Exposition of Romans
What is True for Them is True For You Part 2
Romans 2:6-11
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INTRODUCTION
I want you listen to the following phrases to see if you can determine what they all have in common.
· A winner gives results and not excuses
· It’s not what you say that counts, but what you do
· If your gonna’ talk the talk, you must walk the walk
· Actions speak louder than words
What do all of these phrases have in common? What they have in common is that they all focus on the actions of a person and not just what they say.
All of these sayings are what we call conventional wisdom. They are sayings that one might say they’re the world’s greatest athlete but what they do on the field will determine if this is true.
From an athletic perspective teams are willing to pay big money to get superstar athletes but what that means is that when it is time for the big play they will turn to those athletes to make them. If they fail they will lose their status and their money.
Where I am going with this is very simple. The same adage is true for the spiritual world – a person might claim that they are walking with God, they might boast about their walk with God and take confidence in the flesh but when it comes down to it what they do with their heart and what they really live for and what they place their faith in is the real litmus test of their walk with God.
God is not interested in people who claim to follow Him or who can put on the uniform of God, what He wants are people who will place all of their faith in Him and live to really follow Him all the days of their life.
Today, as we complete the study that we started last week we will see this very principle developed before us.
Last week we began looking at Romans 2:6-11. We only got through verse 5 and so today we will pick up the past point in last weeks sermon.
This section of Romans is a very important section, for in it we see that those who are religiously lost are in need of the righteousness of God just like the pagan in the world.
When I use the term “religiously lost” what I am referring to is the one who has been raised around the Bible and has conformed his behavior to certain ethical standards in the Bible and yet has not placed their faith in the work of Christ for their salvation. What often happens is that people conform in their behavior to the Bible but they forget to seek God for a new life, heart, and a new mind. They become confident in what they do and not in what God has done for them in Christ.
The fallout is that they become hypocrites, for they judge the people who do the things that they do not do as well as they become presumptuous, by disregarding the time for repentance that God give. Thus, rather than being right with God they actually are in a wrong standing with God not living for His glory but for their own.
Paul’s heart is to show that even those who were raised with a Bible and have conformed their life to its ethics, are in need of the righteousness that comes by faith.
Last week we looked at the judgment that is going to fall upon the religiously lost and we observed that:
I GOD JUDGES HYPOCRISY
II GOD JUDGES PRESUMPTION
This week we will pick up on the third point that Paul makes:
III GOD JUDGES PRIDE
We will see that there are those who believe that they can make themselves righteousness while claiming to follow God are really pursuing their own flesh and thus will be judged by God.
What I want you to get from this study today is the understanding that God desires for everyone to pursue Him for their life. In other words, God desires that we would live for His glory and honor and not our own. When we do this we are denying our flesh and our pride and living in a manner that pleases Him. What I want is for you to see the great need that you have to walk humbly and with repentance before God as a way of life. Rather than being confident in your flesh and ignoring your sin, you would repent of your sin and live dependant upon God.
III GOD JUDGES PRIDE
In verses 6-11 Paul will show in great detail the depth of the religiously lost pride problem. Paul does this by first establishing the standard of judgment that God will to evaluate mankind. This standard is a very intense standard. Observe the standard.
6 He will render to each one according to his works:
In verse 6 Paul states that God will render to each one on the basis of what they have done. This is a very intense statement because it focuses every person’s attention on who they are and how they live rather than on some external ceremony they perform or their national heritage. God is evaluating us based upon the standard of who we are and He will see this on based upon what we do.
Remember that who we are in reality is not seen in our words, but by the very motive that runs and rules all of our actions.
In order to understand verse 6 we must put it into its original context. Remember that Paul is speaking of the Jews who thought that because of their Jewish heritage they would be spared from the wrath of God. Paul is challenging this to its very core and saying, no, God is going to judge each man according to his works, not according to their heritage.
The issue before God is not whether a person is a Jew or a Gentile, whether he professes allegiance to God or conforms to a set of religious principles, whether you adhere to a religious institution. The issue is going to be their very life that man lives before God.
If were to stop here in the sermon and say no more we have enough information to see the need to have the righteousness that is revealed in the gospel to be given to us. For if my heart, mind, motives, thoughts and every single action is going to be looked at by God then I am in trouble. Unless God changes me I am dead for I cannot stand under this level of scrutiny.
This statement is very critical. God is going to look at the work of the person who knows the Scriptures and will judge them based upon their works. The ground of God’s judgment is human works – not our church affiliation, family or ceremonies, but it is what we actually do with our lives.
Paul’s heart is to get the reader to stop and look at their heart, their anger, lust, greed and say – that is going to be what God looks at on the Day of Judgment – not whether you have been loyal to set of religious rituals and ceremonies. This is true for everyone in the world.
I realize that this is a forceful statement so let me say a few things that will help you understand this verse a little better. This is an intense statement because it seems to go against the entire system of belief that we have that teaches that we are saved by faith. When we hear that we are going to be judged by works we can struggle with this. What I want to do is say a few things that might help you understand what Paul is saying.
First of all this defines for us the standard of judgment that God is going to use not the path of salvation. God did not say that a person is saved by their works, he said that they will be judged by their works. God does require something of people who go to heaven and this requirement is what we all have to meet if we are going to go to heaven.
As chapter 2 will make abundantly clear, no one can stand under this mighty judgment of God thus, God saves us and changes us so that we can do these works. In other words, God is giving us the answer key that He will use in heaven to evaluate us – but as Romans will make very clear we get the ability to do these works of righteousness from God and not from ourselves.
Second, the message of salvation was never meant to be a message that teaches us that we can sin all we want after we are saved. Instead, salvation is that which leads us into a walk with God in which we can actually serve God and follow God with our own heart.
Third, true salvation leads to true works of righteousness thus, the evidence that a person is saved is whether or not they are truly doing the works of God. At salvation God gives us His righteousness so that we can obey Him. Therefore, on the Day of Judgment we will be evaluated as to whether or not the works of righteousness are truly seen within us.
What Paul wants is for the religiously lost person to see that God is not evaluating us on our heritage, or on the religious affiliation that we ascribe to, but instead, to whether or not His righteousness is working out of us.
What we have seen thus far then is what God is looking at when to evaluate us on the Day of Judgement. Let’s look at this standard and see the works that God is looking for in order to take us to heaven.
1. The Standard for Heaven
7 to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life;
What Paul is saying here is something very important to understand. Paul wants the readers to know that those who by patience, in doing good and seek for glory and honor and immorality, will gain eternal life.
What I want you to see about this standard is what it does not say. Notice that it does not say that the person who follows a series of religious rules and religious practices will go to heaven. There is nothing in here about external rituals.
What is talked about in this verse is a pursuit that has to come from the very heart of a person. The essence of the pursuit mentioned here is a person who wants to know God and Him alone as the sum of all that they are and do in this life. In other words this is about a person who wants God to be glorified and manifested in their life.
Let’s examine this standard. The first thing that we see in this text is the presence of endurance in the life of the true believer.
7 to those who by patience in well-doing
When Paul talks of those who go to heaven the first thing he describes are those who by patience keep doing good. This is a very important statement that we have to unpack.
The heart of this first phrase is a whole hearted commitment to doing what is good in the eyes of God. In a moment we will see what is good in the eyes of God. The simple point is that a person will continue on in doing what is considered good in the eyes of God.
The word “patience” in this text is a word that literally means to bear up under, or, to continue to do something regardless of the pain or pressure. Thus, it is a word that carries the idea of remaining true to something no matter the cost.
Patience, or bearing up under something is a critical virtue to God. This is the virtue that Jesus manifested as everyone in the world was seeking to get Him to not go to the cross He stayed the course and went to the cross. As Satan offered Jesus the world without having to go to the cross Jesus withstood him and in this He manifested true patience in doing good.
Jesus withstood all of the pressure to get off the cross, pressure from Satan, the disciples, Roman government and His own humanity. Yet, He stayed the course because He lived to do the will of the Father rather than His own will.
This first point is a point about enduring with God. There are many people who follow God for a while and then for a myriad of reason they drop out of the walk. In Mark 4:1-20 records the parable of the Sower. This parable shows that not all that begin a walk with God will continue to the end. Listen to Jesus’ explanation of this parable in verses 13-20.
13 And he said to them, “Do you not understand this parable? How then will you understand all the parables? 14 The sower sows the word. 15 And these are the ones along the path, where the word is sown: when they hear, Satan immediately comes and takes away the word that is sown in them. 16 And these are the ones sown on rocky ground: the ones who, when they hear the word, immediately receive it with joy. 17 And they have no root in themselves, but endure for a while; then, when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately they fall away. 18 And others are the ones sown among thorns. They are those who hear the word, 19 but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word, and it proves unfruitful. 20 But those that were sown on the good soil are the ones who hear the word and accept it and bear fruit, thirtyfold and sixtyfold and a hundredfold.”
There is a lot to this parable, but the one thing that I want you to see is the fact that those in whom the seed stuck were those who endured. They did not abandon their faith for something else, they stayed true.
The point of Paul here is to show us that those who go to heaven press on in doing good – in other words they endure. What are the good things that they are to press on seeking? That is answered in the second part of the verse.
Seeking for the glory, honor and immortality that God offers
This is what God is looking for – perseverance in pursuing His glory, honor and immortality.
The idea here is that God gives eternal life to those who seek it. If a person believes that they already have eternal life on the basis of their heritage, or their actions then they never really seek eternal life. Instead, they are trying to earn eternal life rather than seeking it from God. In this text, we see that the person who seeks the glory, honor and eternal life of God, get it.
Notice that eternal life comes from that which you pursue, not from the things that you avoid or the rituals you perform. You can avoid all sin the world, lock your self in a cave and never talk for the rest of your life and still not gain eternal life. What God calls us to is to pursue Him and His virtues and life every moment of every day. That is the requirement for heaven. Let’s unpack these pursuits further. Let’s look at what we are to press on in pursuing.
Glory: the very essence of God. When we speak of the glory of God we speak of the manifestation of God’s very nature and character. In other words, it is the expression of His very nature and character.
This pursuit is the basic or fundamental pursuit of the Christian life. To know, understand and put on display the very nature and character of God is the fundamental pursuit of the Christian life. A person, who has no desire to have God put on display, but only themselves, is not persevering in the very heart and will of God for man.
Honor: is the affirmation and blessedness of someone. In this context it is the honor of God. In a nutshell, this is to seek the very approval of God. To be counted as accepted and blessed in the sight of God. Those who are content in their own works are not seeking God’s honor, but instead, they have blessed themselves. They have accounted themselves as worthy before God based upon their own standards, rather than falling before God with the prayer of dependence upon God to be counted worthy in His sight.
When a person seeks the honor of God they in the end bring honor to God. When I live to get God’s honor I will bring honor to God.
1 Peter 2:12 states that we should keep our behavior excellent in front of the people of the world so that as we keep serving and doing what is right and are mocked for it Jesus will be glorified when He returns. The world will see that our faith was in the right place and that Jesus is truly the one to be worshipped.
People who live for God’s honor are the ones who go to heaven.
Immortality: this is word that literally means incorruption. It is the idea of seeking an entirely new life. It is an acknowledgment that we stand condemned before God and are in need of an entirely new life that cannot die and will live forever with God.
The point here simply is that the person who has a heavenly perspective, who is seeking something that is outside of himself is the one who will go to heaven. The true objective of the saint is to live for the things that are eternal. These three terms defines a person who is living for the highest pursuit of life – the glory of God, the honor of God and the very life of God.
To pursue these things you have to understand that they are not within you naturally, they have to be received, and they are received by those who turn to the righteousness of God revealed in the gospel.
Before Adam and Eve fell into sin all they knew was God and God was the giver of their ethics. God was the one who told them what was right and what was wrong. They trusted in the understanding of good and evil that God had and they lived to know God and to be with Him. When they sinned they became infused with the knowledge of good and evil and now they were making their own decisions as to what was right and what was wrong. The difference is now they do not live to trust fully in God and His ethics, they now try to establish their own moral code and ethics.
Becoming a Christian is literally coming back to the exclusive knowledge of God and to fully surrender to Him as our morals and ethics. It is the full on pursuit of following God and trusting that when He is glorified and honored that this is the best possible plan for me – regardless of the temporary physical cost.
Paul is saying that those who do not want to establish their own righteousness but instead want to pursue God’s glory, acceptance and life are the ones who are holy in God’s eyes and will go to heaven.
This is the standard upon which all men will go to heaven. Let us look at the standard that God uses to send people to hell.
2. The Standard for Hell
8 but for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury.
Notice that those who are arrogant, do not want to obey God but instead their own unrighteousness, will be punished. In this verse there are three things that Paul mentions about the person who goes to hell. These three things are the three motives that will drive any person to hell.
1. Self-Seeking
Self-seeking is defined as placing your own glory, honor and life as your ultimate pursuit. Rather than life being about bringing glory to God in our own hearts, it is about doing good in your own life for your own glory. It is a person who believes that because their good works outweigh their bad works will go to heaven.
The self-seeking person is wrapped up in themselves, in their own works, in their own abilities to be holy and righteousness and not in the denial of self and the full-on seeking of God. They will serve God only when it matches their moral and ethics and they refuse to trust in God’s.
2. Disobedient - and do not obey the truth
This is very simple; those who do not obey the truth are condemned. God has revealed His truth to the world and the one who stands before God who has the Scriptures is required to obey this truth. There is no room for error. Yet, the one who goes to hell would rather add to the law of God, all the traditions of men, teachings that contradict the Scriptures and find themselves obeying human institutions rather than God Himself. When the Scriptures speak to an issue they do not want to follow it, instead they want to follow their own path and their own way. They place men and man’s teaching in the place of God.
This is the heart of the one who does not want to follow God and therefore, they stand condemned before God.
3. Unrighteousness - but obey unrighteousness
Not only do they seek themselves and their own standard, as well as disobey God, but they also follow their own standard. The religiously lost person lives a very disciplined life – yet that discipline is all self-induced. Unrighteousness means not following the righteousness of God but your own righteousness.
The point of Paul here is to let us know what the standard of judgment is for mankind. The standard of judgment is that a person must seek the glory of God, the life of God, and the will of God as a way of life or they will go to hell. In other words, a person who is self-seeking and disobeys God will go to hell. Selfishness is a one-way ticket to hell.
At the heart of this sin is the issue of pride. Pride is the establishment of your own standard in the place of God’s standard. Mankind has been doing this for all of history.
When Adam and Eve sinned they were in essence saying that they wanted to posses the knowledge of good and evil themselves and run their own life based upon their own standard and reasoning. This act is the ultimate act of rebellion towards God because it is trying to take the role of God as the law giver from Him to possess it ourselves.
Paul makes this statement because he wants us to understand the very serious standard that mankind will be judged by.
When we look at verses 7 and 8 we can quickly see that we do not measure up to verse 7 because all of us do things for our own glory and we fail in obeying God and we do not always want to follow the law of God. Thus, even though we know that if we can do what is right all the time we can go to heaven, the reality is that we cannot do it.
Therefore, we are in need of a righteousness that can be given to us that can make us do this – and this is what God offers in the gospel.
To make sure that we get the point, Paul gives us a graphic picture what will happen at the last judgment: observe.
9 There will be tribulation and distress for every human being who does evil, the Jew first and also the Greek, 10 but glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good, the Jew first and also the Greek. 11 For God shows no partiality.
Paul is saying that misery is coming to the wicked and glory to the righteous. Let’s see how Paul makes this point.
He states that tribulation and distress is coming for every human being who does evil. These words together carry the idea of an extreme pain and crises that is coming. God will have no tolerance for those who live by their own standard and establish their own human way of being righteous.
Yet, for those who do good, which is to pursue the glory, honor and life of God, they will be honored, which is get the approval of God. They will have peace, which is a perfect standing with God.
When Paul mentions in this passage the Jew first and then the Greek he is referring to two categories of people. The Jews are those who were raised with the Scriptures taught to them and the Greeks represent those who did not have the Scriptures taught to them. The Judgment of God will come to the Jews first, because they were given the Scriptures and thus they are more accountable. They will receive judgment just like those who suppress the knowledge of God.
Those who are righteous and live to do God’s will all the time, are the ones who receive honor and peace, or heaven. This standard is for the Jews as well as the Greeks, God will not leave any nationality of the plan of salvation.
The point here is verse 11, which states that God shows no partiality. There will not be special classes of people who are exempt from judgment or not allowed into heaven. Anyone who partakes of the righteousness of God can go to heaven. Anyone who is selfish will go to hell. This is the principle for mankind.
CONCLUSION
We have seen the sin that God will judge in the religiously lost: hypocrisy, presumption and pride. The point that we must pull from this is very simple: sin works in the heart of everyone – even those who are not as bad as the pagans.
What must we do with this message is ask ourselves some questions.
1. Do I see the seriousness of my own sin and does this grieve me?
2. Do I understand the priority that God places on repentance in my life?
3. Do I understand the extreme value of pursuing God’s righteousness to be evident in my life rather than my own standards or glory?
We must ask ourselves these questions to avoid being deceived. If your faith is in what you do not do, or how you avoid evil then your faith is in the wrong place and you stand condemned just like the pagan. If your faith in is the gospel of Jesus Christ and you walk humble towards God and others in an attitude of repentance then you are walking in a way that pursues God’s glory, honor and life and you will get eternal life.
Only you and God know your heart, so I call upon you to consider this before God as we pray.