05-02-10 For Through The Law...

We return this morning

to our study of the book of Romans,

and to our study of the first major section of this remarkable book.

Throughout our study of this book

you will hear me frequently reminding us

of the four major questions Paul wrote the book to answer

because it is those four questions

that will give you a better feel for the book

than anything else I could offer you.

Paul wrote the book to answer the following four questions -

First, why was Christ needed?

He answers this question in the section we’re now studying, 1:18-3:20.

Second, what is a Christian?

In this section he explains the basics of life with God through Christ

a section that begins with 3:21 and runs through the end of chapter 8.

Then third, in chapters 9-11,

he answers the question of

what happens with the Nation of Israel now that God has established the church.

And then fourth, he concludes his letter in chapters 12-15

by answering the question, ‟What is the church and how does it operate?”

We have just begun our study of the book,

and we are in the first of those 4 sections,

the one in which Paul explains

why Christ was needed.

And He answers that question

by providing us with a presentation

of what the human race looks like

without Christ.

It is a passage that tells us everything

we didn’t really want to hear

about ourselves and our world.

It is a passage

that goes directly against the grain

of everything we have tried so hard to do as a human race.

We have tried so hard to hide from the truth,

telling ourselves we are really pretty good people

doing a pretty good job under the circumstances.

When floods and hurricanes and earthquakes hit

we all rally to the cause

and help out our fellow man.

Violent crime is down,

and the economy appears to be recovering slowly

from perhaps the greatest time of financial turmoil in our national history.

Surely, all things considered,

we’re just a group of fine folks

doing a fine job in very difficult times.

Do you know what we’re like?

The human race is like a teenage boy

who has stolen his daddy’s car

and his daddy’s credit card

and headed out across country

with three of his friends,

all telling themselves they’re going to prove they can make it on their own.

They don’t have any idea where they’re going,

and there are frequent arguments

about what they should do

and how they should do it along the way,

but because they have the car

and they’ve just charged another meal at McDonalds

and another tank of gas,

they tell themselves they’re doing great on their own,

and everything is going to work out fine.

But tucked away in each of their minds

there is this nagging anxiety,

this fear,

this knowledge that back home there is DAD,

and he just might want his car

and his credit card back some day.

This first two and a half chapters of the book of Romans

presents the human race

in its stolen car,

with its stolen credit card,

laughing,

and drinking,

and keeping the party going as long and as loudly as possible,

with everyone trying very hard to pretend everything is OK.

But in the back of our minds we know

there is something that is not altogether right

about this situation.

We ended our study the last time we were in this passage

with Paul’s statement in 1:32

where he says,

Rom. 1:32 and, although they know the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them.

“We’re doing great on our own, huh?

Hey, that was some great driving back there, wasn’t it!

I thought that cop was going to get us for sure,

but we showed him!

Who needs dad, anyway?

It’s probably a good idea if we head on to the next town, though...

always best to keep on the move...

Wow, this sure is fun, huh? Yep! We sure are having fun now!”

This is jumping ahead in our study,

but since I got myself into this illustration

I can’t resist the urge to complete the picture.

You see, those teenage boys

racing across country in daddy’s car

are far more like the human race

than we may realize.

Their great fear

is that daddy will catch them

and take back his car

and his credit card

and then explode in a rage

that lands them all in juvenile detention.

As Paul confronts the human race

with our mad dash across history

he brings this unspoken fear right out into the open

in the passage we’ll look at in just a few minutes.

In Romans 2:5-6 he says,

But because of your stubbornness and unrepentant heart you are storing up wrath for yourself in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, who will render to every man according to his deeds:

And as those boys picture DAD in their minds

they believe what he wants

is his car,

and his credit card,

and his vengeance on them.

But if they could look into Daddy’s heart

what they would see there

would send a shock through them.

For they would see that

what Dad really longs for,

what he hungers for,

the only thing he really wants back is his son.

The very fact that Dad hasn’t canceled that credit card

should have given them some clue about what’s really going on inside Dad’s heart.

That’s what Paul was telling us

when he told us in 1:20 that,

For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made...

Funny how it is...

we have a phrase that we commonly use in our culture

to describe some disaster that’s just happened - earthquake, flood, tornado, hurricane.

We call it “an act of God”.

In our typical human rebellion

we attribute to our Creator the bad stuff that happens.

But do you know what the real acts of God are?

It’s that sun that rose once again this morning,

giving warmth,

and light,

and hope for one more day.

It’s all of those glimpses of green we see this time of year.

It’s the air we breath without thought,

and an entire world system

that continues to function with amazing beauty and perfection

in the face of a human race in rebellion against the Creator.

He hasn’t yet canceled our credit card

even though He’s had every reason to do so.

And in the context of this illustration,

when we get to Romans 3:21 and the verses following,

we are going to see that,

when Father and son are finally reunited,

and the boy steps out of the driver’s seat

and faces his Dad,

the first thing the Father says is,

“Come on, son, let’s go home.

I’ve paid the credit card bill in full -

it no longer exists.

And I’ve signed the title of this car over to you as well.

You are not my enemy,

you are not my criminal to be conquered and destroyed.

You are my son.

All I’ve ever wanted since the day you were born

is to share a friendship with you.

And if you’ll let me take the wheel

and you’re willing to travel with me,

I’ll show you this country

as you’ve never seen it before,

and I’ll take you to places you’re going to love!”

For of His fullness we have all received, and grace upon grace. For the Law was given through Moses; grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ.

Joh 1:16-17

But let’s get back into the passage itself

and see where Paul goes with it.

We left off our study

having just seen the first phase

of the two phases of the wrath of God.

In Romans 1:18-32 we saw Paul telling us

that the great offense the human race has committed against God

is our refusal to honor Him as God

and acknowledge that He is GOOD.

Because of that

God instituted a two-phase program for His wrath

designed to confront us with our sin

and call us back to Himself.

And the first phase of that program

is through His “giving us over” to our sin.

We saw two weeks ago

the way in which God has built

an addictive element into all sinful conduct

so that even when we recognize the destructiveness of our sin,

we can’t break free from it.

He has done this

for the same reason we set an alarm clock before going to sleep.

He knows one of the most powerful tools for waking us up

to our desperate need for Him

is the pain we experience

as a result of our rebellion against Him.

That is where we ended last time.

This morning I want us to pick up our study with Romans 2:1

and it is my hope

that today I can take us all the way through the remainder of this first section

of the book of Romans.

And in order for us to move that quickly

through that much of the letter

what I will do is to share with you

each major statement as Paul presents it to us,

then give you the verses in which those statements are made,

and encourage you to use what we look at today

as a guide for your own study of the passage.

The crucial thing for us in this particular passage

is for us to see the flow of Paul’s logic

and understand where he’s taking us

and how he gets us there.

So, with the hope that you are mentally prepared for a sprint,

let’s jump into it.

The next major statement in the passage

is found in 2:1-11.

It describes phase 2 of the wrath of God,

and it tells us that every one of us stands justly deserving of the future wrath of God on the basis of the moral law of God.

The summary statement of the passage

is found in 2:9-10 where Paul says:

There will be tribulation and distress for every soul of man who does evil, of the Jew first and also of the Greek, but glory and honor and peace to every man who does good, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.

The problem, of course,

is that the entire human race

falls into the first category.

If we would have lived perfectly,

God would have honored that perfection

and given us glory, honor, and peace.

But none of us do.

And there is one other aspect of this passage I don’t want us to miss.

It is stated twice within the passage,

in 2:1, and again in 2:3.

And it is designed to shatter

one of our favorite hiding places

from the moral law of God.

In 2:1 Paul says,

Rom. 2:1 Therefore you are without excuse, every man of you who passes judgment, for in that you judge another, you condemn yourself; for you who judge practice the same things.

You see,

one of man’s favorite mental hiding places from the moral law of God

is in his proclamation that he doesn’t accept the same rules God does.

This, of course, goes back to that statement in verse 1:32

where we are all giving hearty approval

to the sin addictions of those around us.

But what Paul says in this passage

is that the standard God will measure us by

is not the standard we have written for ourselves,

it is the standard we require from others.

The modern man says,

‟I don’t really buy into all of this ‛thou shalt not stuff’ in the Bible.

We are an enlightened society,

a society in which we understand that there are an awful lot of grey areas.

Sometimes a little cheating,

a little dishonesty,

a little stretching of the truth is necessary to get ahead in this world.

I’m a ‟survival-of-the-fittest kind of guy”.

And then he gets his snow plowing bill

and notices he’s been charged

for plowing on two days

when it didn’t even snow.

The first thing he does

is to grab his phone,

call the snow plower

and scream,

‟HEY! You’re trying to cheat me!”

And onto his list goes,

‟Thou shalt not lie.”

‟Thou shalt not steal.”

We may proclaim ourselves

to be totally liberated from all the archaic sexual taboos in the Bible,

but the real question is

what rules of conduct do we expect

from the young man picking up our daughter for a date,

or from the work colleague

making a play for our marriage partner,

or from the teacher or coach who has access to our child?

All of the sudden,

‟Thou shalt not commit adultery” looks mighty good.

And in the end,

no matter what moral code we may have personally choose for ourselves,

the code God measures our life by

is the one we mentally require from others

in those relationships where it really matters.

And because the moral law of God is etched into our hearts,

what we require from others

looks very much like what our God requires from us.

So, the first major statement Paul makes,

found in 2:1-11, is that every one of us stands justly deserving of the future wrath of God on the basis of the moral law of God.

Then, to intensify his message,

Paul takes the next two sections

to deal with two distinctly different blocks of humanity -

the Gentile world -

those who did not have the written moral law of God,

and the Jewish world -

those who had been given the moral law by God in written form.

And with each group

Paul attacks and destroys their hiding place.

In our modern setting

the same two groups exist -

those who have never seen the written word of God,

and those who know it well,

most of whom are in the conservative church world today.

Paul begins in 2:12-16 with those who have never been exposed to the written Word.

Their great voice of protest against being judged on the basis of the Law, of course,

is that, ‟We never knew!”

And Paul responds by saying,

‟Yes, you certainly did,

because God has written His moral law in the heart of every human being.”

The key verses are 2:14-15:

For when Gentiles who do not have the Law do instinctively the things of the Law, these, not having the Law, are a law to themselves, in that they show the work of the Law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness, and their thoughts alternately accusing or else defending them...

Etched into the heart of every human being

is the awareness of moral accountability

and the basic knowledge of moral right and wrong.

And then, in 2:17-29,

he turns his attention to those

who possess the moral law of God in written form.

Their great source of security,

and their hiding place comes in the belief

that they are the ones who are upholding the moral law of God to the world.

The key verse in this passage is 2:23:

You who boast in the Law, through your breaking the Law, do you dishonor God?

In our modern setting,

these are those who hide from their own sin

behind their bold proclamations

for righteousness in the lives of others.

They are quick to point out

the hideous corruption in our governmental system,

but when they fill out their own income tax forms,

the only money that shows up

is the money that can be traced.

They take all the right stands

on all the right issues,

and in Paul’s words,

they are confident that (they) are a guide to the blind, a light to those who are in darkness, a corrector of the foolish, a teacher of the immature, having in the Law the embodiment of knowledge and of the truth...

They can tell you with skill and insight

exactly where others live in sin.

Their security is found

in their bold public stand

against all that is evil in the lives of those around them.

And in this passage Paul says,

‟You have it all wrong!

The law was not given TO you,

the law was given FOR you.

It was not given as your weapon

with which to attack your fellow man.

It was given as your personal, infallible guide for self-evaluation.”

And Paul’s message to those who possess the knowledge of the written law is clear-

use your knowledge to measure yourself,

not the person next to you.

Then, in the first 8 verses of chapter 3

Paul includes a parenthesis,

a closed circuit comment

to those who posses the law

and who may have been offended by what he has said.

He has made it clear

that those who possess the law

will be judged by an even higher standard

because they have a more accurate knowledge of the truth.

And to those who cry out in response,

‟Well then, it would have been better

for me to have never possessed the knowledge of the law!”,

Paul responds by saying,

‟No! Far from it!

For even though you did not keep the law,

still, you possessed the greatest treasure any human being can ever posses -

you possessed the very oracle of God.

You knew the truth about how God designed life to operate.

That you refused to use it for that purpose

does not diminish the greatness of the gift.”

Which brings us, then,

to Paul’s great summery statement

of all that he has said so far.

It is found in 3:9-20,

and it is well worth our taking the time to read it together.

What then? Are we better than they? Not at all; for we have already charged that both Jews and Greeks are all under sin; as it is written, ‟There is none righteous, not even one; There is none who understands, There is none who seeks for God; All have turned aside, together they have become useless; There is none who does good, There is not even one. Their throat is an open grave, With their tongues they keep deceiving, The poison of asps is under their lips; Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness; Their feet are swift to shed blood, Destruction and misery are in their paths, And the path of peace have they not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes.”

Through a series of quotations

from a number of Old Testament passages

Paul brings us to the one ultimate truth

of life under the Moral Law of God-

under the Law

every one of us stands justifiably condemned by God.

And then,

just so that there can be no misunderstanding,

he summarizes the whole passage

in these last two verses:

Rom. 3:19-20 Now we know that whatever the Law says, it speaks to those who are under the Law, that every mouth may be closed, and all the world may become accountable to God; because by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified in His sight; for through the Law comes the knowledge of sin.

...through the Law comes the knowledge of sin...

If it serves its role correctly

that is its first great purpose in our lives.

If it brings us only the knowledge of another person’s sin,

then it has not yet done its work in our lives.

It was not given to make us righteous,

it was not given to make us free,

it was not given to show us the way to God.

It was not given to give us a sense of security with God.

It was given to show is our own personal sin.

Where does the law of God ultimately lead us?

To this one truth - there is none righteous, not even one,

and all the world stands accountable to God.

Why was Christ needed?

Because without Him there is no hope.

And then, after forcing the human race

to the point of logical despair,

the next phrase Paul writes, made up of just 6 words,

changes everything forever.

Rom. 3:21 But now apart from the Law ...

And that’s where we’ll pick it up next week.