A Circumcised Heart

Introduction

Romans 2:25-29

Romans 2:25–29 CSB

Circumcision benefits you if you observe the law, but if you are a lawbreaker, your circumcision has become uncircumcision. So if an uncircumcised man keeps the law’s requirements, will not his uncircumcision be counted as circumcision? A man who is physically uncircumcised, but who keeps the law, will judge you who are a lawbreaker in spite of having the letter of the law and circumcision. For a person is not a Jew who is one outwardly, and true circumcision is not something visible in the flesh. On the contrary, a person is a Jew who is one inwardly, and circumcision is of the heart—by the Spirit, not the letter. That person’s praise is not from people but from God.

Pray

When you read this passage what comes to mind?

Ouch? What is Circumcision? ???

When I Read this passage. I automatically think of that passage found in the Gospels.

Matthew 21:28–31 CSB

“What do you think? A man had two sons. He went to the first and said, ‘My son, go work in the vineyard today.’ “He answered, ‘I don’t want to,’ but later he changed his mind and went. Then the man went to the other and said the same thing. ‘I will, sir,’ he answered, but he didn’t go. Which of the two did his father’s will?” They said, “The first.” Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, tax collectors and prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God before you.

Jesus is confronting those who are the religious believers, the comfortable with the standard way of living.

Paul is saying something very similar here.

There are two groups.

Same two groups we were talking about last week. In fact that will dominate a great deal of the book of Romans, because that is what people were thinking about it was a very real and often problematic situation.

This new form of Judaism, the Christians are growing from both Jews and into the Gentile world.

In a place where the two don’t see eye to eye. In a place Rome where the Jewish people at times had been kicked out of town completely.

The Jews were circumcised at 8 days as commanded in the books of Moses in what we call Genesis (Gen. 17:11). The Gentiles who were not physically Circumcised.

Though there were those who called for Gentiles to be Circumcised in order to become Christians. Paul is against this.

Paul will argue similar to what Jesus did.

If you don’t follow the law what difference is it if you have been circumcised or not?

Jesus was speaking to just Jews at the time but the idea still remains.

If you are not acting according to the path of Righteousness what does it matter?

Paul says that a true Jew a true follower of the God of Israel can’t be seen by sight. It isn’t an matter of Externalities. It is about what one is on the Inside.

This was not new.

From the time of the choosing of Israel’s second king (the first one who followed after God’s own heart), God has looked differently than man looks.

1 Samuel 16:7 CSB

7 But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look at his appearance or his stature because I have rejected him. Humans do not see what the Lord sees, for humans see what is visible, but the Lord sees the heart.”

When Samuel saw Jesse’s son Eliab, he thought, “Surely the LORD’S anointed stands here before the LORD” (1 Sam. 16:6). What did Samuel see that made him think Eliab was to be the new king? Apparently not what God was looking for:

“Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The LORD does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart” (1 Sam 16:7).

Four things, Paul says, will allow us to recognize a true Jew in God’s sight:

He does not emphasize outward and external signs (v. 28).

His heart has been circumcised (revealed before God) (v. 29). Emphasizes genuine loyalty to God, becoming obedient with mind as well as body. Paul alludes to the prophecy of Jeremiah, who warned the people of Judah to circumcise their hearts (see Jer 4:4 and note; compare Jer 9:25–26). Christ is the one who does this work (Col 2:11; Eph 2:11; Phil 3:3).

The Spirit’s knife (“the word of God”; Heb. 4:12) has performed the circumcision on the heart (v. 29).

God’s praise drowns out the “praise” of men (v. 29). God praising You? Like a good father Praising his child that does what is right.

To Put in another way.

What distinguishes “insiders” from “outsiders” is not social identity?

True “insiders” among God’s people have new hearts “by the Spirit,” and their “praise is not from man but from God.”

One’s identity is determined by whose “face” one seeks.

God does not disregard collective identity; he reorients it. His people have the law “written on their hearts.” This is a promise of the new covenant. Jeremiah writes,

Jeremiah 31:33–34 CSB

“Instead, this is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after those days”—the Lord’s declaration. “I will put my teaching within them and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. No longer will one teach his neighbor or his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they will all know me, from the least to the greatest of them”—this is the Lord’s declaration. “For I will forgive their iniquity and never again remember their sin.

Our temptation is to become focused on things people can see and judging one another on that. How often do you read your bible, go to church, cuss, where appropriate clothing, pray as a group, sing together, listen to klove.

None of these are in appropriate but when they become the standard instead of the out poring of the faith.

Why Do you go to church?

if it isn’t an outpouring of your faith its for the wrong reasons.

Next Steps

It is so easy for us to get caught up in things that people can see. Praying so people can hear, going to church, looking a special way, posting that memory verse to you FB, whatever, Good or bad we can get caught up on what people can see. But in truth it is only what God can see that matters.

Is your heart Circumcised. Open before God, not pretending.

Seek First the Kingdom and God’s Face

Does God praise drown out the praise of Men

Pray

Biblioghrapy

W., Jackson. Reading Romans with Eastern Eyes: Honor and Shame in Paul’s Message and Mission. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic: An Imprint of InterVarsity Press, 2019.

Boa, Kenneth, and William Kruidenier. Romans. Vol. 6. Holman New Testament Commentary. Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 2000.

Holman Bible Publishers. CSB Disciple’s Study Bible: Notes. Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers, 2017.

Barry, John D., Douglas Mangum, Derek R. Brown, Michael S. Heiser, Miles Custis, Elliot Ritzema, Matthew M. Whitehead, Michael R. Grigoni, and David Bomar. Faithlife Study Bible. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2012, 2016.