This morning we return to our study of the book of Romans, to chapter two. Last time we considered verses one through five, and today we will pick up where we left off. To remind us where we've been and to establish our context, we will read today from beginning in verse one, and we'll read through verse 11. Please follow along in your copy of God's word as I read aloud. Romans chapter two, verses one through 11. Therefore you have no excuse, O man, every one of you who passes judgment. For in that which you judge another, you condemn yourself. for you who judge practice the same things. And we know that the judgment of God rightly falls upon those who practice such things. But do you suppose this, oh man, when you pass judgment on those who practice such things and do the same yourself, that you will escape the judgment of God? Or do you think lightly of the riches of his kindness and tolerance and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance. But because of your stubbornness and unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath for yourself. In the day of wrath, the revelation of the righteous judgment of God, who will render to every man according to his deeds. To those who by patience and well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life. But for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury There will be tribulation and distress for every human being who does evil, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. But glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For God shows no partiality. God, we pray this morning for clarity and truth, which we can only gain by your good pleasure, through the Holy Spirit informing our hearts and minds, being our teacher. So Father, we pray that you would speak to us through your word and by your spirit, that you would replace whatever error we may hold with your truth. building us a foundation of faith based on fundamental truth of Scripture. Lord, we pray that as you enlighten our minds, that you would conform us to the image of Christ. Root out sin in us. Root out sin in our congregation. give us collectively as a body and individually give us a godly fear of holding on to sin, sin that indwells us, sin that so easily besets us. We ask all of this in Christ's name. We ask that you would help us to mortify sin. Amen. Last time we began to consider the verses of chapter two. We said this text was certainly targeted toward Jews as it was written by the apostle, but that we also see relevance and application here for any person who might call themselves righteous or moral or an upright person. We saw from scripture that the moralist person is condemned along with the heathen. Because the moralist practices the same sins against God, the moralist incurs the same judgment from God, the moralist despises the same kindness of God, and the moralist stores up the same wrath of God. And we made the point that while we were in chapter one, chapter one, woe and condemnation was pronounced on the Gentile. And chapter two pronounces the same woe and condemnation upon the Jew. We could say chapter one condemns the immoral person And chapter two condemns the supposed moral person. Last time we left off in verse five, so we pick up in verse six today. I wanna say at the outset that this is gonna be an easy text and an easy sermon for you to drift off for a minute and then come back and wind up standing in the midst of heresy. lined up standing in the midst of a false gospel. So we want to be very careful this morning to say what the Bible says and not anything else. Verse six, where we pick up, makes a statement, we could say, and then continuing, makes statements about God, and particularly about God's basis for judgment It's stated explicitly here in verse six. So while we were careful to show in chapter one that chapter one addresses Gentiles or godless sinners. While we've seen that chapter two addresses Jews or the moral religious ones. Now we see here in verse six and following these general statements about God And there is a universal application of these statements to everyone. See how verse six says, every man, by the way, keep your Bible open. I'm gonna say things and you'll look and you'll go, oh yeah, that's where you got that. It comes from right there. See in verse six, it says, every man. every man. This is addressing all people without exception. Jew, Greek, circumcised, uncircumcised, male, female, young, old, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free. These statements that are made about God and the implications that we draw from them are universally applicable to everyone. I just went through some categories of categories of people, those categories that we might like to sort ourselves into. and I adapted language of scripture, biblical language that's found all over the New Testament, but we see that we may not use some of these words today, we use different words, but we said that this applies to Jew and Greek, to circumcised and uncircumcised. Those may not be common distinctions in our day, but they certainly were in Paul's day. We might say this, religious, and unchurched. This text written to and addressing every man and God's judgment to every man. God's judgment is falling upon the religious as well as the unchurched. The moral, so-called, and the immoral. Male and female. I mentioned this distinction that we make. We make these distinctions, male and female. And that's an interesting one, male and female, especially in our day, to make that distinction. There are some who want to marginalize one gender in order to exalt the other gender. Some of you think I'm talking about men, and some of you think I'm talking about women. You know who does that? Both, men and women. marginalizing one gender to exalt the other, but that there's a whole other group who wants to erase any lines of difference whatsoever and to say that both genders are the same. And then there's another group still who wants to say that gender, gender is only a social construct and there's no such thing really, or maybe Maybe not there's no such thing as gender, but there are as many genders as there are gender studies majors. But you know what we talk about in our day regularly is this distinction, this discussion about male and female. We make that distinction. I've mentioned that this is biblical language, Greek, barbarian, Scythian. These are designators for people who spoke different languages. They're from different ethnic and cultural backgrounds. They were viewed, if you go through this Greek, barbarian, Scythian, it's like a continuum from civilized to the most barbaric. And again, we don't use these terms in our day, but we do distinguish. We do make these kind of distinguishing categories in our minds. I mean, we speak of educated and uneducated. We speak of race and nationality differences. We speak of economic status. And I mentioned another biblical term here, slave or free, and that might sound in our day like something that we wouldn't make a distinction over, but we do. We speak of those who have a job which is lesser, a lower job, or those who have what we might deem a proper job. And by the way, that goes both ways, right? There are some people who have, and I'll just use the white-collar, blue-collar words for a moment, there are some who have respect only for white-collar workers and not for blue-collar workers, but there are also those who have respect only for blue-collar workers, and that goes both ways, and we make these distinctions, and the point is that we make categories of humanity, categories of people, and we sort ourselves into categories, but this text, In verse six, it makes it clear that this judgment of God falls on every, every man, meaning mankind, everyone. And as we continue to read verses six, seven, eight, nine, 10, and 11, we see, I'm gonna use some words here, we see a bifurcation. we see a dichotomy. I've been very excited about using those two words. What do those words mean? There is a distinction, but a division into two. That's what a bifurcation or a dichotomy, a division into two categories. As we look at these verses, we see a straightforward, direct contrast, a classification into two groups, not three groups, not four groups, not five, two groups. So let's look for a moment at this biblical bifurcation. Verse seven speaks of one group. It says, to those, to those, and it will describe this group, and we'll see that description in a moment, to those, to those who are this way, this one way. And then verse eight says, but, for those who are a different way. You see there's two groups. Verse seven is to those who are this way, verse eight to those who are a different way. There's a category, two categories, a bifurcation, a dichotomy. Verse nine picks up and speaks about the verse eight group. It adds a little something. It says to the ones who do evil, That's the verse eight and verse nine group. And then verse 10 picks up and speaks of the verse seven group, and it says, they are the ones who do good. The ones who do evil, the ones who do good. There is a category, there are two categories. There is a definite, a certain distinction between these two groups, and Paul is making this point. While we may seek to eliminate ourselves from the judgment group, there are only two groups. We may categorize ourselves in any way, but Paul says there are two, he's eliminating all other distinctions which men and women have invented. These two groups that are presented are distinguished by God, and other classifications are just meaningless separations. At the end of the day, they're meaningless separations that we have made up. And verse 11 says this, God shows no partiality. Now when we read God shows no partiality, wait a minute, we just saw two groups. Verses six, seven, eight, nine, 10. We just saw two groups. God does make a distinction. So we can't read verse 11, God shows no partiality and say there are no distinctions. This whole passage is talking about distinction between these two groups. So it says then God shows no partiality. How can we understand this statement? God shows no partiality. It seems to me that it's obvious that God shows no partiality according to our groups. according to our artificial distinctions. It's mentioned here in two places, Jew and Greek, to the Jew first and also to the Greek, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. When judging, God is the righteous judge. When judging, God does not show partiality to Jews over Greeks. come to grips with that. Because so many in our world, so many in the greater evangelical world say, no, God prefers the Jews, but you're not reading the whole Bible. God shows no partiality. God doesn't show partiality to Jews over Greeks. And here's something else that might come as a surprise for some of you. God shows no partiality to Greeks over Jews. no partiality in these distinctions to expand this truth to our full sphere. God shows no partiality based on male or female. God shows no partiality based on race or ethnicity. No partiality based on upbringing or education or intellect. Any category that you try to put yourself into to get a little bit of an edge, to get a leg up when you stand before God, I'm gonna put myself in this category. Guess what? God shows no partiality. These two groups, these two groups where God does see a distinction, these are the only real groups. These are the only real Races. We're all about race, right? These are the only real races of humanity. Adam's race and the chosen race. We want to talk about race. That's what, I mean, we're Adam's race and the chosen race. There are, there are those who are in Adam and there are those who are in Christ. And these are really the only two groups. Now, Some of you think that I have gone blind and deaf. We know that there are observable things among us, right? We know, I thought about in preparing this, my brother, Joshua, you look at him and you look at me and you immediately see, you see some distinguishable things. He is tall. And I am not as tall. We're not saying that there's nothing to observe. Can we say this? Gender is observable. Christians, it should be. It should be. Women, there are many fashion choices for you, many hairstyles, many different looks that you might like, that you might adapt to. Just make sure whatever look you choose is distinctly female. Women, you should look like a woman. Men, we have far fewer choices. And we all say amen. We have far fewer choices. But men, we should make sure in our presentation to the world that there's truth in advertising. There should be a distinction, an observable distinction in gender. There are observable differences all around us. Skin color, ethnicity, which is a different thing. Education, which sometimes is very obvious. Whether you were blessed with a Southern United States upbringing, or whether you had to be born somewhere else. There are differences, and we can say that some of those differences do have an impact on our day to day. Sometimes a minor impact, sometimes more of an impact. I mean, there are differences, but biblically, when it comes to the judgment of God, those categories, those distinctions don't matter. God shows no partiality. We're spending a lot of time setting this text up, and we're going to have a little more time. But when we get to it, this should be easier for us to see the judgment of God as it is presented before us. There's one more thing from the text that we need to see, and it's not really from this text. It's really from the rest of Scripture. I'm going to call you to remember some things. First of all, remember this theological term or what theologians call the analogy of scripture. Maybe the analogy of scripture or the analogy of faith. To some of you, that may be a new title, a new phrase, or a new term. That's the word I was looking for. Maybe a new term. The analogy of scripture or the analogy of faith, this is the principle that anything the Bible teaches, When we understand it correctly, it does not contradict or contrast with anything else the Bible teaches. What the scripture teaches, when you understand it rightly, it does not contradict something else that the Bible teaches when you understand that way. Scripture doesn't contradict itself. If we find a contradiction, by the way, did you know people find contradictions in the Bible all the time? People find them. And when you find a contradiction in the scripture, here's what you need to know. You have misunderstood or misinterpreted something. You've made a mistake. There are no contradictions in scripture. So when we come to this text, verses six through 11, we are going to say, and this is scripture, And it cannot, it does not contradict anything else taught in the Bible. That's just, that's pretty simple. But I wanna make that point emphatically. And let's refresh our memory. The Bible very plainly teaches. These are some references to scripture. No person is justified by the works of the flesh. Salvation is a grace that it is not earned, but it is a grace gift. Salvation is by grace, not of works. Salvation is not of works. You cannot be safe by doing good stuff and not doing bad stuff. Salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone. And this is a very important statement. What a person does, we're gonna be talking about doing for a while. If you just read forward in this chapter of Romans, you're gonna see a lot of references to do, deeds, works. What a person does plays absolutely no part in attaining eternal life, forgiveness of sin, salvation. What a person does plays absolutely no part in attaining, that's a very important prepositional phrase. What a person does plays no part in attaining eternal life, salvation, forgiveness of sin. Salvation is earned by what Jesus did. and not by what you and I do. So listen up, if you read these verses, we read them together, if you read these verses and you hear this judgment of God and the ones who do this way and the ones who do that way, and you see in this text salvation by works, then you need to go back and read again. Clean your ears out. Listen closer. This text cannot teach works righteousness. That is a doctrine emphatically denied by so much of Scripture, so much, especially the New Testament. So this text cannot be teaching us works righteousness. Now, I'm just gonna pause, because we got plenty of time. We got nowhere to be. There are some who read this text and they see works righteousness, and they say, so how do I adjust it? How do I fit this together? And they say, God is speaking here hypothetically. This is hypothetical. If you could, and they do that, and by doing, by saying God is speaking hypothetically here, they avoid the error of teaching works righteousness, of teaching salvation by works. good on but I don't think this is hypothetical I think there's another way for us to read this so don't fall as we read this text don't fall into this error don't say that Paul is teaching here that by doing that by being patient in well-doing that's verse 7 seeking God's glory and honor that Paul is teaching by doing this by our doing we find a way unto eternal life do not fall into that error but be careful Don't go to the other extreme as so many do in our day and say, works do not matter. I mean, that's the thing. Works are completely, some would have you to believe, works are completely unrelated to salvation. Listen, Christian, just because you're not saved by works, it doesn't mean that works don't have anything to do with salvation. We know that we are safe by grace, but this text shows us that we are judged by works, by deeds. I'm gonna pause here and head off some error. There is a teaching that is out there. Don't go looking for it, but here's the teaching, that here you trust in Jesus. Here you have faith and it's grace and not of works, But in the end, on the final day, when you stand before God, then he will pull up your works, and at the final justification, it will be by works. You know what that is? Heresy, and no gospel. Even if Doug Wilson preaches it. And if you think, wait a minute, I watch Doug Wilson videos on YouTube, and they seem to be really good, let me tell you something, they do. Because every lie contains 85% truth. Avoid, avoid that. That wasn't in my notes. Do not take the error of this text teaches salvation by works, but don't go to the other extreme and say, salvation and works have nothing to do together, no relationship. We are saved by grace, but this text is telling us, read verse six. How do you read it? We are judged. By works, God will render to every man according to his deeds. So I titled the sermon, Saved by Grace, Judged by Works. Saved by Grace, Judged by Works. And this is what I'm saying. We can get off into error very easily. We want to be careful. So much can be said about the judgment of God. We need to say some things quickly. We learn that just as we are all committing the same sin, ignoring the same kindness of God, incurring the same judgment of God. This is verses one through five. We're storing up, this is important for us. You're storing up the same wrath of God. Now in verse six, we're all judged on the same basis. And that basis for judgment is deeds. God will render to everyone, render. That's a word we know. If you've been in a kitchen and you're doing it right, then you know what the word render means. When you put that bacon in the pan, you render it. What does that mean? You're bringing out, bringing out of the bacon what is stored in there. You're bringing out what is stored in there. That pig has stored up fat for his whole life. And now in the frying pan, you render that fat out. You're bringing out what was stored up. What you render is in relation, it has a relationship with what was stored up. If you have a pig who is on a low carb diet, and that pig is storing up very little fat and you are able to get any kind of bacon, you're going to be very disappointed because that pig didn't store up. But if you have a pig who was on a high carb diet and ate lots of those carbs and stored up lots of fat, then you are going to have a beautiful thing happening in your kitchen in that front. You're going to render That's the word render. And what you render, your rendering is in keeping with what was stored up. Now what we see in our text, God will render to every man according to his deeds, according to his works, according to what was stored up. Verse seven talks about the one who patiently through doing good seeks for God's glory, rendered, what comes from that eternal life. Then verse eight talks about those who are self-seeking, they disobey God's commands, they obey unrighteousness, and what is rendered is wrath and fury, that wrath that we saw a few verses earlier that was being stored up by their sin. Verse nine reiterates saying that For those who do evil, there is a rendering of tribulation and distress. Verse 10, but for everyone who does good, there is glory and honor and peace. These people who do good and they receive glory and honor and peace, are those people saved by works? No. They are not saved by works. But you can look at their works and accurately judge their place before God and where they will spend eternity. That's the judgment. That's the judgment that we're speaking of. You're saved by grace, but you're judged by works. You can look at their works. They weren't saved by works, but their works reveal and help us to rightly judge their place before God where they'll spend eternity. The lost man in these verses is not lost by his works. Did you know that? Nobody goes to hell because they sin. Did you know that? People who go to hell go to hell because of Adam's sin. Their sinning is just agreement. with Adam and behavior that matches their nature. It's another sermon. But nobody goes to hell because of their sin. These, in this text, who are lost are not lost by their works, but their works correctly indicate their disposition concerning Jesus Christ. We have here to the Jew first and also to the Greek. We have this in here twice. Just very quickly. Let me say we first saw this in Romans 1 16. The gospel is the power of God to the Jew first and also to the Greek to the Jew first gives us reference to the fact that God chose the Jewish nation, the nation of Israel, God chose them to carry the oracles of God, to bring scripture to the world, to reveal God's word, and to be the people through which the Savior would be born. God blessed Israel in that way, so we can rightly say, and scripture rightly says to the Jew first, but it also says to the Jew first, but also to the Greek, The Jew is not safe based on his Jewishness, and he's not judged based on his being a Jew. Salvation is to the Jew and to the Greek. God's judgment is to the Jew as well as to the Greek. So very quickly, let's consider the application of this text. There is a certain truth here. God's judgment will fall in keeping with a person's deeds. while a person does not become a Christian by works. We should expect a Christian to have works which testify to their salvation. Christians ought to act like Christians. Christians, the scripture tells us, we are saved unto good works. Ephesians 2, 8 and 9 is by grace through faith, not of works, is followed by Ephesians 2, 10. You are saved unto good works. That is, we are saved to the end that we would do good works. Why did God save me? Have you ever asked that? Why would God save you? To do good works. God saved you to do good works. How's that going? God saved you to do good works. before the foundations of the world. Scripture teaches us that God foreordained good works that Christians would walk in them. He has foreordained before you were born the good works that you should walk in, Christian. Scripture speaks of false prophets and it says this about false prophets, you will know them by their works. And you know what, that truth is to our point in this text. For those who are believers in Jesus Christ, you will know them by observing their works. And for those who are lost in their sin, without God in this world, you will know them by their works. And as we look at this judgment, because this is speaking of the judgment of God, but we also use, we should use this basis for judgment. And it's most important that we consider our own lives. It's important, dear man, dear woman, that you consider yourself, that you examine yourself. In examining ourselves, we don't look for perfection because this side of heaven, we will not achieve perfection But if you are a true child of God, if you are, as scripture says, a new creation in Christ Jesus, then the old is passing away and the new has come. If you are truly a Christian, there will be evidence of the old fading away. You still sin. but not like you used to. You still sin, but you have less, sin has less hold over you. You still sin, but with less frequency. You still sin, but with less intensity. You still sin, but there's less time between sinning and coming to Jesus for cleansing. there should be clear evidence that the sanctifying work of God is taking place in you. So friend, if you examine your life and you see that same old person, if you examine your life and you don't see a new creation, a new man, then maybe it's time to stop pretending that you're okay just because you're a moral person, just because you attend church, just because you're a church member. Maybe it's time to fall on your knees and seek Jesus. Can I warn you from something? I see this so often. I see people that in a moment, In a moment of reality, they're convicted, perhaps of their lostness. But you know what? If you just hold on for about five minutes, there'll be a distraction and you won't have to think about it anymore. You just hold on for just a minute. You can drown out that conviction. Hell will be filled with people who have had momentary concern for their soul, but not enough to earnestly seek Christ. Fall to your knees to pray that God will grant to you true faith, saving faith, and repentance. We often speak of faith and repentance, and we speak of them together. This text speaks of repentance, but repentance is just the flip side. Repentance is called a twin grace. Faith and repentance are twin graces. We say two sides of the same coin. Imagine that you had a coin and on one side is saving faith in Jesus Christ and on the other side is sin. When you turn that coin to your face and you're looking at sin, you don't see saving faith in Jesus Christ. There's no way with this coin to look to saving faith and sin at the same time, that's the picture of repentance. If you turn that coin to focus on saving faith, then you have automatically, with the same motion, turned away from sin. That's repentance. Faith and repentance, two sides of the same coin. Stop believing, friend, the false gospel, the false gospel of the world, that you can have heaven in eternity and you can live like hell right now. That is a lie. And it's no gospel at all. God is, this text is plain, God is a righteous judge and he will render to every according to their deeds. You can only be saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, but your works will reveal your heart. This sermon may seem odd. I mean, are you just getting all of this out of this one text? It seems like the Bible has a whole lot more stuff to say about grace and faith, I'll call you to remember the book of James, especially chapter two. James says there is a faith. There is a kind of faith that does not produce works. There is a kind of faith that is not accompanied by works. And he asked this question, does that kind of faith save? And the answer comes from all of scripture. No, that kind of faith cannot save. That is a dead faith. You show, to use James' language, you show your faith by your works. You're saved by grace, you're judged by works. Faith is invisible. Can you show me, can anybody show me your faith? You can't show your faith. You show your faith by your works. The works that you were saved unto. The works that God has foreordained that you should walk in them. So long time professor of Christianity, you who have been church member for many years, You profess to be a disciple of Jesus Christ, but ask yourself, could you be convicted of Christianity in a court of law? I mean, is there enough evidence? Do your works show, can I tell you this? Your works show what you are. Your works show what you are. Do your works show that you are a believer in Jesus Christ, that you trust him and his word, that you obey his commands? This message today for every man, woman, and child is that God is no respecter of persons. He shows no partiality. He is a righteous judge who will render to every man according to his deeds. So take inventory today. Test your faith. Is it a saving faith which produces righteous works like James spoke of, or is it a dead faith with no power over sin and no power to save? God, help us. Help us. to not be distracted from this text of scripture and not to be distracted away and pulled away from your conviction. God help us as we examine ourselves. Help us to see the presence of grace. And as we see the presence of grace and victory, even if they be small, victory over sin, Help us, Lord, to be grateful for our salvation and to live more and more every day in a way that testifies to your power over sin, that testifies to your salvation. And God, for those who maybe have a false assurance. Lord, we pray that you would help them, that you would remove the blinders, that you would remove all of the clutter, and that you would help them to see truly what their heart is. We pray that you would grant to them saving faith and repentance. God, we pray this for our loved ones, for our children, for our fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, for our neighbors, for those who we work with, Lord, we pray that you would save the elect. And we pray this in Christ's name, amen.