Bible Guys Classics: Romans 2 Part 2

Hey, everybody, we're the Bible guys, and if you're just tuning in recently, just know that we are showing a little bit of reruns for a few months and then we'll be back bigger and better than ever on August thirty first, because behind the scenes we're taking a hiatus to do some very important things. Yeah, we're building building out a new studio and we've got some new structure. Super excited about it. So August thirty first, brand new content. But in the meantime, enjoy some of our greatest hits. Well, Jeff, the Law is the Law. Wow, that's what we're talking about today. He's Chris, I'm Jeff, and we're the Bible guys. So every once in a while we do a segment called mail Bags, and mail Bags is basically going through email those you know, mail bags would have been like David Letterman would have had physical letters, right, that's right, But we're going through emails. All of our twenty year old listeners and like what's a man? Right? But anyway, So, by the way, incidentally, if you want us to discuss any question that you have that you would like us to discuss, just for fun, we would love it if you would email us at info at the Bible guys dot com. But this one comes from David S. And he asks this question, what's the best prank you've ever pulled on someone? Yeah? Were you a prankster? And are you a prankster? The troublemaker more than a prankster for me? Yeah, yeah. Pranks require planning, and I'm not much of a planner. Yeah. Yeah. Do you remember the guys when I moved offices that heritage, they actually hooked up into the ceiling vent, into the air conditioning vent, they put the Hazer, which. Is like you know the smoke machine on stage, the. Smoke machine or the fog machine on stage, and they actually put it into my thing and trays like. Goes, let's go in your office. I want to I want to talk to you about something. And all of a sudden, I look up and all this fogstar's coming to my office. But you thought it was smoked. I thought it was a legitimate problem, and so I took it out and I started videoing it to show Chad, which is our executive Yeah, and they were all laughing. So they were all filming me and laughing. Then they tried to hold me in the office and eventually my whole office. Can fill with smoke. Right, hilarious. That's a good one. Well, so Bonnie had been talking about getting a tattoo for a while. Oh yeah, and so, hey, if you have a tattoo, I don't think it's wrong or whatever. I'm just not a huge fan of tattoos. So Bonnie wants to get a tattoo and I'm like, oh, I don't know. I'm trying to talk her out of it. And so she goes out with one of her friends who attends Heritage ivon you know who you are, and they sent me a picture of Bonnie sitting in a thing and she's almost done with a tattoo. This guy's like on the thing like that, and she said, hey, will she were here or something. She sends me this text and it was on her birthday and I'm like, oh my gosh. Well now I'm thinking, well, I have to be kind, I can't, you know. So I'm just like wow, but I am like freaking out about this. Like what in the world I thought we settled on her arm? Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, like mom on her arm or something like that. Well, it turned out the guy. They went in and paid this guy to draw it on her arm, color it all in and then just be you know, sitting there with the thing. It was so funny, funny. So when I finally realized, because I'm just doing my best to be kind and decide, but I'm pretty much losing it because I thought we'd decided, let's a crank on you. Yeah, that was a prank on me. I'm not really much of a prankster, Okay. Jenna called me one time, my daughter to tell me that Bunny had been arrested because I've been trying to get a hold of her, and Jenna's crying and really making it real, like very real, and I was freaking out about that. So people pull pranks on me, But I don't do a lot of pranks. Wow, So I do. I used to do a lot of pranks. I remember in college we was it was Baptist Bable College BBC's what we called it. And there was a guy who's still a missionary, a friend of mine. I see him on Facebook, but his name is Lance Gocher. Okay, so Lance, uh one time made us mad, and actually specifically he made my friend mad, Jeff, and so Jeff wanted to get him back, and Lance was really just like he harped on Jeff, and by the way, with good reason in a lot of ways, right, but man, he just got us all sort of like wound up, like this guy is just he has. A common Well come on, Lance, right, come on Lance. So here's here's what happened. We actually carried his furniture from his dorm. We're talking like a couch, a desk, right, lamps, everything, right, and we carried it down. Three floors down the dorm room, three floors. All the way across the co odd and we actually laid it on the middle of the of the of the field, the grassy knoll, in front of the cafeteria. And everybody gets out of call, you know, classes at the same time. They all head to the cafeteria. Every he's there sort of around noon ish, and the entire school is pretty much in this cafeteria. So we knew that he was going to be coming across the lawn and we were going to be watching him. So we carried everything down. We're talking underwear, everything, clothes, everything, And it took us like an hour and a half with the team of people, and we carried it all the way down and across the campus, and then we put a sign of that said, uh BBC Patriots yard sale. Oh no, right, Patriots was your mascot. He was. He was a singing Okay, singing group was called a Patriot. Okay, but they are the BBC Patriots, so like the basketball team is called the Patriots. So for whatever reason. So you took everything he owned, put it out in the yard and had a yard sale of his stuff. I literally, in my mind can still visual like he was wearing a blue shirt when he was coming over the lawn. The wind was blowing. He had a red tie. With poka dots on him, and it was actually blowing in the wind, and he had a suit jacket on. He was carrying a briefcase and he was looking down because it was windy. And so because he was looking down, he come over the lawn and the entire cafeteria was all glass, And I kid you not, there was like eighty people pressed against that window watching his reaction, right, and there's two sets of glass doors, so he couldn't even really see us. Because of the reflection. And he comes over the thing and he's looking down and he and he sort of sees like this huge, like you know. Like garage shell on the lawn. And he looks over and he looks back down. He almost walks by it. Then all of a sudden, he looks back over and he notices like something that looks familiar. And then all of a sudden, you can just see the look on his face and he drops his you know, briefcase, and he looks and immediately he just starts grabbing his stuff and running towards the dorm, you know, as if he's going to carry everything up by himself. And so we actually laughed super hard, and then believe or not, we all went out and helped him carry back up. Yeah right, So we had our you know, our laugh at his expense. Oh my goodness. Then we had a team of people helped him back up. Yeah, that's hysterical. So note to self, don't mess with Chris and his friends. Well, hey, sorry, sorry, Lance. And by the way, I've had I have several other pranks that I do not want to say. Yeah, okay, okay, I was thinking about the time that you did that roast on me and then I sent you to a really bad part of Havana oh yeah, for sure. Yeah, so yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah I did that one, but that's a whole other story I don't want to tell today. Yeah yeah, yeah, some things. Are best left buried. Yes, so that's a fun one. Well hey, thanks David S. Yeah, for sure, that's a good one. Now we know a little bit more about Zarba's character. Just don't cross him. Wait a minute, you're hard on me, and you don't want to tell the prank that you played on me. Nope, nope, I'm good. Come on, Jeff, No, we're good. Come on, Jeff, here we go. So. Uh. In Romans chapter two, we're reading, you know, if you're on the list drug, we're reading in verse seventeen, and we're going to just read, I think, to the end of the chapter here and now he's speaking to the Jews and explaining the law because so many people in Paul's day believed, yes, the Gentiles are bad because they don't have any law, any spiritual law, and they're just sinners. But we have a spiritual law, so we're good. And so he's going to unpack that. He says, you who call yourselves Jews are relying on God's law, and you boast about your special relationship with him. You know what he wants, You know what is right because you've been taught his law. You're convinced that you're a guide for the blind and a light for the people who are lost in darkness. You think you can instruct the ignorant and teach children the ways of God, for you are certain that God's law gives you complete knowledge and truth. Well, then, if you teach others, why don't you teach yourself. You tell others not to steal, but do you steal? You say it's wrong to commit adultery, but do you commit adultery? You condemn idolatry, but do you use items stolen from pagan temples. You're so proud of knowing the law, but you dishonor God by breaking it. No wonder, the scriptures say the gentiles blasphem the name of God because of you, the Jewish ceremonials. Circumcision has value only if you obey God's law. But if you don't obey God's law, you're no better off than an uncircumcised gentile. And if the gentiles obey God's law, won't God declare them to be his own people. In fact, uncircumcised gentiles who keep God's law will condemn you Jews who are circumcised and possess God's law, but don't obey it, for you are not a true Jew just because you were born of Jewish parents, or because you've gone through the ceremonial circumcision. Now, a true Jew is one whose heart is right with God. But in true circumcision is not merely obeying a letter of the law. Rather, it is a change of heart produced by God's spirit. And a person with a changed heart seeks praise from God, not from people. Yeah, so he's starting to blend the lines here between Jews and Gentiles based on not just obeying the rules, but on the heart, what's going on on the inside. So somebody who's new. The scripture, if they read like, let's just say these verses, you know, and that's their daily devotion for the day, they may think to themselves, what in the world do these verses. Have to do with me? Because it sounds very much like their thing right and their culture, you know, is Paul's writing specifically to a group of people talking about two different cultures. What does that have to do with me? What could I even get out of this? What would you say? What was your first instinct? Well, I think everything in the Bible has application for us today. It's why it was important enough that God decided that needs to be in there, So we should dig in and find out why. Why is it there for me? Right? Because it's here for everybody, not just for them. So what do you The principle, the general principle. There's two big principles I think here. One, if you are claiming to try to teach people to do right, you should also follow your own own your own teaching right. There's a lot of people who are willing to step up and lord it over everybody else and make all kinds of rules for. Everybody else as I do. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I had a significant leader in my life at one time that had very strict rules about a certain lifestyle element. But then I went out with one of his sons and were in his car, and it turns out the guy who made all those rules broke all the rules personally. Yeah, And I was shocked by it. It was a music thing. Up until that time. Up until that time, I just felt like, well, everybody follows the rules, We're all struggling through this. Okay, I don't like the rule, Okay, but then when I found out the guy who makes the rules doesn't follow any of those rules, I thought total fraud because I'd heard him talk about the reasons why these are so important and all this stuff, and I'm like, he's a fraud. And so Paula is saying here, if you're living a fraudulent life, you're saying one thing but doing another. You're claiming that you will obey God, but then you're clearly disobeying him in a certain area. He said, this is why non believers hate God. Is not that they hate God, It's that they hate the people who claim to follow God. Yeah, and so really it's the topic. You could put the topic of hypocritical Christians in there. Oh, that's exactly. That's the first several verses we read was that, and then the second principle he's talking here about. So then he decides to get a specific element, which for the Jewish people in the law, the foundational element was that the male Jews were circumcised, and that was a demonstration of a personal physical sacrifice to God, right, and that this symbolized the covenant that the people of Israel had with God. And so he's going, Okay, let's go to this basic element that you all brag about all the time. Well, here's the issue. You can follow the rule, specifically the rule, but if your heart is not towards God, it doesn't matter. So then the heart is God's initial thing, that's really his thing that he's going after. So that means that you can have people who have not gone through that ceremony they have a right heart with God, and you're gonna have people who did go through the ceremony who have a bad heart for God. And so he said the ceremony is just a symbol, but it's really about what's going on in your heart. So those are the two big principles. He's speaking specifically with cultural elements for their circumstance. But you can take the principles and go, Okay, you know what, Yes, I should obey God's law, but I shall also do it with a good heart, right heart towards God. Yeah. And by the way, it reminds me very much of the Sermon on the Mount, you know, when Jesus was trying to let the Pharisees and the religious leaders know like they're just as sinful as everybody else, right, And he says, like, you know, for instance, when he says, you know, you pride yourselves because you don't commit murder, right, because that's like a really big sin. But you guys sin too, in fact, when you call each other fool, it's what he says. He says, you're just as guilty if you're on the list. You're on the list, right, And he says, you know, you pride yourself or not having adultery committing adultery, but if you look at a woman and lust after, you commit adultery in your own heart, and so both sins are still sins, right, right, you're on the list. And so he's talking about that. And so it's this idea that when people are condemning others, they don't realize that they too are condemned. And the hypocritical Christians a whole different category as well, because the hypocritical Christian is the one who condemns somebody and then secretly does it, you know, but they think they do it in secret, but everybody knows. Yeah, you know, I've heard multiple things. I think Gandhi had a minister friend, a Christian friend, and they communicated all the way to Gandhi's death. They loved each other as friends, and he commented one time that he felt like the issue wasn't with Jesus. The issue with was what the people claimed to be following Jesus. Right, it was hard to follow Jesus when I look at the people who follow Jesus. Yeah, and he was kind of implying it. That's not the quote. I don't remember the exact quote, but that's the sentiment behind what he had communicated. That, you know, we do, I think, need to be conscious of the fact that if we wear Jesus' name, we represent him period, all the time, at our best moments and our worst moments. So we need to make sure that we are putting our best foot forward with the way that we're choosing to live our life, That we do the things we say, that we behave the way that Jesus would behave, That we don't make excuses for our sins, that we keep a short account with the people that we are around, that we don't live a hypocritical life, because he says, it's no wonder the scriptures say that the Gentiles blasphem the name of God. Because of you. So even God's aware of the fact that man sometimes they don't hate God, they hate the followers of God, and they're like, I just don't even want to be like that. And I think that this is maybe the most important thing in this passage for me today is to be contemplating the idea of does my life make people feel inspired to say, hey, he has something I don't have. I want to know the God he knows, or do they look at me and go what he claims he has doesn't make any difference at all, and he's a total fraud, and so I don't need anything that he has. Right, That's really a big part of it. Our testimony really does matter. I don't do it to please people. I do it to please God. But I'm aware of the impact on people with the things that I live in my life. You know, I think it's important for any any of our listeners to realize that, you know, if you know, none of us are perfect, right, none of us are perfect. But it's one thing to be an. Imperfect Christian and to know it to walk around in humility and just say, hey, I'm not perfect. I know I mess up. And then when you encourage others or talk about others. You know, that's different than what's being talked about here. Right, what's being talked about here is hypocrisy, saying do as I say, not as I do. Right, Here's here's my thought. My thought was, I do I do funerals, and I've done like over the course of my career, like eight hundred few and so you know, sometimes the funeral will call me, and they'll call me because the family has some connection to church, so they want a pastor to do a funeral, but they don't have connection to church enough to have a specific pastor to call. So the funeral will call me and say, hey, they want some sort of faith based funeral, so I'll go. And I'm I kid you not when I say this, This is just my personal observation, Like from my life. I would bet you upwards of eighty five to ninety percent of people will say, yeah, I believe in God personally, but none of us go to church. And I would say that of that eighty five to ninety percent who say that, I would say more than half of them. So they stopped going to church because of hypocrites. And so it's like, so we have to understand like the damage that this causes. I think a lot of times we're tempted to think that, hey, it's my choice, my life, you know, my decision. Don't tell me how to live my life, you know, because everybody you know, don't don't get into my business. Faith should be private. But yet the Bible tells us that faith is actually not private. Faith is actually communal, right, and. It's personal, it's between you and God, yes, but it's not private. No, it's not private at all, right. And your decisions and the way that you live your life matter because if you're going to you know, boast about Christ and invite people to church, and you know where your church gear on, your on your sweatshirt, and you're going to do all those different things, and if you're living a lifestyle that's entirely different, just know this. Hey, I'm not condemning you because you're an imperfect person, but you have to realize there is damage that is being caused for the name of Christ because of it. Yeah, you know, in the next couple of chapters, Paul, it's going to say the fact that we're all sinners is not an excuse, right, So for for a Christian for somebody who's a follower of Christ who is claiming the grace of God in their life to go, well, you know, we're all sinners, so it that's non excuse. He said, what should He's going to say this in just a couple chapters. So then what should we just keep on sinning so that grace will abound? He goes, No, God forbid. So he's making it clear, we don't use the fact that we're sinners as an excuse to just keep misbehaving. Now that you're a godly person, you've been set free from sin, so stop it, right, that's the thing. And we should be grieved when we do sin. There should never be a time when we go, ah, well, you know, I'm just a sinner. Thank goodness for God's grace. We should be grieved when we sin. That's a part of the whole repentance thing, coming back to God, keeping a short account with God, confessing our sins those things. That's incredibly important. But the difference is here, the hypocritical side is hypocrisy does so much more damage. And you know what, I've never heard I've never one time heard a person say, you know what my problem is I'm just a hypocrite. We never think that we're the hypocrites. We think that other people's behaviors hip it or critical. We almost never think our own is. And so I think this is a little bit of a challenge, quite honestly, to them to measure yourself. Here are you measuring up to what you're claiming? If you're not measuring up to what you're claiming, you're probably doing damage to Jesus' testimony and jesus reputation to the people around you. So whenever I read these things, I don't come away feeling like, man, I'm a bum. I come away going am I living up to what I'm claiming? If I'm not? I just want to be better. I want to be better, and through His grace I can be God can empower me be better. It's not impossible to be a better representation of Jesus yesterday than I what or tomorrow than I was yesterday. Right. So, yep, yesterday was wrong. Yesterday I misbehaved, I did something. God forgive me. I don't want that to be who I am. I want to be more like Jesus. Help me to be at a representation of you today and tomorrow and you go forward. God's grace is enough. He'll carry you through. It's not an excuse. It should inspire us to go, Hey, if I can hurt Christ's testimony in reputation in the community, that means I can also help it. Yeah. Right, So there's a flip side to this negative, and that is if I choose to not be a hypocrite and I choose to truly be a person on my word and a person who is honestly living out their faith and grace and truth, that can be a benefit to God's reputation in the community. Yeah, the equal response to the other side. Yeah, So all those principles are radically true, and we need to keep in mind at the same time that the reaction to that challenge should never be try harder, It should be submit more to Christ. Yes, so try harder means you have the strength to obey, you know, and be a better boy or a better girl. And the bottom line is is like, yeah, we do in a lot of ways. We can make decisions and we can make choices, but the reality is is that the big crime, in my opinion, the big crime of the church is putting it on the person and saying like you need to be better, do better, behave, quit it, stop it. You know you're a bad person. And the reality is is like, yeah, okay, wait a minute, let's really get a perspective on here. The reaction isn't try harder. The reaction is to submit and say, God, I know I don't have the power to be what you want me to be. So therefore I submit to you, and I'm asking you to give me the power and the strength to say no or to say yes to the good things. You know, give me the strength to make the right choices because in my own power, I'm gonna try really hard, but I'm going to fail. And the only way I'm not going to fail is if I'm living in your power. Right, Yes, Yeah, So there's there's a there's the element of character, which is always a day, that's a daily, moment by moment choice. And there's also the element of total dependence on God's grace to do what we cannot do. That's right, But I don't expect God to step in and do something I could do. Right, That's unreasonable, Yeah for sure. Right. So if I when I'm faced with a lie right now, I choose to lie. I don't choose to lie, and I don't necessarily need God to supernaturally intervene to prevent my lie. I can just choose to tell the truth. I can. So there is that character element, and then there's also the total dependence on God's provision and grace to overcome those things that I can't possibly overcome my own. And there's kind of this mutual partnership in this developing the character of Christ in our life. And that's the struggle. And I think sometimes when people misunderstand, it's because they've taken the opposite side of the meaning of what we're trying to say sometimes on those but I think it's a perpetual struggle. That's why we're working out our faith, as Paul says in one of the other books. But at the same time, His grace is enough, and so that that's we have to live in that tension all the time. You know, you use the example of making a choice to tell a lie. I think the thing that we hardly ever do with ourselves is to actually ask yourself, why are you telling the lie? Why would you tell a lie in the first place. It's probably more so where you have to go to God and say, help me change that in my life, because that's the thing that I don't have the power to change myself in your strength. Well, that's a good place to end and we will pick up tomorrow on the Bible. Guys,