Please
turn to Romans 1 – a chapter we will close today and move into
chapter 2. As you turn there, would you also take a look at the
back of your bulletin. Here is an intentionally highlighted way
of presenting the closing verses of this disturbing, austere, troubling
chapter. If you don’t find this chapter troubling, it could only
be because you take it as about others, and not about you.
But take some
time and allow your eye to pass down through the list. And as you
do, realize that this is not a description of some exceptionally
bad people. This is Paul describing all people. No one in the room
is outside of this list. No one in the room is above being “deserving
of death”. The very ceremony of the Lord’s Supper, which we just
now did, doesn’t that only make sense because it’s a given that,
we are deserving of death? My body: broken for you! My blood: shed
for you. The Lord’s Supper has meaning because He stood in, and
took that death, in our place, which we had coming.
Does it mean
that each and every sin deserves capital punishment, a death sentence?
Not as we apply that, among and between men. No, by “death” here,
God means and declares that each and every sin entitles Him to
withhold from a created being, the gift of life – access to His
presence, knowing Him, fellowship with Him.
The list you
are looking at may even bring to mind what John Dugas taught just
last week, in Titus 3:
“For we also once were foolish ourselves, disobedient, deceived, enslaved
to various lusts and
pleasures, spending our life in malice and envy, hateful, hating one
another.” –
He said “we
also” – we were this way, ourselves!
Thankfully, he goes on to add:
“But when the
kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared, He
saved us, not
on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according
to His mercy”…mercy that was “poured out upon us richly through Jesus
Christ our Savior.”, he says.
So as you take this in, that here is a description of all of us and
how we are viewed before God, make sure the message of the Lord’s Supper
got clearly through – and as you behold your sin, behold this too:
“Behold, the Lamb of God, Who takes away the sin of the world.”, Jn
1:29
And as you see
a long and comprehensive list of sins like this, remember that:
“Where sin increased, grace abounded all the more.”, Rom 5:20
Our God is more
than able to overcome even an abundance of sin in our lives. And
even while those who commit those deeds are worthy of death, yet:
“For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal
life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
You’ll notice
that those verses just quoted are in Romans, too. Because this
is where Paul is going – this is why Paul brings up a list of sins:
to show that, even when sins have multiplied, God knows how to
multiply grace more! And if it’s true that love covers a multitude
of transgressions – and that’s talking about between men – then
what tiny understanding we must have of God’s love for His people!
How much sin can His love cover?
So don’t think
Paul is beating the proverbial dead horse here, just droning on
and on about people’s sins to pile up guilt. When you understand
where he’s going in this letter to the Romans, you see that this
list is not a place to stop and park. It’s more like a terrible
sick-room to pass through, on the way to the merciful Great Physician.
Paul wants us to see how bad we’ve got it. The mercies in store
for us look all the better when we understand that. As Jesus told
a woman once, “she who is forgiven much, loves much.” When you
see this list, I hope the crest of your love for Him rises a great
deal, because you see that you’ve been forgiven a great deal.
Now, to get directly
into these verses before us – here’s how I plan to approach it:
A preacher could give an elaborate and precise definition of each
sin in the list. But I don’t think that would line up with Paul’s
goal or why he wrote the list. We don’t need definitions of most
of this stuff. Look at it! Frankly, we know more or less what he’s
talking about when we read about greed or malice, disobeying parents,
arrogance, being unmerciful, and so on. We probably don’t lack
a fairly clear idea of what those are.
There are several
lists in the Bible of the sins to which humanity is prone, and
Paul authored at least 3 of them that I can think of. But this
is the longest. It covers a great deal. Even so, it doesn’t cover
everything and wasn’t meant to. Paul wrote it to emphasize: comprehensive
guilt. That we don’t merely sin a little, or in just a few ways
that are understandable and excusable as minor weaknesses. No,
he’s wanting us to see, we sin in multitudes of ways that are not
understandable and not excusable!
Look at the scope
of it all! The variety of them. And the deliberate, intentional
nature of most of them. You don’t get arrogant by mistake. You
don’t envy or deceive or be unmerciful without some awareness of
what you are doing. And the seriousness of these deeds. The bitter,
God-ignoring, self-asserting character of most of them. And with
all that sinking in, now look at v 29 and catch this: Paul says
our lives are “filled with” (v 29a) these things! Now, anyone whose
life is filled with this kind of stuff, has no excuse for it. You
can’t just say “Well, you know, everyone sins now and then.” Paul
isn’t painting a picture of people who blunder into sin now and
then, who find themselves flopped into sin like a wave tosses a
fish up onto shore now and then. No, he’s painting a picture of
a way of life, an eager and habitual pursuit of sin.
Now, Paul is
also not saying that every unbeliever’s way of life is like this,
all the time. Unbelievers are often kind, frequently conscientious,
usually law-abiding (of the laws of their town and country). Many
who do not believe will give to those who are in need; they are
what many would call “decent people”. Paul knew this. He was aware
of some like that in his own times, like Seneca and his followers,
or a generation later, Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius, men who were
not Christians but who even prided themselves in not living indulgently
for their lusts. But look at this list and you see something different
about it. So much of it is about heart and tongue. So much of it,
no one can claim to have lived above.
And if this is
Paul describing the trend of the human race as a whole, and that
the history of humanity is the history of people dominated by either
some of these sins or by many of these sins, everyone has to bow
down and say, “guilty”! And that we did these deeds, even though
we knew we should not do them, v 32a; and even going so far as
to laugh with, smile at, and either directly or inadvertently encourage
people to indulge themselves in these ways, v 32b.
But go back to
v 29 a moment and that “filled with” phrase. The average man does
not think of his life as “filled” with sin. The more prevailing
viewpoint is, “I’m a pretty good person”, and we usually think
of our sins as only representing just an occasional, little failure,
some little foible of character perhaps that I have not quite overcome
yet, but “you know, I’m working on that!”
So let’s talk
about “filled with” this way and see if we get it:
A man commits
a brutal murder – every other year. For 20 years. So that, after
20 years, he has murdered 10 times. Is his life “filled” with murder?
It is. The prevailing nature of his life is, he is a murderer.
What if, for the rest of those 20 years, he seemed to be, to his
community, co-workers and family, a doting husband and gentle father,
and a fine church member. Do we think better of him for that? Not
at all. We view it as part of the cover-up and making his 20 years
as a murderer even more heinous. It adds to his sin, the sin of
hypocrisy.
What if your
husband of 20 years has an adulterous affair in 1991, and again
in 1999, and he does it again next year? What will people say about
him? They will say he is a habitual adulterer. 17 years in which
he did not commit the act do not make him faithful for those years.
No, 3 failures makes him a habitually unfaithful man.
Or, if a woman
who is a habitual gossip, so often mercilessly tearing down others
(gossip is an unmerciful sin, you know) and she has a major damaging
affect on 3 churches – just 3, that she was a member of, during
the course of her entire adult life. Would we not say that she
was a church-wrecker, and that her life was littered with the rubble
of causing havoc in churches? And we would be right to so say.
Now you know
why Paul can say that our lives are “filled” with sin. Your life
and mine are filled with the record of our sins. When we go before
God, it will make no difference if more of the time in our life
was spent doing good things than doing bad. If only 1% of the time,
we were committing sin – if only 1/10 of 1% of the time, some terrible
sin was being committed, our lives are still filled with sin!
You see, has
it ever occurred to you that, you measure the significance of a
matter by its seriousness, not by its frequency?
That’s why one earthquake is serious for a city. It doesn’t make it
less serious that there were no
earthquakes for many years. 3 earthquakes in 100 years makes it an
earthquake-prone city, which
many will never move to or live in, because it has a reputation.
One heart-attack is serious. It’s not minor because, well, it was just
one! Two, and we say, you’re
“prone” to having them.
Let a man give
his wife a blow to the face, one time, and she may walk out and
leave him. Because what he did is serious, and that gives it unusual
significance. Let him do it to her 3x, and
she may leave and never come back, and I will tell him it is entirely
his fault. Because it will be
true to say that, he is a man full of violence.
Jonathan Edwards explained an eternal hell this way: and said, when
we do not comprehend how an eternity in hell can possibly be an appropriate
punishment for a single lifetime of sin, we show that we do not understand
at all the greatness of the horror of sin against God. And how evil
a thing it is to sin against such a good and kind and giving and holy
God.
Just breaking
one commandment makes you a guilty sinner. This is a James 2:10
perspective on our sins: “For whoever keeps the whole law and yet
stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of all.” If that’s
so, then what does breaking one of God’s laws every day make you?
It makes someone whose life is filled with sin.
Now, as for this
list – we look it over, take it from the top: of course I have
committed unrighteousness and wickedness, and so have you. I have
been greedy; I have done evil. I have been envious; I have never
murdered, but I have hated in my heart, which is the root of murder.
I have striven for my own way. I have deceived. I have felt malice.
I have gossiped. I have slandered. I have hated God. I have been
insolent, I have been arrogant, I have boasted, I have invented
evil, and I was certainly disobedient to my parents, as they could
rise up and tell you. Even so, they would declare that I had been
a “good boy”, but they would be looking at things as men see them
and not as God. There is also more disobedience than they ever
knew about – that’s where the deceiving comes in. God knew.
Resuming the
list:
I have been without understanding. I was untrustworthy. I have been
unloving. I have been unmerciful. Hey! I see that I’m way beyond James
when he said if you stumble in one point, you are guilty of all! I
crossed that line many miles back! And chances are, looking at this
list, you probably are guilty of all of them too.
Oh, and let’s
not leave out v 32: “and, although they know the ordinance of God,
that those who practice such things are worthy of death” (yes,
I knew that in my conscience, so I knew better than to do those
things) “they not only do the same, but also give hearty approval
to those who practice them.” Yes, some sins I also laughed at when
others did them and encouraged others to do such things.
Now, I’m not
talking about this week or this month. If I was, you’d better get
a new pastor quickly. But I am talking about the duration of a
lifetime. A lifetime which is like a vapor, in God’s sight; a brief
flash. But filled with sinfulness. And so is yours. That’s why
Paul’s conclusion to this whole section is the well-known words
of Rom 3:10:
“There is none righteous, not even one”
and in 3:19:
“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.”
Think about the
guiltiness of man, Paul is saying. Think about how extensive it
is and inexcusable it is. Men not only dare to do what they know
God has threatened a death sentence on – they even dare to encourage
others to do the same things, and thus become murderers of other
men’s souls.
Selling pornography
to men by all the creative means they can.
Those who tell
a drunken man, “Have another one.”
A wife who tells
another wife that if she’s not happy with her husband and wants
to leave, then go ahead
and leave! Why should you be unhappy? Do what you want!
Kids who tell
another young person, “Who cares what your parents say? Let’s do
this anyway – they
won’t ever know.”
And in how many
ways do people approve of and encourage greed, gossip, strife,
boastfulness, being unloving and unmerciful and untrustworthy.
The catalogue becomes incomprehensibly large. As large as man’s
taste for and his creativity in sin.
And the words,
“they also give hearty approval” to others who practice these things,
doesn’t just suggest they encourage others to sin; there are other
ways to give your hearty approval. Declaring ways of life that
we know are worthy of God’s punishment as nobody’s business to
judge. “Who are you to judge?” that way of life, is often heard,
and the words are like a pair earplugs blocking God’s shout from
heaven, “I am going to judge! I am your Judge!” Men who remind
you of that are doing you a favor, trying to get your attention
on your Judge in heaven!”
“Who has any
right to judge?” are smokescreen words, blocking the handwriting
on the wall, that God has examined your ways and you’re in trouble.
And now let your
eye pass into chapter 2: there’s a barrier which need not be here,
considering that the 1st verse begins with “Therefore you are without
excuse” – that’s based on the “knowing better” chapter 1 talks
about. Look back at 1:20: “they are without excuse.” Now look at
2:1: “You are without excuse.” Did something about that make you
feel the sudden impact of the heel of Paul’s shoe on your toes?
He moved from they are without excuse to you are without excuse.
There’s another
difference. This time, he’s not saying our sins have no excuse,
but now Paul is saying that when you pass judgment on other men
for their sins, you sinned again! That’s inexcusable too!
Now, you wonder
– if you’re a really bright, attentive reader – how can Paul have
it both ways here? He says we are wrong to approve of sin in others
or encourage them to sin. Isn’t judging them for their sins, just
the opposite of that? You could say so. There is a righteous way
to “pass judgment” – to declare some deed as under God’s judgment,
and remind men that He is against them if they pursue that sin.
So Paul apparently means something other than that, when he says
you are inexcusable to condemn others and pass judgment on others,
since you do the same thing.
Here’s what he
means, clearly:
If you think yourself better than other men, understand that you certainly
aren’t. Come on, you see that
this list is you, too.
If you’re a
Jew who looks down your nose at Gentiles who live this way, and
think that you never were
anything like that, see that yes, you are more like that than you thought.
If you were
raised in church and never behaved in the ways many people outside
church did, understand
that this does not make you better, for Paul has carefully crafted
a list of sins which he knows church-
goers do, too. Some of these sins, church-goers are exceptionally bad
about. Arrogance, unmerciful,
strife, gossip, etc.
In other words,
this list did not include the immorality, or homosexuality, the
swindling, the idol-worship found on some of Paul’s other lists!
This list is mostly deeds of the heart or attitude or mouth.
Another thing
Paul means by judging others, when you do the same:
If you decry the terrible conditions of the world around us, but somehow
find that easier to talk about
than to confess your own sins – this is some of what Paul has in mind
by passing judgment
upon others for the very things we do ourselves.
You can’t declare
other men in the human race deserving of the judgment of God, but
not you. That will never fly! God knows way too much about you
for that! But your problem might just be that you don’t know enough
about yourself. You know what deeds you’ve done, but you may very
weakly understand how you ought to think about them. That time
you were boastful may seem like a small fault; that moment you
were unloving may have seemed pretty minor: “Well, I was stressed
out!” A habit of envy may seem like a little sin in your sight.
A little gossip, “it was just talk, I didn’t mean anything. Or,
a little malice in my heart, “it didn’t hurt anybody, it’s just
how I feel inside.” Not realizing that those sins corrupt everything
about you, and that you are blinded by them, to more sin, that
you do not even know you do.
We minimize our
own sins and often maximize those of others. And we so naturally
think right away of others when we read such lists, rather than
think of ourselves.
Paul is a Jew,
and he knows Jews. And so he’s going to do a lot of comparing of
Jews and Gentiles in Romans, because he knows he has his work cut
out for him, to convince Jews that their guilt before God is right
on par with the Gentiles. And what he wanted to reach them about
is very relevant to us. In fact, you can prove more easily from
the Bible that, those who know the Word of God best and who have
the most privilege, any sin is far more inexcusable for them! –
because we know so much more about it. Our understanding is clearer.
That means, a
church-goer’s heart sins are of greater magnitude than a pagan’s
outward sins. That may mean that a church-goer’s lust is a greater
sin than a pagan’s adultery. Think about it: if the man in some
remote tribe is without excuse for his sins, because of the limited
light he has by viewing nature, then how much without excuse are
my sins, since I live my whole life in the bright light of God’s
truth radiating down upon it! I am taught every single week by
godly men like John and Kevin, Avery, Terry, Steven, Allan, others.
I hear more truth about God in the songs we sing than many men
see in their entire lifetime.
The privilege
has been bestowed – to not only hear of the light, but to see the
light. And because of that, we turn that corner you’ve probably
been waiting for. This – Romans 1 – is a “what we were” description,
for Christians. But what I see now, most of the time in the body
of Christ, is a very different thing. Because if any man is in
Christ, he is a new creation.
“Therefore, God made them over in their hearts to self-control and
purity, that their bodies might be
honored among them. For they kept and cherished the truth of God and
worshipped and serve the
Creator, who is blessed forever.”
“And since they
saw fit to acknowledge God in all things, God gave them a sound
mind, to do those
things which are wise, being filled with all righteousness, goodness,
generosity, kindness; full of
selflessness, life, healing, with open hearts; they are gentle in speech,
building others up, lovers of
God, respectful, humble, self-effacing, inventors of good, obedient
to parents, understanding,
trustworthy, loving and merciful.”
“For they know
the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things do so
because they possess
life, they do these things and give hearty approval and encouragement
to those who do likewise.”
- Lives filled
with fruits of righteousness!
- Lives which encourage and stir each other to love and good works!
God, who could
have turned us over to the power of our sins, turned us over to
Christ! He could have delivered us into the power of sin, but He
delivered us into His kingdom, and delivered up Christ to the penalty,
in our place! He gave us His favor and His reward, for things that
we never did! And so, to people who had filled our lives with sin,
He has filled our lives with mercy and with fruits of righteousness
– all based on one act, that He did, when we did nothing.
And now, even
our practice is different. But believer, always understand: you
are not saved because your practices changed. You are saved despite
all your evil practices, because of what Jesus did for you. And
then, He changed you too.
You are deserving
of death. Most people will not agree with that assessment of things.
Most are not pleased with God’s opinion of what human sin deserves
and the reasonableness of God’s judgment. They will admit they
are sinners, but they will not agree to what God declares to be
the rightful consequences for sin. But it doesn’t matter. The consequences
are what they are. We are worthy of death.
But He took that
death for us. And you know what? There is no man alive who would
have proposed that as reasonable either. But He did it. Because
God’s mercy is bigger than our imaginations, too.
Paul, as a missionary,
had seen that both Jews and Gentiles knew they were deserving of
death even from the sacrifices which men offered to their gods
for sins – sacrifices in which something died! But for you it was
probably as it was for me – I never thought about any sacrifice
for sin until I learned of Christ dying for our sins, and it was
that death which taught me what I was deserving of for my sins.
That “Christ
died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, in order that
He might bring us to God.”, 1 Pet 3:18 – a death that would not
keep us from God’s fellowship but usher us into God’s fellowship!
And a death which completely removes the need for my death – as
Rom 6:9 says: “We know that Christ, having been raised from the
dead, is never to die again; death no longer is master over Him.”
He paid it once
for all.
If you don’t
know why you need a book on humility, it’s because “come let us
worship and bow down, let us kneel before the Lord our God, our
Maker”, is not just for a worship service. It ought to be all of
life. An attitude not just for a worship meeting, but as a way
of life. And the best place to learn to bow down is, at the foot
of the cross. (Mahaney, “Humility”, pp 65-67)
Note:
This was the day GBC began to read Mahaney’s book, “Humility: True
Greatness”
