Romans 2:1-4 Respect God's Kindness!

Romans 2:1-4  You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge another, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things.  Now we know that God’s judgment against those who do such things is based on truth.  So when you, a mere human being, pass judgment on them and yet do the same things, do you think you will escape God’s judgment?  Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, forbearance and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness is intended to lead you to repentance?

In this passage, Paul refers to his previous statement about humans being given over to a depraved mind, and he enumerated several of these sinful attitudes: envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice, and the like.  He also stated that those immersed in sin, gossip, slander, and hate God; they are insolent, boastful, and arrogant. They even invent ways to do evil, as we see on the internet in our present day.  All of these attitudes within humans come under the heading: they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God.  (Romans 1:28)  Most of us look at this list of destructive activity, of sin, and say that it does not describe us.  I am not a killer, a hater, a person who does not acknowledge God.   But Paul says we are not to pass judgment, for we are from the same mold as people who do these things or have done them.  We are susceptible to all sinful activity.  The Pharisees thought they were very holy and believed their righteousness exceeded that of the ordinary person.  The people believed this too and highly esteemed the Pharisees who received places of honor at celebrations or community events.  However, Jesus saw them differently: “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites!  You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean.  In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.”  (Matthew 23:27-28)  He saw the insides of the Pharisees: their thought life, self-talk, secret wishes.  People knew them from the outside, but God knew their hearts.  Paul’s list of sins describes our insides, the times we wish to do evil to other people, or to join in to activity contrary to God’s will.  Jesus says, if you lust after another person in your thoughts, you might as well have participated in this activity in reality, for God knows your mind and its imaginations.  We will all be judged on our secret thoughts, our wayward self-talk, our wicked wishes outside of Christ.  Rather than depend on God, we often saturate ourselves with anxiety and disbelief, thinking that God cannot handle our circumstances, disbelieving that all things work together for good to those who believe.  So Paul says, when you, a mere human being, pass judgment on them and yet do the same things, do you think you will escape God’s judgment?  Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, forbearance and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness is intended to lead you to repentance?  God does not judge us immediately with destruction when we flee from trusting him, instead, He grants us forbearance and patience, gives us time to return to his truth.  We must always remember God is timeless.  Nothing in our lives will escape his righteous eyes.  He sees our past and our present as the same.  Only the blood of Jesus can change that.

We are always under God’s grace, but we are also under the scrutiny of God’s candlelight.  If we were to sell chicken eggs at the local market, we would put our eggs through a candling device. The outward shell of eggs causes all eggs to look similar, but by testing the egg we can see the inside.  If there are imperfections, the egg is discarded; the perfect ones are kept to sell.  Just as Ananias and Sapphira could not escape the penetrating gaze of the Holy Spirit, neither can we escape God’s knowledge about us.  Now a man named Ananias, together with his wife Sapphira, also sold a piece of property.  With his wife’s full knowledge he kept back part of the money for himself, but brought the rest and put it at the apostles’ feet.  Then Peter said, “Ananias, how is it that Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit and have kept for yourself some of the money you received for the land?  Didn’t it belong to you before it was sold?  And after it was sold, wasn’t the money at your disposal?  What made you think of doing such a thing?  You have not lied just to human beings but to God.”  When Ananias heard this, he fell down and died.  And great fear seized all who heard what had happened.  (Acts 5:1-5)  God sees all of our imperfections.  Without the covering of the cleansing blood of Jesus Christ, we stand naked before the God of Eternity with everything exposed to him.  In the Old Testament, God often speaks about his judgment on the Jewish people, sometimes depicting them as a woman whose nakedness is exposed to the heathen world.  Under God’s judgment, all will know the discrepancy between our testimonies and the realities of our existence.  All will understand our hearts: the motivations behind our actions, our willingness to exploit others, the secret longings of our sinful nature.  As the Bible says: The Lord does not look at the things people look at.  People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.  (1 Samuel 16:7)  God will not accept imperfection in his domain for imperfections are a cancer to the Kingdom of Heaven.  Faith in Jesus Christ and his works makes us new creatures.  God’s candlelight verifies us as newborn, alive in the Spirit, in the image of God’s Son.  We who trust in Christ have renewed our hearts and minds, not by good works or self-improvement, but by fixing our eyes on the one who loves us and gave his life for us: CHRIST JESUS.  Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.  (Hebrews 12:1-2 NASB)  Jesus separates the fleshly man from the spiritual man by circumcising the heart with a sharp two-edged sword.  We no longer live by the energy of the flesh, but by the power of the Holy Spirit.  The old man ceases to exist in God’s eyes, but the new man becomes God’s treasure, transformed by the cross. 

SAVED BY FAITH, we are alive in Christ—a simple proposition, yet greatly profound.  Faith alone accesses the Kingdom of God through the gate Jesus Christ.  There is no other way to eternal life.  The greatest illustration of faith in our opinion is the account of the thief on the cross.  One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at him: “Aren’t you the Messiah?  Save yourself and us!”  But the other criminal rebuked him.  “Don’t you fear God,” he said, “since you are under the same sentence?  We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve.  But this man has done nothing wrong.”  Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” Jesus answered him, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.”  (Matthew 23:39-41)  What faith it must have taken for him to look to this man as the Son of God.  They were all in dire circumstances, dying on crosses as finite men.  Hearing Jesus’ groans of agony, the travails of the fleshly Jesus, he still believed in the divine Jesus.  Not considering his rational mind, the thief placed his faith in the power of God through Jesus Christ by saying to the other criminal: Don’t you fear God?  How many of us would have considered Jesus as the Son of God in that situation?  We probably would have been like most of the disciples, absent from the scene, fearing for our lives.  But this thief, expressed unimaginable faith by saying, remember me when you come into your kingdom.  Jesus accepted him.  The thief did not win paradise because of his good works expressed through his life.  No, he would win paradise and identification as a new creature in Christ because of simple faith in the man dying beside him.  The lowly thief had saving faith, a belief in something beyond his rational mind and his present condition.  By asking Jesus to remember him, he verified his faith in the Father God who created everything out of nothing.  He believed the Creator existed and that He lived in Jesus, reflected HIS GLORY through Jesus.  Mankind has struggled from the beginning of time:  Do we believe in God as the creator or do we believe in something our minds can understand that set creation in motion.  This faith issue is glue that causes every page of the Bible to stick together.  From ancient times to the present, man has searched for an answer to creation other than God.  His innate nature is to substitute his reasoning in place of believing in God and his authority.  That is why the Bible explicitly states man’s self-centered nature.  All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him (Jesus) the iniquity of us all.  (Isaiah 53:6)  Likewise many New Testament scriptures confirm man’s delinquency: There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands; there is no one who seeks God.  (Romans 3:11)  Given the state of sinful man and our wayward hearts, none of us should stand in judgment of another, but we should keep our hearts and minds steadfastly on the Lord.  Bless each of you as you follow Christ.