Stepping out of Hypocrisy

Welcome

Good Morning and Welcome to Freedom Chapel. My name is Pastor Terry, my wife Michelle and I serve as the lead pastors here at Freedom Chapel. We exist to bring hope to our community we do that by being a Place to Belong, Church for the Whole Family.

If you are new with us this morning would you please take the time fill out that little flap on the side of your bulletin. If you put it in the black boxes by the back door we will make a donation in your name to a local charity and send you cookies. Church can we show our guests some love this morning.

House Keeping

For the last 5 years I have endured a heckler. I don’t know how many sermons I have gone back and listened to only to hear his murmurs in the background. When I think back on such heckling I have come to realize that this person has actually been Heckling me since I was 6 years old. He has picked me up when I or others have hurt me. He has offered correction when I needed it. He has been a loving grandfather to my children and He loved me so much he gave his last name.

If you did not know it, today is My dad’s birthday and this one is a milestone. He could have chosen to spend his 60th birthday playing with his skid steer but instead he is here with us. Church can you help me in showing Papa Bill some love this morning.

Now let’s get into the word.

Would you pray with me?

We are continuing our series through Romans. As we have traveled through this letter I want to emphasize that this letter is the Gospel according to the Apostle Paul. He is piece by piece and line by line outlining what it is to share in the Good News that Jesus Christ is Lord.

Over the course of the last 4 weeks we have stopped to take a hard look at the Wrath of God.

We don’t talk about Wrath.....NO, NO, NO

There is a purpose for this

You Can Not Fully Understand the Power of the Good News. Until You Understand the Darkness of the Bad News.

So through this stretch Paul has targeted the Pagan Gentiles and all their immorality.

Secondly, He targets the Moralists, God is Kind and Loving and Couldn’t possible expect us to do what his word says it does. These are the kind of people that say I Love God, But I am not going to stop having fun.

Well according to Paul your eternity is not going to be very fun.

So let’s pick up where we left off.

Now I want to picture this as if your in the Roman Church and your a Jew. The guy appointed to read this letter to the church is reading it to you for the first time. You have just heard Paul roast the Gentiles and those Stinking Liberal Moralists. You would here this next part a little different than we know it.

Romans 2:17–20 ESV

17 But if you call yourself a Jew and rely on the law and boast in God 18 and know his will and approve what is excellent, because you are instructed from the law; 19 and if you are sure that you yourself are a guide to the blind, a light to those who are in darkness, 20 an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of children, having in the law the embodiment of knowledge and truth—

Preach Preacher.

But Wait.......

Romans 2:21 ESV

21 you then who teach others, do you not teach yourself? While you preach against stealing, do you steal?

These guys were literally expecting others to live according to the Law while you don’t even study it yourself.

Same as expecting the rest of the country to live according to Biblical Values when you don’t even live by it yourself.

This really lends to the fact within the Jews or Religious ones there was this tendency to withhold the Tithe.

God sees this as Stealing.

Romans 2:22 ESV

22 You who say that one must not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples?

Paul is mirroring Jesus’ point here.

Matthew 5:27–32 ESV

27 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ 28 But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. 29 If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. 30 And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell. 31 “It was also said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.’ 32 But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of sexual immorality, makes her commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.

If your desire is to be saved through following the law and you fail to follow the intent of the law your hope is lost.

So many of us in our legalism get caught in this trap.

Romans 2:23–24 ESV

23 You who boast in the law dishonor God by breaking the law. 24 For, as it is written, “The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.”

Paul is pointing out a Isaiah 52:5

Isaiah 52:5 ESV

5 Now therefore what have I here,” declares the Lord, “seeing that my people are taken away for nothing? Their rulers wail,” declares the Lord, “and continually all the day my name is despised.

When religious people claim to be the people of God and then their lives do not line up with what they claim to believe......It causes the lost to wonder if God is powerful enough to save them if he can not even save his own people.

Paul continues his tirade on the Jews. By turning to circumcision and this is where this message gets awkward.

Just a reminder we have kid’s church. Pastor Rustan doesn’t talk about adultery and circumcision down there. just saying.

Romans 2:25 ESV

25 For circumcision indeed is of value if you obey the law, but if you break the law, your circumcision becomes uncircumcision.

Circumcision was a sign of the Covenant between God and His Chosen people.

My Concordance puts it this way.

Romans (God’s Law is Broken / 2:17-29)

Substituting the symbol for the reality it represents is like deliberately writing checks on a bank account with no money in it. The problem really isn’t the ease with which checks can be written, nor the existence of bank accounts. The problem is the deceitfulness of the human heart, willing to be false rather than admit poverty of any kind.Christians are as guilty in treating the sacraments in this way as the Jews were in substituting the keeping of ceremonial laws for real obedience. Baptismal vows, marriage vows, and membership vows are only as real as the intentions behind them and the actions that are carried out as a result. Professing one life-style but living another; making a promise but not fulfilling it; claiming a symbol but violating its meaning—when we treat God with this kind of dishonor, we deserve his judgment.

Romans 2:26–27 ESV

26 So, if a man who is uncircumcised keeps the precepts of the law, will not his uncircumcision be regarded as circumcision? 27 Then he who is physically uncircumcised but keeps the law will condemn you who have the written code and circumcision but break the law.

If your are sitting here scratching your head. Paul is dealing in absolutes. Cutting through the Legalist Mindset.

If you are going to be a legalist: obedience is not a matter of degrees.

James 2:10 ESV

10 For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it.

Romans 2:28–29 ESV

28 For no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical. 29 But a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter. His praise is not from man but from God.

For God it has never been about the physical it has been about the Heart. He wants relationship with us.

As we are reading through old testament we see God setting the Jews apart form the rest of the world. The whole point was for there to be a people who set their hearts on connection with God.

His desire is connection and that only is possible when we allow the Holy Spirit to cut away what is not needed from our hearts.

God is looking for authenticity not legalism.

Romans 2:29 ESV

29 But a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter. His praise is not from man but from God.

The person who gets this:

Does not show up to church to be seen as righteous.

Does not carry a Bible for Show.

They don’t casually stand there board during worship.

The legalist shows up not because of the outflow of their heart but in opposition to their heart

Their heart is not in it.

You should buy a boat........

If you show up to church out of obligation you are going to be miserable.

If you show up out of the overflow of the transformation that Christ has done in your heart you will begin to love church differently and you will begin to love God differently.

The come show up because they realize just how great God is is and worship him

The next 8 versus are some of the most difficult versus in the Bible to understand.

Paul is now going to counter the questions that the Religious ritualist who is now backed in the corner.

OK, Paul What Now.

Have you ever been backed in a corner.....You want to fight your way out.

But.... These objections degrade God’s Gospel.

Romans 3:1 ESV

1 Then what advantage has the Jew? Or what is the value of circumcision?

Objection 1: This Makes God’s Covenant Worthless.

Jews: We are either special or not.

Religious Ritualist: Baptism, Serving, Titheing, the baptism of the holy spirit doesn’t save.

Paul Answers.

Romans 3:2 ESV

2 Much in every way. To begin with, the Jews were entrusted with the oracles of God.

Pauls Answer is this:

It isn’t about the Ritual, It is about the Privilege!

Romans 3:3 ESV

3 What if some were unfaithful? Does their faithlessness nullify the faithfulness of God?

Objection 2 This nullifies God’s faithfulness

The objector says that it isn’t fair that the Jew will be judged just like the rest of them

The Religious ritualist would say your telling me that my friend that is a good person, who has done every thing right but didn’t accept Jesus will be Judged.

That’s not fair!

Romans 3:4 ESV

4 By no means! Let God be true though every one were a liar, as it is written, “That you may be justified in your words, and prevail when you are judged.”

Paul is saying that it isn’t about what I can do to get to heaven. It is absolutely that God has bent over backwards to extend his grace to save people.

We are all doomed if it were not for Jesus.

Romans 3:5 ESV

5 But if our unrighteousness serves to show the righteousness of God, what shall we say? That God is unrighteous to inflict wrath on us? (I speak in a human way.)

Objection 3: This make God Unjust

This is like saying: Well by me sinning God get credit for correcting me. So Why should I be judged by my unrighteousness because God gets credit for his righteousness.

Romans 3:6 ESV

6 By no means! For then how could God judge the world?

Paul basically says this is nonsense.

Objection 4: This Diminishes God’s Glory

Romans 3:7–8 ESV

7 But if through my lie God’s truth abounds to his glory, why am I still being condemned as a sinner? 8 And why not do evil that good may come?—as some people slanderously charge us with saying. Their condemnation is just.

This is to say.......Our Sinning brings God Glory. Paul Shakes his head and says.

This is what people are saying about us.

We are fools caught up in our own rituals while living apart from God.

Their Condemnation is Just.

Church we have got to get back to a place where we realize that there is not anything we can do to make God Love us any more than He already does.

We Deserve Nothing and He gave us Everything.

Holy Spirit.