In his sermon 'Confronting Our Overconfidence Regarding Sin,' Scott Brown expounds on Romans 2:1-16, focusing on the dangers of self-righteousness and the universal need for repentance. He warns against judging others while being blind to one's own sins, emphasizing that God's judgment is impartial and based on truth. Brown highlights the importance of recognizing God's wrath against all sin, whether intentional or unintentional, and the necessity of repentance to truly experience God's grace. He challenges the church to acknowledge their sins, including 'respectable sins,' and to turn away from self-righteousness. The sermon calls believers to understand the weight of sin and the beauty of repentance, leading to a deeper appreciation of God's grace and the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

Today's scripture reading will be from Romans chapter 2 verses 1 through 16, and I'll be reading from the New King James. Therefore, you are inexcusable, O man, whoever you are who judge. For whatever you judge, another you condemn yourself. For you who judge practice the same things. But we know that the judgment of God is according to truth against those who practice such things.

And do you think this, O man, you who judge those practicing such things, and doing the same, that you will escape the judgment of God? Or do you despise the riches of his goodness, forbearance, and long-suffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance. But in accordance with with your hardness and your impenitent heart, you are treasuring up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, who will render to each one according to his deeds eternal life to those who by patient continuance in doing good seek for glory honor and immortality but to those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth but obey unrighteousness, indignation, and wrath, tribulation, and anguish on every soul of man who does evil, of the Jew first and also of the Greek. But glory, honor, and peace to everyone who works what is good, to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. For there is no partiality with God, for as many as have sinned without law will also perish without law, and as many as have sinned in the law will be judged by law.

For not the hearers of the law are just in the sight of God, but the doers of the law will be justified. For when Gentiles who do not have the law, by nature do the things contained in the law, these, although not having the law, are a law to themselves, who show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and between themselves their thoughts accusing or else excusing them in the day when God will judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my gospel. We're continuing our study in Romans that we've been engaged in for a number of weeks. We've just come off a passage of Scripture in chapter 1, where the Apostle Paul destroys the reputation of those in the world. He takes warlings and reduces them to stubble.

Now he turns to us, the righteous, the Jew, the ones who love the law. And he will now engage in the destruction of our own reputations. And so what we have seen in chapter 1, as we move into this chapter here, is that the wrath of God is from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth of God in unrighteousness. It's a picture of God judging the world in his wrath and he judges it in different ways. Of course there's final judgment, but he also speaks of the implicit judgment of evil on all those who vary from the commandments of God.

And he has just gone through an explanation of despicable sins that are in the world. The exchanging of the glory of God for a lie. That's one thing. To take silly images of this world and love them more than Almighty God. To exchange His glory for images.

It's madness. And then a second exchange is exchanging God's design for sexuality. And even women exchanging the natural function for that which is unnatural and contrary to nature. And men burning in lust for men and Receiving the wrath of God in themselves the penalty Which was due so that's the picture and then he mentions all kinds of other despicable sins of ungodliness and sexual immorality and maliciousness and backbiting and whispering and disobedience to parents All kinds of things that really destroy love in this world. So that's where we're coming from.

And now Paul is shifting his attention to the obvious ungodliness of the world. And he begins to speak pointedly to a particular kind of people, our kind of people, my kind of person. And he's speaking to the people who have a keen sense of the evils that are present in the world today. He's speaking to people who are disturbed by the lack of godliness in this culture. He's speaking to people of this church in Rome who are appalled by the idolatry that they see around them, the exchanges that are dramatic and terrible.

And he's speaking of these people who are moved by the fact that in the area of sexuality, there's been an exchange of the glory of God for a lie. And he's speaking to people who understand the blight and the devastation of homosexuality and what it does to the nature of God and every other thing. And those people are like us. We understand all those things as well. We see the ravages of AIDS.

We see the devastation that comes from rejecting God. And the problem with these people here is that they actually feel excused from the wrath of God because they do not participate in these things that have just been mentioned. They read the list and they say isn't it terrible that those people could be so despicable that they could do so many things contrary to Almighty God. And so they are excusing themselves from the wrath of God. And it would make sense, because later in the chapter, which we did not read, In verse 17, we know that they rest on the law.

We know that they boast in God. We know that they know His will. They're the kind of people who approve those things which are excellent. In verse 19, that they are confident, that they are a guide to the blind, and they're teaching the knowledge of God, and they teach one another, They preach that a man should not steal. They say, do not commit adultery.

That's the kind of people that Paul is addressing now. So Paul is here to confirm that those who feel that they're doing well and make distinctions between themselves and those other terrible ungodly people are actually deceiving themselves. And he begins by saying, you are inexcusable. And He is forcing the doctrine of sin upon all people, not just the wicked, idolaters, and homosexuals of this world. But He's taking all of us now, and taking all of us to task, those who love the law, those who are instructing, those who have a sense of righteousness and goodness.

Now, He's going after us. He's going after your children. He's going after you, husband. He's going after all you wives here. He's going after the nicest, sweetest, hand-washed children in this room.

And he is saying that we are inexcusable. And it's absolutely amazing that he would do it. And so We find that now that God, through the Apostle Paul, has destroyed the reputations of the ungodly, He's out to destroy your reputation before all of us together. He's out to destroy mine. He's out to level us all and put us before the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.

So that instead of our thinking that the sins of the world are so great, we would think, no, my sins are great. And that we would be brought to the place of saying, Oh Lord, Have mercy on me. I'm a sinner. Forgive me. Destroy my pride." Well, we will see him destroy our pride here in this.

The attempt is to stop self-righteousness. The attempt is to stop self-righteous speaking. This passage of Scripture's intent is to stop every mouth. We'll find that later when we go into this next week. We say that this boasting is completely inappropriate.

And all of this is going to take us to the place, the only place of our refreshment, and that is the acknowledgement of the sinful nature that dwells within us, and the deeds that it produces, and the improper speaking, and the improper thinking about ourselves. We like to think quite rightly about ourselves, but the Apostle Paul would come to us now and he would like to destroy your self-esteem. He's coming to us now. So if if we have been attracted to our self-esteem, then he would help to temper us a little bit to think differently about ourselves, even in Contrast to that big bad terrible wicked world of homosexuals and idolaters and And all manner of other evil people that are out there and the flow of the argument though takes us far beyond chapter 2 The flow The flow of the argument takes us to what some have called the theological center of the Bible, Chapter 3, 23, where we read the words, For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. That's where all of this is taking us.

It's taking us to the cross. It's taking us to the place of living water and refreshment and living bread. And it's designed to speak to those who say, like the rich young ruler, all those I've kept for my youth. What's wrong with me? And so let's dive into the text.

The first section we're identifying this morning is in verses 1 through 4. I hope you have an outline. If not, there are three sections here, and the first section makes it clear that all judges stand condemned. This has to do with religious people, or people who have some moral crust about them. And he begins with the words, you are inexcusable, O man, whoever you are who judge.

And he's now speaking of the judgment of God and the judgment of man. There are two kinds of judgment in this world. There's my judgment in my heart toward those who fall short of the glory of God in my eyes, and who perhaps even actually do fall short of the glory of God. And then there's the judgment of Almighty God, which of course is much wiser than my judgment. All of this is to carry on the idea that we've already been engaged in Romans 1, that the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men.

And the wrath of God is necessary because men suppress the truth and unrighteousness. By the way, those who suppress the truth and unrighteousness are just not those guys out there. This is the human problem. This is the reason for the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so he says, therefore, you are inexcusable.

So Paul is speaking to the people who can say amen to everything in chapter 1, but aren't quite ready to say amen to their own defilements and their own impurities. And so I believe that Paul is addressing two kinds of people in the Roman Church. There are perhaps first the law-keeping Jews who had many reasons to boast in the law, in their heritage, in their circumcision. He'll deal with every one of these in chapter 2, by the way, as we move on. But also those converted Romans, those moral Gentiles, whose hearts truly turned.

Hey, their marriages were put back together. They did turn away from homosexuality. They began walking toward God. They truly repented. But they have lost a sense of something very very important and that is the glory of the cross and it's and it's and it's need upon them in their current state And so he he brings up this this idea that That we are inexcusable and for instance you know we may be We may we're often very selective in our sensitivity to sin, aren't we?

Particular people have particular sensitivities to particular kinds of sins. For example, we may be very sensitive to the sins that relate to relationships. But we may be incredibly insensitive, maybe even almost blind to sins that are related to money. We may be sensitive to sins that relate to Arminianism, but very insensitive to sins that might relate to anger or something like that. We may be very sensitive to the fine points and the technicalities of doctrine and be very very insensitive to the actual application of the doctrine and end up with very fat heads and very skinny hearts and So chapter 1 is showing the devastating power of sin and the judgment of God Against against all of these things, you know, you may we may say in our hearts.

I'm not sinning that way I'm not in the gutter. I'm not a homosexuality. But Paul will not let us stay there. He'll have nothing of this. And he counters and he says, No, the moralist is inexcusable before God.

You know, it's interesting, often it happens among us that the more we learn, the less we do. The fatter our heads get, the more inactive our feet get. You know, I was speaking to somebody the other day, and they were talking about how this can happen when you're in seminary and seminaries can be factories of this kind of thinking it has a way of thank you very much It has a way of making moralists out of sincere believers It's easy enough to come out of a seminary situation or a time of learning Spiritually dead but but quite but quite alive Academically, You know, it's easy to graduate with an M. Div. In theology, but also have a double major, a PhD in hypocrisy.

It often happens that way. It's easy to get a THM in Semitic and end up with a doctor of divinity in self-righteousness. That's what happens to us often the more we accumulate knowledge. Of course we're designed to accumulate knowledge. We're to be filled up with the knowledge of God, to seek the Lord in every way to fill up the mind and the soul with the knowledge of God it's not the knowledge that's the problem it's that heart that's connected to the brain that got the knowledge and that's what Paul is attacking here it can happen It can happen in churches where there's an attempt for faithfulness to Scripture, and then spiritual pride creeps right on in there.

And there's that look in the corner of the mouth when one is speaking about particular sins and problems in the other people's churches. And the apostle is addressing this. One problem with us is that we kid ourselves that our sins are inexcusable, that are excusable, And Paul comes and says, no, all ungodliness and righteousness of men will receive the wrath of God. All. Capital A-L-L.

Not just the sins that I am able to gravitate against, gravitate away from, but all sins. Jesus explained the heart of the matter here in graphic terms in the Sermon on the Mount when he talked about the sin of murder. He said, well, if you have anger in your heart, you've already murdered your brother. If you have lust in your heart, you've already committed adultery. And so here is just an attack of the heart of the matter.

In the same way that James says, if you break one law, you've broken them all. And that's our problem. We are driven to this knowledge that there is none righteous, no not one. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, but the free gift of God Is the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and forgiveness that comes from that? So the Apostle is getting to the heart of the matter and he's saying we're all guilty and then he says something that is actually Quite disturbing he says in whatever you judge another You condemn yourself now.

That's not a very appetizing thing You know it's like for instance if I have a conviction that let's say my sweet daughter has a particular sin in her life and I am going to speak with her about it. What this says is that if I condemn I am also condemned. Parents should never ever really be able to stand self-righteously before their children. If they're coming to condemn they know that they are also condemned by that same law. You know, it's just the same old thing.

Whenever you point your finger, there are always three pointing straight back at you. And that's what he's saying. You who judge, you will also be judged. And the very thing that you judge is also calling for your own judgment. And so there's no such thing as one person being completely right and the other person being completely wrong.

That just doesn't exist in Christianity. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. So when you judge your wife or your friend or your boss or your elder, you condemn yourself. That's what this is saying. And so I trust this will just breathe happiness in us.

It will help us to abandon unrighteous judgment, to help us to understand the enormity of our sin in light of the sins of others. That we are inexcusable regarding our sin. You know, it just brings up that amazing fact about sin. And that is that Sin is blinding. It causes us not to see.

We can actually see a speck of someone else's sin. And we can't even see the log of our own. Isn't that amazing? It's such a great evidence of our fallen nature. We are so blind that the Lord Jesus says that we can't even see it.

And this is our plight in life. This is such a difficulty that we have, that we are self-righteous, that we do see the speck, and we can't even see, even in the best of our consciences, see the log that is in our own eye. We're like David. Nathan came to David after that terrible sin that he committed with Bathsheba. And all the consequences that came from that, the wrath of God that came out from that, is so terrifying.

But the prophet Nathan comes to David and he tells him a sweet little story about a lamb and a rich and a poor man and how one was abused by another. And David was incensed, his anger inflamed. I think his face got red and he was beginning to fume. The smoke was coming out of his ears as a result of his righteous indignation. And Nathan says to him, David, you are the man.

You're him. And David couldn't even see it. He just wasn't aware of it. He had the log, he had this gigantic log in his eye. He was picking at the speck at another Zion.

And so here the apostle comes with the same message to us. And he says, you Pharisees, clean the outside. You clean the outside of the cup. But the inside is full of robbery and extortion. And so we so eagerly forget the judgment of God against our sin.

And we remember others' sins. And Our judgment is not according to truth verse 2 says that the judgment of God is according to truth Do you see that the judgment of God is not according to your motive? The judgment is of God is not according to your understanding of it. It's not even according to your awareness that it's there. The judgment of God stands over all sin, and it judges all sin, even the unintentional sin.

And thankfully, God has been kind enough to us to provide for our unintentional sins that he would labor with us in our stupidity that we he would he would actually pour out his grace when that log is in our eye we're not even aware of it now you might have plucked out a log in your eye a couple of years ago. But here's my proposition. There are logs all over this room. I wonder how many logs I have in my eye. I must have enough to deal with.

And we are therefore inexcusable before God. The wrath of God comes from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness. You know, we thought the suppression of the truth was just the bad guys We just thought it was the postmodernist we just we thought it was all those people out there No, that's not true at all. We suppress the truth and unrighteousness We don't see the logs in our own eyes We pick out we strain out a gnat and we and and and we hang with the camel It's absolutely unbelievable what we do and that's that is That's what we're being confronted with here. But judgment is according to truth.

He measures us against Truth. We don't measure Him, He measures us. And He has a standard by which He measures it. It's a perfect standard. It's a holy standard.

And it's a standard that none of us can live under, lest we die of depression at how terrible we become as a result of our sin. And then he, in verse 4, comes back and he encourages us. And he says, oh, do you despise the riches of his goodness his forbearance and long-suffering Not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance so he comes and he says you're an inexcusable, but But I I am full of forbearance I I am full of goodness and longsuffering. And my forbearance is rich. It's the riches of my grace that's applied to your sin.

Understand that. Yes, you are inexcusable, but you can't get to the goodness and the riches and the long suffering until you understand that His grace is sufficient for all things and that is that goodness that should lead us to repentance so okay we've just come to the end of the first point. Let's just stop for a moment on that. We've just been told that we're inexcusable. We've just been told that we are despicable in a, just like the world is despicable.

And we've just been told that there are sins in us that are just as poisonous and terrible. What are we going to do about that? We ought to glory in what He has said here, in the riches, the goodness, and the forbearance, and the longsuffering, knowing that it's his goodness that has led us to repentance that should that should do that should do some damage to our self-righteousness should you think it might be enough to take that PhD in self-sufficiency and self-righteousness that we've been working for all of our lives for so long? Well that's what God is trying to do and do for us in this passage. Okay so we've seen that God judges the judge, and we are the judge in this story.

We are the unrighteous judge. Secondly, we see that judgment is treasured up for the unrepentant and the disobedient. Those two things are here. The unrepentant, the blind, and the disobedient. Now we're talking about deeds and and and what we're going to come across here is that our repentance and our deeds matter.

And so in verses 5 through 11, we see that judgment is treasured up for the unrepentant and the disobedient. And so this brings us, brings up the question, What kind of people will we be? Will we be repentant? People or proud people which will it be? Because we so easily forget the judgment of God.

We think that the judgment of God is somehow not With us anymore that there is no judgment against our sins, and that's not true There is judgment against every one of our sins And that judgment has been shifted onto the Lord Jesus Christ if we repented of our sins. But the judgment never went away. The wrath of God never, ever went away against sin. But it has been deflected and poured out upon his son so that he would sweat blood on the cross for our own sins. That's what he's done.

But that doesn't mean that his nature has been changed. His nature is to judge all sin according to truth. And that brings us to the idea of repentance and the grace of God. We so easily forget that judgment is an issue still. And we turn the grace of God into licentiousness.

That's why the writer of Hebrews says, in Hebrews 3.13, He says, exhort one another daily. That's pretty interesting. That's kind of a wake-up call. Exhort one another daily as long as it's called today. Don't let a day pass without exhorting one another, lest we be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin." That means that yes, we should be speaking about sin in the church toward one another, but also remembering the three fingers.

Remembering that it has nothing to do with self-righteousness, but that we should exhort one another today, as long as it is called today, lest we be hardened by that deceitfulness of sin. And then he says in the next chapter, let us come boldly therefore to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. So we think that once we repent we rejoin Christ and then there's no judgment for sin anymore, not true at all. There is judgment for sin. We should feel the heat of that judgment that has gone onto the body of the Lord Jesus Christ and therefore we should take sin seriously.

I heard a sermon by a well-meaning young man recently where he said that there's a difference between the law and grace and that there's a Christianity there's a Christianity that out there that says that there are rules the biblical Christianity says there are no rules there's just grace and relationship well that is absolutely that is absolutely a contradiction to the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. There is no grace without sin. There is no grace without wrath that's continually raining down on mankind except for the covering of the Lord Jesus Christ. Could it be that God would want to restore our sense of God's wrath towards sin and take it within our hearts and understand it in maybe in a way that we've forgotten about or something like that? But here we learn that judgment is treasured up for the repentant and the disobedient.

And that there are many punishments from the wrath of God. There's just the natural punishment of a lifestyle of sin. If you're mean to people, good things won't happen to you. That's part of the wrath of God that's revealed against all unrighteousness. And then there is the judgment seat of Christ where the wrath of God is poured out again.

And then there's the final judgment of God where all accounts are settled in the universe. There is this judgment of the believer called the judgment seat of Christ, and we appear before the judgment seat of Christ as believers, and then there will be a form of the wrath of God toward our sins are our the wood hay and stubble of our works will be burned up by his wrath there is Wrath that we are actually storing up they will it will be dealt with By the mercy of God and he will burn it up But let's don't kid ourselves that we are we are exempt from wrath There's a day of wrath that we're all headed for in the church all of us are headed for a particular kind of wrath let's don't let's don't fool ourselves about that yes he will say enter into the joy of my presence but it will not be without the proper judicial expression of His wrath against our sins. And so I trust that this passage of Scripture would help us to have a renewed sense of the terrible, enormous nature of our sins, to turn from sin as believers, as the church, that the Church of Jesus Christ would turn away from sin, and to turn back the wrath of God upon us as a Church.

Do you think God will express wrath against His Church? Yes, a particular kind of wrath. Fortunately, it will not be wrath or eternal damnation. But there is a kind of wrath. 2 Corinthians 5, 9 says, Therefore make it our aim, whether present or absent, to be well pleasing to Him.

Make it your aim, because we must first appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body." So yes, there is wrath. We are going to receive. We are going to receive for the things done in the body according to what he has done, whether good or bad. We're not a perfect church. We do some things good and we do some things bad.

There's wrath for the bad. He continues in verse 11, knowing therefore the terror of the Lord. We persuade men, but we are not well known to God. And I also trust our well known in your consciences. So there to the Corinthian Church, Paul is saying, again, we're appealing to your conscience.

And so this would be my appeal. How could I reflect this? How could I reflect what God has said to all of you here today and myself to reconsider your ways? Reconsider your deeds that is is there wrath of coming to you the burning up of the wood? Hey and the stubble the devastation of so much time that you've spent in the flesh, the wasted fleshly engagements in this world.

No, stop, turn back. That's what he's saying. There is judgment coming. Yes, even for the church, judgment begins in the house of God and this is one kind of that judgment here Paul said in Romans 14 he said for this end Christ died and rose and lived again that he might be Lord both of the dead and the living. But why do you judge your brother?

Why do you show contempt for your brother? For we shall all stand at the judgment seat of Christ." That's what he says. Do you judge your wife unrighteously? Children? How many children here are unrighteously judging their parents and not loving them and submitting to them?

How many are there here who have a hard heart for their father and mother and they're Judging their father and mother and saying you're not as nice as you should be you you disciplined me wrongly You looked at me the wrong way this morning. You shouldn't have hurried us out of you shouldn't have spoken to me that way It's not right for you to speak harshly to me Are there any children that have anything like this in their hearts, I would just appeal to you. The judgment of God is pointed toward you as well. And same way with we fathers and mothers, the ways that we have not been filled with the Holy Spirit of God in our engagements with our fathers, with our children, and the people in our church. The selfishness that's there, the self-serving, the self-righteousness that exists in our hearts is being dealt with here in this passage of Scripture.

He says, why do you stand in judgment for your brother? You'll stand before the judgment seat of Christ. He says, as I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow, and every tongue shall confess to God. So then, each of us shall give account of himself to God. Therefore, let us not judge one another anymore, but rather resolve this, not to put a stumbling block or cause our brother to fall by it in the way." So okay, the Bible is obviously teaching the doctrine that contradicts the doctrine of no fault sin.

There is no such thing as no fault sin. Now we've tried to create this thing called no fault divorce. That is not a Christian idea. There is fault in sin. And God will judge according to truth all sin.

My sin, your sin, and all sin. And it is against all ungodliness of men. So we must we must we must think rightly about this. We must not think of God as only but love, but we should also think of Him as judge of the living and the dead. And we should be very careful to think our sin irrelevant because God has come and He has taken care of our sin through His Son.

Now, notice in this section, I want you to notice the emphasis on the deeds. I want you to notice the emphasis on the deeds. I want you to notice the emphasis on works. So many of the books of the Bible are organized in this same pattern, faith and works. And here we get the works side of it in this section verse 6 says that we will be judged according to deeds you see that verse 8 we will be judged if we do not obey the truth verse 9 on every soul of man who does evil has to do with what we do.

Verse 10, everyone who works what is good. So there are the contrasts there. Mainly focus on evil deeds. And so, judgment is impartial, and it is upon the heart, and it's also upon the deeds. And it includes the judgment seat of Christ, the burning of the way of wood, hay, and stubble.

And it is according to truth, not according to your awareness of it, and not according to your feelings about it. There is the wrath of God toward us for our sins that we're not even aware of right now. Thank God for the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ for that. The author, the modern author Jerry Bridges, has just written a new book. It's just been released.

And it's called, interestingly enough, Respectable Sins. And I haven't read the book, but I did order it. And I read some reviews about it and some of the some of the content of this text and Bridges says we often live in unconscious denial of our acceptable sins he says But even these sins are an assault on the majesty and sovereign rule of God. It is indeed cosmic treason. And then he discusses individual sins that he's identified in his own life and in the lives of other believers.

So here's the list. General ungodliness defined as a sinful attitude towards God. Or this. Anxieties and frustrations. Isn't it so much easier for us to say, I'm stressed out instead of I am rejecting the doctrine of the sovereign hand of God in my life and I'm stressed out it's often just code for sin in us when we say things like that.

Discontentment, unthankfulness, pridefulness revealed specifically in self-righteousness, even in our pursuit of theological accuracy, in prideful motives behind our achievements and revealed in a spirit of independence, selfishness with our interests, our time, our money, and our inconsiderableness That's getting a little bit too close to home. Lack of self-control in eating, drinking, and, even though those might not be yours, how about temperament? How about finances or entertainment and shopping? He speaks of impatience or irritability. Isn't it so much nicer to say I'm having difficulty with patience than it is to actually name the sin of lack of love that resides at the bottom of all impatience.

Bridges continues, anger, even anger towards God, and the underlying roots of anger in resentment, bitterness, enmity, hostility, holding grudges. He mentions judgmentalism and a critical spirit over differing convictions and doctrinal disagreements. He mentions envy, jealousy, competitiveness, and being controlling. He mentions the sins of the tongue like gossip, slander, lying, harsh words, sarcasm, insults, and ridicule. He says, worldliness can be shown financially by our idolatry and invicarious immorality, that is, the enjoyment of reading or watching the sinfulness of others So what he's saying is that there are respectable sins But sin is sin there's only one category of sin The Catholics have made up the idea of mortal and venial sins.

They're the seven deadly sins. And then there's that aren't so bad. They can be dealt with with much less severe measures. A categorization of sin like that is absolutely contrary to Scripture. If you've broken one point of the law, you've broken every part of the law!

That's it. And of course, some sins are against the body. Some sins are seen so incredibly defiling. All of us would agree to that. But to set up a gradation of sin for us is what we do.

And that's the way we like it, because it helps in the area of self-esteem, and it keeps us thinking about ourselves so that we can think well about ourselves. And so the third category that we run into, the last one, is that we are all judged by the law, religious and irreligious, verses 12 through 16. All are judged by the law, both the religious and the irreligious now the Apostle takes on both he takes on those who have the law And he also takes on those who have the law written in their heart, their conscience. Some people exalt the law written in their heart, the conscience, their beautiful understanding of life personally. Well, this is absolutely insane.

What Paul says, that is insane. You are inexcusable who follow the law of your conscience and also who follow the law of Almighty God. Because no one can keep either the law of the conscience or the law of Almighty God. So we are all judged that way. He says, he talks about the hearers of the law and the doers of the law.

And he makes a contrast. They are often two different people. And then he speaks of the day again when God will judge the secrets of men. This is, in this section, we find the doctrine of the universal guilt for the religious and the non-religious. And he uses a phrase to be particularly instructive to the Jews.

He turns the table on them and the Jews would like to hear to the Gentile first and then to the Jew. But Paul doesn't do doesn't let them stay there. He says, to the Jew first, and also the Gentile. You keepers of the law, you instructors of those who are babes, you who exalt God, and all that. You are first in line for the judgment of God.

And that's what he says, to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. They were confident because they had the law, they were smug because they had the circumcision, They were proud because they were Jews and they had the lineage and everything they needed to line up for the favor of God And they were just like the rich young ruler said hey, what does the law say? I do I do that I've been doing that since I was a kid. And the Lord Jesus looks at him with penetrating eyes, and he says, You are inexcusable, brother. And unfortunately, his particular sin cut him off from the kingdom of heaven, as far as we know.

And he walked away sorrowful, because he loved his possessions more than he loved the kingdom of God and the justice of God in his life so we were in a passage of scripture here that's designed to direct our pride it's designed to destroy our self-righteousness it's designed to have us get our eyeballs focused on those three precious fingers pointing back at us when we judge our brother so that we understand the enormity of our own sin. And that we are in the church, enormously sinful, each one of us together. And that we understand the grace of God. And that we do not abuse it. And that we would not love our self-esteem, but we would let it be assaulted, and we would let it be offended, and we would not rest on keeping the law, we would not rest on keeping the law written in our heart either.

And He, He though, does not tear us down completely, and He speaks again, He speaks of His forbearance and His goodness toward us, that He loves us with an everlasting love. He does love sinners. He embraces Repentant sinners and takes them into his kingdom and he sanctifies them day by day with the logs in their eyes on and on as they discover one log one decade and another log the next decade and another log the next decade and the sanctification process preparing them from heaven for heaven and declaring to the world that God is good, that God does sanctify, that God does cleanse, and He does love His people who are imperfect. And he takes us to the knowledge that we stand in this grace of God in the midst of all of our of our moral infirmities Okay Application we're done with the text. I just want to give you a few thoughts.

Number one, is anyone thinking of lesser and greater sins for themselves? This is a wrong idea. We should banish it. If you've broken one point of the law, you've broken them all. You might have lied, you might have a problem with lying, but it's just like being an adulterer.

We need to understand that that's the way it really is before God. There are seven deadly sins, but there are probably more like 7, 000 deadly sins. And there are no sins that are venial. All of them are deadly, because they cause us, they cause this ripple effect and apply all the wrath of God to us. So we are not safe with our venial sins at all.

We are exposed to the wrath of God at the judgment seat of Christ as he will burn down the wood hay and the stubble of our lives by the way the the the mortal sins are pride envy wrath gluttony, lust, sloth, and greed. And everything else you can think of that's sinful. Number two, is anyone overly proud of their perspectives, their theological understandings that God has so graciously anointed them with, that you understand the family, that you understand the church so well, so beautifully in this generation, and that we're saving an entire generation to stand before the throne of God for all eternity. And is it possible that there could be too much pride anywhere in this room or on this platform? Is that even possible?

It absolutely is possible. And we should examine our hearts to see how possible it might be. And see if there's been pride rising up within our hearts for some theological truth that we've somehow discovered by some act of the mercy of God in any way. And number three, have we arrived? Or do we still need the cross?

Do we need the blood? Do we need imputed righteousness? Or do we just get it every day by feeling good about ourselves and claiming something that isn't even really there and ignoring our sins every day? Becoming dull to them not even thinking about them anymore and thinking it's just all taken care of I'm done with that No, we are not done with sin in the flesh We must deal with it, and we and it must take us to the cross is anyone taking the grace of God in vain Saying I don't I don't need it anymore. I'm a Christian.

I'm no longer cheating on my wife I'm not in need of the grace of God. Everything is beautiful. That is absolutely not true at all. If God would give us help, our homes would be filled with the knowledge of two things. The enormity of our sin, and the even greater enormity, the weight of glory of the blood of Jesus Christ, the thankfulness, the joy from being released from our sins, the beauty of repentance, the happiness that comes when one receives the cleansing living water, and a purging of that uptight, horrible feeling in our souls when we're harboring our sin and thinking ourselves to be righteous.

Have we arrived or do we still need the cross? Do we still need the blood? Do we still need imputed righteousness, which is by faith and by faith alone? And fourthly, what about the punishment for sins? Have we disregarded this?

Have we taken the wrath of God towards sin lightly? Have we said in our hearts, this doesn't matter anymore? Have we just been turning the grace of God into licentiousness and doing whatever we want with our time every every whatever we want with our mind and our reading material and Wasting our lives on fleshly pursuits in this world or do we really or do we believe that there is wrath of God? For the deeds done in the body the clicks on that computer, the occupations of the eyes, the path of the feet, the use of the tongue, anything like that. Are we insensitive to it?

Have we become dumb-dull to the wrath of God which is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness. Remember, the book of Romans was written to the Brethren. The Brethren. He's speaking to us. We are those whom He is addressing.

And then that all judges would be condemned, and that judgment is treasured up for the unrepentant and disobedient, and that all are judged by the law, both religious and non-religious. Would it be that God, as a result of these words that have been given to us from heaven, that we would not trample the Son of God under foot, or count the blood of the covenant by which we were sanctified, a common thing, and to insult the grace of God, as the writer of Hebrews said in Hebrews chapter 10. That we would, along with the Apostle Paul, we would be the ones he pleads with in 2 Corinthians 6 to plead not to receive the grace of God in vain. We're getting ready to take communion in a moment. Let's not receive the grace of God in vain during this time of the Lord's Supper.

Let's glory in the cross. Let's boast in the cross and not ignore our sin in it at all, but to bring it before the throne of grace that we might receive grace to help in time of need. And that we would be so full of the message of the Apostle to that church in Corinth, which was so messed up, I think more messed up than a lot of our churches. And He said, the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.

Would you pray with me? Oh Lord, let this grace be mighty in our hearts and our turning from sin. Let it be so that we would turn away from the fruitless deeds of the body, which will be judged, that it will be gold and silver, and not wood and hay and stubble among us. And oh Lord, we so need your help to reveal these things to us, the planks in our eyes, the unintentional sins that we are still blind to. Come Lord, come help your people, your sinful people.

In Jesus' name, Amen. Thanks for watching!