God's Future Judgment
Romans • Sermon • Submitted
0 ratings
· 9 viewsChristians are not to judge, but to bask in God's kindness and seek ways to live lives of glory, honor, and immortality.
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
As we were closing last week’s sermon, we briefly looked at the parable Jesus told about a son who had no love or passion for his father, but only for what his father could give him: his inheritance. The son left his father behind to live life on his own terms and squandered the precious gift his father provided. Only when he was as low as low could be, feeding and desiring to eat the slop he gave to pigs, did he come to himself, turn from his evil and return to his father. Rather than condemn his son, the father ran to him, hugged and kissed him and threw a party that his son had returned.
There was more to the story than that, as we will see later. But it is important to remember this part of the story, even though this part of the story wasn’t the main theme of the story. Yet, the first part of the story, fit so well into the what Paul was pointing out in Romans 1:24-32, I could not leave it out. But it is the second part of the story that fits so well with Romans 2:1-11.
In Acts 1, the disciples asked Jesus an important question and received an important response.
So when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?”
He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority.
The disciples were anxious to see the Kingdom of Israel restored. Rome had ruled over Israel for a century. Before that they had ruled themselves for about the same amount of time. Before that Greece, Persia, and Babylon controlled them. Even before that, Israel had been in decline, ever since Solomon had turned to false gods. The disciples wanted to throw off the shackles of Rome and all their oppressors and enjoy God’s kingdom as it was meant to be. We are not much different, are we? We long for Christ’s kingdom. Even so, come quickly, Lord. The problem is not the longing. That is good and right. The longing for sin to be gone and to live in the manifest presence of God and Jesus is a biblical longing. However, that longing can often turn into wrong action as we seek to take control from God. Specifically, when it comes to judgment.
What we as Christians need to understand is that God’s judgment will come from God in God’s time and we are to be content with that. I get that from various texts of Scripture, but especially from what Paul wrote in Romans 2:1-11. I see that our contentment in God’s judgment and timing is revealed in three ways:
Stop judging
Start basking
Stay mindful
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.
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.
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 for everyone who does good, the Jew first and also the Greek.
For God shows no partiality.
Stop Judging
Stop Judging
The first way that we show our contentment in God’s future judgment is by not judging others. In essence, we accept the fact that we are not God. It is not our job to judge.
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.
Once again, there is the word “Therefore,” which means we need to go back a couple of verses and see why it is there. “Therefore” gives us a reason for Paul’s statement. His previous argument supports his conclusion. So what was his previous argument? He had given a list of sins that people perform, and then says:
Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.
They know God’s decree. They disregard that decree when they practice that which goes against it, namely those sins he listed or others like them. Then they take it one step further and give their blessing to those who are also doing them. For that reason, you have no excuse. Notice that switch in person in verse 1. He went from third person plural, “They” do these things, to second person singular, “You have no excuse.” In essence, Paul subtly points out what we all tend to do: we put the blame on “them.” We see other people’s faults. We see their sins. We somehow miss how egregious our own sins are. But here, Paul stated that it is not “they who are without excuse,” but it is “You who are without excuse.” And he clarifies his language. By you he means anyone who judges another.
Paul wrote that if you or I am judging others, we are, in truth and in fact, condemning ourselves. Why? Because we are doing what we have judged sinful. We may not do it in the same exact way, but in similar ways. We judge gossips but disguise our gossip as prayer requests. We judge people who lie, but deceive others in our own way. We judge prideful people but boast about our own accomplishments. We judge our kids’ disobedience and yet forget to respect our own parents. If we are judging, then we must admit what the world accuses of being: hypocrites.
Now there is a difference between judging and discerning. We can discern something is wrong or sinful. That’s something we ought to be doing. But our job is not to judge. The main difference in discernment and judgment is the heart. Is the heart seeking to acknowledge the sin and suffering from sin that is going on in an effort to alleviate the sin and lead people to Jesus? Or is the heart seeking to puff itself up in moral superiority? If it’s the latter, then it condemns the person who is judging.
Let me give you an illustration going back to the parable of the prodigal son.
Now the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to hear him.
And the Pharisees and the scribes grumbled, saying, “This man receives sinners and eats with them.”
“Now his older son was in the field, and as he came and drew near to the house, he heard music and dancing.
And he called one of the servants and asked what these things meant.
And he said to him, ‘Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fattened calf, because he has received him back safe and sound.’
But he was angry and refused to go in. His father came out and entreated him,
but he answered his father, ‘Look, these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed your command, yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might celebrate with my friends.
But when this son of yours came, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fattened calf for him!’
The prodigal son represented the tax collectors and sinners of verse 1. The other brother represents the Pharisees and scribes. The brother judges the prodigal comparing himself to him. “I served you. I never disobeyed your command. You never did anything for me. He told you to drop dead. He took his stuff and spent it on prostitutes. You throw him a party!” The brother was not discerning but judging. Was it wrong for the prodigal to do those things? Yes. No doubt. But we can know that and not judge it. Instead, we take the information and lead them to the conclusion they need a Savior.
It is God’s job to judge; not ours. Now there is a small caveat to that. As a body of believers, we are to judge those within the body, but not those outside the body. As Paul wrote to the Corinthians
For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge?
It is God’s job to judge outsiders; not ours. Why not ours? We are mired in sin ourselves. We cannot judge in truth. We can only judge in bias and false-assumptions. God judges rightly. He judges in truth. If it is not our job to judge, then that means we have another job altogether; it is one appointed to the gospel—not to judge, but to save.
We see this in John 4.
Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.”
The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’;
for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.”
Jesus does not judge the woman for having five husbands, but he acknowledges that she has so as to reveal her need for a Savior.
There may be some here who have felt the wrath of Christian judgment rather than Christian grace and love. Understand that it is not our job to judge you. It is our job to lead you to salvation. But the reason we are called to lead you to salvation is because, as we saw last week, if you’ve never trusted Jesus’s work of salvation on the cross, you are already judged. Not by man, but by God. Yet, God has also provided a way out of his own judgment for anyone and everyone who trusts in Jesus.
It is no where clearer than
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.
Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.
Jesus came to save sinners. He is the only way to be delivered from God’s wrath. Paul saw Jesus’s mission—to seek and to save those who are lost—as his own mission. He was appointed unto the gospel of God. Even as we are. So beloved, let us not go into the world judging the world and so condemning ourselves, but rather let us go into the world and love them enough to lead them out of darkness and into his marvelous light. Let our church, as a people and a place, be one of grace and hope. May we be the wicket-gate which leads to life.
Start Basking
Start Basking
This leads us to a second way to show contentment in God’s future judgement and timing. The first way is to simply stop trying to strip God of his job to do it ourselves. It is to stop judging. The second is to bask in God’s kindness. Let’s look at the next couple of verses.
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?
In verse 2, Paul pointed out that we know that the judgment of God is according to truth. No bias. No falsehoods. No misunderstandings. We know this. But now, Paul speaks of supposing. It is not knowledge, but assumptions. It’s not a fact, but a theory or hypothesis. But it is in the form of a questions. Actually, it is in the form of two questions. In Paul’s estimation, the reason for those to whom he is writing to feel free to judge people rather than save them must be for two reasons. Either they think that they’re immune to God’s judgment or they despise God’s kindness. These are your two options. Which is it?
If you say that you will escape God’s judgment, then you are saying you’re saying that God is unjust. He condemns one but not the other for the same action. But we know, as verse 2 states, that God’s judgment is according to truth upon those who practice such things as the list Paul wrote. Surely then, no one is immune to God’s judgement. So then it really can’t be the first consideration. Surely, we don’t think we are the exception to the rule. That’s thinking a bit highly of ourselves. So then it must be that we think so lowly of God’s kindness.
The word we have “presume” may make us think that Paul means that we presume upon it as if we don’t give much thought to it; it’s a given. “Yeah. I guess if I stopped to think about it, I can see God’s kindness.” But in reality, the idea is to think lowly. It is to despise. It’s to look down our noses at his kindness. The word is not used often in the Bible, but lets take a look at one place in which it is:
“No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.
This should be a wake-up call for us Christians. If we are living our lives in judgment, we are either thinking that God will overlook our hypocrisy or we despise God’s kindness. We think we can get away with judging others (but Paul says we are condemning ourselves) or we think that God is not doing a good enough job and is wrong for being so kind. And that kindness is shown in his patience and forbearance. Christians who judge want condemnation; but God in kindness wants repentance.
This is the father’s point in the parable of the Prodigal Son and Jesus’s point about our heavenly Father.
It was fitting to celebrate and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and is found.’ ”
Brothers and sisters, it is a sad fact that Christians as a whole are known more for being holier than thou instead of holy. We are known for being more like that Prodigal’s brother than the Prodigal’s father, when Paul tell us in
Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children.
What do we display on our social media pages? Are the words we speak words of condemnation, as if we are seeking to do God’s work for him, or are they words of light leading sinners out of darkness? Am I saying that we can’t call a spade a spade, that we call evil good and good evil? Not at all. I am saying we need to check our heart-posture. Do we say what we say out of anger or fear? Or do we say what we say out of hope and light? I am saying we need to cease to be judgment-minded and seek to be gospel-minded. We need to bask in God’s kindness not despise it.
We need to see the condition of our society and praise God for his patience because in that forbearance, many people are giving their lives to Jesus. I’ve heard many times when it comes to money, “If it takes $500.00 to lead just one person to Christ, it is worth it.” What if it takes 500 days? What if it takes 1,000? Is it worth it to you? Would you live in this world, this nation another 500 days if you knew that God would bring to himself a single soul? What if every day that Jesus does not return, another soul or two souls or a thousand souls repent because the Father was rich in kindness showing patience and forbearance. Are we content with that?
The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.
Ought that not lead us to be kind and patient and forbearing? As a church, ought we not be kind to every visitor no matter what he or she looks like and no matter their background? Ought we not see that God brought them to Highland View Baptist Church so they could see his kindness, patience, forbearance being imitated by his beloved children so they too can bask in his kindness and repent?
Stay Mindful
Stay Mindful
Which leads to the last way we can show contentment with God’s future judgment and timing. The first was simply to stop judging people (different than discerning sin). The second to start basking in God’s kindness. Now we come to the third way and that is to stay mindful of how we are to live.
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.
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;
Verse 5 takes us back to verse 1. Paul is reiterating his point. In verse 1, Paul wrote that when we judge we condemn ourselves. In verse 5, he points out that our hard, impenitent hearts are storing up wrath. In other words, condemnation. God’s kindness is to lead us to repentance and so we ought not look down upon it. To bask in God’s kindness, namely his patience and forbearance, is to show that you are content with his judgment and timing. But to look down upon it reveals something altogether different. It shows a hard, impenitent heart. Taking it upon ourselves to judge, rather than allow God to judge in his own timing, brings upon us condemnation and so God’s wrath.
And so Paul reminded the Romans that God will, in his timing, judge everyone according to their works. Somehow, somewhere, down through the centuries, Christians (whether true believers or nominal ones) have come to believe that we won’t be judged because of Christ. But that is not true.
Jesus told the parable of the two houses: one was built on a rock and the other on sand. If you look at the context, you’ll find that the storm he mentions is actually the final judgment. Thus, the house on the rock goes through the final judgment, but is able to stand. Paul mentioned to the Corinthians that Christians will be judged.
For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.
John revealed the final judgment seat in
Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. From his presence earth and sky fled away, and no place was found for them.
And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Then another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to what they had done.
And the sea gave up the dead who were in it, Death and Hades gave up the dead who were in them, and they were judged, each one of them, according to what they had done.
Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire.
And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.
The books were open: one of works and one of life. There is a judgment. We will give an account. Some of us will be saved by the skin of our teeth as Paul wrote. But make no mistake, judgment day is coming, and so we best stay mindful of how we should live.
Notice the evidence of a redeemed soul in verse 7.
to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life;
The word patience there has this connotation of something weighty being placed upon a person and they remain under it. When times get tough, the believer continues to endure—continues to persevere through it doing good works. They seek glory and honor and immortality. This saying has stumped a lot of people. It has stumped me and as I worked through it, I came to this conclusion. Since Paul is clearly writing about a believer here, then he contrasts the believer with the unbeliever, whom we see in verse 8. But the context is all of chapter 1 as well. Outside of Christ, which is how every one of us are born, we exchanged God’s glory for that of the images in the likeness of creation. The believer now seeks God’s glory. That isn’t to say he or she does it perfectly, but there is a passion for God’s glory now. Rather than dishonor the body as we saw in 1:24, the believer now seeks to honor the body as God intended. Again that is not in any perfect way, but in a progressive way. Lastly, believers understand that actions have consequences. Sin deserves a punishment of death. Believers seek immortality. They now mindful of death, not in some fearful way, but in a way that they are constantly reminded what sin can do and so avoid it.
The unbeliever is the total opposite.
but for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury.
There will be tribulation and distress for every human being who does evil, the Jew first and also the Greek,
The unbeliever is self-seeking. This goes back to the idea of pursuing the passions of their hearts. They want what they want. They’ll pursue that which they want to pursue. They don’t obey the truth. Instead, the truth continues to be suppressed. Instead they obey unrighteousness. And I would quickly note that this time, Paul is using unrighteousness as the opposite of truth. Disobedience to truth is obedience to unrighteousness. These are the ones, those who pursue the passions of the heart, suppress truth, and do unrighteous acts face God’s wrath and fury. There comes a time when God’s repentance-leading kindness has been rejected long enough, that the final judgment comes. At the time, the unbeliever is judged and receives wrath and fury. None of us know when that time comes. Would that we’d take advantage of his kindness right now.
Tribulation and distress, perhaps a better way to put it is suffering and calamity will come upon every soul who does evil. This is what we call a hendiadys. It’s using two words for a single meaning. We do this at times. An example is when we hear “forever and always.” These are synonymous words emphasizing one point. As Paul is referring to the final judgment, I think it helps for us to see these things not as temporary as tribulation might sound, but as permanent and eternal circumstances. The unbeliever will suffer in such ways. But the believer—the one seeking glory, honor, and immortality—they receive something altogether different.
but glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good, the Jew first and also the Greek.
And notice, Paul points out in both verses, verses 9 and 10 that wrath will come upon the Jew and the Gentile. It doesn’t make a difference what one’s race was. It doesn’t matter what a person used to believe, whether in Yahweh or in some pagan god. It doesn’t matter what nation or background you had. If your faith is not in Jesus Christ, you suffer the wrath of God both now and exponentially worse after the final judgment. Yet, the same is true for the one who puts their faith in Jesus. It doesn’t matter what your race, previous religion, what nationality or background, if you put your trust in Jesus’s work on the cross to forgive you of your sins, you receive glory and honor and peace. Is this not what the Father said to the second son?
And he said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours.
Conclusion
Conclusion
As we conclude this section of Romans, I hope you see why I say that we must be content with God’s judgment and his timing. We are not to be the judges of those outside the body. If we did so, it would be done in hypocrisy and we’d end up condemning ourselves. Again, there is a difference between judging and discerning; it is the heart-posture that makes the difference. Instead of judging, we should bask and enjoy God’s kindness demonstrated in his patience and forbearance. We should be mindful of our own actions seeking glory, honor, and immortality.
Sadly, many in the church are more like Jonah than we’d care to admit. He hated Nineveh. He hated the people of Nineveh. God sent him to his enemy to proclaim that in forty days God’s wrath would befall them. But Jonah understood what that meant. God was being kind by patience and forbearance. God could easily have destroyed Nineveh in a split second and without warning and would be just. The fact that it would be forty days was a sign of God’s mercy. He was giving them time to repent and Jonah did not want to see that happen. We read how Jonah felt when the city wasn’t destroyed.
But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry.
And he prayed to the Lord and said, “O Lord, is not this what I said when I was yet in my country? That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster.
There may be some here who are just realizing how gracious, kind, and patient God has been with you. Today you can turn from your self-seeking ways and turn to seek after glory. God will save you, but there is only way that is acceptable to him. Jesus said of himself
Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
Others here may be more like Jonah. You can hardly wait for God’s judgment to fall upon your enemies, upon those in political office, upon the abortion providers, upon those who swindle people out of life savings, instead of being amazed and bask in God’s kindness, patience, and forbearance. Some would rather see judgment than mercy befall this president or that president or this congressman or that senator. And when you see God taking his sweet-old-time, you Facebook, tweet, parley your own judgment upon them. And you need to repent; turn from judgment and turn instead to bask in God’s kindness, seeking glory, honor, and immortality.