Most of us tend to categorize all sin into two categories – my sin and your sins. And of course when I do that I always think that your sins are so much worse than mine. Since it’s really important that all of us recognize that tendency in our lives in order to make a proper application of today’s message, let me begin by pointing out three ways that we can exhibit this tendency to condemn the sin of others without recognizing the seriousness of our own sin.
1. We are spiritually blind when it comes to our own sin.
One of the best Scriptural examples of this tendency is when Nathan comes to David to confront him about his sin with Bathsheba. Nathan described to David how a rich man took a poor man’s only lamb in order to prepare a meal for his guest. And when David’s anger was kindled against that man and he declared that the rich man deserved to die, Nathan turned to David and said, “You are the man!” (2 Samuel 12).
While David was quick to condemn the sin of others he had a blind spot when it came to his own sin. And unfortunately that is probably true of most of us, too.
2. We tend to Ignore our sins
We might recognize our sin at the time, but rather than deal with that sin by confessing it to God and repenting, we have a tendency to just ignore our sin and hope that it will go away. For some reason we have absolutely no problem remembering the sins of others but we get spiritual amnesia when it comes to our own sins.
3. We rationalize our sins
One of the most common ways we do that is to rename our sins.
Other people lie – I just stretch the truth. Other people steal – I just borrow something that doesn’t belong to me – without asking. Other people have an anger problem – I’m just letting off a little steam. Other people have prejudices – I have convictions. It’s not pornography - it’s art. It’s not adultery - it’s an affair. We even take gossip and call it a “prayer request”.
If you’ve never done any of those things, then I guess this sermon is for everyone else but you. But if you have, then Paul’s words at the beginning of Romans 2 are relevant to your life and this message is something you need to hear and apply in your life.
Before we read our passage this morning, I want to ask you to take your Bibles and open them up to Romans 1. I’m certainly not going to review that entire chapter, but I do want to point out one significant feature of what Paul wrote in the last part of that chapter. Take a look at the pronouns that Paul uses beginning in verse 18. As you scan from verse 18 through the end of the chapter, notice that Paul consistently uses third person pronouns – their, them, they, and themselves. I did a quick count and there are at least 20 uses of those third person pronouns in those 15 verses.
In that section, Paul is writing primarily about the Gentiles who engage in those pagan behaviors. And there is little doubt in my mind that as Paul’s fellow Jews read those words they were responding with a hearty “amen” figuring that those sinning pagan Gentiles were getting the wrath that they deserved. But Paul is about to turn the tables on them. Turn to chapter 2 now and follow along as I read beginning in verse 1:
Therefore you have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges. For in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the very same things.
Before I go any further, what evidence do you see that Paul is now addressing a different audience than the one to whom he was writing in the last part of chapter 1? That’s right, he is now using second person pronouns – you, yourself and your. With that in mind, let me go back and read the first five verses of the chapter from the beginning.
Therefore you have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges. For in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the very same things. We know that the judgment of God rightly falls on those who practice such things. Do you suppose, O man—you who judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourself—that you will escape the judgment of God? Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God's righteous judgment will be revealed.
(Romans 2:1-5 ESV)
Although there is not universal agreement on Paul’s audience here, there is little doubt that he is addressing a different group of people than the one he was describing at the end of chapter 1. By the time we get to verse 17 in chapter 2, Paul is clearly addressing the Jews and I think that is also his audience here in the first part of the chapter. But even if it is not specifically the Jews to whom he is writing here, he is at least addressing those who were religious and who considered themselves to be moral – especially compared the Gentile pagans Paul had already addressed.
That sounds a lot like the Jews to me. They thought because they were members of the nation of Israel, God’s chosen people, and they held to their religious traditions they really weren’t in the same class as the pagan Gentiles. They figured that since God was obligated to the whole nation that they weren’t subject to the consequences of their personal sin at all.
I think if Paul were writing his letter today, this part of the letter would be directed to those who call themselves Christians and who perhaps even attend church regularly and live lives that they consider to be moral. These people mistakenly think that because they are a member of a church that they, too, are somehow exempt from the consequences of their personal sin.
These self-righteous people tend to be the hardest people to reach for Christ because they are blind to their own sin and their need for repentance. So Paul is very direct here with his message to these people. Here is how I would sum up that message:
It is impossible to really know God
and not live a life of repentance
Although Paul is dealing here with the dangers of judging others without recognizing the sin in our own lives, that is really only a symptom of the underlying problem, which is that these religious people failed to recognize that they needed to live a life that was characterized by repentance just as much as the pagan Gentiles. And the fact that refused to do that was clear evidence that they really didn’t know God as well as they claimed to.
So when they judged others, they were really just proving several things about themselves and the true condition of their relationship with God. Since this idea of judging and judgment is so pervasive in this passage, let’s take a moment to define those terms before we move on.
There are three related terms that are used in the first 3 verses of our passage. There are all forms of the Greek verb “krino” which means “to judge”.
Greek “krino” = “to judge”
Originally the word meant “to separate” or “to distinguish” but over time it came to describe forming an opinion about someone or something and eventually came to mean “to judge”. In the context of our passage, it carries with it the idea of being judgmental or of condemning others.
Paul also refers to the “judgment of God” twice in this passage. The noun “judgment” that he uses there is derived from the verb we just looked at.
Finally the word “condemn” in verse 1 is a compound verb built on “krino” that literally means “to judge against”.
Not surprisingly the verb “to judge” is in the present tense in this passage indicating that those who were judging others engaged in that practice continually – it was a lifestyle.
With that background in mind, we are now ready to see what we reveal about ourselves and our relationship with God when we judge others.
WHEN I JUDGE OTHERS…
1. I prove that I have no excuse
In verse 1, Paul picks up on an idea that he introduced in verse 20 in chapter 1 when he claimed that even the pagan Gentiles were without excuse because God had revealed Himself in His creation.
So if those that the Jews considered to be heathens had no excuse for their sin, then the Jews sure couldn’t claim that they had an excuse for their sin. After all they had much more information and knowledge about God. They had the benefit of the Scriptures and of corporate worship and teaching, first in the tabernacle and the Temple and later in the synagogue.
When I judge others, I am admitting that I understand that God is holy and that He has established certain standards for the way we are to live as His people. By judging others I am acknowledging that there is such a thing as sin and that those who sin are deserving of God’s wrath. And with that acknowledgment I am also admitting that I am without excuse for my own sin because I can’t somehow claim ignorance of God and his ways. So there is certainly a sense that when I condemn others I am actually condemning myself.
WHEN I JUDGE OTHERS…
2. I prove I don’t know God fully
Just as we saw last week, with the pagan Gentiles, these self-righteous Jews had a sin problem because they had a worship problem. Just like the Gentiles they had exchanged the truth about God for a lie. And, as Paul points out here, the reason that they had done that is because they really didn’t know God. They were guilty of the same thing we have a tendency to do – emphasizing certain character traits of God and ignoring certain others.
They had no problem recognizing that God is just. That is the point Paul is making in verse 2 when he writes that “we” – including himself with the other Jews – “know that the judgment of God rightly falls on those who practice such things.” These self-righteous Jews had no problem with God judging the pagan Gentiles. In fact, they expected God to do that based on the fact that He is a righteous God and that the Scriptures revealed that God would not leave the guilty unpunished (Exodus 34:7)
But what they failed to recognize is that they, too, were also subject to God’s justice.
The other way that their knowledge fell short was that they were so focused on God’s justice that they failed to recognize His kindness. They failed to remember that God had dealt with them in His kindness, exercising great patience with them. As a result they desired for God to treat the Gentiles with justice that was not tempered with kindness while as the same time expecting God to treat them with kindness and to ignore His justice when it came to their sins.
Frankly, we tend to be a lot like the Jews here. We have a tendency to want God to deal with others, especially those outside the body of Christ, solely on the basis of his justice. But at the same time, we want God to treat us based on His kindness and not on His justice. But like these Jews, Paul makes it clear God doesn’t work like that. Although there will come a day when Jesus returns to this earth and those who have not responded to the gospel by faith in Jesus alone will face God’s justice that is no longer tempered by His kindness, that is not true right now. As we’ll see more fully in a moment, God extends His kindness to all because it is His desire that His kindness will lead to repentance.
WHEN I JUDGE OTHERS…
3. I don’t become more righteous
Paul is addressing some blatant hypocrisy on the part of the Jews here. They were engaging in exactly the same sins as the Gentiles, but in their twisted thinking they thought that if they could make the Gentiles appear more unrighteous, that would actually make them more righteous.
By the way, I ran across a great definition of a hypocrite this week:
A hypocrite is someone who complains there is too much sex and violence in his DVD collection!
That’s essentially what the Jews were doing. They were practicing the same things that the Gentiles were doing and then calling attention to the sins of the Gentiles and expecting God to judge those sins and just ignore theirs.
But Paul certainly puts an end to that way of thinking in verse 3. He makes it clear that the Jews who are practicing sin in their lives were not going to escape the same judgment of God that the Gentiles were going to experience.
There is only one way we can become righteous before God – and it is not making someone else look less righteous in comparison. When we get to the conclusion of this section of Paul’s letter at the end of Romans 3, he is going to make is absolutely clear that all – Jews and Gentiles alike – have fallen short of God’s glory and sinned. And as we saw earlier in chapter 1, all of us who are in that boat can only become righteous before God and be saved from the wrath of God that we all deserve by the gospel which we accept into our lives by faith in Jesus alone.
WHEN I JUDGE OTHERS…
4. I presume upon God’s kindness
To me verse 4 is really the heart of this passage. What Paul is saying here is that a heart attitude that condemns others without recognizing the need for repentance in our own lives presumes upon the riches of God’s kindness.
The word that the ESV translates “presumes” in verse 4 is a Greek word that means to grossly underestimate the value or significance of something. It describes the failure to assess the true worth of something.
And Paul is accusing these moral religious people of doing exactly that when it came to the riches of God’s kindness. Paul uses three words here to emphasize and help us to understand better what God’s kindness is like:
• The word translated “kindness” comes from a verb that means to furnish what is needed. So God is kind to us in that He furnishes what we need, even when we don’t deserve that.
• Secondly, Paul writes of God’s “forbearance”. That word was originally the word for a truce. It describes refraining from the enforcement of something. In this case, Paul is using it to describe God’s temporary clemency toward the punishment we deserve for our sin.
• Finally, Paul writes of God’s “patience”. This is a word that we’ve come across frequently before and which literally means “long- tempered.” It describes one who has the ability to avenge some wrong but chooses to withhold vengeance.
So, in effect, Paul is saying to these self-righteous Jews, “You think you are safe because you aren’t currently experiencing God’s judgment. But God is not patient with you because He is somehow condoning your behavior. He is not treating you with kindness and holding back His wrath because you are so moral that you don’t deserve His wrath. He is treating you that way because He is giving you the opportunity to recognize your own sin and repent. In other words…
It is impossible to really know God
and not live a life of repentance
What we learn here is that it is not the badness of man, but rather the goodness of God that leads to repentance. Merely recognizing my own sin and feeling guilty about it won’t bring repentance by itself. It is only when I recognize the kindness and forbearance and patience of God that I am brought to a place of repentance.
Perhaps the best illustration of that truth in the Bible is found in the Parable of the Prodigal Son. The prodigal son didn’t repent when he thought about his own badness, but rather when He remembered the goodness of his father:
“But when he came to himself, he said, ‘How many of my father's hired servants have more than enough bread, but I perish here with hunger!
(Luke 15:17 ESV)
When we really begin to understand the limitless riches of God’s kindness, forbearance and patience, then repentance is always the natural response to knowing God like that. Because His kindness is so overwhelming and so undeserved, repentance is the only response that makes any sense at all.
So what does repentance mean? The word that Paul uses is a word that literally means “to change one’s mind”. But as it is used in the Scriptures it always describes a profound change of mind and heart in which we choose to look at our sin from God’s perspective so that we no longer see it as attractive and desirable, but as ugly and deserving of God’s wrath. It is knowing that we deserve to die because of our sin and turning to God in utter gratitude because He chooses to exercise His kindness, forbearance and patience rather than His wrath which we deserve.
Repentance is not something that we just do once and are done with it, but rather a lifestyle in which we constantly turn to Jesus in humility and faith, acknowledging that He alone is our only hope.
I am confident that God is speaking to all of us here this morning, particularly in verse 4. He wants us to understand that He extends the riches of His kindness to us not so we can sit back and think that we’re something special or to think that because we call ourselves a Christian or have been baptized or are a member of this or some other church we are somehow immune from His wrath. He treats us with kindness so that we would be led to a place of repentance. Do you see now why…
It is impossible to really know God
and not live a life of repentance
WHEN I JUDGE OTHERS…
5. I am storing up God’s wrath
Both within and outside of the church many people unfortunately mistake God’s kindness and patience for His permissiveness, or even approval, of their sin. But verse 5 addresses that mistaken idea head on.
Those who refuse to be brought to repentance by God’s kindness are storing up for themselves a storehouse of sin and judgment. Day by day, little by little, they are accumulating God’s wrath, which is only going to make things worse for themselves come Judgment Day.
They are so deceived, thinking that because things are going pretty well and God has held back His judgment temporarily that they have somehow escaped His wrath completely. But as Paul makes quite clear, treading on God’s kindness right now by failing to repent means that one day they are going to face His full fury.
It is impossible to really know God
and not live a life of repentance
As with any of my other messages, the danger this morning is that you’ll think that this is a really good message – for everyone else, that is. I know that all of you have thought that about at least some of the sermons you’ve heard in the past, haven’t you? I say that because I know I have.
It’s also easy to read the Bible and run across passages where you immediately think of someone else that really needs to read those words without ever considering how they might apply to you.
But I can assure you this morning that this passage and this sermon is not merely for everyone else. And if you still think it is, then you had better go to the website and listen to this message again this week and ask God to help you take these words to heart. This passage and this message are absolutely relevant for every single one of us, because here we find a fool-proof way to evaluate the health of our personal relationship with God. If it is indeed true that
It is impossible to really know God
and not live a life of repentance
…then it’s actually very easy to evaluate how well I know God.
All I have to do is take an honest look at my life and see whether it is characterized by repentance. If it is, then I can be confident that my relationship with God is a healthy one. If I am keeping my focus on my own sin rather than the sin of others and confessing that sin to God and repenting of that sin by seeing it from God’s perspective then I can be assured that I have a healthy understanding of who God is.
If that is true of your life, then you need to get down on your knees and thank God with every fiber of your being for that because you have done absolutely nothing to earn or deserve His kindness, forbearance and patience that makes that possible.
On the other hand, if I’m constantly looking around at the sin of others and figuring that I must be doing OK because my sin isn’t as bad as theirs and God hasn’t zapped me with a lightning bolt yet then I’m actually in real danger because that means whether I know it or not, I’m actually storing up God’s wrath.
If that is true of your life, then you also need to get down on your knees and pray with every fiber of your being and ask God to reveal the sin in your life so that you can confess that to Him and repent of that sin. That is the only appropriate response that you can make to the kindness, forbearance and patience that God has extended to you even though you don’t deserve it one bit.
Either way, this is not just a sermon for everyone else. It is a sermon for you. And every single one of us this morning has something that we need to lift up to God in prayer. So let’s take few minutes to do just that.
