you're born into a Christian home, what a privilege! What are you going to do with it? Now some figure it out quite kind of early. Some may take some decades. But it is not something we should dismiss. It's something we should keep up front. We have the high privilege of having scripture and having a relationship not only with the Christ of the scripture, but his people. What are we going to do with it? Back to the servant. Servant is supposed to be useful.
And your usefulness diminishes with ignorance. This is Cross-Reference Radio with our pastor and teacher Rick Gaston. Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville in Mechanicsville, Virginia. Pastor Rick is currently teaching through the book of Romans, so please stay with us after today's message to hear more information about Cross-Reference Radio, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching. God's fairness is the title of Pastor Rick's message, and today he'll be teaching in Romans 2. We end the parentheses between verses 13 and 15, 4 verse 12, and now verse 16. If we should read 16, I don't want to read 12 again because we're going to be saying the word law 20 more times. So just verse 16. In the day when God will judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my gospel.
He is the inescapable standard. Of course, here's the line. I'm a good guy. I'm going to go to heaven.
What do you base that off of? What makes you say you're a good guy? Well, I didn't steal. I didn't murder.
I didn't cheat. Yeah, but that's not the standard. The standard is Jesus Christ. Did you commit any sin ever? Of course, everybody has to say.
If you've ever felt guilt, if you've ever been sorry for something, the way you've treated somebody, those things have disqualifying elements about them. Christ never had to apologize. He says, you know, he's the standard and that's what we're being told here. Acts chapter 17. Because he has appointed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by the man whom he has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising him from the dead. Christ is the standard. So the guy that says, well, I'm not as bad as the people in jail.
Yeah, well, they're not the standard. And neither is anybody better than you. Only Christ could die for sinners because only he was good enough. There's more to the story than just that he was good enough because who he is in essence, he is God the Son, the Son of God. Philippians, we know this one and we love it. At the name of Jesus, every knee will bow.
Everyone will. He is God Almighty. 2 Corinthians 5, knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men. Knowing that God will. He's not lying when he says, you know, there's a hell waiting for people who reject me. The final test of the soul is to be that of a man's attitude towards the Savior.
How God works out those little gray zones, that's his prerogative. I go by what he has revealed in the scripture. I am told to preach the gospel wherever the door opens by the Holy Spirit.
That is my responsibility. You know, there's a military expression, at least when I was in, you know, kill them and eat them, let God sort them out. Now, that's not Christian, but it does convey this idea that there is brutality in this world and it's not intentional.
They're not saying, hey, let's make a theological statement with this. I'm making the theological statement on the human perspective. There's violence, there's evil in this world, and God is going to sort it out. And because we know who he is, we're good.
He's going to do it right. If you've seen me, you've seen the Father. That is one of the most profound statements known to man. Verse 17, indeed, now he switches. He has addressed those without a Bible, that they have enough morality in them for God to hold them accountable. Now he comes to the people with Bibles and he's saying, God's going to hold them accountable too.
Indeed, you are called a Jew and rest on the law and make your boast in God, verse 18, and know his will and approve the things that are excellent, being instructed out of the law, verse 19, and are confident that you yourself are a guide to the blind, a light to those who are in darkness, verse 20, an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of babes, having a form of knowledge and truth in the law. Later he'll write to Timothy, they have a form of knowledge. I just forgot the verse. Maybe I can distract you to act like I didn't forget the verse. They have a form of knowledge. Okay, forget it. It's not there. I'll get it maybe in a sermon, but I think you know where I'm going with that.
I'm totally blank on it. Anyway, but I still know my name, so that's just my check, you know. Okay, I know who I am.
Here's my phone number. Alright, verse 20, it was where we just finished reading. So he returns, he is addressing a Jewish mindset. Not all Jews thought this way, but a lot of them did, and it is equally erroneous behavior. It's also found in Gentiles, but he's singling out the Jews, and he has to do this because, again, there were Gentiles in the church that were looking up to the Jews because they were the ones that had the scripture. When the Gentiles came in, they heard the gospel, and then the Jew would say, Christ is the Messiah, and here is written in our prophets, and here's Isaiah's account. The Gentile would say, well who's Isaiah? You'd have to ask a Jew that, and the Jew would tell him, and this was part of the church becoming what she is today. So Paul needs to make a level playing field in front of everybody, and that's what he is attempting and succeeding at, I think, in doing. So this is a widespread behavior of moral superiority based on ethnicity that some of the Jews were pulling, and so he's bringing it up.
Unlike Gentiles, the Jews had the true story of religion and truth from their birth. They were raised with spiritual privilege, and I want to go back to something I said last Sunday. I mentioned a pastor's children, and how it's a unique challenge put on them. When they're still children, they know how to deal with the things.
You know, if it's an adult, he knows he's got defense, so she has defense mechanisms, but as a child, they're just trying to frolic along with everybody else, and then people got them under this magnifying glass. But I want to add, especially for those who will be listening on radio whenever this message makes its way there, if you are a pastor's child, you have been on purpose born into a house of a pastor. It is an ordained position from that perspective.
God knew you were going to be a pastor's child. Now, what are you going to do with it? Are you going to abuse it? Are you going to neglect it? Are you going to grab hold of it? I would encourage you to grab hold of it and say, yeah, God put me in this house as he did. You know, he put Aaron in the house of the priest, and his sons, and Phinehas was born into the house of the priesthood, and what they did with it was up to them, and this is true of those who are not pastor's children.
If you're born into a Christian home, what a privilege. What are you going to do with it? Now, some figure it out quite kind of early. Some may take some decades, but it is not something we should dismiss. It's something we should keep up front. We have the high privilege of having scripture and having a relationship, not only with the Christ of the scripture, but his people.
What are we going to do with it? Back to the servant. Servant is supposed to be useful, and your usefulness diminishes with ignorance, but if you really want to serve, then you want to squeeze out of your Christianity everything you can get, and that takes work and patience. It takes love. It takes pain, and the pain will come, at least in my Christian, walk from two sources.
One you won't be surprised at. It comes from people. All right, I get that. I'm probably doing the same thing others, I'm sure, but the other one comes from God. God withholds things that are important to me as he does you, and we have to learn to live with that. God takes away loved ones. We have to deal with that. That's not the whole, you know, there's more to our story than whatever we're facing in life, and the more to our story is the usefulness to our Savior. I don't know what Christian would say. No, I don't agree with that. I like my carnality. I think this life is all we have. Of course, that's the worldling speaking. Anyway, the Jews raised with privilege, and that increases responsibility and influence and blessings.
Paul wants to ensure everyone that understanding sin and the consequences is very important, and that it is insane to acknowledge that there is a God, and then to go on to live without any fear of what displeases that God. Can you imagine somebody, well, I believe there's a God. Yeah, well, what does he like? Maybe he doesn't like right-handed people. I mean, how do you know what he likes and doesn't like? What are you going to do about it when you find out?
I mean, if I found out God didn't like right-handed people, I'd be doing a lot of work with my left hand, so I'd do something about that, but we have a whole planet of people like this. I believe in God. Which one? One made up or one who made? And when you start digging into this, you find you look for as an unbroken witness. Where did you hear about your God?
What do you have to back it up? You got any prophecy? Any spiritual features?
Anything we can verify? Every religion of the world has got nothing. False religion. Every false religion has got nothing but word of mouth, and so we have so much more. That's why Peter said we have the more sure word of prophecy.
May we learn to use it. Don't be intimidated, and don't deny. We're not born with knowledge of the Bible. We have to work for that, so don't be so surprised when you realize, you know what, I'm not as smart as I thought I was in Christ.
You start meeting other people that know the Bible more than you, and that has never happened to me, but I'm sure you have that. Don't be intimidated. It's not God saying, are you a big dummy?
It's God saying, you just got work to do. That's all. It's not a competition. Just know me.
Know the Scripture. Hang in there. Keep moving forward. There's always going to be someone better than you. It's really hard for me to admit that, so I want to make a joke and say, so I'm told. The flesh does not want to be in second place ever.
Even when it acts so good game, and it lost, it's like, grrr. Some of that is useful. Anyhow, I've really gone elsewhere. Coming back to verse 21 now, you therefore who teach another, do you teach yourself? 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?
Verse 23, you who make your boast in the law, do you dishonor God through breaking the law? So this is the hypophora device of rhetoric that he's using. Ask the question. Get the person thinking.
Highlight the absurdities, and then begin to deal with it. And he does this again, the question and answer format of Romans. So he's not singling out an individual.
He's saying, hey, let's talk about some people who do this kind of stuff so we can get to the bottom of the matter. I like that he says, you who abhor idols. Well, he knows he's talking to Jews. He's, and do you rob temples? He didn't say, you who abhor idols, do you pray to idols?
You would think that would be consistent with the question. But he knows the Jews, these Jews at this time in history, they're not going to pray to idols, but they might steal them, then cash in on them. So it's just very, very down to earth, very human, very smart of Paul. Integrity is now the concern. So if you're raised in a Christian home, and your parents do something that is beneath that standard of Christianity they're teaching you, you do not have the right to throw Christ out the window, because mom and dad may have goofed somewhere. You still are accountable to Christ yourself. Don't try to play that, well, see, it's all a joke, you're all hypocrites. It ain't going to work.
It won't serve you well. But integrity is the issue for all of us. Commandments of God are not abstract.
They're concrete. You shall not murder. It's as clear as a bell. If you're going to make the, do the talk, then do the walk, and it's going to be a struggle. We're going to fall sometimes. But once you get rid of conscience, integrity fails, and sin becomes very easy after that. May that not be the way we do business as Christians in our own lives. Integrity is, here's integrity. You want to drive across a bridge, but a shipping barge has just smashed into one of the pillars of that bridge. Now that challenges the integrity of the bridge.
It might not now be strong enough to support the weight of you crossing over. So we understand integrity is pretty important, whether it's with truth or structure. We're not, we have to uphold these things because they are right. Verse 24, for the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you as it is written. Now before we get to his quote from Isaiah, he makes the point. Now the Gentiles are still going to be guilty on another level, if that's all they got, but he's saying you're helping the enemy. Sinful behavior brings no glory to God, whether you are a synagogue-goer or a church-goer, and you're making it easy for Satan with blatant sin. There are a lot of people looking for reality in religion, and they know when it's not there. They can see the integrity is not there, and they may not use that word, but they write it off, and they feel justified that now I have the integrity of God.
They'll justify that now I don't have to follow Christ because look what these Christians are doing. This is the case with David when he had sinned, and the prophet Nathan confronted him and said, by this deed you have given great occasion to the enemies of Yahweh to blaspheme. David is hard enough to preach the truth of God to sinners who by nature don't want to hear it, and then you come along as the writer of Psalms, and you mess it all up. What happened after that? David had power to say slay that man, but David was already smitten. David owned his sin.
Then what happened? God used him to write some of the Bible again. Is that not phenomenal mercy and grace?
Is that not phenomenal? Before we go pointing out fingers at everybody else, we look for God is a God who looks for a solution, and so he wrote Psalm 51, four exams, Psalm 34, but Psalm 51 created me a clean heart O God. Take not thy Holy Spirit from me.
Restore to me the joy of my salvation. That was born out of a sin wreck, and not an endorsement, but it is a fact how God is awesome in the fullest meaning of that word. Those who suppose Christians fall somehow, excuses them from judgment, are spiritually delusional. If you think because a Christian messed up that now you can reject Christ that gives you grounds to reject other. That was something I wanted to do in front of everybody. Why?
Why? If you think that because a Christian messes up you now have grounds to reject truth, the truth of God, you are spiritually delusional, and this goes back to the one that says I believe in God, but I don't care what he thinks. There's something tragic about all of that. Verse 25, for circumcision is indeed profitable if you keep the law. Now I'm going to interpret that word circumcision as we go through because it's foreign to us in many ways. If you replace the word circumcision with the word separated, which the circumcision was an emblem of, separation from the world to Yahweh, then maybe it helps us understand the culture and what is taking place. So I'm going to do that, I'm going to take that liberty without doing any violence to the meaning of the scripture. Because he's talking to the Jews, they get it. The Gentiles might be, huh, what?
I don't even like this. For separation is indeed profitable if you keep the law, but if you are a breaker of the law, your separation has become un-separation. Therefore, if an un-separated man keeps the righteous requirements of the law, will not his un-separation be counted as separation to God? Verse 27, it will not the physically un-separated if he fulfills the law judge you who even with your written code of separation are a transgressor of the law.
Now when I did a word cloud on this one this morning, and what are the two words that dominated the picture? Law and circumcision. And they are all a part of our historic faith. And so he is saying to the Jews, you're saying you're a Jew because of your right of circumcision. That is your emblem of separation to God from the world.
But what does it count if you trample the meaning of that separation? And what about the person that does what you're supposed to do, but doesn't have your Bible? You see the fairness of God he's bringing into play here.
He's convicting the guilty Jews and he's giving hope to a world of Gentiles. Jewish circumcision was a mark of that nation's separation to God. And when they did not separate to him, they were a half-baked cake. Hosea chapter 7, Ephraim has mixed himself among the peoples. Ephraim is an is an unturned cake.
That's what he's talking about. They're supposed to be properly baked, but they're half, they're half-baked. You've heard of half-baked ideas? Well there's a half-baked religion. And it voids out the meaning of the symbol. They saw circumcision as an exemption, rather than a pledge.
And that's what it was supposed to be. I pledge allegiance to God. I'm going to serve him and not idols. And when they trampled it, there's no surprise that God called him out on it and that's what Paul is doing. So this idea that outward religious practices can please God while we continue to offend him at the same time is quite silly. When we have to speed up here, so obedience and rhythm to God over ethnicity and ritual, because that's what the Jews were throwing in, some of the Jews were throwing in the faces of the Gentiles, that they were ethnically sure of salvation and the Gentiles were ethnically doomed unless they became Jews. So Paul will later write to the Colossians, circumcision is nothing, uncircumcision is nothing, but keeping the commandments of God is what matters. Your religious rights are secondary to obedience.
So doing what ritual stands for counts more than the ritual. Verse 28, for he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh. Verse 29, but he is a Jew who is one inwardly and circumcision is that of the heart and the spirit, not in the letter, whose praise is not from men but from God. Man, you see why they hated him so much when he got to Jerusalem? They knew he was saying these kinds of things. They were probably quoting them out of context and all but it doesn't matter. He's calling them out. He was saying, I was once rolling with you boys and I'm not anymore.
I've got now the integrity and the truth. Jesus said, you people, none of all of them, this is not anti-Semitic, we're dealing with sinners regardless of their ethnicity, we just happen to be focusing on a particular habitual sin in a particular culture. These people draw near me with their mouth and honor me with their lips but their heart is far from me. In vain, they worship me. It doesn't count if you just have the ritual but the very thing the ritual stands for is discarded.
It doesn't count. God had to teach Samuel that the heart counts more. That great man of God, Samuel, you're not going to top Samuel in scripture and yet he didn't understand. So what does God say when he was sent to pick a king over Saul and he saw the sons of Jesse says, surely this is the one and God said, Samuel, do not look at his appearance or his physical stature because I have refused him for Yahweh does not see as man sees.
For man looks at the outward appearance but Yahweh looks at the heart. It's the spirit. It's what is really going on and not playing games with God. It doesn't diminish the scripture.
It elevates it. What diminishes the scripture is when you play these games and become the hypocrite in front of everybody. The kingly qualities were in David.
They were inside of him and God would conquer his sin and right now David is in heaven and he's not sinning anymore. Sin has been vanquished. He says and circumcision is that of the heart. This emphasizes loyalty to God.
We're out of time. We're close with this verse. Second Corinthians chapter three. For the letter kills but the spirit gives life. The Bible is more than a book of rules and codes. It is life. Christianity is more than a religion. It is life.
It is life eternal. Thanks for joining us for today's teaching on Cross-Reference Radio. This is the daily radio ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville in Virginia.
We're currently going through the book of Romans. If you're in need of hearing this message again or want to listen to others like it head over to crossreferenceradio.com. We encourage you to subscribe to our podcast too so you'll never miss another edition. Just go to your favorite podcast app to subscribe. On our website you'll be able to learn a little more about the ministry of Cross-Reference Radio so make a note of it crossreferenceradio.com. That's all we have time for today but thanks so much for listening. Pastor Rick will be back next time in the book of Romans here on Cross-Reference Radio.
