"Only" God Can Judge Me (Romans 2:6-16) | Louis Azuma

Speaker: Romans two.

We're continuing on in Romans chapter two.

So something that, um, I went, I went to school to, uh.

To do pastor stuff.

And, uh, one of the things that I, I took a class on how to preach a sermon and,

uh, one of these classes actually Pastor PJ was, was helping teach this class.

And we did these things, they call them sermon reviews.

And in a sermon review, what you do is you sit down with like.

One of the pastors, so like, it'd be, it was like me and Pastor pj, and we

sit down and we just watch one of my sermons, and this is like one of the most

awkward, painful things you can imagine.

Like, imagine watching a video of like, like you, have you

done a presentation at school?

Or like, something like that.

Imagine someone sits down with you and you guys watch that presentation together

and they're like, why'd you say that?

Why'd you do that?

Wait, what?

How did you, how did you make that point?

What was that?

Why'd you say that?

So I was, I was doing this, this sermon review with Pastor PJ and he pauses

it three seconds into my sermon and he goes, what's wrong with this picture?

I was like, what?

What?

It's been three seconds and I'm already doing something wrong.

It was crazy.

So the prob, there was a lanyard in my pocket and it was like hanging.

And apparently it was distracting.

So if you notice, I never have anything in my front pockets when I preach

anymore, because I'm scarred for life from that moment because I'm scared

that he's gonna watch the sermon and be like, what are you doing?

Why do you have something in your pocket?

So anyway.

But sermon review was scary, right?

Sitting down with, with pastor pj.

Imagine if you had to sit down with, with like your teacher, or maybe

if you're, you play a sport, right?

You watch film, like imagine you watching film of, of your swing

or, or of your concert with someone who's like a professional, right?

Someone who's really good at their job and they're gonna evaluate you.

They're gonna be like, all right, why'd you do that?

What was that for?

How'd you do that?

That wasn't very good, right?

What if you did that with someone that was really good at their job?

That's what happened to me.

And see, here's the thing, is every single one of you and every single one

of us, like me, myself, included, one day, every single one of us is gonna

sit down before God and he's going to judge us according to what we've done.

He's, we, we are gonna be accountable to God for everything We've done,

everything we've thought, right?

Imagine all of the things you ever thought, all the things you ever

said, all the things you ever felt.

You are gonna have to give an answer to God.

Why'd you do that?

Why'd you think that?

Why'd you say that?

Why'd you feel that you're gonna be accountable to God

for all of those things?

God is going to judge every single one of us one day when you,

when you meet him face to face.

And that is either gonna go really well or, or really bad for, for some of you.

So our main point tonight is that God gives people exactly what they deserve.

God gives people exactly what they deserve, not more and not less.

So turn your Bibles to Romans chapter two if you're not there already.

And look with me, we're gonna be looking at verses six all the way down to 16.

All right, so let's start here in verse six.

God says, or the apostle Paul's writing this letter, he says, God will

render to each person, he'll give to each person according to his works.

So God will give proportionately to someone's works.

He'll judge people based on their works.

Verse seven, to those who by patience and well doing, seek for glory and honor

and immortality, he'll give eternal life.

So that will go really well for them, verse eight.

But for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth,

but obey unrighteousness.

So if you're selfish, if you're obeying unrighteousness,

there will be wrath and fury.

God's white hot anger towards sin.

We talked about that a few weeks ago, right?

And then he goes on to say some of the same things.

Verse nine.

There'll be tribulation and distress for every human being who does evil.

The Jew first and also the Greek, right?

The people who don't have God's word at this time.

But verse 10, glory and honor.

And peace for everyone who does good.

The Jew first and also the Greek.

We'll talk more about what that means.

Verse 11.

For God shows no partiality, right?

God is a good judge.

God gives people exactly what they deserve.

He doesn't show favoritism.

This paragraph right here really only shows two outcomes

of this judgment, right?

There's only two categories of people, right?

Look, look with me at these verses here.

God's gonna judge every single person according to their works, right?

One category, I'm scared to erase this.

Will I get in trouble if I erase it?

Okay.

Verse seven.

There's one category, right?

People who get judged and it goes well for them.

People who get judged, they get eternal life.

Another category of person who are self-seeking, there's

gonna be wrath and fury.

There's really only two categories.

There's only two outcomes of this test, if you will.

This is pass fail, right?

This isn't 80%, 90%, 70%, 60%.

This is pass fail.

It's one or the other.

Those are the only, only ways this is gonna go for you.

There's not, well, I'm, maybe I'll just get some of, some of the good

stuff and some of the bad stuff.

Right.

Or maybe, well, I'm not that bad of a person, so maybe it'll, it won't be,

maybe it'll just be like, I don't know.

Some consequences, but not like wrath and fury.

Right?

Or, well, I'm not a great person, so I'll just get some good stuff from God.

No, it, it is only gonna go one of two ways.

It's a hundred percent or 0%.

You're in one of these two categories tonight, right now, if you died,

you would end up in one of these two categories, eternal Life or God's Wrath.

And I hope you know which one you're in, and I hope you know if you're in this

one, that you're in a dangerous spot.

So I want you to be thinking about this.

I want you to, to really be thinking, okay, one day I'm going

to stand before God, and one of two things is gonna happen.

I am going to have the best day of my life, or I'm gonna

have the worst day of my life.

I'm gonna either spend forever enjoying God and and his glory,

or I'm gonna spend forever hating everything about what's going on.

There's only two options here.

And if you thought about that, man, I'm gonna stand before God one day

and this is what's gonna happen.

In.

I think that would change a lot about what you did and what you thought.

And I know that would be the same for me.

So ignore this slide.

But my first point tonight is to think about God's judgment.

Often.

Often I think that would change a lot about us, about what we did,

about what we thought was important, about what we thought was good

for us, the decisions we make, the words we said, the jokes we made.

Would change a lot about us if we just thought, man, I'm

gonna stand before God one day.

And he's gonna say, why'd you do that?

I don't know if you guys still do this.

When I was in high school, this is how we sound really old, when I was

your age, we wrote essays and uh, they were, we would like peer review each

other's essays, you know what I mean?

Like, here, this person's gonna grade my essay and I'm gonna grade their essay.

And we're gonna read it and, and we're gonna mark it up and whatever.

And what I realized very quickly about, you know, these peer graded essays is

that no one's honest on these things.

You know why no one's honest on a peer review essay?

Because they're scared if they say something bad about you, that you're

gonna say something bad about them.

Right?

They're like, oh, well this sentence doesn't make any sense.

But you know what, Josh is reading my paper, and if I write something

really, really bad on his paper, then.

He's probably gonna be like, oh, well since you did that, I'm gonna do this.

Right.

So a peer, peer graded essay never really worked because everyone was

just really nice to each other.

Everyone just was like, well, uh, I don't know.

I'm not gonna say what I normally would say if it was anonymous, because I'm

thinking, I'm thinking about, oh, this other person is judging me just as

I'm judging them, they're judging me.

And that thought of, oh, I'm gonna have to like actually give this back to them.

That's why it's easy to say mean things over text, right.

Or on Twitter, because you're not actually like talking to the person.

You don't have to actually like face a reaction for what you're saying.

Same with these, with these peer review essays, you, you have to

actually hand it back to the person.

They're like, oh, you wrote that?

You, you said that about, about my intro paragraph.

You said that about my thesis.

Right?

So that thought of judgment.

It changes the way you grade the essay.

And I think the same thing should be true of us.

That thought of God is gonna hold me accountable for what I do.

That should change the way that we act.

That should change the way that we think the things that we think are important.

If you aren't a believer in this room, if you know, man, I'm, I'm in that

second category, I'm under God's wrath.

I don't trust Jesus to save me.

I, I do want you to think about it.

I want you to, to really realize what you're saying, right?

If I died tonight, I would be going to hell.

That's where you sit right now, and I, it's easy to just hear the sermon, feel

bad about it for 30 seconds and move on.

You get in the car, you start talking about something else.

You go to sleep, you move on with your life.

It's, it's easy to do that.

And I want you to think about, man, I'm in danger, right?

We talked about how God's wrath is.

Is being stored up, right?

The way you're living is storing up God's wrath.

It's hanging over you.

You know, like that lightning cloud in Mario Kart that makes you go faster

and then it zaps you at the end, right?

And you're like trying to get that thing, you're trying to bump

someone to get that thing off you.

'cause you're like, I'm gonna get zapped.

That's you right Now.

You're driving around with this thunder cloud over you that's,

that's gonna zap you and you're just hoping it doesn't zap you yet.

I want you to think about that.

It's, it's hanging over you and, and you don't know when it's gonna,

when when you're done, right?

You don't know when your last day is,

and I don't want you to suppress that.

We talked about people suppressing the truth.

You, it's easy for me to say that.

And you like, oh man, yeah, I really should become a Christian.

Oh, maybe later.

And you procrastinate, you suppress it.

You say, oh, well, I don't know if real Bible is really true, or, oh God

can't be good 'cause bad things happen.

Or, I don't really know if Jesus is God, or, I don't really

know if God would save me.

And you just push it back.

I'll do that when I'm older.

I don't wanna do that right now.

It's, it's so easy to do that.

And what I'm asking you to do is to just think about, to realize, man, I am.

I am as one famous person.

Put it, you're like a spider hanging over, hanging over a fire

by just the little, little web.

But if you're a Christian in this room, you may have not

thought about this before, but, but God judges Christians too.

It's not the same.

It's not a heaven or hell judgment.

But God judges, Christians here in Romans 14.

Later in, well actually we won't get here.

Verse stopping at chapter eight, um, because otherwise

we'd be doing this for years.

Um, Romans 1412, Paul, right?

Paul's a Christian.

He says, each one of us will give an account of himself to God if

you're a Christian in this room.

You're still gonna be held accountable for the things that you did.

Yes, Jesus will pay for your sin, but you still have to answer

to God for what you've done.

God still holds you responsible for how you use your time, how you use your

energy, the, the things that you've thought about, the things that you've

prioritized, and I hope that clarifies for you what your priorities are.

I hope that clarifies for you.

Oh man, I'm gonna have to, to turn my life into God one day.

Answer for how I used it.

God gave me a life.

He gave me a phone, he gave me a car.

He gave me a school to be at.

He gave me talents.

He gave me a voice.

He gave me a body, and I'm supposed to use them for him.

So I hope that you think about that, but also I hope you think

about too as, as we looked at in

this passage, right?

There's, there's good things that you get from being a Christian.

The judgment of Christians is also one of rewards, right?

Christians don't.

It's not just, oh, great, you're saved.

Cool.

No.

Christians get things for the good things that they've done.

Jesus talks about this all the time.

He talks about rewards in heaven.

God rewards some Christians more than others.

God is not communist, right?

God is.

Capitalist, if you want to put it that way.

God rewards Christians for the, for the things that they've done,

and so you will never do something for God that's not worth it.

Think about that as a Christian, you'll never, you make a sacrifice

that God won't make worth it for you.

One.

You lose a friend because you share the gospel with them and they don't

like you anymore, or you'd miss out on that, on that party or that

relationship because you know that that's gonna lead you away from God or you.

You don't click on that video or you don't read that book, or you're not part of that

conversation or that friend group anymore.

It's gonna be worth it.

God will make it worth it for you one day, maybe not this week,

but one day he will, and you can trust him for that as a Christian.

So I hope that's motivating for you too of man, I could

never give up too much for God.

God will reward your faithfulness, you, and even if no one else sees it, right?

Even if your parents don't see it, even if your leader doesn't see it,

even if no one knows about it, right?

You know that God will reward you.

That's what Jesus says, right?

Your don't let your right hand know what your, your left hand

know, what your right hand's doing.

Your father who sees what's going on in secret will reward you.

So I hope that's encouraging for you as well, if, if you

are a Christian in this room.

Now, maybe you're sitting there and you're thinking, well, I'm not sure, right?

I'm not sure if I'm a Christian.

I don't know which category I'm in, and I would just ask you to, to just

do some digging into that, right?

You say you're not sure.

Well, don't just sit there and be like, oh, well, I'm not sure.

Oh, well, right.

If you're not sure, you're one of your biggest priorities should be figuring

out whether you are a Christian or whether you're not a Christian.

So ask some questions.

Why am I not sure?

Maybe it's, oh, well, I keep sinning.

Okay, well ask questions about that.

Why, you know, is, is my sin something that a Christian is, would, would do, or

something that a Christian wouldn't do?

Am I trusting Jesus or am I trusting in myself?

Ask questions to see.

Okay, read the Bible, right?

There's a book of the Bible, first John.

That's all about whether or not you're a Christian.

So God has given you things.

Talk to your parents, talk to your leaders.

Do some digging and ask questions.

But I want you to think about God's judgment.

No matter who you are in this room, I want you to think one day I'm gonna

stand before God and I'm gonna have to answer for everything that I've done.

Every Jesus says in Matthew 12, every word, every careless word you've

ever spoken, every text you've ever sent, every image you've ever seen,

every website you've ever been to, every meme you've ever sent, you

have to answer for that to God.

So think about God's judgment often.

But here's the thing, and what we'll see that, uh, in this passage is that thinking

about God's judgment won't do you any good if you just assume that you're fine.

So look with me here at verse 11.

Okay?

So God says, God shows no partiality.

God shows no partiality.

That means favoritism, right God.

God doesn't show any favoritism.

God doesn't treat some people.

Better than other people's just because oh, well they're from this country.

Right?

And that's what Paul's audience, he's talking to Jews and Gentiles and the

Jewish people in the audience were saying, well, you know, we're, we're

Jews, we're God's chosen people.

God gave us the Old Testament.

God sent us prophets.

So we must be better off.

We must, God must like us.

Essentially is what these Jews are saying.

God will treat us better than those other people because we're special to God.

We're God's favorite people.

And what Paul is saying is God doesn't have favorites.

He doesn't not gonna treat the, the Jews better and the Gentiles worse just

because, well, you're from Israel, or you know who Moses is, or you know,

the 10 Commandments or whatever.

Why?

Well, all who've sinned without the law will also perish without the law.

But all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law.

So what's the common denominator here?

Everyone's sinned and everyone who sinned will perish, will be judged, right?

Everyone's guilty before God.

And then verse 13.

Here's why.

It's not the people who hear the law, who go to church, who hear sermons

in true North, who memorize Bible verses who have Christian parents.

It's not those people who are righteous before God, but the people

who do the law, the people who live out what God says, those are the

people who are gonna be justified.

Paul is not judging PE or God is not judging people based on where

they're from or their background or how much they know God's judging

people based on how they live.

That's what, what.

Paul is saying here.

So for our second point tonight, don't count on favoritism for God.

Don't be like these Jews who think, oh, well my sins not as bad because

me and God, me and God are tight.

I'm part of God's special group, so it's okay.

Or those people over there, they don't know as much as me, so God

will judge them harsher than me.

So when I was in middle school, I was in band 'cause I was really cool.

Um, and I was my band director's favorite student.

Like teachers always say we don't have favorites.

Teachers have favorite students, a hundred percent right.

Um, and I was clearly my band director's favorite suit.

And it was, it was awesome.

It was like the best thing ever.

So I needed to get something in the middle of class and I went up and got it.

I came back, the person next to me did the exact same thing.

They needed to get something, the same thing that I needed, went up

and got it, and they got in trouble.

I was like, this is epic.

I can just do whatever I want.

This is great.

So, which I, I did need it and it did help me like it was like for a good

purpose, but it was just hilarious.

I felt really bad, but also I was like, that's hilarious that you got in trouble.

And I didn't.

So I was my band director's favorite student and so.

Naturally right there, there might be things that I would think, oh, I

could take advantage of this, right?

Because I'm my band director's favorite student.

I can, I can mess around, I can get away with things that maybe other students

wouldn't be able to get away with, right?

I get the special perks of, of being, you know, the band director's favorite student

I got, for some reason, they let me play percussion with the orchestra and I got

to go to San Diego with the orchestra.

I was like, I shouldn't be.

We have real percussionists.

They picked the guy who plays trumpet to, anyway.

It was, it was, it was great.

Um, so I got to do all these cool things because I was my

band director's favorite student.

Now, some of you and some of us, I think we, we don't actually say,

oh yeah, God must like me more than other people, but we kind of assume.

Here.

Here I'll show you some things you might think that God will be partial

to you, will will be like you're one of God's favored people, that God won't

be as harsh on you in his judgment for, for maybe certain reasons, right?

Maybe you think, well, I go to church, so in implicitly you think, oh, well

I must be a Christian, or, oh, well I won't, I won't suffer as much.

Of god's of, of God's wrath as people who don't go to church.

'cause at least I go to church.

Maybe I'm not a Christian, but I, I know, I know the Bible.

I go to church so I can't be as bad at.

We even talked about a couple weeks ago, people who really reject God's

even natural design, you think, no, maybe you're not as bad as those people.

That's you saying that God's gonna show you favoritism

just 'cause you go to church.

Just 'cause you, you go to the right church or you have the right

parents, or maybe you assume, oh, I must be a Christian because

I serve, I serve in kids, men.

I help set up, I, I share the gospel with people at school.

I, I do religious things and maybe you think, oh, that must make me a Christian.

I memorized Bible verses.

I know a lot about the Bible.

Maybe you think, oh, I must be a Christian because I feel bad about my sin.

I feel really bad when I sin, so I must be a Christian now.

It's a good sign, but.

Guess who else feels felt really bad about his sin?

Judas.

So doesn't mean you're a Christian, right?

Maybe you think, oh, well, um, I'm young so God won't, won't really

hold me accountable for my sin.

He only holds like adults accountable for their sin.

Maybe you wouldn't say it like that, but that's maybe something you think about,

oh, I can just become a Christian later.

It's not a big deal.

Well, God judges everyone, not just older people.

Or maybe you think, well, I have like this moment, this salvation moment

I was at camp and the worst that music was, was whatever is is great.

And I was crying and I talked to my leader and I, I prayed this prayer

and that's why I'm a Christian.

Like, well that doesn't make you a Christian.

Right.

Some experience you had, or I talked to my mom when I was four years old

and we, we prayed this prayer together and that's what makes me a Christian.

Experience doesn't make you a Christian, right?

Just having this this moment doesn't make you a Christian.

Trusting Jesus is what makes you a Christian.

So there's a lot of things that maybe you can just behind the scenes think,

oh, well this must be, I'm, I'm better off than, than the other people.

That God's wrath isn't really as much for me as it is really for those people.

Maybe you just think, well, I'm just, I'm not, you know, I'm not a serial killer.

I'm not a, I'm not a really bad person, so.

I must not be that bad.

And that's, the Bible is simply not, that's not true.

There's, there's two categories, right?

There's eternal life and there's God's wrath.

There's not this, well, you're a good person, but you're

not a Christian category.

Or you go to church but you're not a Christian category.

There's, that's not a real, that's not a thing.

There's two categories, but sometimes also as Christians, we can kind of do

the same thing and minimize our sin.

I think a lot of us Christians in the room has said something like this

before, well, God will forgive me anyway.

And so our sin is not as big of a deal or God loves me.

So now that we've become a Christian, we don't see our sin

the same way we used to see it.

We see other people sinning and we're like, oh, that's really bad.

And then we look at our sin, we're like, well, I'm working on it.

So it's not that bad.

Well, it's still sin, right?

It's still, still God.

God's wrath is still directed at that sin.

Jesus still died for that sin.

Maybe we think.

Other people are worse than us.

All right, well, I've grown a lot, so that makes my sin better than theirs.

It's like, well, no, it doesn't make your, I mean, yes, you have grown a

lot that's great, but doesn't make your sin better than someone else.

So there's, there's even ways that Christians, we do this too.

We think that our sin isn't as big of a deal because of, of things about us.

'cause we've grown a lot or because we've been saved or because God

will forgive us or God loves me.

Or maybe this is, this is for everyone, but no one knows about it, right?

So you don't think it's a big deal, or it's not hurting anyone, so

you don't think it's a big deal.

That's simply not true.

Just 'cause your sin doesn't hurt anyone, doesn't mean it's not that bad.

So don't count on favoritism for God, for even those kind of things.

God doesn't like your sin more for any reason.

He's not more okay with your sin.

Even if you are a Christian, he's not like, oh, well your sin iss not

that bad as long as you're saved.

It's not that bad.

That's not true.

But talking about God's judgment, it naturally leads us to another question.

'cause maybe you've, you've had this question in the back of your mind and

maybe when someone asks you about, about have you become a Christian

or what this is your go-to question.

Well, what about the people?

Who have never heard of God?

What about the people who don't know who Jesus is?

What about the people who, and they live in an island somewhere and no one's

ever gonna share their gospel with them?

What about those people?

How can God be a good judge?

And what about these people they don't know?

They don't.

Well, that is exactly what Paul is gonna talk about in these next few verses.

Okay?

Look at verse 12 with me.

So we saw this already for all.

Who have sinned without the law.

You see that without the law, these people don't have the Bible,

essentially, is what Paul's saying.

These people don't, they don't.

They don't have the law.

You know?

They don't have Genesis, they don't have Exodus.

They don't know the 10 Commandments.

They don't know what God expects of them, supposedly.

But Paul says those people will still perish even though

they don't have the law.

Those people are still under God's wrath, even though they don't have the law.

And then all people who have, who are under the law will be judged by the law.

Why?

Well, first thing, it's not just the, the people who hear the law, having the Bible,

going to church, being Jewish in this case is not an advantage before God because God

will judge you based on what you've done.

That the same standard is for everyone.

That's, that's the first thing.

God has the same standard for all people.

God is a perfect judge.

He, he gives this exact same judgment on everyone, people who have the law

and people who don't have the law.

So before we, we dive into more of this, there's three more

verses that I wanna look at.

I want you to write down our third point, okay.

Agree with God's perfect justice.

One of my goals for you from.

Looking at Romans chapters one through three is I want you to be

able to, to say God does the right thing when he sends people to hell.

I want you to be able to say that, and that sounds kind of weird, but

I want you to be able to say that because that's what, what really

one of the reasons we should worship God is that God punishes sin.

We want God to punish sin.

We want God who does something about all the bad people.

We want God who does something about all the bad things that happen in the world.

That's one of the main objections to Christianity.

If God is good, why do bad things happen?

People want God to do something about bad things.

The answer is that God does do things about all the bad things.

God punishes everyone's sin, and then we say, whoa, whoa, whoa.

That's not fair.

You can't have both.

Right?

You either have a God who punishes sin or you have a God who doesn't care about sin.

If you have a God who doesn't care about sin, then you have bad things

happening and you don't have any right to complaint about it, right?

'cause you don't have a judge.

But if you have a good judge, then here's the problem is that

judge is gonna care about you and about your sin and my sin too.

So we have a God who cares about sin, who does something about sin, and I want you

to to, to look at the book of Romans and say, okay, God does something about sin.

And that's a good thing.

It's a good thing that God punishes sin the way he does.

So look at the rest of these verses.

Okay, so we talked about, great, we know that the Jews are responsible for

their sin 'cause they have God's law.

But what about that thing Paul said about people without the law?

What about them?

Well, here we go.

Verse 14, for when Gentiles who do not have the law by nature,

do what the law requires.

So what does that mean?

Okay, so Gentiles, right?

People who, who aren't Jewish.

They don't have the law, right?

They, they didn't get to, to, to hear the 10 Commandments.

They didn't get to read the, the book of Leviticus.

They didn't get to read Genesis.

They don't know, right?

They don't have God's law.

But still, they do what the law requires, which is they, they

sometimes do the things that God thinks people should do, right?

Like every culture says murder is bad, right?

Every culture says stealing is bad.

Every culture has these, these similar morals because as we'll see

here, they show that the work of the law is written on their hearts.

Everyone has an inherent sense inside of, of what God, what God's law is.

Everyone has an idea of, oh, that's bad.

That's, that's good.

Everyone has an inherent sense.

It's called your conscience, right?

That's why that everyone feels bad when they lie.

Everyone feels bad when they lie, unless you keep doing it over and

over and over and over and over and you don't feel bad anymore.

You've seared your conscience at that point, right?

You've, you've burned it so it doesn't feel anything anymore.

Kind of like if you, you ever seen something get cauterized, right?

Not a fun word.

That's what they're doing.

They're burning it, so you can't feel it anymore.

So everyone feels bad about their sin because everyone knows.

God's has has a general idea of God's law and their conflicting thoughts

accuse or even excuse them on that day when according to my gospel, God judges

the secret of men by Christ Jesus.

So what Paul is saying here is that every single person has

an idea of right and wrong.

Every single person knows enough about God's law to know

that they break God's law.

Does that make sense?

Every single person knows enough about God's law to say.

I broke it.

I, I'm not good enough because everyone feels bad about things they've done.

Everyone feels bad about, oh, well I lied, or I stole this, or I hated

this person, or I coveted this person, or I dishonored this person.

Everyone knows these things implicitly.

So everyone has God's law written on their hearts,

so that gives God.

More than enough reason to judge them, right?

If they know that they've sinned, of course God can say,

yeah, definitely you've sinned.

'cause they already know.

So it's not like, oh, they're gonna show up on on Judgment day and be like, oh,

I didn't know that I was a bad person.

So everyone knows what they should be doing.

God's law is written on, on everyone's heart, and everyone

knows they're a sinner.

Their conscience, it says bears witness, right?

Like in a courtroom, it's almost like you do something wrong and your conscience

is like, like an attorney saying, Hey, what you did was just wrong, right?

Like when you, like the very first time you ever stole something, right?

You felt terrible about it because your, your conscience attorney was

like, Hey, you shouldn't have done that.

Or the, like, the very first time that, that you hurt someone and, and like

really tried not to apologize for it.

Your attorney and your conscience was like, Hey, that's bad.

You shouldn't have done that.

So everyone knows that they're a sinner, and so God can righteously condemn every

single person, even if they don't have a Bible, because you don't need a Bible

to know that you're a sinner because your, your heart, your conscience.

Testifies to what God says, right?

There're a law unto themselves, so the the person right on in the jungle or

the person on the island knows enough to know that they've broken God's law.

Now

it's one thing to answer that question, right?

And be like, okay, cool.

Sure.

I kind of understand a little bit better why God can send people to hell.

Cool.

But what I hope that that does for you is that gives you confidence in

God, confidence that God is a good judge, that you can trust God to make

the right decisions about people.

That you can trust God and, and you don't have to worry about, oh, well,

you know, is maybe, maybe, uh, we didn't know if, if this really young

person that died was a Christian or, oh, we don't really know about.

This, this family member who died.

We're not sure if they're a Christian.

I hope that gives you confidence that you know what?

God's a good judge.

I can trust God to judge them the right way.

Right?

Maybe we can hope.

Yeah, I hope they were saved, but no matter what we can trust, God's

gonna make a good decision about them.

That's another way that we agree with God's justice.

As we say, God, I trust you with these people's future not.

I'm not, I'm not gonna question you and be upset if you make

a decision that I don't like.

'cause then who's judging?

Who, right?

Then we're judging God.

But also, I hope that this helps you realize how, how universal sin is.

Right?

Every single person knowingly breaks God's law.

Every single person doesn't matter where they're from.

How much they, they've been to church.

Every single person knowingly rebels against God.

And so where this is gonna set us up is eventually we're gonna realize

that God doesn't have to save anyone.

God doesn't have to save anyone because no one, no one deserves it.

And so.

That is, is, is honestly gonna to change a lot of your conversation

about, about what's fair and what's not fair with God, right?

Because if, if you come from the perspective of, oh, I'm a good person.

I deserve things from God.

I deserve good things from God.

God should do good things to me.

If you come from that perspective, of course you're gonna question God, right?

Because you're saying, oh, well, I deserve all this from God.

God should be good to me.

My life should go really well.

But if you come from the perspective of, hey, the, we all break God's law.

Every single person, every single person makes really selfish decisions.

Every single person is actively telling God We don't want you.

And then it helps you realize, oh, that's why the world is so messed up.

Oh, that's why that, that God is, is right to condemn people.

So I hope that this is also shaping your view of people.

Because

it's easy to, our culture will tell you people are good, right?

People are good, everyone's got good inside them, and everyone

deserves good things that happen.

And that's not the biblical view of people.

So I hope that's also helpful to, to reorient the way you view the

world and the way you view people.

So anyway, one day you will stand before God and God will give

you exactly what you deserve.

Right?

If you're, if you are not saved and you've rejected God, God will condemn you and

you'll have to answer for, for everything.

But even if you are a Christian, God will reward you for all the

good things that you've done.

He'll, he'll, even if you don't see any credit for it here,

even if no one notices God will.

Reward you and, and bless you for those things.

But you might have noticed, actually my main point is not entirely true.

Does anyone catch that?

My main point is not entirely true.

It's probably the only time I'll have a main point in a sermon.

That's not an entirely true statement.

The, the, the best news in all the world.

That God doesn't always give people exactly what they deserve because

if God gave every person exactly what they deserved, he would

send every single person to hell.

The good news

is that God withholds what you really do deserve.

We talked about that last week with patience.

You really deserve God's wrath.

God is patient.

He wants you to repent, so he holds that back.

He says, I'm not, I'm not gonna punish you from your first sin.

Or your second one or your third one, or your 500th one

or your 1000000th sin maybe.

And I will wait to give you a chance to repent.

I won't give you what you, what you do deserve.

That's called mercy.

And if you trust Jesus, I'll give you what Jesus deserves, and that's called grace.

You can get what you don't deserve.

That's the gospel.

You can get what Jesus earned for you.

With his perfect righteous life, you can get acceptance by God, full

righteousness, adoption as his child.

You get God's grace if you trust Jesus, because if you trust

yourself, you'll get what you deserve and God will send you to hell.

But if you trust Jesus, you get what you don't deserve.

You get what Jesus deserves.

What this is all going to in Romans chapter three is that God is a good

judge, even though he gives some people what they don't deserve.

God is a good judge to give Christians righteousness they don't deserve because

Jesus took away their punishment and earned their righteousness for them.

So let's pray and we'll go to small groups.

God, I pray that you help us to think about your judgment, that we would

take that seriously, that we would remember, that we have to answer to you.

For everything that we've done, we will give an account of ourselves to you.

I pray for all of us in this room that we would on that day not hear depart from me.

I never knew you, that we would not hear your wrath poured out

on us, but rather we would hear.

Joy, we would hear well done, good and faithful servant, and that

we would live faithfully for you.

In the meantime, knowing that you will reward us for every single

thing we do for your glory.

We pray this in Jesus' name.

Amen.