An Issue of the Heart (Romans 2:17-29)

Now we can get into Romans chapter 2.

Romans 2 · chapter mention

We're gonna be reading verses 17 through 29.

If you're able, would you please stand?

Now, if you call yourself a Jew and rely on the law and boast in God and know his will and approve the things that are superior, being instructed from the law, and if you are convinced that you are a guide for the blind, a light to those in darkness, an instructor of the ignorant, a teacher of the immature, having the embodiment of knowledge and truth in the law, you then who teach another, don't you teach yourself?

You who preach, you must not steal, do you steal?

You who say you must not commit adultery, do you commit adultery?

You who detest idols, do you rob temples?

You who boast in the law, do you dishonor God by breaking the law?

For as it is written, the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.

Circumcision benefits you if you observe the law.

But if you are a lawbreaker, your circumcision has become uncircumcision.

So if an uncircumcised man keeps the law's requirements, will not his uncircumcision be counted as circumcision?

A man who is physically uncircumcised, but who keeps the law will judge you who are a lawbreaker, in spite of having the letter of the law and circumcision.

For a person is not a Jew who is one outwardly, and true circumcision is not something visible in the flesh.

On the contrary, a person is a Jew who is one inwardly, and circumcision is of the heart, by the Spirit, not the letter.

That person's praise is not from people, but from God.

Let's pray.

Lord, we thank you for the richness of your word.

Lord, we thank you that it is alive, that every single one of these words has been inspired by the Holy Spirit through these various authors in your word, in this Bible, Lord.

And we thank you so much that you've left us this, that we can read it, that we can understand it, that we can grow to become more mature and more like Jesus on a daily basis.

So, Lord, I pray that you would help me to rightly divide your word here this morning, that you would give all of us soft hearts and open ears and eyes to see the things that you want to change inside of each one of us.

Lord, may we be clay in your hands now.

We pray these things in Jesus' name.

Amen.

You may be seated.

So, like last week, this is a continuation in Romans.

It's a continuation of the last two weeks of what we've gone through.

In Romans chapter 1, verse 18, through Romans chapter 3, verse 20, it's really one thought that Paul is bringing together and he's sharing.

Romans 1:18 Romans 3:20

And this whole section is building up to a statement that we're going to see in chapter 3, verse 23.

And that statement is for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

This whole section, four weeks that we're going through, is to really bring his audience, this church in Rome, to the same understanding that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

So the last two weeks this week, and then our passage that we're going to be covering next week as well, it's Paul proving that this statement is true.

And to do this, he spends 14 verses, so the end of chapter 1, convincing the Gentiles of this, that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

Then he spends the next 49 verses convincing the Jews that they are sinners and that they too have fallen short of the glory of God.

And today we're in the middle of this section that is speaking specifically to the Jewish audience.

And we've been using for an illustration over the past couple weeks, and we're going to continue to this side of the room representing the Jewish side of the Roman church, and then this side of the room being the Gentile portion of the Roman church.

And we're coming off of last week's message that focused on this side of the room and for them to not judge this side of the room.

Because everyone's on the same playing field.

Remember, we talked about how only God is qualified to judge.

God's way up here on his own playing field, and all of the rest of us are down here on this lower playing field.

And I think that this chunk of scripture that we're covering this morning, it really comes down to verse 24 that's in our text.

So I feel like we need to kind of explain verse 24 so that all of what we're covering comes together.

It really brings it together for us.

So verse 24 says, you can look at it with me.

For as it is written, the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.

Remember, speaking to the Jewish audience in this Roman church.

And this verse 24 is quoting from Isaiah 52, verse 5.

Isaiah 52:5

And Isaiah 52 is this chapter that's written in the voice of the Lord, him speaking through the prophet Isaiah, talking about the restoration of Jerusalem for God's glory and for his namesake, as Israel had been taken into Babylonian captivity, but they were going to come out to rebuild Jerusalem and the temple.

And I want to read you Isaiah 52, verse 5, real quick, to gather that context.

Isaiah 52:5

God says, Now therefore, what have I here, says the Lord?

That my people are taken away for nothing.

Speaking of that Babylonian captivity.

Those who rule over them make them wail, says the Lord.

And my name is blasphemed continually every day.

And what this comes down to is that God's name was being blasphemed by the Babylonians and by the nations that were surrounding Israel in that time.

And because of Israel's disobedience to God, these things were happening.

Because of their idol worship, because of them trying to do things on their own and do things their own way.

And not putting God first in their life.

Therefore, they were bringing judgment on themselves for these things.

And they're blaspheming the name of God because of their actions.

And I think to further understand this, we need to go back even a little further before Isaiah wrote these words so that we can tie it all together.

You see, God called Abraham way back in Genesis, first book of the Bible, and he chose Abraham to birth the nation of Israel.

And Israel would be a nation that he would reveal himself through.

A nation that would be set apart for the purpose of revealing to the world around Israel that God is the one true God.

So God made a covenant with Israel that if they followed him, and if they worshiped him and him only, and if they obeyed his commands that God handed down through Moses, referred to as the law, that God would bless them and he would protect them and he would provide for their every need.

And one of the things that God gave to Israel as a sign of them being set apart, as we saw as we read our text today, was circumcision.

God called all the males in Israel to become circumcised as a symbol of their covenant that was made with God, a symbol of being set apart specifically for him.

You see, God wanted the pagan and the idolatrous nations that were surrounding Israel, which is this little tiny speck on the map that was started from this one guy and his wife.

He wanted the pagan and idolatrous nations around them to look and say, wow, they must worship the one true God.

Look at how he takes care of them.

Look at how he blesses them.

You know, we should worship that one true God as well.

That was the heart behind what God wanted to do through Israel.

That was the purpose.

That's why God set them apart to reveal himself to all.

But sin and Israel's fleshly desires got in the way.

Like we've been talking about in Romans, you know, from Adam and Eve to us here today, we have this prideful desire that says that we can be our own gods and that we can be better gods than God can himself.

In Isaiah 52, God's saying, because of your sin, because of your idolatry, because of your pride and how you've misrepresented me, my name isn't being glorified by the surrounding nations.

It's actually being blasphemed by the Babylonians and everybody else that knows who I am and who you worship and all that you've done against my name.

Think about it.

If the nations around Israel are watching them to see how things work out for them, and they know that Israel claims that they follow the one true God, what does it say about their God if Israel is being led off into captivity?

I don't know about you, but if I'm watching that from a distance, I'm saying, nope, their God is not the one true God.

Look, he can't even save them from Babylonian captivity.

He can't even protect his own city, Jerusalem, or his own temple that's inside of it.

That's the outside perspective of what people are seeing.

You know, no wonder they wanted to keep worshiping the Ba'als and all of the idols and the pagan things that they had in their practices because Israel wasn't being a great representation of the one true God.

So Israel's actions and their consequences, you know, God's judgment is not only misrepresenting God, but actually blaspheming his name.

And just so you know, blaspheming in this context just means to speak reproachfully of God, to speak evil of God.

And that's what's happening.

Uh the Israelites are doing it themselves, and now the surrounding nations are blaspheming the name of God.

So all of that background, all of that history is all contained in verse 24 in our text here this morning.

And that is what we're going to see in Romans 2 today.

God calling out these people that say they are Jews, that say that they are following God, but their actions don't match their beliefs.

And because of that, they're blaspheming God's name and causing others to blaspheme God as well.

Now, with all of that in mind, with verse 24, let's take a look at the whole passage again, starting in verse 17, and we'll read through verse 21.

Now, if you call yourself a Jew and rely on the law and boast in God and know his will and approve the things that are superior, being instructed from the law, and if you are convinced that you are a guide for the blind, a light to those in darkness, an instructor of the ignorant, a teacher of the immature, having the embodiment of knowledge and truth in the law, you then who teach another, don't you teach yourself?

So this is calling out the Jews that worship God with their mouth, but their heart is far from God.

Those Jews that rely on the law or rely on their heritage of being Jewish and are at least following some of the law or have the appearance of following some of the law.

And then those people are allowing that to lead to self-righteousness towards pretty much everybody else.

So this side of the room has a lot of self-righteousness, not in reality, but in our example, towards this side of the room that didn't grow up with the law.

And in verse 19 through 21, God's basically saying, You think you've got it all figured out.

You think you are a guide to the blind Gentiles.

You think you are a light and darkness.

You think that you can instruct the ignorant and teach the immature.

You think you are the embodiment of truth and the law.

And he ends that sentence with, Why don't you teach yourself?

So Paul isn't pulling any punches here with these people.

It's back to what we talked about last week.

You're elevating yourself up to that same playing field as God.

Yet you need to realize everyone outside of God Himself is on the same playing field way down here.

And if you're casting judgment on anyone else, in essence, you're casting judgment on yourself on that lower playing field with everybody else as well.

And that is what God's pointing out here through Paul in our passages this morning.

Why don't you hold yourself to the same standards that you're judging others by?

Why don't you teach those lessons to yourself instead of being so concerned with what everybody else is doing?

And then in the second half of verse 21, there's kind of a shift in what Paul's doing, and he starts to ask them some very pointed questions.

So look at the second half of verse 21.

You who preach, you must not steal.

Do you steal?

You who say you must not commit adultery, do you commit adultery?

You who detest idols, do you rob temples?

You who boast in the law, do you dishonor God by breaking the law?

You have the law.

You know what the laws are.

But what good is it if you don't practice the law?

He's saying you even teach others these things, but then you don't do them yourself.

And in verse 23, it says, You who boast in the law, do you dishonor God by breaking the law?

And the answer to that question is verse 24, which we just talked about so much.

So we're gonna read verses 23 and 24 together now.

You who boast in the law, do you dishonor God by breaking the law?

For as it is written, the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.

So not much has changed, has it, from when Isaiah wrote those words in Isaiah 52 to when Paul is quoting this passage to the Roman church in the first century.

You know, and here's Paul, first century, and this verse still applies 700 years after Isaiah wrote that prophecy in Isaiah 52.

You know, you look at any point in history and it's all about idols, it's all about power and pride and humans failing to be gods or be the gods that they are desiring to be for themselves.

And we here today in our flesh, we desire those same things that Isaiah wrote about, that Paul quoted here in our passage in Romans as well.

Because we want in our flesh and our fleshly desires, we want to elevate ourselves up to that same playing field as God.

You know, think all the way back to Adam and Eve, all the way back to original sin.

You know, what was the temptation that Satan tempted Eve with?

That when you eat of the fruit, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God.

That's what our flesh wants.

Every one of us in this room, that's what our flesh desires, to be like God.

Whether we can put that into words or not, that's really what it all comes down to.

And Paul's calling out the Jews here, saying that they are doing the same thing as their ancestors did in that Babylonian captivity and beforehand, by saying you are following God, but actually being a bad example, and then causing yourselves to blaspheme God, and then the people that are watching to blaspheme God as well.

And like the law, Paul's going to point out here in verse 25 that circumcision is not gonna save the Jews either.

Look at verse 25 with me.

Circumcision benefits you if you observe the law, but if you are a lawbreaker, your circumcision has become uncircumcision.

So, circumcision.

It's part of the way that God set apart the Jews, as we talked about when we first started here this morning.

And it's saying here that it can benefit you as a Jew symbolically if you are following the law.

But if you don't observe the law, it's of no use that you're circumcised.

And if you're not familiar with circumcision and wonder why it's such a big deal in the Bible, it's cutting off of the male foreskin that is symbolic of cutting off of the flesh, meaning our old man, this actual part that we can touch and feel that we're stuck with until we get to heaven.

For the Jews, it meant before the part of them before they entered into that covenant relationship with God.

For us today, it's cutting off who we were before we came to Christ.

The cutting off of the old man, the flesh, like I said, that we're stuck with in our bodies and with all of the fleshly desires that still tempt us on a daily basis.

Paul goes on in verse 26 with this concept of circumcision.

Look at it with me.

He says, So if an uncircumcised man keeps the law's requirements, will not his uncircumcision be counted as circumcision?

A man who is physically uncircumcised, but who keeps the law will judge you who are a lawbreaker in spite of having the letter of the law and circumcision.

So if this side of the room is uncircumcised but is keeping the law, they're better off than this side of the room who is physically circumcised but not following the law.

Being Jewish doesn't save you.

Remember, God is not partial, He doesn't show favoritism to one side of the room or the other.

Remember, as we covered last week, none will be without excuse.

Because neither the law or a ritual, whatever that ritual might be, is going to save you.

Look at verse 28.

For a person is not a Jew who is one outwardly, and true circumcision is not something visible in the flesh.

So it can't be seen from the outside.

On the contrary, a person is a Jew who is one inwardly, and circumcision is of the heart by the Spirit.

If you underline and circle in your Bible, do that to by the Spirit, not the letter.

That person's praise is not from people, but from God.

So here Paul's going to introduce this concept of circumcision of the heart.

He's already made a clear case that circumcision is pointless if there hasn't been a heart change.

And this heart circumcision is not a new concept that Paul just came up with and is introducing for the first time.

It's the first time we see it in Romans, but we find it throughout the Old Testament.

There's multiple verses in the law and in the prophet that talk specifically about circumcision of the heart.

One of those being Deuteronomy 30, verse 6, which I want to read to you.

Deuteronomy 30:6

Deuteronomy 30, verse 6.

Deuteronomy 30:6

The Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the hearts of your descendants, and you will love him with all your heart and all your soul, so that you will live.

So Old Testament, New Testament, it doesn't matter.

All God wants throughout the whole Bible is our hearts.

Completely surrendered to Him.

And He doesn't want us to keep our old fleshly heart.

He wants a heart that has been circused that has been circumcised.

Where the flesh, that old man, has been cut off and is being denied on a daily basis.

A heart that has been set apart completely for him.

You know, all that we have talked about today, all of this comes down to a heart issue.

Even if you follow most of the laws, it doesn't matter until there is a heart change.

That's what God desires.

That's what this all comes down to.

A heart that is set apart completely and only for God.

That is surrendered to Him.

That's humbly submitted to Him.

To steal a phrase from the discipleship class that we've been doing on Tuesday nights.

He wants us to love Him with all of our heart.

That's His deepest desire.

But here's the problem we're stuck in this old body.

And we're stuck in this body until we die.

And our spirit, you know, the part of us that's eternal goes to heaven.

We're stuck in this old man, in this flesh that we have, with all of its fleshly desires.

And we're gonna battle our flesh until the day that we die.

But there's good news.

Followers of Christ, we have the Holy Spirit living inside of us.

So our spirit gets a helper, the Holy Spirit, who counsels us, who's convicting us and guiding us and strengthening us and encouraging us as we engage in this battle of our flesh against our spirit.

And that's what sin is for a believer.

It's when our flesh wins out over our spirit.

And Paul's actually going to address this here in a couple chapters, in chapter 7, verse 14, and I'll read that to you.

He says, For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold as a slave under sin.

For I do not understand what I'm doing, because I do not practice what I want to do, but I do what I hate.

Our flesh and our spirit are at war constantly with one another.

And you know which one's going to get bigger and stronger and more powerful between our flesh and our spirit?

It's the one that we're feeding the most.

If we're feeding our flesh, if we're giving in to sin, if we're giving in to laziness, it's feeding our sinful appetites.

But feeding our spirit is doing things that are healthy in maturing us as Christians, to be more like Christ.

And this leads us to the topic that some refer to as spiritual disciplines, which are things that help us to mature in Christ as we grow to become more like Him.

And it just happens to be the things that our flesh never desires to do on its own.

Things like reading God's Word and allowing it to inform our conscience, as we talked about last week.

Things like spending time in prayer with the Lord.

You know, has your flesh ever said to you, hey, let's wake up 30 minutes early and dive into the word and spend some time in prayer?

If it sounds anything like mine, my flesh is the one yelling like a dramatic toddler, like, I'm too tired.

Five more minutes, you know, sneeze button one more time.

It's yelling like the Bible's boring and it's so hard to understand.

I prayed last week and God didn't give me the answer to my prayer.

But spiritual disciplines, they include things like spending time in the Word and spending time in prayer, spending time in fellowship with other Christians so we can sharpen each other and encourage one another.

It's coming to church and worshiping as the body of Christ with one another.

It's listening to sermons or maybe your audio Bible.

You know, these are ways that we can feed our spirit to allow our spirit to grow in Christ, which causes the flesh then to die back into submission.

You know, one of the best spiritual disciplines that I've found that we can take part in to deny our flesh and to feed our spirit is fasting and praying.

Because at its core, what it is, it's your flesh, you know, saying, I'm hungry.

And your spirit saying, No, not today.

We're not gonna have food today.

And then your flesh says, give me food now.

And your spirit says, No, we're gonna pray instead of eat right now.

And we're gonna feed ourselves spiritually instead of physically.

So I want to encourage you, if you're battling your flesh and you're losing consistently in some battle with sin that you're having, try fasting and praying once a week for a period.

And then just watch what God can do with that as you train your spirit to say no to your flesh.

You know, it really is the spiritual disciplines that help us drive the flesh back into submission.

But of course, if we get legalistic about spiritual disciplines, you know, any one of those things that I mentioned, you're gonna get burned out if it becomes legalism.

But if you approach those things with a heart that says, God, I need you.

And I need you to tame my flesh, and I need you to grow my spirit in loving you.

God, will you help me?

If we have a heart like that, then we won't get burned out of those spiritual disciplines because we realize the purpose behind why we're doing those things in the first place.

You know, we can do empty works all day long and we can get pats on the back from each other, from man, but we should only seek the approval of God.

And that's not happening until our heart is given to God and it's set apart completely for him.

You know, we try to give him works and he tells us, no, I want your heart.

Like, yeah, but look what I've done for you, God.

He's like, No, I just want your heart.

We try to look the part or depend on ourselves, or depend on our heritage, maybe even who our parents are.

And God says, No, I just want your heart.

You give me your heart, I'll give you the works, is what God wants us to know.

You give me your heart, and I'm gonna bear fruit through you.

So the question is, what's our takeaway today from this passage that we've gone through?

How does this specifically apply to all of the people that are sitting here today?

You know, as we've said many times, God desires our heart, specifically a circumcised heart.

And verse 29 tells us that circumcision is a change of the heart by the work of the Holy Spirit inside of us.

It's not by living out the letter of the law, which nobody is capable of.

Otherwise, Jesus wouldn't have had to come.

It's the work of the Holy Spirit inside of us that changes our heart, that implants God's desires in our heart in the first place, and then gives us the strength to deny the old man, the flesh that we are still dealing with.

This all comes down to, I think, walking by the Spirit.

Learning to hear his voice in our life.

And so often people ask, well, how do I do that?

You know, maybe it's a new believer or somebody that just had never thought about this before.

How do I hear the voice of the Holy Spirit in my life?

I think the first thing that we need to do is we need to stay in the Word.

We need to stay in our Bibles.

It is the inspired word of God that was given through the Holy Spirit to these authors that make up the Bible that we're holding.

It's the Holy Spirit's word.

You want to hear the Holy Spirit's voice, open your Bible, and you're gonna be reading the Holy Spirit's voice immediately.

These are his words.

And if you're faithful to read his words, he then can bring that scripture to mind when we need it.

And that's how you start to hear the voice of the Holy Spirit in your life.

Another way is to pray and to not just pray and give God your laundry lists of wants and desires and then walk away, but take time in quiet and allow him to speak into your heart through the Holy Spirit.

Pray and listen.

Pray and listen, because he wants to speak to you and he wants to bring those verses to mind that are already in there because we've been in the word.

So if you're unsure, if you're hearing the Holy Spirit's voice, ask if what you think you are hearing lines up with Scripture.

If it does, you're hearing his voice.

If it doesn't, you're hearing your flesh.

And if you're still not sure, ask other more mature believers in your life for that counsel.

You know, there's safety in a multitude of counselors.

And just say, hey, you know, here's what's going on, here's what I'm thinking, here's this decision.

What do you think?

This is the way I'm leaning.

What do you think?

And they might be able to say, that is not scriptural.

Or say, no, absolutely.

You know, this verse and this verse confirm that you need to move in that direction.

And as you do all of those things that we just talked about, you're gonna start to recognize that still small voice of the Lord on your own.

And the more you listen, the clearer that voice becomes.

And the more recognizable his voice becomes in your life.

God wants your heart.

A heart that is submitted to him, that has been circumcised of our flesh and has been surrendered to the Holy Spirit.

It's always going to be a heart issue for us.

And whether you're praying this prayer for the first time or the thousandth time, we're gonna pray a prayer that God would show us how to submit our hearts to a deeper level to Him.

So would you please join me in prayer?

Lord, we recognize our need for you.

We recognize that we cannot do this on our own.

Lord, we thank you for the gift of the Holy Spirit living in and through each one of us that have surrendered our life and our heart completely to you.

Lord, through the work of the Holy Spirit, would you continue that work of circumcision of our heart?

Lord, there's so much flesh that we hold on to.

There's so much that we are afraid to surrender to you on a daily basis.

But would you continue to reveal those things in our lives, to bring up those issues of pride, to bring up those issues of us desiring to be our own God, realizing, Lord, that you are on a whole different level.

You are the only perfect judge and the only one we would ever want judging us.

Realizing that through the work of Jesus on the cross, through his death, burial, and resurrection, that we can be forgiven and cleansed, and that we're no longer judged based on our works, but the works of Jesus Christ.

So, Lord, we thank you for that with an abundance of thanksgiving.

That it's not by what we do.

Or you you just want our hearts.

We pray that you would help us daily through the power of the Holy Spirit working in and through us, Lord, for our spirit to deny our flesh.

Show us how to do that in practical ways.

Lord, show us how uh in our own lives and our own schedules, how we can allow our spirit to grow in Christ by feeding it the proper nutrition and the proper things that we need spiritually.

Lord, help us to be disciplined, not for the sake of discipline, but disciplined because we know that spending time in your word and spending time in prayer and spending time with each other are things that are gonna grow us in our maturing process, things that are gonna grow us to be more and more like you on a daily basis.

And in all that help us to never become legalistic.

Lord, we know that's not what you want.

Help us to do the all of these things because we love you so much that we wouldn't want to have it any other way.

Lord, we surrender all of these things to you in Jesus' name.