Sermon from October 13, 2002

We fish in deep waters today. We look down into that deepest of all wells, the human soul. The apostle takes us beneath the surface of our lives. The Holy Spirit stirs up down there some of what has lain undisturbed for many years. The disturbing of our minds is at times necessary for the renewing of our minds.

To embark on this inward journey we need a context in which to hear what the apostle will say to us in Romans 2:1-11. We want to consider moral smugness, moral realism, and the judgment of God.

Moral Smugness

That context of course consists in what the apostle has said in Romans 1:18-32. In those verses he exposed us to a surprising interpretation of the evil that bedevils our world. Let's look again at Romans 1:29-31.

Looking out on the world through Jewish and Christian eyes, the Apostle Paul tells us what he saw of human nature without the true knowledge of God. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Not many people would contradict his grocery list of human nature gone bad. Daytime television would be impossible without it.

However, the apostle is not piling up a list of evil in order to discharge his righteous indignation. He is making a crucial point. This is what happens to people, when the refuse God. They lose hold of the integrating center of their lives, and human desires, cut loose from their proper governance, run amok with painful consequences for human happiness. Bad theology always leads to bad living.

Furthermore, contrary to conventional thinking, disordered human sexuality in all its expressions, disordered minds and disordered human relationships in every garden variety of evil are not merely the cause of the wrath of God; they are the result of the wrath of God. But we are not to understand God's wrath as inflicting punishment in the form of pain; we are to understand it as inflicting punishment in the form of indulgence.

It is easy for people of high moral standards to see the world of Romans one and say, "Thank God I am not like that." It is easy to congratulate yourself for not being part of the mess people have made of their lives. That is the moral smugness the apostle challenges, and it may be uncomfortable to keep reading in Romans 2:1. We have to remember that Paul is not lamenting the sad state of the world. He is trying to lay before us the relationship between God and humanity. Verse one of chapter two makes it clear that he will pursue this truth relentlessly.

Moral Realism
You, therefore, have no excuse (he had said the same thing about the pagan world in Romans 1:20) - You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else. Passing judgment here carries overtones of moral superiority, moral smugness. Not only Jews, but also many pagans in Paul's day were disgusted by the moral low life of the Roman Empire. Plenty of people today, religious and otherwise, are disgusted by the moral low life of the West. It is a short step from that disgust to the thought, "I'm glad I'm above all that." The person who says that is the person of whom Paul says that he has no excuse. His next statement explains.

For at whatever point you judge the other, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things. "You think you are better than the world I have described in chapter one, but in reality the description fits you too at some point. You are right to be disgusted by the moral low life around you; you are just wrong to think you have escaped it. Your standards are high and rightly so, and by your own standards you fail."

The apostle can be so inflammatory. You can understand why some people did not like him. The issue, however, is not his popularity, but did he speak the truth? Are people of high moral standards guilty of violating their own standards? In answering that question there is a simple mistake we must not make.

The apostle was not saying that every person of high moral standards commits all the sins he had listed in chapter one. The more complex reality is that the pagans themselves whose life he described in chapter one did not each commit every act of evil listed there. His point is that among high-minded people, who look down disapprovingly on the moral low life around them, you could find just about everyone of those acts of evil. In my years around churches, I can't think of any sin in Romans one that I have not seen among Christians. Skeletons reside in the finest of closets.

Now, the Apostle Paul does not go probing like this into people's lives in order to expose them to public ridicule or even to make them feel bad about themselves. He wants us to think about our moral failure in relationship to God, and all he talks about in the next ten verses is God. Verse two goes far toward explaining why the moral inconsistencies of high-minded people leave them without excuse before God.

Now we know that God's judgment agains those who do such things is based on truth. He might as well have said that God's judgment is based on deeds, not words. Although blind to our own, we are masters at seeing other people's inconsistencies, and we demand as a point of fairness that they be exposed and rectified. Verse three takes a mighty stab at our blindness.

So (inasmuch as God bases His judgment on deeds) when you, a mere man, pass judgment on them and yet do the same things, do you think you will escape God's judgment? God agrees with our sense of outrage at moral inconsistency. It seems, however, that He will not allow my own inconsistencies to go unnoticed. He means to relieve me of my blindness to the ways in which I violate my own high standards. That brings us in verses 4-8 to the judgment of God, which is restrained, realistic, and fair.

The Judgment of God (Restrained)
Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, tolerance and patience, not realizing that God's kindness leads you - you with your high standards and moral inconsistencies - toward repentance? The point is that if the wheels haven't come off your life, it is not because you make the world a better place; it is because almighty God is kind, tolerant and patient with you. It is because He is leading you toward repentance.

But no one repents who thinks he's right. Only one who thinks he's wrong repents. It is hard to say you are in the wrong, when you are busy point out the wrong another person has done, because doing that makes you feel so right about yourself. It is possible to feel so right about yourself that you refuse to see what is wrong about yourself and what that means to God. Verse five says that you will have the piper to pay for that.

But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God's wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed. The wrath of God in chapter one did not inflict pain on His foolish creatures. It sounded more like He showed them the door. "You do not want to honor me? You want your own way? I will not stand in the way. Go your own way. Live life on your terms."

But a day is coming when the wrath of God will take another form. Paul calls it the day of God's wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed. He says nothing about when that day will come. He is still focused on those who have far too high an opinion of their own moral goodness, and so he emphasizes what God's righteous judgment will mean for them, if they do not repent. Verse six sets the realistic tone.

The Judgment of God (Realistic)
God "will give to each person according to what he has done." If the standard is going to be moral uprightness, then God will not be interested in your words but in your deeds. He will not be interested in your privileges, religious or otherwise, but in your deeds. So, says the apostle, let's pursue this train of thought to the very end. If we are to be judged by a standard of moral uprightness, and if the Judge is going to decide according to our deeds, what will He be looking for? Verse seven starts us out.

To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, he will give eternal life. It sounds like God will be judging by two standards. First is one's persistence in doing good. It is not just doing good on Sunday. It is not just doing good when someone is looking over your shoulder. It is not just doing good when it is convenient or when it feels good. It is a persistent pursuit of goodness.

The second standard really takes your breath away. God will measure us by our motivation for doing good. Eternal life, says the apostle, is not simply for those who do good. It is for those who in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality. Do you persist in moral uprightness as a way of seeking glory, honor and immortality? What does that mean? The most obvious meaning is to seek the glory, honor and immortality that only God can give, (See Barrett, Romans, 46). So, the apostle is asking, "Do you do good in order to seek God?"

On the great judgment morning, we should expect God to evaluate a human life by how well it persisted in moral behavior. So, what if He determines that you have done all your life long the very things you condemn in other people? We should also expect Him to evaluate a human life by its motivation for its moral behavior. Did you do what good you did as a way of seeking the glory, honor and immortality that only God can give, or did you do it to please other people or bolster up your own self-esteem? Are you sure you even know? Verse eight presents the sobering alternative.

But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger. If a person does not do good in order to seek the glory, honor and immortality that only God can give, then it is a short step to doing it for personal gain of some kind. That kind of self-seeking is easy, and it is not the only kind.

If a person does not do good in order to seek the glory, honor and immortality that only God can give, then how are morally high-minded people any different from the people in chapter one who exchanged the wrath of God for a lie (Rom. 1:25)? And if on top of all that, a morally high-minded person engages in some of the same behavior he condemns in other people, then, concludes verse eight, there will be wrath and anger.

It is easy to pass lightly over the reality ensnared by those words, wrath and anger. They "underscore the personal and 'deeply felt' indignation of God at injustice," (Dunn, Romans, I, 87). In that day His judgment will be absolutely fair.

The Judgment of God (Fair)
Verses 8-9: There will be trouble and distress for every human being who does evil: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile; but glory, honor and peace for everyone who does well: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. His judgment is frightfully fair. Verse 11 puts it this way: For God does not show favoritism.

We must also never forget that God tempers His wrath and anger, as verse four puts it, with kindness, tolerance and patience. By this kindness, tolerance and patience God decalres Himself for us. By removing the restraints on the base side of our nature and by inflicting pain now and warning us of judgment to come God declares Himself to be against our sinfulness.

The Pastoral Center of Gravity
The bracing realism of these verses has an unexpected blessing. It makes me much more open to other people, whose moral failures have marred their lives. I have no urge to preach to them, much less to condemn them. Instead, I have a desire to become, if they wish, a place of refuge for them. I understand from the inside how they failed. I understand my own need for mercy, and it makes me want to be a man of mercy with whom they find shelter.

That does not mean I condone what they did or what I did or might do. It means that all of us in our terrible moral failures need someone to embody to us the kindness, tolerance and patience of God. If God declares Himself for us, then I in my own, unworthy person wish to stand as a flesh and blood sign of that divine favor. I want them to hear deep within themselves the music of the mercy of God and have hope.

Is not this the way of repentance? If repentance is what God wants, is not mercy a more hopeful way of getting it? Repentance, understood properly, has to do most deeply not with behavior but with God. If the only image people have of God is that of a demanding threatening judge, how in our liberty-loving culture will inspire anything other than fear at best, rebellion at worst?

But how will anyone know that God is kind, tolerant and patient, if they never see His mercy embodied by another person? I doubt that very many people need to be told that they have failed morally in some way. I suspect that people as numerous as the stars need to be convinced that the God they have offended is merciful.

We are a congregation of about 1500 souls. What if we embodied the mercy of God to the people in our lives, who are reeling under their own moral shortcomings? This church would then truly become a place of refuge, because it would come to be known as a place where God is, who is our refuge and our strength. Can we become such a church? If we can, it will be because of you. Around the coffeepot, over lunch, in the carpool, on the flight to Chicago, someone will divulge their dark secret. Will you become their judge, or will you, reflecting Christ, become their place of refuge?