Bible Guys Classics: Romans 2 Part 2

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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,