This morning I need to begin by asking for your forgiveness. As I was preparing the message this week, God brought to mind something that I did several weeks ago that was sinful and for which I needed to ask His forgiveness and for which I also need to do the same with you. That particular week I had my sermon all finished when I began to sense that the message I had developed was just not the message God had for us as a body. But because it was going to be inconvenient for me to take the time to completely redo that message and there were some things that I wanted to have time for that week, I settled for just making a few minor tweaks.
So not surprisingly, when I shared that message with all of you, I knew that it was not the message that God had for all of us that morning and I just didn’t sense that God was speaking through me the way I normally do. It’s not that anything I taught that morning was unbiblical or wrong, it’s just that I allowed what was important to me to get in the way of what was important to God. Now because of God’s grace and mercy, perhaps you didn’t notice anything that morning. It is even possible that God took what was an inadequate offering on my part and actually used it in your lives in some way. But that does not in any way excuse the fact that I allowed my delight in something other than God Himself to cause me to engage in some deeds that I shouldn’t have. So this morning, I ask you to forgive me.
As we examine this morning’s passage, I think you’re going to see clearly how God used this passage in my life this week to reveal my sin. And my prayer is that he’ll also use it in your life to show you the importance of delighting in Him above all else.
We’re going to deal with a pretty difficult section of Scripture this morning – one that could easily lead us to draw some wrong conclusions if we don’t keep this passage in its proper context. So let’s take a moment to step back and look at the big picture, which we could diagram like this:
For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”
(Romans 1:16-17 ESV)
Romans 1:18 – 3:20
Why man needs the gospel
But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it—the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction:
(Romans 3:21-22 ESV)
In verses 16 and 7 of Romans 1, Paul gave us the main theme for his entire letter. There he proclaimed that the only way that man can achieve righteousness before God is through the gospel, which is received into our lives through faith in Jesus alone.
But Paul correctly anticipates that there were going to be those who would respond by thinking that while it was great that the gospel was available for everyone else, they didn’t really need it themselves. So, beginning in verse 18, Paul writes what we might accurately call a “big parenthesis” where he describes in detail why every man’s righteousness is inadequate and why every person therefore needs the righteousness of God which comes only through the gospel.
It is not until chapter 3, verse 21 that Paul returns to the theme of obtaining the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus. It is absolutely crucial for us to understand that while we’re here in the midst of this big parenthesis, Paul is not teaching about how to receive salvation. He is instead, merely showing everyone why they need it.
With that important context in mind, let’s read our passage for this morning which begins in Romans chapter 2, verse 6. You’ll notice that I’ve included this passage in your sermon outline in a rather strange looking format, which I’ll explain in a moment.
[6] He will render to each one according to his works:
[7] to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life;
[8] but for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury.
[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.
(Romans 2:6-11 ESV)
We could summarize the main theme of this passage like this:
My delight determines my deeds;
My deeds determine my destiny
Let’s see if we can develop that theme more fully as we examine this passage.
In this passage, Paul utilizes a very Hebrew literary form know as a chiasm, which is a repetition of similar ideas in reverse order. Let me show you how this works here. Notice that verses 6 and 11 are parallel thoughts that both emphasize that God shows no partiality in rendering to each one according to his works.
Verses 7 and 10 also convey similar thoughts since both of them deal with those whose desires are heaven directed and who will receive eternal life.
Finally, the two middle verses, verses 8 and 9 are also related as they both deal with those whose desires are self-directed and who receive God’s wrath.
This structure is actually very helpful to us in developing our understanding of this passage. In fact, we’ll use it to develop the three truths in this passage that give rise our main theme:
My delight determines my deeds;
My deeds determine my destiny
THREE TRUTHS FROM THIS PASSAGE:
1. God judges everyone according to their works
Before we go any further let me stress once again that Paul is not writing about how to be saved here. So he is not claiming in any way that our salvation is based at all on our works. Salvation, as we have already seen, and will see again over and over in the Book of Romans, is by grace. But judgment, on the other hand, is by works. Our justification, our being declared righteous before God, is by grace through faith in Jesus. But our judgment is in accord with God’s justice and is based on our works.
Paul teaches this idea consistently in his writings, but this is not just Paul’s teaching. We find this idea consistently throughout both the Old and New Testaments. So it’s not surprising that Jesus said essentially the same thing:
For the Son of Man is going to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay each person according to what he has done.
(Matthew 16:27 ESV)
Both Jesus and Paul emphasize three things about this judgment:
• God’s judgment is universal
Notice first of all that Jesus proclaims that “each person” will be judged. No one is going to escape the judgment of God.
And here in verses 6 and 11 of Romans 2, Paul emphasizes that same idea. In verse 6, he points out that God will judge “each one”. And then in verse 11, He underscores that important truth by reminding his audience that God is completely impartial when it comes to His judgment. Paul is following up on his message to the religious Jews that we saw last week in the first part of chapter 2 and reminding them that they were not somehow immune from God’s judgment because of their heritage or their religion.
• God’s judgment is based on man’s deeds
Because we have been so ingrained with the truth that salvation is not by works, the idea that God’s judgment is based on my works may be a bit uncomfortable for us. And it must be uncomfortable for some preachers and Bible commentators who have gone to great lengths to engage in some “theological gymnastics” to try and prove that Paul is saying something else here.
But that is not only unnecessary, it is actually unbiblical. In both the Old and New Testaments, we find the consistent teaching, including the words of Jesus Himself, that God’s judgment is indeed based on our deeds. So one of my goals this morning is to help you see that the idea of God’s judgment based on our deeds is not only Biblical, but that it actually makes sense when we consider the big picture.
• God’s judgment is certain
Both Paul and Jesus stress the idea that God’s judgment is certain. Jesus claimed that “He will repay…” and Paul writes that “He will render…” In both cases, the underlying grammar makes it clear that this action is certain. Those verses cannot possibly be translated anything like “He might repay…” or “He might render…”
So the first truth from this passage is that God judges everyone according to their works.
2. What is in my heart will be evidenced by what I do
This is the key truth that helps us to understand why God’s judgment is rightfully based on our works.
As we have seen consistently so far in Romans, in the end there are really only two kinds of people – those who are God-centered and those who are self-centered. In this passage, verses 7 and 10 describe those who are God-centered and verses 8 and 9 describe those who are self-centered. And in both cases, we find that what people do merely reflects what is in their hearts.
Let’s look first at verse 7 and those who are God-centered. According to Paul, these people are patient in well-doing. The word “patience” there conveys the idea of perseverance. So the idea here is that these people persevere in doing good works in their lives. And in the second half of verse 7 we see the heart attitude that leads them to consistently do good deeds. There are three things that they seek for, three things in which they delight:
• Glory – The God-centered man seeks glory, not the glory of this life or glory for himself, but rather the glory of being conformed to the image of Jesus. He is the person who has the attitude that Paul described in his first letter to the church in Corinth:
So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.
(1 Corinthians 10:31 ESV)
Seeking glory means that I desire to be a vehicle through whom God can be manifest and His glory seen.
• Honor – Again, this is not seeking honor among men, but rather the honor of God. It is the desire to one day hear God say, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”
• Immortality – this is referring to the resurrection hope of the believer that looks forward to the day when we receive our resurrection bodies that Paul describes in 1 Corinthians 15.
We could sum up the three things that this kind of person is seeking by saying that this person is heavenly minded. He is the one who has heeded Paul’s exhortation to the church in Colossae:
Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.
(Colossians 3:2 ESV)
In other words this person delights in God and the things of God above all else. And the good deeds that consistently flow out of that kind of heart give evidence of a God-centered life which is characterized by those desires.
Notice that Paul isn’t saying that this person has earned his salvation by his good deeds or even by having a heart which desires God above all else. He is merely pointing out that the person who has responded to the gospel by faith in Jesus will be characterized by that kind of God-focused heart and that his deeds will give evidence of that. This person is saved only by grace, but the operation of that grace transforms his life everyday so that his desires are focused on what pleases God rather than what pleases self.
In verse 8, Paul then addresses those whose desires are focused on self rather than on God. That life is characterized by three attitudes and actions that give evidence that their desires are self-centered rather than God-centered.
• Self-centered – The Greek word that Paul uses here originally came from a verb that meant “to work as a day laborer”. But over time it came to describe the attitude of the one who worked only for daily gain. In Greek culture it was applied both to prostitutes and politicians who manipulated the public in order to gain power. Apparently some things never change. Eventually the word came to describe anyone who was willing to do whatever it took to achieve personal gain.
This heart attitude was evidenced in two different ways…
• Does not obey the truth – Because this person is so self-centered, he ends up rejecting the truth whenever it conflicts with his own desires. As a result, his actions will conform to his idea of the truth rather than “the truth” which comes from God.
• Obeys unrighteousness – As we have already seen in Romans, God’s wrath is being revealed right now when the self-centered man is given over to his own desires. So not only does he reject the truth, but he actually comes to the point where he intentionally engages in deeds which he knows to be unrighteous.
So this person has desires which are self-focused and those desires naturally produce works that are inconsistent with what God desires and so those deeds are considered by God to be evil. This is the natural condition of all men apart from the gospel.
This truth that what is in my heart will be evidenced by what I do reinforces the first part of our main theme for this passage:
My delight determines my deeds;
Jesus certainly confirms this truth with His own words:
The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.
(Luke 6:45 ESV)
So far we’ve seen that:
• God judges everyone according to their works
• What is in my heart will be evidenced by what I do
3. What I do determines where I end up
You may not have thought of it this way, but if I get in my car and use my map app on my phone or my GPS, I am embarking on a journey that consists of a number of deeds. Every time that I receive an instruction and follow it, I am placing my trust in that technology. And if everything has been programmed correctly and the technology works correctly, all those steps that I have taken along the way will result in me ending up at my intended destination. However, if there is an error in the programming or if I choose to do what I want rather than following the directions, I’ll end up some place completely different.
That is exactly what happens to us in our spiritual journey. God’s programming is 100% accurate and His plans are 100% reliable, so we can be assured that if our deeds are consistent with those plans, we will end up at the destination God desires for us – eternal life.
On the other hand, if we choose to follow our own plans rather than God’s we can be equally assured that we are going to end up somewhere completely different – a place where we experience God’s wrath.
Let’s take a few minutes to look at each man in this passage and where he ends up in his journey.
Let’s look first at the God-centered man. In verse 7, we saw that he is constantly seeking glory, honor and immortality. Now look at verse 10. We find there that when we are heavenly minded and we follow God’s direction, we end up in a place where God fulfills our heart desires by giving us what we have been seeking.
If we seek glory, then we receive glory. If we seek honor, we receive honor. But then Paul changes it up a bit. If we seek immortality, we find that God gives us peace. To me there is an obvious parallel there. One day when we receive our resurrection bodies and live eternally in the presence of Jesus, we will indeed have perfect peace – peace with God and peace with men.
Paul sums this up at the end of verse 7 when he writes that the man who is God-centered and whose live is lived according to God’s plans will end his journey at God’s intended destination – eternal life. Perhaps at some point it will be appropriate for us to devote an entire message to examining all the aspects of eternal life, but just from what we can see here, it is clear that eternal life is both a quantity and quality of life. It is a life that is characterized now and for eternity by glory, honor, and peace.
It is also clear here, that Paul is in no way claiming that anyone can earn that eternal life based on his or her works. In fact, when he writes that God will give eternal life, he is implying that it is a gift from God’s hand, not something that we can achieve by our works. What Paul is pointing out here is that the person who has responded in faith to the gospel can be assured that God will order his steps are in such a way that he is guaranteed to end up at the intended destination – eternal life.
The self-centered man, on the other hand, follows his own directions so he ends up at a completely different destination. His evil works that flow from his self-centered desires put him on a path that ends with God’s wrath. A couple weeks ago in chapter 1, we learned that there are two Greek words for wrath. There Paul used the word “orge” that describes God’s settled opposition to and displeasure with sin. Here in verse 8 Paul uses that word again, but he adds to it the aspect of God’s wrath that is described by the Greek word “thumos” which is found frequently in the Book of Revelation and which describes God’s passionate outburst of rage toward sin.
Not only that, but the person who does evil because he is self-centered will also experience tribulation and distress in his life. As we saw back in chapter 1, that is certainly the natural result of God’s wrath being revealed right now as He allows those who reject him and worship self to reap the consequences of their choice.
This third truth confirms the last part of our main theme this morning:
My deeds determine my destiny
Those who engage in good works will end up with eternal life and experience glory, honor, and peace and those who engage in evil works will end up in a place of God’s wrath and experience tribulation and distress.
When we put together everything we have learned this morning we find that the main theme that we established at the beginning of this message is indeed accurate:
My delight determines my deeds;
My deeds determine my destiny
Before we wrap up by looking at the implications of this passage for us, let me briefly address one last idea in this passage. In verses 9 and 10 Paul repeats the same phrase - “to the Jew first and also to the Greek” – a phrase that we also saw in Romans 1:16. Those of you who stayed for “Connections” the morning we looked at that phrase in more detail have the advantage of a much more detailed understanding of why Paul used that phrase. We don’t have time to go into that kind of detail here again this morning, but the bottom line is that Paul is making the point that even though the Jews have many advantages the Gentiles do not, they, too, are going to be judged on the basis of their deeds.
This passage has tremendous implications for every one of us. It certainly had a very practical impact for me this week. After I thought I had my sermon virtually complete on Tuesday afternoon, I once again sensed that it wasn’t exactly what God wanted me to share with you this week. So, even though I’m often a slow learner, I knew that this time I needed to make sure my heart was following what God desired and not what I desired. And once my heart was right, what I did, my deeds, naturally followed my heart and I took the time that was needed to re-work this message.
The application of this message is actually quite simple, even though it is not easy. If it is true that…
My delight determines my deeds;
My deeds determine my destiny
…then it follows that if I want to end up at the right destination – that of eternal life – the way I do that is not by focusing on what I do, but rather by focusing on my heart and what, and Who, I delight in.
Unfortunately, it seems to be human nature to get that backwards. We have a tendency to spend most of our time trying to control our behavior, perhaps thinking mistakenly that we can somehow earn favor with God by the things we do. But we end up finding that if our heart isn’t right, then it is futile to merely try and change our behavior. We might be able to do that successfully on occasion, for a short time, but eventually, as we’ve seen this morning, our deeds will give evidence of what is in our heart.
So that means that the only effective way to end up at the right destination is to focus our attention on our hearts. But even that is not easy. Left to our own devices, our hearts will always have a natural tendency to focus on self rather than God. But fortunately, as we have seen this morning, when we accept God’s grace through faith in Jesus, that grace transforms our hearts and makes them more and more focused on God rather than self.
But, as I experienced firsthand this week, even after I’ve committed my life to Jesus, I still have to make the choice each and every moment of my life to delight in God and not in self. And, because I am still a sinner I’m not always going to make the right choice. But if I truly delight in God, then my deeds are going to give evidence of that. They will consistently, but obviously not perfectly, be in harmony with the character of the God in Whom I delight. And when they are not, God will help me to see that so I can confess and repent.
My delight determines my deeds;
My deeds determine my destiny
What do your deeds reveal about your delight and your destiny?
