Romans Chapter 2 Verses 12 – 16

• So in a nut-shell, what we like to call the bottom-line-up-front or BLUF in the workplace, Paul is answering the age old question that maybe even you’ve gotten, “well what about someone who has never heard of Jesus…what about the pygmies in Africa?”  Paul makes the answer clear here…
• We serve a just God.  He just said back in verse 11, the verse that leads into this present discussion, that “there if no partiality with God…no favoritism, no unfairness.”  And therefore to those who by patient continuance seek and do good…glory, honor, peace and immortality.  But to those who obey unrighteousness, turmoil, wrath, fret, trouble and anguish…
• But what if there is no knowledge of the perfect law of liberty?  Law of liberty?  Yes that is what James calls the commandments of God in James 1:25.  But I thought the law was the detailed for us in Exodus 20…you know the handwriting of requirements for mankind, the rules of engagement…the word law sounds a lot like rules and rules and liberty don’t seem to go together, man…
• Ah now you are glimpsing something that surpasses understanding aren’t you?  James puts three words together that don’t seem to belong…perfect, law, AND liberty and our rational hearts and minds corroborate our conflict in fully understanding that the more rules we have, the less free we are…and so we arrive at a precept.  One that is hardly taught and most often must be caught…that as you follow the Lord, His will and His ways…obeying His word and trusting in His plan…what you actually find, in following hard after Him…taking up your own cross, denying your own self, what you find is precisely what our mind, body, soul and spirit all yearn for…liberty.
• A couple of thoughts for you, to illustrate this concept, this truth of the law of liberty.  If my kids are out playing and I tell them, look kids, stay out of the road, if you see a snake, don’t pick it up and above all else, play nicely.  Now, those seem like a bunch of rules don’t they?  Don’t do this, do this, don’t do this…but remember, what their hearts desire is…what they’re even outside to do…to play and enjoy the day, enjoy each other, even enjoy the front yard that I have provided for them and maybe a kite or a ball…again things that I have given them, provided for them…
• And my hearts desire as their father is for them to enjoy all of those things too…yet if they run out into the road and are hit by a car, does the enjoyment continue? If they find a snake and are harmed by it, does the enjoyment continue?  No!  In either of those circumstances…tragedy!  If they play maliciously with one another, just harping on each other, being bitter or fighting, is liberty not stolen?  Of course it is!
• And so the rather elementary illustration hopefully reveals a truth that the laws of the Father are not set in place to capture liberty, but to provide liberty!  The laws of the land are what captures liberty man…and I’m not talking about laws that are signed into force, I’m talking about the humanistic law of social acceptance, the law of reputation, the law of sensual pleasure and indulgence…Matt, what are you talking about?  What are all of the commercials on TV about?  Food, fashion and merchandise…and what is used to entice, to sell these things?  Sex and status. 
• You see this fallen world desires to enslave you to itself and remove from you that which will provide what it is you truly desire, liberty…it’s the age old carrot on a stick man…hey, this double whooper, come buy it man…have it your way, it will make you sooooo satisfied…then what happens, you eat it and feel gross.  Or hey this new car, this new guy, this new gal, all the sitcoms teach us and the reality TV shows indoctrinate us with this thought that there’s something there for us…and so many go that way in their own life just to find not liberty, but trouble, turmoil and anguish…liberty is ripped away by this world and the things in it, man…
• So what are we to do?  Set our minds on things above.  Allow the Lord to reveal to you truth that cannot be seen or found apart from the Holy Spirit revealing it to you.  Preoccupy yourselves and focus your lives not on serving yourself but in loving the Lord and serving others…and in that you will be fulfilling the laws of Christ as Jesus said to His disciples, “love the Lord your God with all of your heart, soul, mind and strength…and love eachother fervently, as you love yourself.”  Oh the liberty of staying away from snakes and the street and being gentle with eachother.  How pleasing to the Father…all wrapped up in holding the perfect….law….of liberty.
• But I’ve learned, it never fails, we’ll each try it our own way…some the circumstance, some the day, some the season of life…some their whole lives…but it doesn’t work.  Compromised Christianity, hokey pokey convictions…certainly a life lived sold out to self...just doesn’t work man…and we know it!
• I have a regular route to work each day but there are alternates and there is specifically this one alternate route that temps me all the time.  Its like this cut through street that just seems so much faster but EVERYTIME I take it, something slows me down.  A school bus, a red light, a pedestrian!  And no matter what it always turns out…frustrating.  But hey, about once a month or so, guess what I do…yep…I take that alternate route again…and each time I regret it!  Just like trying it my own way man…it doesn’t work.  And we know that if the Creator has a path for His creation then what could be better?  Obviously nothing…we know it in the depths of our hearts man…
• And what if someone has never heard these things…what then?  Well do they still have the same depth of heart that you and I do?  Of course and so Paul says here for as many as have sinned without the law will perish without the law however that doesn’t really happen…because Paul says here what we read in Jeremiah 31:33 and Hebrews 8:10 and 10:16, that God has not only written His laws on our hearts…all men, whether deaf, blind, remote or obscure and He has also hung His laws up for display in all of nature!
• In the rushing of the water, in the bowing of the trees under the wind…in the beauty of a newborn dependent upon its mother and father, in the dawn of the mornings and the dusk of the evenings…Paul says here that by nature all mankind perceives the law of God…and therefore even if someone has never sat someone down and explained to them the 10 Commandments or the commandments of Christ, God’s truth is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them.  Look back at verse 20 of Chapter 1…
• For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead so that they are without excuse.  And so leaving the subject of indigenous remote African tribes, where so many want to go and try to take you when you’re sharing Jesus with them…what about you?  What about your secrets?  Isn’t that what we’re really talking about here?
• Paul says whether you hear or not, whatever…there in verse 13, its not the hearers of the law that are just in the sight of God, but the doers of the law that are justified.  And so we look into the mirror of scripture and the question…always…what about you?

Romans Chapter 2 Verses 17 – 24

• Paul says here to the Jew, indeed you are called a Jew, and rest on the law, and make your boast in God, and know His will, and approve the things which are excellent, and are confident that you are even a guide to the blind…but understand this also goes for us…
• Paul writes to us also, you are called a Christian and in that title you are confident that you are “good” with God…Look 82% of Americans claim the title of Christian nominally.  4 out of 5 people you ask randomly will say that they are Christian…but what does that mean?  Does it mean they go to church?  Certainly not!  Only 21% of Americans, or 1 in 4 “Christians” go to church on a regular basis.  Does it mean they read their Bibles?  Certainly not.  Only 19% of “Christians” read their Bibles on a regular basis.  Do those things make you a Christian?
• Does it mean they make their everyday decisions based on Biblical truth?  In this world, what we’ve made Christianity, it doesn’t even mean that!  Well then what on earth does being a Christian mean?  In this world system…nothing!  That is what Paul is saying here to these Jews.  He’s saying all of your confidence is in the cotton candy…simply calling yourself a Jew and man we have fallen into the same mold as Christians. 
• How’s that?  Well Paul says here to these Jews that they approve the things that are excellent…but he goes on to say…man approval is not enough…because approval is not agreement.  Agreement is solidified only in conformance.  Your life tells the story, man. 
• Get past the label man and take on a lifestyle!  That is what believing in the Son of God means.  That is what trusting the Lord looks like!  It costs nothing to agree…it costs everything to follow.  You and I always hear…get involved, get involved, get involved…man get real!  Get committed!  The difference between involvement and commitment is like an eggs-and-ham breakfast:  The chicken was involved, the pig was committed!  That’s the diff man…that is to give your all to the Lord man…all your heart, soul, mind and strength…that is to find pure liberty, that is to be born again!  Yet we are lost in our “me” centered, “Christia-me-ty.”
• And that’s the thing Paul is bringing right to the front door of their hearts and our hearts today that if we agree that a man should not steal yet we steal…then we don’t agree at all!  And if we say or feel that we agree that a man should follow the Lord yet we ourselves are unwilling to follow Him…then man for real…we don’t agree!  We approve, we teach, we condemn but we ourselves are not taught, we ourselves are condemned and in that the kicker there in verses 23 and 24, not only do we ourselves dishonor God but we lead others around us right into blasphemy.
• That is the horrific result of a carnal Christian.  One who misrepresents Jesus Christ.  One who approves of Jesus verbally and yet denies Him physically…
• I have an iPhone as my work phone and I get emails all of the time…some are more important than others and often when an important one pops up…I read it right away…but sometimes the server is hung up and when I open it do you know what it says, “this message has no content!”  Man that is what we are showing the world of Christ when we walk in overt hypocracy.  Approving the Word of God yet disobeying its very precepts and statutes.  We show the world that there is nothing to be found in a relationship with Jesus Christ as we profess to know and love Him and then fold right in with our own lusts and our own way. 
• “This God has not content” is the message that we display…when everyone out there is looking for content.  The most important message of all eternity…the email arrives…they grab you, their communication device with Jesus Christ and they open that email…and it has no content.  Horrible. 
• Let it not be so with you.  Live your life for the Lord man.  Obey Him, seek Him, and you know what is awesome?  You’ll find Him!  You’ll come alive man and then this won’t even be a question for folks around you…They’ll see your unwavering gladness…gladness?  Yes, its Hebrews Chapter 1 verse9, “you have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness; Therefore God, Your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness!”  They’ll see you, they’ll see Jesus…But its not a name tag, its nothing you say, it’s not the shirt you wear or the church you rep, its your life man…and these Jews had it all backwards…

Romans Chapter 2 Verses 25 – 29

• Circumcision was an identification of God’s covenant people, an outward sign of what was to be an inward reality.  You find in the Old Testament several illustrations of the spiritual implications of the physical rite of circumcision.  Exodus 6:12 speaks of the circumcision of the lips.  Jeremiah 6:10 speaks of the circumcision of the ears.  Ezekiel 44 speaks of the circumcision of the heart…and so much more than just physical identification but you see the spiritual implications of how God deals with sin…cutting it away…that is the work of the Spirit in your life and in mine.
• God’s people are to speak with tenderness, hear with sensitivity and feel with compassion.  All along, from the institution of circumcision it was meant to be a picture externally of the transformation that takes place internally…in the hearts and lives of God’s set-apart people. 
• Yet although the Jews were outwardly circumcised, they were far from where they should have been internally.  Paul says here, clears it up for us here, in verse 29, he says circumcision, the mark that you are a member of God’s covenant people, is that of the heart, in the Spirit…not in the law or approval from men…but in that you are approved by God! 
• You see Christianity in our minds and in our world today has decayed into something utterly monstrous.  Even our own selves, we pray, we read our Bibles, we worship the Lord corporately, we listen to Bible studies and we serve in the church and then we go out those doors and we live for ourselves…not even understanding the mind of Christ.  Not even regarding what God would have me to do…”well doesn’t God want me happy?  Doesn’t he want me to get what I need and have what I want?  Doesn’t he want my husband to love me and so I need to press for that?  Doesn’t he want my wife to respect me and so I need to press for that?”  WRONG!
• Paul says it here…God’s will is not for you to seek the praise of men…praise from men…but from God.  We don’t even know the mind of Christ man…why?  Because it is precisely what Paul has laid out for us through Chapter 2…that we approve of the Word of God, yet we have no desire to obey it…and so we don’t read it…and when we do we mentally craft our checklists of what we will and will not obey…and we suffer.  Strife abounds, turmoil abounds, weakness abounds…when power, love, gentleness, kindness, patience, purpose, satisfaction and liberty lie in wait…for us to ditch the checklist and meet the Lord right at the cross…
• Eternal and everlasting life have no direct ties with things such as circumcision, baptism, confirmation and communion.  Not directly.  Eternal and everlasting life, saving faith is just that, its faith man…not of works lest man could take credit…no we are to boast in what the Lord has done...people think that because they’ve gone through a baptismal ceremony, been christened as an infant, or come to the Lord’s table that they will be especially blessed or that by that they will be saved.  Not so. 
• Outward expression means nothing if not accompanied by inward experience.  Approval is not agreement man…it certainly isn’t commitment…and many will be stunned when the Lord looks upon them in utter pain and says “depart from Me, I never knew you.”  That is His one desire and His one commandment.  That you would know Him.  That you would come to Him.  That you would turn from that which murdered the Son of God…turn from that which today dishonors the Father and the Son…and allow the Holy Spirit to lead you into the perfect law of liberty…today and forever.