People of Praise
Romans 2:17-29
Intro: One of the lessons I’m beginning to learn in my life and ministry is that less can often be more. Less exercise can become more health problems. Less food can become more quality of life. Less is also more when life becomes too complicated and we try to please too many people. Less is more when we do so many things that we forget what is really important. Less is more when we get so focused on rules and regulations that we lose sight of what we were trying to accomplish in the first place.
-When it comes to religion, it is often true that less is more. We tend to complicate things. But we can find places in the Bible where it all boils down to one thing.
Psalm 27:4 One thing I ask of the LORD, this is what I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to seek him in his temple.
Luke 10:41- 42 41 "Martha, Martha," the Lord answered, "you are worried and upset about many things, 42 but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her."
-What really matters is our relationship with God. I like what Bill Hybels says about the difference between religion and Christianity. Religion is spelled “D-O.” Christianity is spelled, “D-O-N-E!” When it comes to our salvation, less is more, because Jesus already did everything that was needed when He died on the cross for our sins. We can’t add one thing to what He has done for us to earn His forgiveness or approval. That doesn’t mean that we should never do anything for the Lord. It just means that we shouldn’t try to earn our salvation by doing more and more. That work is done! Jesus did it! And when we simply receive what He did for us, we gain the applause of heaven.
-Our passage today deals with impressing God. What does it take to impress our mighty Creator? Theologian Charles Hodge wrote about the human tendency to compensate for wavering faith: “Whenever true religion declines [an active faith in Jesus], the disposition to lay undue stress on external rites is stressed.” Some of the Jews may have grown cold in their relationship with God and began to assume that their Jewishness was enough to give them an inside track with God. However, Paul, who was also a Jew, spoke plainly to them, showing them that it was the heart that really counted with God. The word “Jew” is derived from the name “Judah,” one of the sons of Jacob, and it means “praise.” God’s people, the Jews, were people of praise. They were to praise God from their hearts with their entire lives, and God’s blessing and approval (His praise) would rest on them.
-Maybe you’ve been trusting in good behavior or your compliance to the rules to keep you on God’s good side, but the important question is this: “How is your relationship with Jesus? Where is your heart?”
-Let’s take a look at the last half of Romans 2 and see what it really means to be true Jews – genuine People of Praise.
I. An Impressive Resume (Romans 2:17-20)
17 Now you, if you call yourself a Jew; if you rely on the law and brag about your relationship to God; 18 if you know his will and approve of what is superior because you are instructed by the law; 19 if you are convinced that you are a guide for the blind, a light for those who are in the dark, 20 an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of infants, because you have in the law the embodiment of knowledge and truth—
-Right off, Paul addresses those Jews who have become filled with pride and arrogance over the fact that they are God’s chosen people – people of praise. So Paul goes over their resume to see what they are relying on for God’s approval.
-Now Jews have faced severe persecution all over the world often for no logical reason. They have faced an unnatural demonic hatred and scorn simply because they were God’s chosen people. And they’ve gotten it from every side. Many Christians have shown disdain for them, lumping them all together either as Christ-killers or legalistic Judaizers. Many Arabs and Muslims have shown hatred towards Jews tracing clear back to Isaac and Ishmael. So to avoid aligning ourselves with their enemies, let me just say that I love the Jewish people and I know God does. I am not anti-semitic, and Paul certainly wasn’t either. Paul was a Jew and was willing to be cursed by God if it meant the salvation of his fellow Jews. So, as Paul, the Jew, comes down hard on these Jewish believers, he was doing it to bring correction to their religious arrogance and to point them back to the cross of Jesus, where everybody (Jew and Gentile) stand in need of a Savior.
-What were these Jews trusting in? Well, their Jewishness and their special relationship to God as His chosen people. They prided themselves as the recipients and guardians of the Torah. Out of all the other nations in the world, God had revealed Himself to Israel.
Deuteronomy 4:7-8 7 What other nation is so great as to have their gods near them the way the LORD our God is near us whenever we pray to him? 8 And what other nation is so great as to have such righteous decrees and laws as this body of laws I am setting before you today?
-The Jews were special privileged people, chosen by God. But many of them forgot that it was not all about them. God had blessed them in order to make them a blessing to the rest of the world – to be a light to the Gentiles. Some of them just didn’t get that part. Jonah certainly struggled with the concept! “But God, Nineveh does not deserve your forgiveness. Only we Jews do.”
-We see in v.18 that some of the Jews prided themselves in the fact that they knew God’s will as revealed in the Torah, and could approve of what was right or best. Some of them took great delight in viewing themselves as a guide for the blind, a light for those in darkness, an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of babies – all because they had so much knowledge and truth from the Law.
-Please understand that Paul is not speaking ill of the Law of Moses here. He states elsewhere that the Law is good. However, as great as the Law was, it was limited in what it could accomplish. It was very good at identifying sin, but it could not take that sin away. It was good at showing what God’s standard of perfection was, but it could not help anybody attain it. So, these Jewish people to whom Paul is writing had a lot going for them, but Paul is on his way to stripping away anything that a person might brag about when it came to earning God’s favor and approval.
-Paul identifies the problems that come as a result of trusting in the law or in one’s Jewishness for salvation.
II. A Double Standard (Romans 2:21-24)
21 you, then, who teach others, do you not teach yourself? You who preach against stealing, do you steal? 22 You who say that people should not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? 23 You who brag about the law, do you dishonor God by breaking the law? 24 As it is written: "God's name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you."
-Paul is asking these rhetorical questions to show that even though a person might know the Law of God completely, there has never been a person on this planet, except for Jesus, who has been capable of keeping the law perfectly.
-Once again, we need to keep Paul’s purpose for writing Romans in mind. The Roman church is likely in the middle of a power struggle between Gentile believers who had helped lead the church during the 5 years or so that the Jews had been expelled from Rome and the Jews whose church it was in the first place (although it was really Christ’s Church).
-Some of these Jews might have been saying something like this: “I am more qualified to teach and preach because I know the Law better than any of you Gentiles. I know what God’s will is. God says, not to steal, or commit adultery, or worship idols, and by the way, some of you pagan Gentiles are guilty of idolatry because you are eating meat that has been offered to idols. Shame on you!”
-I am putting words in their mouths, but it seems that this is some of what Paul is dealing with. When we claim to be without sin and start pointing fingers at others, it is inevitable that our own weaknesses and failures will be revealed. When it comes down to it, we don’t have anything to brag about except for the cross. Paul said in Galatians 6:13-14 13 “And even those who advocate circumcision don't really keep the whole law. They only want you to be circumcised so they can brag about it and claim you as their disciples. 14 As for me, God forbid that I should boast about anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
III. Broken Laws, Broken Lives (Romans 2:25-27)
25 Circumcision has value if you observe the law, but if you break the law, you have become as though you had not been circumcised. 26 If those who are not circumcised keep the law's requirements, will they not be regarded as though they were circumcised? 27 The one who is not circumcised physically and yet obeys the law will condemn you who, even though you have the written code and circumcision, are a lawbreaker.
-It becomes increasingly clear that if a person is trusting in their good behavior to gain God’s favor, they will fall short. Since circumcision was the sign of the covenant God had made with the Jews, the word came to be used synonymously with a Jewish person. So circumcision or Jewishness only counted if you observed the Jewish law perfectly. To break even one point of the Jewish made a person guilty. Conversely, say a Gentile was able to obey God’s law completely, then he would be accepted by God as one of His own people. Paul’s point: Lawbreakers could not boast in the law because they could not keep it.
-We are all lawbreakers! Romans 3:23 says that all have sinned and come short of being able to live in God’s glory. Like Humpty Dumpty we are broken and all the King’s horses and all the King’s men cannot put us back together again. But the King can! And that leads us to the heart of the matter.
IV. The Heart of the Matter (Romans 2:28-29)
28 A man is not a Jew if he is only one outwardly, nor is circumcision merely outward and physical. 29 No, a man is a Jew if he is one inwardly; and circumcision is circumcision of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the written code. Such a man's praise is not from men, but from God.
-The heart of the matter is that it is a matter of the heart. Mechanical compliance with a law does not come from the heart, even if it were possible to keep the law perfectly. Keeping a code of conduct does not come from the heart. Pleasing God comes from the heart and acceptance by God comes from trusting in God. Judah means praise.
-So who is a person of praise? Not the one who focuses on externals and appearances. A person becomes a true Jew or a Judah (a person of praise), when he or she becomes one on the inside, in the heart. Just as circumcision involved cutting away unclean flesh, so circumcision of the heart means that we allow God to remove what is unclean from our hearts by His grace and forgiveness. And this work is performed by the Holy Spirit.
-When we call out to God to forgive us and we commit every expression of our lives to Him, we become a new person on the inside. 2 Corinthians 5:17 “…those who become Christians become new persons. They are not the same anymore, for the old life is gone. A new life has begun!” And it doesn’t matter what people might think about us. If we are a person of praise, our praise comes from God, not other people.
-So what do we do with all of this?
-Here are five ways we can put this passage into practice so that we can avoid the pitfalls of false piety and become people of praise.
1. Live what you say you believe.
2. Practice what you preach – and make it right when you don’t.
3. Become completely committed to Christ – not half hearted.
In his book called “Early Christians of the 21st Century, Chad Walsh writes: “Millions of Christians live in a sentimental haze of vague piety… demanding little more than lip service to a few harmless platitudes... It is much safer from Satan’s point of view to vaccinate a man with a case of mild Christianity so as to protect him from the real thing.” Do you have the real thing? If not, it could be that your religion is keeping you from growing.
4. Make sure you have a relationship with God – not just religious rituals. Are you just going through the motions? It’s time to make sure you are really in a relationship with Jesus Christ.
The way to begin is by personally receiving what Jesus has done for you on the cross
5. Grow on the inside – so it shows on the outside.
[These 5 points adapted from Brian Bill’s sermon, Fatal Flaws of Religion]
