God Will Judge Everyone — But By What Standard? // Romans 2:12-29

Kind of in the back of my mind, I've been asking this question a lot. Here it is. Based on what? When somebody shares their opinion with me, it gives you some feedback. I'm kind of thinking about in the back of my mind, where's this coming from? What standard is this based on? For example, how many of you guys can relate to this? How many of you have ever gotten the feedback that you seem too busy? Maybe you're working too much. I don't know, you might be a workaholic, but here's some data for you, okay? The average working American works 34 hours a week. A little bit less than I thought, right? In the 1800s, the average working American worked 70 hours a week. So if you just take whatever you've been doing working too much, just keep doing that, plop yourself down in 1850, your feedback would magically become your lazy bum, right? Look, people share their opinion, give feedback based on, I don't know, what they do, what they've seen, done, what they feel or sense, and all that's fine. But we love an objective standard, don't we? Like, I love an objective standard, especially if you're going to give me critical feedback. I'd like the standard to be objective. Now, look, if you want to affirm me, you don't have to use an objective standard. Like, it could be subjective based on feelings, I'll take it, that's fine. But if you're going to give me critical feedback, I'd like to know what the standard is that you're using, like, I don't like getting pulled over west of Wilkesboro on 421. But if the officer's like, hey, bud, sign objectively says 55. I got you going 75, it's like, it makes sense, right? I get it. And furthermore, people lose their minds if they get a judgment they don't like, and the standard is not objective. For example, the March Madness selection committee.

It's like the NCAA basketball tournament. How do they decide who gets in? So you mean to tell me that there's some group of people somewhere that goes into a room last year, and the tar heels get in with a single quad one win? Some people like that, some people know. I see some Carolina blue in here. Nice win last night, by the way. I'm not trying to make enemies, okay? All right, there you go. Now everybody's happy. All right. But I mean, don't we love an objective standard? Anyways, we're talking about standards today. God's standards. God has objective moral standards. Go ahead. If you have your Bibles in here at all of our campuses, Lexington multiply, turn two, type two, Romans two. We'll be starting in verse 12. I'll meet you there in just a minute. This whole time, as we've been talking about, the Apostle Paul is building argument driving towards a verdict, which is God's moral judgment on the people he created. Now people get all upset about this, right? Oh, God's going to judge people. Well, is he allowed to do this? Is the eternal God allowed to have standards for you and me that are higher than the standards that we have for ourselves? Yes, he's allowed to do this. Okay. So the question for us as we start our time today is God's verdict is based on what?

If God is going to use a moral standard and apply it to my life and give me a verdict, it would be helpful to know what that standard is. And what Paul's going to tell us today, very interestingly, is that everybody knows God's objective moral standard. Let's read this. We'll pick it up in, yeah, verse 12. "For all who have sinned without the law will also perish without the law." That's one group of people, those without the law. "And all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law." And what Paul says the law here, he's referring to the Mosaic law, the law that God gave to people through Moses. Verse 13, "It is not the hearers of this law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified." All right. It's going to take me a minute to explain this, but what Paul's telling us here is that everyone, both of these groups, those with and without the law, everyone knows God's standard. Paul's going to call those two groups Jews and Gentiles today. I'm going to call them basically religious and irreligious today. And to be super clear who's in those two groups, in the religious group, it's just those with access to the Bible, those with the law, right? And in the irreligious group, it's everybody else, those without the Bible. And Paul's going to say that both of these groups are going to be held morally accountable to God. Okay. Why? Well, let's start with the religious. This is easier, right? What access to the moral standard do they have? Well, that's the group of people with Bibles, right?

And in the end, when God gives that group his verdict, he's going to use the Bible as the standard to give them a verdict. That's why it says they will perish under the law. Well, what about the other group of people? How do they have access? It actually doesn't seem quite fair to me. Like, how are these people going to be held morally accountable when they don't even have a Bible? Let's keep reading. Verse 14, "When these Gentiles, who do not don't have the law. They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts while their conscience also bears witness. And their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them on that day when according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus. So this group of people without the Bible, they have a law too. They have something by nature, right? The religious have the code of scripture and the irreligious have the conscience. They have the conscience. All right, the conscience. We need to talk about this for a minute because it's a very biblical concept, but I'm not sure we all mean the same thing when we talk about it. So let's define it. Your conscience is your own internal moral compass. It's your own internal sense of right and wrong. It kind of works like a moral alarm system, right? And there's a few things to know about the conscience. Actually, there's a lot to know about the conscience, but three things for our purposes today, okay? First of all, God gives it. The conscience is a God-given gift to everyone. Everyone has a conscience. It's like, Christians have a conscience, but non-Christians have a conscience, and atheists have a conscience. Hitler had a conscience. That's interesting. Rich, poor, old, young. Everybody has a conscience. Well, actually, I should say, except for Android users, they don't have a conscience. I mean, honestly, how could they have a conscience? They continue to offend the rest of us with that green text bubble, and they feel no shame for this, right? They just keep doing it. Like they had a conscience. They'd feel some shame for this, right? But in all seriousness, this actually leads to the second thing your conscience does. It can produce guilt. It can produce shame because it testifies to God's universal moral standard. Or in simple language,

it tells you what God wants, right? This is verse 14. They've never read the law, but they do, what the law requires by nature, right? You can see this most obviously in like little kids, right? Just think about any little kid you've ever seen. If you got little kids, I mean, I think about my one-year-old son. He's been going through this food throwing phase, right at the end of every meal. He grabs like the message, thinking you can find, pulls his hand back, and then he looks for me, and I'm looking at him. And you can see the alarm going off, right? You see it. You can see the alarm going off. It's like, buddy, don't do it. Don't do it, buddy. Don't do it. He's like, nah, man, I gotta do it. And he chucks his food, right? And then dad says, Luke, you know, we don't throw our food, Luke. And then you can see the conscience. It's a guilty conscience. It's pretty pathetic. Sometimes it starts balling, like it's worlds fall apart, right? It's a guilty conscience. Now, look, he does, he's one-year-old. He does not know the Bible verse that he should obey his parents, right? But his conscience is already testifying to him that that's what he should be doing, right? And this isn't even just a Christian idea. This idea of moral development and little kids, they've done a lot of modern research on this. We're talking Yale, NIH, some big organizations, and have come to the conclusion that it's not just nurture, it's also nature. There's something innate happening here. God did it, right? Testifies of God's universal moral standard. But hang on, before we leave this point, a question is, I was thinking about this, popped up for me. It was actually a little bit troubling. Here it is. If my conscience affirms me in something, but your conscience affirms you in something else, how can we say that it testifies to a universal moral standard, right? Does it not actually testify to moral relativism? No, because there's a third thing to know. Sin warps it. God gives it, it tells us what he wants, but just about as soon as kids' consciences are helping them discern morality, sin is trying to warp them. Just as soon as my son's conscience, you know, is telling him he should obey his dad. Sin is telling him, dad's holding that on him, and the good life is chucking his food at the end of every meal, right? Sin warps it. The Bible talks a lot about this. It says very strong language about the conscience. It could be defiled. It can be seared as with a hot iron. It can be weakened. And honestly, if you'll humor me on this, Jiminy Cricket is actually a pretty good example for how this works. Guys, look, things that are hard to understand need to be personified. You guys remember that old Disney movie, Pinocchio? Remember how that works? As soon as Pinocchio is animated,

he's given this little cricket, Jiminy, with his very high-pitched male singing voice, very high-pitched. It's unbelievable, honestly. And he's helping Pinocchio discern God's universal moral standard, so to speak, right? And as Pinocchio goes along, that small voice of his conscience, Jiminy gets drowned out by some bad friends, by Stromboli and Honest John, and Pinocchio starts starts to disregard his conscience, starts to go against run away from him, right? Starts to abuse his conscience. And then in the end, you guys remember this? Pinocchio is just giving himself over to pleasure in pleasure island. It's so on the nose, right? And he himself starts to warp into a donkey. Now am I saying that if you go into your conscience enough, you start to turn into a donkey? Well, the analogy breaks down, but kind of, right? But it gets so bad, here you go. It gets so bad in the end. Pinocchio, he can't fix himself with moral effort anymore. Here it is. What he needs is a loving father who made him and loves him to come looking for him. Geppetto comes looking for him, right? You didn't know there was so much spiritual truth in Pinocchio, did you? And the same is true with us, right? In its original uncorrupted state, our conscience is helping us understand God's moral standard. But we disregard it and bang it around and abuse it and rewire the alarm system to various degrees in various ways, enough, all of us,

that we end up with consciences, a pretty dysfunctional relationship with it, right? But before we did all that, it testified to God's universal moral standard. Okay, there's more to be said about the conscience. I gotta move on, there's more to get to, but I spent the time I did on it because it's a critical piece of Paul's argument for how God is going to bring his verdict to irreligious people. Because here you go, here it is concisely. God's written his law in three places. Creation, talked about that a few weeks ago. The conscience and the code of scripture. And everybody in the world has access to those first two. And everybody here has access to the third one as well. And so in the end, God is going to hold people morally accountable according to the standard they have access to for the religious, those of us with Bible sitting on our laps in here, he's gonna hold us accountable to that standard. Before the irreligious, those without access to the Bible, it says here, they're gonna perish without the law, which means that God is not going to bring out his Bible to accuse them, he's not gonna need to, right? He's gonna judge them according to the gift of their conscience. And it is a gift, but it might not feel like that 'cause it introduces a giant problem, it's so obvious, but I'll go ahead and say it.

Access to the moral standard doesn't equal doing the moral standard, right? Access to moral truth doesn't equal doing moral truth and problem verse 13, it's not the hearers who are justified, but the doers who will be justified. All right, so now Paul's gonna swivel his attention away from the irreligious group towards the religious group of people. This is the group of people with Bibles. He's gonna say, hey guys, you're a lot better at seeing the truth than doing the truth. He's gonna start to address the religious spirit. I'm gonna read this here, the next four verses. Paul is talking about the religious spirit. And honestly, it sounds pretty good for the most part to me, but there's a big problem with it to see if you guys can figure out what it is. Let's start in verse 17. If you call yourself a Jew and rely on the law and boast in God and know his will and approve what is excellent because you're instructed from the law. And if you're sure you yourself are a guide to the blind and a light to those who are in darkness and an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of children having in the law the embodiment of knowledge and truth. All right, well most of that sounds pretty good, right? Where's the problem? It's all the way back in verse 17. Can we put it back up there real quick?

17. Yeah, here you go. The religious spirit relies on the law. These people rely on their own moral effort in keeping the law, which is fine if you keep it from a pure heart, but if you don't, verse 13, it's not the hearers who will be justified, but the doers who will be justified. All right, the religious spirit. We gotta talk about this. How do you know if you have one? Right, what are the symptoms of the sickness that is this religious effort and activity trying to earn God's favor? Well, the late great Tim Keller, God bless the man, very helpfully describe the religious spirit. First of all, he says, if you have religious spirit, you're smug. What a great word, you're smug. You're looking for moral high ground. Want to feel morally superior. What does this look like? So like in this type of a situation, if your friend walks up to you and starts to open up to you about one of their kids with some behavioral issues, they're like, I just can't figure it out. We're having a hard time. You don't say this, but if you have a religious spirit inside, you're like, thank God, I've been so good

about discipleship and discipline in my home. We're not struggling like that, right? You don't say it, but it's in here, right? That's a religious spirit. I don't want to just give counter vision. What would a gracious spirit look like? Oh goodness, parenting's so hard, right? So hard. My family has their own problems. Plenty of them are my fault and praise God, he fills in the gaps, right? That would be a gracious spirit. So first of all, the religious spirit is smug. What else? It's overly sensitive. It's too devastating for you because that confrontation would be an attack on the very reason you think God loves you, your own righteousness. You're overly sensitive, right? Number three, judgmental. You could find fault in anybody. And you kind of like to do this actually, particularly in people who are struggling in areas where you think you're doing pretty good. It fuels a religious spirit to do this because it confirms the belief that you've achieved it, that you've been good enough to earn God's love. But at the same time, you have this sneaking suspicion that maybe you haven't been good enough, which leads to number four, that religious spirit is anxious. It's anxious. It's morally anxious. You have this conscience. It's like, ah, maybe God's standard is higher than my performance.

And so you anxiously just keep on trying. It's a terrible place to be. I've been there, honestly. It's a terrible place to be. And then fifth, the religious spirit, this is what Paul's going to be talking about here. It's hypocritical, hypocritical. Let's read this, okay? Verse 21, "You then who teach others, do you teach yourself? While you preach against stealing, well, do you steal? You who say that one must not commit adultery? Do you commit adultery? You who have horridals? Do you rub temples? Ouch. I mean, Paul is just being very direct here, right? He's like, hey, religious people, you guys affirm the Bible. Good job. Do you do the Bible? Right? He's like, hey guys, can we just be honest? Y'all are hypocrites. All right. Hypocrisy. We got to talk about hypocrisy. Hypocrisy judges others by a standard you yourself fail, right? Hypocrisy says justice for them, grace for me, and really, we all struggle with it at some level. It's on a spectrum. It's on a spectrum, but we all struggle at some level and people hate hypocrisy. It's like we hate it.

People get unusually upset with hypocrites, right? Even Jesus got unusually upset with the religious hypocrites of his day, the Pharisees, right? A lot of people hate hypocrisy so much. What's going on there? Well, it does some pretty damaging things, right? First of all, it demeans others. Hypocrisy is demeaning, hypocrites use other words to basically say, I'm better than you and here's what you should do, right? That's the you who teach others, do you not teach yourself? Comes from a person in a position of power a lot of times, teachers, politician, pastor, professor, parent. Like honestly, guys, I've struggled with this in parenting, right? For example, my four and six year old, they love sweets and they're already kind of crazy and I'm pretty like, guys, you can't have sweets like a lot of the time. We're just, we're not doing it, can't have sweets. But then like two minutes later, I'll be in the pantry hiding, I'm hiding in there eating twix out of their Halloween candy bucket. Guilty, okay? I mean, I'm being serious, true story, like I'm trying to be self-aware enough to not have a point in the sermon called everybody struggles in hypocrisy and just talking about how everybody else struggles with hypocrisy, right? But in all seriousness, parents, let me talk to us for a second here, right? Guys, our example must exceed our exhortation. Our life must exceed our lecture. Like sometimes what we think is discernment, our kids are going to see as hypocrisy. What could this look like? Moms. I mean, could look a million different ways, but could look like this potentially. Maybe you are hyper aware of the dangers of giving your kids their phone too early and

fair enough, right? And when your family leaves the restaurant, like you talk about how sad it was that the family at the table next to you, they were on their devices the whole time, fair enough. But can you see the effect that your own phones haven't on you? It's like, you know, your daughter came in the kitchen the other day, she had a hard day at school, she was going to open up to you and talk to you about it. She started with some small talk, but you gave her one word answers and didn't really make eye contact and just kept scrolling, right? It can look a lot of different ways. Dads, what could it look like for us? Particularly if I could be so bold to talk to dads of adult kids. Your son calls you up and he just wants to use you as a sounding board, process his life with you, right? And that's great. Praise the Lord, you have that relationship with your son, but he can't hardly get the words out before you launch right into the lecture, right, right into advice mode. And look, I get it, dads, we want to fix things. I get it. It comes from a good place. It does. It does. But you launch right into the lecture, you don't listen, and here's where it's the meaning. The boy's grown up now. He's a man. He could see things a little bit more clearly and he's like, "Man, dad, you got a lot of advice for me, but I never see you. I take it a little bit better if I ever saw you take advice from anybody else. He's feeling demeaned. It's not your intent, but it's happening, right?

We could do this in a million different ways, but hey, parents, look, good news, not just bad news. Here's some good news. If you realize you've done this in an area and you go to your kids and you're like, hey, bud, I've done this and I'm sorry, do you forgive me? I'm sorry for doing this. Watch how much grace they'll slam on you. They want to do it, right? They want to do it. It's not a promise, but it's a principle. I bet it'll happen. So first of all, hypocrisy is demeaning. What else? Hypocrisy destroys trust, right? If you realize you've been following a hypocrite, well, it destroys the trust there and rightly so, honestly, right? I mean, my goodness, I could talk about this from a million different angles. I could give like the most extreme example and hit like two people in here, but here's how I want to talk about it, okay? Can we all just think about together the opportunity for hypocrisy on social media? Right? It's like the incentive structures there literally and the distances there. Okay, how many of you guys have heard of Ruby Frank? Ruby was a super popular mom fluencer a couple years ago.

She had created a following of two and a half million subscribers on her YouTube channel. It's pretty good. She had over one billion views of the videos on her channel and she kind of had this channel about, you know, a tough love parenting style, giving parents kind of like a parenting coach type of thing, right? Well, I don't believe, two years ago, they found her 12-year-old son, malnourished, dehydrated, duct tape on his wrists and ankles, open wounds. The police found her nine-year-old daughter in kind of a similar state. Okay, Ruby was a hypocrite, right? She abused her own children, which is terrible in itself, obviously, but then through the power of social media, she turned around and taught two and a half million people how to be better parents. Like two and a half million people followed her parenting advice, right? It's not usually that extreme. Sometimes it's, you know, a little more subtle. Like, can we just to beat the point up? Can I talk about the trad wife thing for just a second? I mean, after last week, I should be able to talk about anything, right? All right. You guys do realize that the person modeling for you

the simple life and how to be a homeschool farm mom has a tripod on her countertop, modeling for you the simple life, or worse, like a film crew in her house? It's like, what do you mean, a film crew? I don't know, how's the camera panning? I don't know how's that happening. You do realize that if the sourdough bread doesn't come out right, or like if the kids start whining, they probably do another take, right? Now, look, do you need to lead a simpler life? Do you need to homeschool your kids? I don't know, maybe, but I wouldn't do it just 'cause you see Hannah Neelman doing it, right? Hannah Neelman uniquely gets to make millions of dollars being a homeschool farm mom, which is not exactly an opportunity you're gonna have, right? All right, I realize I'm getting a little animated, all calm down, but here's why I'm getting so animated because it's truly, I see people, my friends, making life decisions with heavy influence based on this type of stuff, and I'm not convinced any of it's real. I'm not. It's like don't give these people too big of a microphone at the decision-making table of your life. Don't let them, moms, don't let them make you feel bad about yourself. Okay, all calm down. Is it okay to take advice from people on social media?

Yes, is there good stuff out there? Yes, of course. Are they hypocrites? Are they tricking you? I don't know. This is my point. You don't know how can you know, right? I'm just saying it's gonna be harder for an older woman in your community group to trick you, right? I maybe give her a bigger microphone. Take her out the coffee and be like, "Hey, your kids seem great and your marriage seems great." And like, how are you holding all this together? And then take her unfiltered advice and give it a little more value than the filtered advice on your feet. Make sense? All right. So hypocrisy demeans others. When it is exposed, all I'm trying to do is raise a little awareness here. It destroys trust. And then the third damaging thing it does is it degrades the message. Degrades the message. And this is Paul's point. So let's read this. This is verse. Yeah, 23.

You who boast in the law dishonor God by breaking the law. For as it is written, the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you. He's like it's your fault, hypocrites, that they hate God. Wow, that's strong language, right? But that's what he says. Hypocrisy degrades the message. And this is obvious, right? If I preach, no sweets, That kind of degrades my message, right? But sometimes the stakes are higher. One in the spectrum, you have dads eating twigs in the pantry. At the other end of the spectrum, you have Ravi Zacharias leading countless people to faith in Christ over a lifetime of global ministry. And then it comes out at the end that for decades he was simultaneously sexually abusing women. And then when that comes out, I mean, when that message gets degraded, it's like people's faith and God falls apart, right? But then hypocrisy is not a spectrum. You have everything in between, right? And I want to make a distinction that I haven't made up to this point. Paul's not talking about hypocrisy in regards to social media or parenting styles or any of this. I mean, the principles still apply, so I thought it relevant to talk about it. But Paul is specifically talking about moral hypocrisy

when it comes to the third C, the code of scripture, right? He's saying, "Hey guys, you don't even follow "the law that you say that you love." That's verse 23. And then verse 24, he's saying, "Therefore, your God is being blasphemed "because of you." Right? Because of you. A watching world can see right through it. It's like you're ridiculous and your God is ridiculous. And honestly, if we're honest, you know, often to lower degrees, but we can be guilty of this too and it can look a lot of different ways, maybe like this, maybe for you, you're airtight with your Christian sexual ethic. Like you believe the right thing, you're right. And you're doing the right thing, you're right. But then you turn around and if your greediness can be and materialistic and don't have an impulsive love for neighbors in need, the watching world's like, "Dude, ridiculous." And your God's ridiculous, right? This is Paul's point. But that's 'cause guys, sometimes, we're leading with the wrong message. Like sometimes we lead with the law. It's like, what even is Christianity? Can we just talk about this for a second?

What is Christianity? What's the Christian message? Here's Christianity. I'm a moral disaster. Not you people out there, but me right here. I'm a disaster and I need to save your and I have one. Thank God I have one. Now, a watching world might still have a problem with that message, but if we lead with our need, at least our hypocrisy won't be their hangup anymore, right? So Paul's being a little tough on the religious spirit and honestly, he's gonna keep going and when you first read this, you're like, "Paul, relax, man." I'm saying reading this, not just my sermon, when you just read the words, he's being so direct. But with religious people, sometimes, I think he's being so direct because they don't get it. It's like they have this false sense of security. They think their religion can save them and Paul's like, "Hey guys, wake up, wake up. "Your religion cannot save you," right? I don't think we understand, or maybe we do, but let me help us understand the religious context that Paul was talking into here. 2,000 years ago in Jewish culture, little 32nd Jewish cultural history lesson, okay, about the religious spirit. So in this culture, toddlers would be memorizing the shamah. That's the hero Israel, the Lord our God,

the Lord is one, you shall love the Lord. That thing memorized toddlers. It was normal in the culture, right? And then five-year-olds would be memorizing the halal Psalms. That's six chapters of the Bible, Psalm 113 to Psalm 118, five-year-olds, memorizing normal in that culture, right? And then the six-year-old boys would go to synagogue to learn to read and write with the Bible as their textbook and then check this out. Many of those boys at 10 had the Torah memorized. That's the first five books of the Bible. Memorized at 10, I mean, it's like, have you ever read numbers before? Memorized at 10 years old? I asked Chad GPT, how long would that take somebody to just say the Torah? 15 hours, 10-year-olds memorized, right? It's like the law. They were so religiously self-disciplined and therefore they felt morally superior and they had this false sense of security based on their religious self-discipline. But it wasn't just a self-discipline, they had a religious symbol that made them feel secure too. Paul talks about it, let's read this. Verse 25, circumcision, that's a symbol, indeed is of value if you obey the law. But if you break the law, your circumcision becomes uncircumcision. So if a man who is uncircumcised

keeps the precepts of the law, will not his uncircumcision be regarded as circumcision? Then he who is physically uncircumcised, but keeps the law, will continue who have the written code and circumcision by break the law. For no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical. All right, so they had the right religious symbol, circumcision. This was the sign of the covenant They felt secure based on this symbol. But Paul's using more words than I'm gonna use to basically say, just a symbol. Is symbols no good if there's no substance? It's like, what does the symbol indicate, right? It's like a wedding ring, right? If I wear a wedding ring and I'm not married, who cares, right? Just a symbol, it's ridiculous. It's not neutral, it's negative, right? It's a lie. But he uses the converse too. If I am married and in a committed relationship to a spouse and don't wear a ring, well, kind of weird to not have the symbol, but you're married. Okay, makes sense. Now here's the question for us. When it comes to your Christianity, are there places where you place confidence

in symbols over substance? It's kind of all these modern Christian symbols. Let me start with the most biblical one, obviously, right, baptism. We like baptism around here, okay? We like baptism around here, here's the question. Does the sign, the symbol of baptism mean you are a Christian? I hope so, but only you know, right? Baptism is a great sign for salvation, but it's not the source of salvation. And this is actually the problem with infant baptism. It's like, that is a sign of the substance of the parent's faith, not of the baby's faith, right? But there's a lot of people walking around who are baptized as infants, and they therefore think based solely on that event that they are Christians, and for them to use Paul's language, the baptism has become un-baptism, right? It's actually a lie. It actually provides a false sense of security, but such is baptism. In our modern church culture, there's all kinds of other things that people could rely on. Guys, listen, this is important. We've got or asked ourselves this question if we're responsible people. Do you have a false sense of security? I mean, I'm not trying to make anybody paranoid, but it's a relevant question.

Do you rely on any of these signs of salvation as your source of salvation? It's like there's so many signs, right? So many in modern church culture, it's like, well, I grew up in the church, been going to church all my life, right? I was a leader in my youth group. I serve, I go to community group, I'm consistent, I contribute, I lead my community group. All right, am I suggesting that it's possible for a community group leader to not be a Christian? Well, I don't think that's very likely, but it is possible. But I'm just saying don't sit there and think that this part isn't for you because of your resume of church activities, right? I mean, Paul's writing to somebody, right? These people exist. Your resume doesn't exceed the Jews he's writing to here, right? Okay, it's like this, to go back to the analogy. For some of you guys, we all see the wedding ring. We see the signs. You got a lot of signs. We saw you move to the suburbs, bought a bigger house. We all see two cars in the driveway. If we're really paying attention, it's like you even file your taxes married finally and jointly, but you keep the blinds closed 'cause you're living in the house by yourself. There's no one else in there, it's just you in there, right? A lot of signs and symbols out here,

but it's just you in there. It's lonely in there, man. Religious people are lonely. It's a lot of effort, a lot of show, a lot of just you in there. Guys, look, signs don't make you married. A spouse makes you married. In the same way, signs don't make you a Christian. A savior makes you a Christian, right? (mouse clicking) This could sound intense and honestly, it kind of is. But here it is. I want everybody who calls two cities church home to know where they stand with God. I don't want anybody with a false sense of security, right? But if you're just here checking things out, we're so glad you're here. We wanna walk with you, talk with you, have honest, open conversations with you. It's great, that's fine. Young people in particular, could I talk to you for a second? Like, oh my goodness, you don't need to feel like you need to trick your mom or dad or your youth leaders or yourself into some sort of false sense of security. It's like, oh, mom will be really proud of me if I just, no, like it's just not helpful, don't do that. You don't need to do that, it's okay. We love you, we're praying that God will reveal himself to you in his time.

Have you ever seen somebody with a false sense of security before? It's like, it's honestly hard to watch, right? It's like, you know, but they don't. Makes me think of those old American Idol auditions. Guys remember those? I'm not talking about today's auditions, like if you can remember, this is like high school for me, I'm talking like the 20 year old clips, right? It's like, before the producer, You'd get this 16 year old kid who legitimately thinks he's a great singer 'cause mom thinks he's great, right? He's all pumped up. One's gone auditioned for the American Idol. He's waiting in a line for like 20 hours and he's all excited and then he walks into a room to audition in front of Simon Cowell where the standard is different, right? Simon's standard isn't mom thinks you're cute. Simon's looking for Kelly Clarkson. And like, it doesn't go great, it's brutal to watch, right? All right, look, there's obvious ways in which God is different than Simon Cowell, right? But he does have a high standard. I mean, he's the eternal God. Is he not allowed to have a high standard? He does. Let's not get it twisted, right? And he's written that standard on our conscience.

Everybody has access to this. And for all of us, he's written it in the code of scripture. And if we're honest, Paul's been driving towards this verdict the whole time. If we're honest, the verdict for all of us, it's guilty. All right, let's pray and go home. Nah, I'm just kidding. What a giant bummer, right? This sermon is the worst. It's ridiculous. Like, is there 80 good news? Is it just a bunch of guilty people? Well, you gotta keep coming back. We're going through Romans, right? This whole year, keep coming back. But shame on me if I preach once every six months and I don't preach the gospel to you guys, okay? Yes, there's another group of people, redeemed people. Okay, we're gonna, we're trying to land the plane here. Let me try to simplify this for us a little bit as we close. Good people don't go to heaven because they don't exist. You hear that religious people? Good people don't go to heaven because they don't exist. No one needs a standard and bad people, the rest of us don't go to heaven 'cause we're bad. This is obvious, right? Go home and ask your little kids where you get home. It's like an eight. Hey, kids, do bad guys go to heaven?

They're gonna know the answer. They're gonna be like, I think they got standards in that place. Like, I don't think they do. So, so who goes to heaven, right? Redeemed people, forgiven people, achievers don't, believers do. God will not be repaid. We need to be remade. This is how salvation works. All right, we need to respond together, but we're gonna read one more verse and it's gonna frame up the way we're gonna respond together, okay? Verse 29. A Jew is one inwardly and circumcision is a matter of the heart by the spirit, not by the letter. His praise is not from man, but from God. What matters is on the inside. To matter of the heart, Christianity is inside out, not outside in. New fruit doesn't make a new tree. A new tree produces new fruit, right? What matters is on the inside. And this is the place where only God sees. You see how that verse ends? It says, his praise is not from man, but from God. This is the place where it only matters what God thinks, right? Man looks on the outward appearance.

He sees all the symbols on the outside, but he can't see through the blinds. Only God knows what's going on inside the house, right? We're not talking about man's verdict today. Who cares? We're talking about God's verdict today. In the end, this is all that matters. So we need to respond. We're going to respond together. And as we do so, I just want to ask you guys to try to do something for me if you can. Not for me, do it for you. Try to just be honest with yourself and not think about what other people think of you. It doesn't matter what your Christian image is. That doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. That's not what we're talking about. The opposite of hypocrisy is honesty. And this is a moment for you to be honest with the God who made you. This is a moment for your heart and the God who made you. All right. If everything we talk about today is true, we've got to ask ourselves a question. Like if there's an eternal God who has high standards and he's going to bring a verdict in the end on your life and if a responsible people, we need to ask a question. Here it is, in the end, what are you relying on to stand before him?

I don't know how this works exactly, but let's say you get to the gates of eternity and there's like an angel standing there and he's like, hey, we got standards in here and I'm just curious like why you belong in here? What are you going to say? What are you going to say? Yes. Are you going to talk about how generous you've been? Is your plan to talk about your resume of Christian activities? Are you going to talk about how you perceive yourself who you perceive as worse than you. Oh, I've been a pretty good person, Mr. Angel. It's like, based on what? Going all the way back to the beginning, based on what? Guys, your goodness, that's not it. If your plan is to rely on your performance against his perfect standard, oh, this is anxiety-provoking. There's a better answer. There's a better answer. Instead of, I've been a pretty good person. The ironically better answer is something like, Mr. Angel, I've been a pretty terrible person and you definitely shouldn't let me in based on the things I've done. But don't ask me if I belong. Go ask the king sitting on his throne over there. 'Cause I know him.

He is my savior. He is my lord. He is my shepherd. He put my sin on his back and died in my place and rose up resurrected to that throne over there. I know him. Go ask him. And he told me that he has a book with names and he was gonna write mine in there. And I don't hold the keys, but he does to this place. He said he was coming here to prepare a place for me. And if I know anything, I know he's not a liar. So go ask him. That's confidence, friends. That is confidence. Based on the authority of scripture, not on our effort in keeping the law in scripture, but on his effort and keeping his promises. It's confidence. And for many of you, this is your confidence. But for some of you, it is not currently your confidence. But it can be, before you walk out of this place, you can change the location of your confidence from your effort to his, from your righteousness to his. You can either plan to advocate for yourself or have the great high priest advocate for you. What a gift, what a gift. Would you all bow your heads and close your eyes with me?

A moment for your heart and the God who made it. That king sitting on his throne has his hands open with that gift to each and every person who would believe in him. - Amen. - You don't take the gift by working really hard and earning money and buying it. You open your hands up. That's all you do. You just open your hands up and you say, I'll take it and then you put it in your hands. And that's it. If you would like to receive that gift, I'm gonna give you an opportunity to do so right now. Look, I'm not trying to manipulate anybody. If you don't wanna do this, don't do this. But if you do, if you're tired, man, and you wanna receive the gift of the grace of Jesus Christ, you can just pray something in your heart like this after me. Lord Jesus Christ, I will not be able to save myself in the end. But I trust that you can. In faith, I just believe that you've done everything necessary to save me. It's your death on the cross counts for me. You've done everything necessary. Be my savior and be my Lord. I'm willing to follow you wherever you ask me to go, whatever you ask for me to do. I'm saying the vow so to speak.

I'm having the wedding in my heart. Be my Lord, I'm committing myself to you. I'm trading all that I've been doing, which hasn't been working for all that is better. For your everlasting, abundant life. Look, if you just prayed something like that, it's not about what people think, but I'm happy for you. Could you just open the best gift in the world? I found it true in my life. Nothing life will ever throw at you. It's going to be too hard for you. God will get you through it. The God who made the world and has your story written from beginning to end is with you every day until he takes you home. Nothing gets snatched you out of his hand. Praise Jesus. I'm going to have some time to respond. If you want to come down and pray, you can about any number of the things we've talked about. You prayed to receive Christ. We'll have people you can talk to. You need to talk to somebody. Talk to somebody you came with if you did that. But the altars for anybody who wants to come, continue the conversation with God about any of these things we've talked about. How you've been afflicting your conscience, if you want to talk to them about that. How someone you love has been.

Do you alter yourself and you can come and continue. pray your in singing together. Jesus Christ, we need you. You have high standards. And the only way to you is through you. We need you. And we have you. And so we love you. Pray this in your name, King Jesus. Amen. Amen. [BLANK_AUDIO]