Romans: The Gospel Unites (Week 4)

Good morning, I pray you all had a great week in the Lord. I pray that you all “Went and Told” someone about the hope that you have in your savior. If you do not get that reference, then I would encourage you to watch last weeks sermon on our YouTube channel.

Please do not forget about the changes that are coming next month, in May. We have our annual business meeting on the 19th, and we are going to be doing something different for our midweek gathering. Next week I will tell you the specific day that we will meet and the time. If you are interested in attending the small group, but if there is a day or time that you are unable to meet, please let me know, as I am doing my best to have the group meet when most can participate.

Also, let me remind you to not forget that the church very much relies on your tithes and offerings in order to stay open…but more than that, and this is the absolute truth, the Lord likes a cheerful and generous giver. PRAY!

Today we are going to be going back to our series on Romans. A couple of months ago we kicked off (what will be) our default series throughout 2024. This is the first time we’ve done this together…where we have a book of the Bible that we go through completely, over a long period of time. The book of Romans is perfect for this, as it is quite long and every chapter is full of heavenly wisdom and instruction. In our previous foray into Romans (during the latter part of January), we covered all of Romans chapter 1…we took 3 weeks to go through Paul’s introduction to Romans church. If you have not seen those sermons, I would encourage you to at least check out the first sermon (Jan 21st). During that sermon I spoke at length about the important context behind Paul’s most in depth and longest letter. A lot of things were going on in Rome during that period of time, being aware of the context helps us better understand what Paul is trying to convey. I went back and watched it myself, just to refresh my own memory.

Today though, we are moving forward into Romans chapter 2. We will be looking at the first 11 verses…which I will read in their entirety....then we will go back and examine them more closely.

Romans Chapter 2 Outline:

I. The "judges" judged: 2:1-11

A. The hypocritical/inconsistent judge is judged by truth: 2:1-2

B. The foolish judge reasons poorly: 2:3

C. The presumptuous judge treasures up wrath: 2:4-11

Let’s go ahead and read vs. 1-11.

Romans 2:1–11 “Therefore, every one of you who judges is without excuse. For when you judge another, you condemn yourself, since you, the judge, do the same things. Now we know that God’s judgment on those who do such things is based on the truth. Do you think—anyone of you who judges those who do such things yet do the same—that you will escape God’s judgment? Or do you despise the riches of his kindness, restraint, and patience, not recognizing that God’s kindness is intended to lead you to repentance? Because of your hardened and unrepentant heart you are storing up wrath for yourself in the day of wrath, when God’s righteous judgment is revealed. He will repay each one according to his works: eternal life to those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor, and immortality; but wrath and anger to those who are self-seeking and disobey the truth while obeying unrighteousness. There will be affliction and distress for every human being who does evil, first to the Jew, and also to the Greek;…”

It does not take an expert in the Greek to understand what Paul is communicating to us in these first few passages of Romans chapter 2. 2 Types of people are fond of quoting the passages about not judging, both Secular society and carnal Christians loves to quote all of the "do not judge” passages in scripture. To be fair, there are quite a few that address the subject of judging others. Both Paul and Jesus talk about it a number of times. That said, these passages are often misunderstood and quoted way, way out of context. Even so, Paul wrote these passages for a reason and they are still applicable to us today, so it is important that we understand them. First let’s talk a bit about the context of the passages I just read, then we will look more closely at the type of judging that Paul is referencing.

Notice that right off, Paul begins with the word:

Romans 2:1 “Therefore, every one of you who judges is without excuse. For when you judge another, you condemn yourself, since you, the judge, do the same things.”

Therefore tells us that the writer is concluding something they previously said.

The word “Therefore” is a

conjunctive adverb: Joel felt as if he might faint from hunger. Therefore, he decided a trip to McDonald's was necessary. “as a consequence,” or “as a result.”

Whenever we see the word “Therefore,” we must look at what the author is saying just before. Remember, when Paul wrote Romans, there were no chapter and verses…it was a letter, no different than we would write today. Now, to find out exactly what Paul is “thereforing” we must go back to Romans 1. We actually have to go back to Romans chapter 18. Beginning in Romans 18 Paul begins to discuss a particular type of people....

Romans 1:18 “For God’s wrath is revealed from heaven against all godlessness and unrighteousness of people who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth,”

OK, so Paul starts talking about those who suppress the truth of God…we talked about this in depth during my last sermon on Romans 1....which again, I would encourage you to watch if you need a refresher. From this point forward, throughout the rest of chapter one and continuing through chapter 2. In other words, Paul does not begin a new topic in Romans chapter 2…it is a continuation. We know this because Paul will refer to the people he is talking about as “They” or “them.” For example, Paul continues talking about those who suppress the truth of God’s word...

Romans 1:24 “Therefore God delivered them over in the desires of their hearts to sexual impurity, so that their bodies were degraded among themselves.”

Notice the word “them,” God delivered Them over…referring back to verse 18…those who suppress the truth. Moving on, Paul says:

Romans 1:26 “For this reason God delivered them over to disgraceful passions. Their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones.”

Now in verse 26, Paul states…for this reason…similar to Therefore…God delivered “Them” over…Paul is still talking about those who suppress the truth of God’s Word…lastly,

Romans 1:28 “And because they did not think it worthwhile to acknowledge God, God delivered them over to a corrupt mind so that they do what is not right.”

Again, 10 verses later, Paul is still referring to “Them”…Paul is still talking about the same people…Paul then says at the end of chapter 1

Romans 1:32 “Although they know God’s just sentence—that those who practice such things deserve to die—they not only do them, but even applaud others who practice them.”

Romans chapter 1 ends with verse 32, Paul is still talking about the same people and uses they and them again. So, that is the context of our passage in Romans chapter 2…where Paul starts out with “Therefore.” Last thing about the context of our passages is, in chapter 1, Paul was addressing the Roman Gentiles, however, as chapter 2 begins, Paul starts addressing the Jewish people within the Roman church. This context is important to understand as we talk about the kind of judgments or judgmental attitudes that Paul describes.

Now that we all know the context of our passages, let’s take a look at the 3 different types of judges or judgmental attitudes we see in verses 1-11.

The first 2 come at us pretty quickly, in verses 1-3, while the 4th spans a number of verses.

A. The hypocritical/inconsistent judge is judged by truth: 2: 1-2

B. The foolish judge reasons poorly: 2:3

C. The presumptuous judge treasures up wrath: 2:4-11

A. Hypocritical/Inconsistent

Romans 2:1–2 “Therefore, every one of you who judges is without excuse. For when you judge another, you condemn yourself, since you, the judge, do the same things. Now we know that God’s judgment on those who do such things is based on the truth.”

I think we all have times in our lives where we can be inconsistent and even hypocritical…whether that be with dieting…not that I have that issue, I’m just saying. or with spiritual matters, such as spending time with the Lord…being inconsistent and hypocritical is something humans are pretty good at. As I mentioned before, it’s important to remember that Paul is talking to the Jewish people in this section of Romans. Paul’s words have a similar tone to that of Jesus, when He spoke to the Pharisees about being hypocrites.

Matthew 23:1–3 “Then Jesus spoke to the crowds and to his disciples: “The scribes and the Pharisees are seated in the chair of Moses. Therefore do whatever they tell you, and observe it. But don’t do what they do, because they don’t practice what they teach.”

Jesus’ number one complaint against the Pharisees was not their teaching…although I’m sure there was plenty that Jesus had issues with. No, it was not what they said, rather, it was what they did that cause Jesus to judge them harshly. Jesus called them hypocrites, as they taught one thing, yet did not live consistent with what they taught. The Pharisees were also a very judgmental group, just like the people that Paul is describing in Romans 2. In fact, it is very possible that Paul was addressing some Pharisees that had converted to Christianity. We know that the early church had converted Pharisees, because in Acts Chapter 15, Paul had to confront them, as they were instructing people that Christians still had to keep certain aspects of the law of Moses., especially circumcision and dietary law.

1. All sin is without excuse.

Back in Romans chapter 1, where Paul is speaking to the Gentiles, he says that even though Gentiles were born without the Law of Moses, everyone has the natural law of God written on their hearts. The Gentiles had exchanged that for idolatry. Similar to that, those who were born with the Law of Moses and should know better often sit in judgment of others, while practicing their own form of idolatry at the same time.

2. We sin when we judge hypocritically and live inconsistently.

This is probably the most important part of what Paul is trying to communicate to us. Like I mentioned earlier, some have taken both Paul’s and Jesus’ words to mean that no one is allowed to discern, judge, or even separate what is righteous from that which is unrighteous. That is not at all what Paul is communicating here in Romans chapter 2. Paul says that we sin when we judge people for the same things we do. In this context, Paul is talking about those who suppress God’s word by their actions, but I would argue that we sin whenever our sense of self-righteousness has us look down on others, not to discern righteousness from unrighteousness, but to make ourselves feel better and feel superior to them spiritually. Moving on to the next type of judge, we see in verse 3

B. The foolish judge reasons poorly

Romans 2:3 “Do you think—anyone of you who judges those who do such things yet do the same—that you will escape God’s judgment?”

Have you ever met anyone that had consistently poor judgment; regardless of the situation, it seems like they always make the wrong choice? Sometimes poor decisions are made because the person has no one in their life to help guide them…or they do have someone, but they won’t listen. We can see this on display every day if we turn on the news or watch politicians, regardless of the particular party.

This type of judge is very similar to a concept in psychology called poverty culture.

Poverty culture argues that kids who are raised in poverty are socialized (taught) into behaviors and attitudes that perpetuated their inability to escape the underclass.

In other words, when a child is raised in poverty, they are taught and adopt a certain mindset that prevents them from rising above the poverty culture. One of my professors gave a good example of this. She was raised in very, very rural Appalachia country. We are talking hard-core hillbilly’s as far as the eye can see. The same families have been living in the Appalachia region for decades, if not longer.

Map of Appalachia

This region of the US is where you will find the snake handling churches, if you’ve ever heard of that. Many families (to this day) do not have running water or electricity. The Appalachian Region consists of 206,000 square miles across 13 states, over on the Eastern side of the United States. The average income for rural Appalachia is $10,000 less per year than the average income in the rest of the United States. The famous story of the Hatfield’s and McCoy’s (which is a true story) took place in rural Appalachia. 80% of people who live in rural Appalachia receive some sort of government assistance. To make matters worse, drug use and alcoholism has become a huge part of that culture.

Anyway, my professor grew up this in this region of the US. She happened to be very smart and her teachers recognised this, so one day when she was 17 years old her teacher pulled her aside and asked her what she wanted to accomplish in life. Having grown up so poor, she had no vision or understanding that she could escape that poverty if she wanted to…but she didn’t know any different. Her teacher told her that if she wanted to get out of that region and be taken seriously by future employers, she needed to learn how to speak like a normal person…instead of the very, very thick southern draw that can be difficult to understand. So, she began to work on speaking so other people outside of that region could understand her. Long story short, she ended up becoming a professor at a university. Looking back, she says that most things she was taught as a child about the world and other people all contributed to her potentially getting stuck and staying in that culture of poverty.

The reason that generational poverty is so damaging is (at least one of the problems) is a habit of poor decision after poor decision.

The same idea applies to every area of our lives…it’s why we get suck in bad habits …we have foolish reasoning. In Romans’s 2,3, Paul warns those who sin by judging others that their foolish and poor decision making is setting them up to be on the receiving end of God’s judgment.

Paul says: Do you think you will escape the judgment of God when you judge others for their actions, but do the same type of things in your own life. People tend to struggle with this type of Judgmental attitude for 2 reasons: Lack of awareness and/or a lack of knowledge of understanding of God’s Word.

1. Lack of self-awareness

Imagine living in a place like Appalachia all of your life, or growing up in the inner city and living there all of your life. All you know is what immediately surrounds you. Pretty much every person you come into contact with lives in the same situation. Rarely do you interact with someone that is outside of our culture in a positive way. This can create a lack of awareness of just how big the world is and how many opportunities are available to you.

Self Awareness:

your ability to perceive and understand the things that make you who you are as an individual, including your personality, actions, values, beliefs, emotions, and thoughts.

In a similar manner, when the teaching and discipling we receive is very narrow in its scope, we can lack awareness that other views and ideas may be valid and good.

Romans 12:3 “For by the grace given to me, I tell everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he should think. Instead, think sensibly, as God has distributed a measure of faith to each one.”

Being aware of our own limitations and biases, our strengths and weaknesses; to be able t understand the complex idea of how both God’s sovereignty and human free will can work together is one of the best gifts that God has given humanity.

2. Lack of knowledge of God’s Word

Another way we can be foolish in judging others is to lack true knowledge of God’s Word. Funny thing about this is that the more confident that a person is that they know and understand God’s word and have all of the right views on every subject…the more a person is like that, the less they actually know about God’s word, despite their thinking they have it all wrapped up. In my experience, it is those type of people who judge the most; because not only do they lack awareness in their own abilities, but they lack true understanding of God’s Word. This is the attitude that Jesus called out in the Pharisees and Paul called out in the early church.

The final type of judge is covered in verse 4-11. We do not have time to read it all again, so I will quickly highlight the passages that are relevant to our topic this morning. So, not only does Paul highlight the hypocritical/inconsistent judge, and the foolish judge, here in verses 4-11, Paul describes the presumptuous judge.

C. The presumptuous judge treasures up wrath: 2:4-11

A person who is presumptuous shows little respect for others by doing things they have no right to do

For example, although Laura was not invited to speak, she presumed to think it was OK. A presumptuous judge thinks that they are entitled to something when they aren’t. Have you ever met an entitled person? Someone who thinks that the world or you owe them something, simply because they want it? Another great way to explain presumption is:

A form of self-confidence, which makes overconfident assumptions concerning one’s importance and rights. It is criticized as a form of arrogance that is unacceptable among believers, whose lives should be characterized by humility. Also: Overconfidence

For the Jews that Paul was addressing, can you guess what their presumption was? What did the Jews presume to be true, given that they are God’s chosen people and the gentiles are not? I’ll read a couple of excerpts from verse 4-11 that tell us what the problem was.

Romans 2:4–5 “Or do you despise the riches of his kindness, restraint, and patience, not recognizing that God’s kindness is intended to lead you to repentance? Because of your hardened and unrepentant heart you are storing up wrath for yourself in the day of wrath, when God’s righteous judgment is revealed.”

Romans 2:8–9 “but wrath and anger to those who are self-seeking and disobey the truth while obeying unrighteousness. There will be affliction and distress for every human being who does evil, first to the Jew, and also to the Greek;”

The Jews were judging the Gentiles and their lack of pedigree…the fact that they are not Jews. In other words, the Jews judged the gentile Christians because of their presumption that God showed favoritism....that God loved the Jews more than the Gentiles. In reality, God made it clear that there is no longer a distinction between the Jew and the Gentile. Paul’s statement in verse 9 may sound familiar to you…first to the Jew, and also to the Greek. If it does sound familiar it’s because Paul said the exact same thing back in chapter one, except in chapter one Paul was not talking about judgment, in fact, Paul was talking about the exact opposite of judgment.

Romans 1:16 “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, first to the Jew, and also to the Greek.”

Not only is salvation offered first to the Jews, they will be the first to suffer God’s wrath, says Paul. The reason that Paul says that both salvation and judgment is offered “first to the Jew, is because God had given them the Law of Moses to teach and guide them. This is why both Paul and Jesus confront the Jews so harshly…they should know better. Unfortunately, for most Jews, their knowledge of the Law did not lead to a better understanding of the Messiah and the New Covenant. To finish up today let’s talk about the things that lead to the sin of presumptuous judgments. Paul points out (depending on how you look at it 3 or 4 different attitudes that lead to presumption of God’s goodness and a judgmental heart.

1. Despise God’s Kindness

Paul asks the reader, “Do you despise” , or another translation says, “do you show contempt for the riches of His kindness” This is a stark accusation. Pretty much every attitude we’ve talked about under the foolish judge and now the presumptuous judge have to do with the root of pride. Recently in one of my classes we were studying the things that lead people to divorce....in both, Christian homes and secular homes. There are a couple of scientists that have been studying couples for nearly 30 years. They are researchers, rather than your typical therapists or counselors. They began with a group of 300 couples 27 years ago, some had already been married for decades, some had just gotten married and everything in between. As couples have either divorced or died, they add new couples to the study. They have come up with some pretty amazing research and have gotten so good that they have an 80% success rate at predicting whether or not a couple will stay together (if they do not get help for take steps to fix their marriage). Their research points out (what they call) the

4 horseman of the divorce apocalypse:

Criticism, Contempt, Defensiveness and Stonewalling

They point out that these 4 are not created equal. In fact, most couples have a bit of criticism and defensiveness in their marriage…it’s when criticism and defensiveness combine with contempt and stonewalling that a couple is headed for disaster if they do not change.

Contempt: : the act of despising; lack of respect accompanied by a feeling of intense dislike.

When we have contempt or despise someone or something, we do not consider that person or thing worthy of our time. When we have contempt for a person we feel superior to that person, as though we are better than they are.

Stonewalling: stalling or delaying especially by refusing to answer questions or cooperate.

In their research they would have couples engage in conversation with each other. It becomes very easy to tell when one spouse has contempt for the other one, as the number 1 things that happens is stonewalling. The person with contempt will purposely not show any interest in what their spouse is saying; they will withhold affection and affirmation. The researchers found that without some serious intervention, couples who allow criticism and defensiveness to turn into contempt and stonewalling over 80% will end up divorced. That is an astounding figure, as no other field of psychology can predict outcomes with such certainty

Now, let’s take that information and apply it to what Paul is teaching us in Romans 2. Paul says that his some of his readers have contempt or despise the kindness of the Lord. Just as contempt can rip apart a marriage, when we develop contempt for others, thus judging them…believing yourself to be superior, when we do that, we are no better than the ones who have given themselves over to idolatry and sexual sin and that the end result is that God’s wrath is building up, and building up, and building up....to one day be released on those who practice such judgments.

Romans 2:4–5 “Or do you despise the riches of his kindness, restraint, and patience, not recognizing that God’s kindness is intended to lead you to repentance? Because of your hardened and unrepentant heart you are storing up wrath for yourself in the day of wrath, when God’s righteous judgment is revealed.”

When we understand just how serious something like contempt is, then we should be all the more careful in how we view others, even those we may disagree with…because if we allow our hearts to become full of contempt, then we are judged just as guilty as those who suppress God’s truth with their actions.

I’ll finish up with the last 2.

2. Hardened and unrepentant heart

Paul says that because we have contempt for the Lord and His kindness, we have developed a hardened and unrepentant heart. Remember now, Paul is still talking to the church in Rome. Again, it is possible that pharisees had gotten into the church and claimed to follow Jesus, but their hearts and actions showed something else. I like to compare a hardened and unrepentant heart to Stonewalling: which is the refusal to acknowledge our spouse, or whomever we have contempt for. We withhold our emotions and heart from that person…in other words, our heart has become hard toward that person. Whenever someone comes to me with a struggle…something in their life that the Lord is not pleased with and it greatly grieves that person. They will often share the fear that their heart has become hard. I assure them, the fact that they are at all concerned about it shows their heart has not grown hard. They are not stonewalling the conviction of the Holy Spirit.

It is God’s kindness that leads people to repentance…it is not the law, it is not a list of do’s and don’ts, it’s not a long list of theological doctrines that a person must adhere to, it is His kindness…the sort of kindness that sent His son to die for us.

Romans 11:22 “Therefore, consider God’s kindness and severity: severity toward those who have fallen but God’s kindness toward you—if you remain in his kindness. Otherwise you too will be cut off.”

In chapter 11, Paul is talking about Israel’s rejection of the Messiah…telling them that God has not turned His back on them, that His kindness will once again turn toward them.

Many Jews had contempt for the unclean Gentiles…as they were not the ones favored by God, according to the law. They ate meat sacrificed to idols, they weren’t circumcised…how could the Messiah have come for them? Then, when it is suggested that the very same gentiles are just as precious to God as the Jews, that doesn't sit right with them…contempt and stonewalling set it and their hearts become hard.

Last attitude or sin that Paul mentions are:

3. Selfish and Disobedient

Romans 2:8 “but wrath and anger to those who are self-seeking and disobey the truth while obeying unrighteousness.”

The first 11 verses of Romans chapter 2 are (what are refereed to as) a diatribe. A diatribe is a type of writing where the author goes on (for the lack of a better term) a rant…actually, the better term is diatribe. The word “rant” has negative connotation to it. None of us enjoy it when someone we are close to goes on a “rant” about something. A diatribe is used when an author needs to confront their audience . We see this in Paul’s writing more than once, that is for sure. Back in Romans 1, Paul had a similar type of diatribe…except he used the words they or them, meaning he was referring to someone outside of the intended audience. In Romans 2, the diatribe switches to “you,” meaning that Paul is addressing those reading or listening to the letter.

Paul says that the selfish and disobedient ones are obeying unrighteousness.

When I was a kid, I would often do the exact opposite of what I was told to do. If I was told that I couldn’t watch the TV, I would be sneaky and find a way to watch it. This was very frustrating to my parents. Once I had a kid of my own, I found out exactly how frustrating it can be. Thankfully, Sam took after his mom…so he was very compliant for the most part…but we’ve had some foster kids that aren’t so compliant. For example, the other day I got little GG set up with some breakfast and sat down to do school. I was reading when little GG says: all done. I look at her and say: OK, give Mr. Erik just a moment to finish this paragraph. About 5 seconds go by and she picks up her bowl…which was still pretty full of cereal. I said to her: Gionna, put your bowl down on the tray, Mr. Erik is almost done, then you can get down. She then smiles and turns her bowl upside down, spilling it all over the carpet. I got up and sternly said to her…you obey Mr. Erik, when I say to put the bowl on the tray, you obey. You know what I didn’t say: You obeyed your impulsive lack of patience....but really, that is what she did.. She did disobey me, but she also obeyed that naughty part of her that wanted down NOW!

That is exactly what Paul is stating here. When we are selfish and disobedient…specifically in regard to having contempt and a hardened heart, we are not simply disobeying God’s Word, we are obeying sin, we are choosing to obey unrighteousness. This reminds me of a passage in the book of Matthew

Matthew 6:24 ““No one can serve two masters, since either he will hate one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.”

Jesus says that we can only serve one master....God or money. If we become greedy and money becomes our God…we are not simply disobeying one master, we are serving or obeying the God of money. It is the same idea Paul is presenting in Romans 2. Another passage where we see something similar is from the O.T.

Joshua 24:14–15 ““Therefore, fear the Lord and worship him in sincerity and truth. Get rid of the gods your ancestors worshiped beyond the Euphrates River and in Egypt, and worship the Lord. But if it doesn’t please you to worship the Lord, choose for yourselves today: Which will you worship—the gods your ancestors worshiped beyond the Euphrates River or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living? As for me and my family, we will worship the Lord.””

Again, similar to what Jesus was teaching in Matthew, here in the book of Joshua, the Israelites are given a choice…either dedicate yourself to the worship of God, or dedicate yourself Idolatry. When the Jews practiced Idolatry, they weren’t merely disobeying the Lord, they were choosing to obey the pagan God’s, who we know is the Devil.

For myself, when I think of my own struggles this way, it gives me a better understanding of why sin and unrighteousness is such an affront to God. As I was going through this study, I thought to myself, who am I obeying today? Who am I obeying when I act selfishly? Thanks be to the Lord though, that regardless of how far down the road we may be in a bad marriage or in our relationship with the Lord…we can stop obeying sin, self and unrighteousness and begin to obey the Lord, who draws us to Him by the riches of his kindness.

Romans 2:10–11 “but glory, honor, and peace for everyone who does what is good, first to the Jew, and also to the Greek. For there is no favoritism with God.”

Praise the Lord that He is perfectly righeous in His judment....He does not show favoritim and always responds with Grace when our hearts are softened and we repent. It is my desire to obey the Lord, to have His peace in my life.

PRAY!