Oh, don’t you just hate to have to admit that you were wrong?  We hear a lot about privilege these days, being privileged.  Privilege isn’t just gets more; it is also doesn’t have to.  Privilege is exemption.  Rules for thee but not for me.  Over the first chapter of Romans, Paul has mapped out an indictment, a list of charges.  He is deliberately, carefully building an argument, making a point.  He does not say that one person and another has managed, by luck, skill, smarts, or their good, kind heart, to be immune to the pervasive corruption—the godlessness and wickedness—out and about in the world, in every heart.  No one is immune.  Paul is quite clear and wants us to be clear that all are guilty as charged, including him, and us.  It’s not that they’re guilty merely in Paul’s personal opinion.  Who is he, after all?  He is saying all are guilty in God’s sight.  Well, how dare he—except he is an apostle, commissioned by Christ, speaking, teaching, on God’s own authority.  Either God knows what He’s talking about or He doesn’t.  God’s judgment is established on truth—He sees all, knows all; nothing is hidden from God.  Nothing can be hidden from Him.  As with Job, no one can claim or argue his or her innocence or perfect faithfulness before God.

This is what Paul understands, now, what was revealed to him.  God says all are guilty.  So, no one has any basis for taking pride in his or her exceptionalism.  It’s the parable Jesus told about the Pharisee and the tax collector—and remember, Paul was a Pharisee: oh, thank God I’m clean and not a sinner; thank God I’m not like that person!  Thank God I do what God tells me!  Except when we don’t, or when, doing what we tell ourselves God approves, we actually do what displeases Him.

The parable is a reminder that all are in need of the salvation of God, for all not only have sinned but are, in point of fact, sinners.  Sin is never an anomaly.  It’s not one crazy, stand-alone act or another—totally out of character!—that makes a person a sinner: it’s the corrupted, corroded heart with which we all engage this life.  Each of us came into this life with a broken relationship with God, a relationship needing restoration, healing.  If this were not true, then it would be true that only some people need Jesus, not all people.  I can’t think of anyone who does not need Jesus.  Oh, there are plenty who don’t want him, of course.

“You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge another, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things” (2:1).  See, don’t judge!  Which in practice means whatever someone deeply wants to do, no matter how contrary to the plain teaching of God’s Word, we should just let them do and hug them and tell them they’re just wonderful and have nothing to be ashamed of.  Not that you and I are in the habit of condemnation, though.

So, there in Rome, are there a bunch calling themselves believers, hurling condemnations left and right?  I doubt it.  Paul’s words here are a reminder and review for those who already agree with Paul, who understand the need for the Gospel.  These aren’t just Jesus believers but those actively striving to be Christ followers.  Jesus did not condemn but called people to the truth and so to salvation.  Like love and truth, truth and salvation go hand in hand.  Followers of Jesus likewise go and call people to salvation, truth, through love.  To do so is to walk as the Lord walked and to walk with the Lord.  Who to call, though, and how?  The Spirit is with us, beloved.  Pray about it.  Isn’t there even one person you could invite to come and see?

We get that we’re not supposed to judge others.  We don’t go around reminding and assuring people they’re hell-bait and hopeless—unlike us.  We do not speak to people or act towards them as if they are beyond even God’s help—unlike us.  No one has a perfect record, except Jesus.  In God’s sight, at the end, the particular sin doesn’t matter so much as sin itself: the broken, unhealed relationship.  Each of us knows what it’s like to flounder around in transgression; and we now, also, have been given the better way, the only way—the truth and the life.  Paul is reminding us that our energy would be better spent encouraging and upbuilding one another than in criticizing and complaining; we shall not willfully, sentimentally blind ourselves to sin.  We see and act through grace, mercy, faith, and the upward call to holiness.

Breaking God’s law of love is breaking the law, no matter in what particular way you or I happen to break it.  “Now we know that God’s judgment against those who do such things is based on truth” (2:2): so, what’s human judgment based on?  We base our judgments of others (and condemnations) upon many things, including whatever facts are available to us—at least what we regard as facts.  We also tend to base our judgments of others (and condemnations) upon our hurts, biases, and bitterness.  And God shows us the better way.  We do not and cannot see just as God sees or know all God knows.  God knows all of us and everyone through and through.  That does not mean you and I—limited as we are—are therefore incapable of practicing good judgment.  We are capable, through grace; we are becoming people who, through grace, more and more practice good judgment.  And we do not presume to rule on what is for God alone to decide.  If you don’t know exactly what you deserve from God . . . I’m not sure what good any of this will do you.

But God does something quite unexpected yet entirely in keeping with His character: He provides salvation, forgiveness, sanctification.  He has patience and shows mercy.  And all of this is now our example and way of life: we live this salvation, forgiveness, and holiness; we offer these to those around us.  God opens hearts and minds; leave that to Him.  Just keep offering, showing what God’s way looks like in practice.

“So when you, a mere human being, pass judgment on them and yet do the same things, do you think you will escape God’s judgment?” (2:3).  The name Christian is not an exclusive VIP pass; it does not get us priority boarding.  Christianity is in loving, honoring, and glorifying God . . . as we also serve others in our daily walk.  As for judgment, assigning people to their proper eternal destinations?  Leave it to God; let Him arrange that.  When we do so, we shall begin, by grace, to perceive with God’s eyes and God’s heart.  Then, we begin calling others to truth, salvation, righteousness: we begin calling people to walk with us alongside Christ.  During the course of that walk, by the grace with us through the Spirit, we all of us together begin to shed what the Bible tells us is sinful.  Some sins will be the last to go.

We instruct; we pray; we call.  We listen.  We remind and encourage.  We do not run to join in the sin, the “fun” free for all; we run to assist others out of the disaster, snatching them out of the fire as God allows.  We do not excuse choices and actions—our own or those of others—that harm relationship with God.  We do not use some limp, mushy unbiblical concept of love as a trump card against the plain teaching of the Bible.  So soon as we decline to know what is and is not sin, so soon as we decline to call sin by its God-given name, we are in trouble.

Those who truly yearn for God’s salvation already know they are not righteous.  I do not regard myself as righteous: far from it, very far.  All the righteousness I know is Jesus.  By grace through faith, God applies that righteousness to me—a gift; He then accepts me as righteous—though I am not righteous—because by grace through faith I receive Christ as my Savior, and my Lord.  Not Savior only, but also Lord.  I belong to Jesus.  I am bound by his blood to devote myself to serving him.  Let’s not live for ourselves and call it living for Jesus.

You and I in our own right do not have God’s approval: we are beneficiaries of God’s full and delighted approval of His beloved Son, with whom He is well pleased.  What we all have, under God’s wrath and curse, is God’s patience: “the riches of his kindness, forbearance and patience,” which God extends to all people . . . to lead them to repentance (2:4).  As we hear clearly also in Ezekiel and from Peter, what God wants for everyone is their repentance: that remarkable, miraculous coming to one’s senses—“My God, what have I done?!”  But repentance does not stop there, shocked and shaken.  Repentance seeks help, asks for help, a new, better way, a true way in this world through this life; repentance is asking for forgiveness because the offense has become clear, and painful.  Repentance is the candid, eminently sane admission that we were wrong and God is right.  Oh, don’t you just hate to admit you were wrong?

Everyone is in need of salvation: salvation is only through Jesus.  Salvation comes through repentance.  Repentance confesses I was wrong, I did wrong, I am wrong and You, O Lord, You only are right, light, and life.  Sitting here in church as we are, such confession may sound like something easy to say, not so costly.  It’s not easy, and it comes at a high cost.  Repentance must contend, even still, even now, with the “unrepentant heart” (2:5).  “[B]ecause of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God’s wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed” (2:5).  And we can even agree yet still not know what to do about that stubbornness we even now find in us.  I know what’s right, and I know what’s wrong.  So, why, God help me, do I still do what’s wrong?

Now, if I were an unbeliever, none of what Paul just wrote would make sense to me, nor would his words matter.  I’m not stubborn, I’m assertive.  You’ve got to look out for You, speak up for You, in this life: no one else will!  There is a way of living this life that’s like a time bomb in our hands, like maybe hidden inside a pretty cake.  We can even hear the ticking, sometimes, but we laugh it off, tell ourselves we’re imagining things, it can’t be, couldn’t really be true, because the cake looks, smells, and tastes so—well, not exactly good, but at least not terrible.  And we keep on eating, even after we feel a little sick, and know why.

Scripture never makes a secret of or hides the fact of God’s judgment.  The apostles all point to it, as did the prophets.  Jesus openly speaks of it, not rarely or vaguely.  We hear, throughout God’s Word, that “God ‘will repay each person according to what they have done’” (2:6).  And we may breathe a sigh of relief, because we’re good, after all: kind, gentle, patient, forgiving, welcoming, compassionate, and concerned.  We’re sure we’ve done a lot of good; people tell us we’re good and often express their gratitude for all we have done for them.  Then there are those times we don’t like to remember, the things we don’t like to recall, words we wish we hadn’t said.  I don’t know about you, but I do not want to come before God for final judgment relying upon my personal record.  I cannot come before God trusting in a list of fellow sinners willing to vouch for me.  “Well, Lord, he was never mean to me.”

But maybe Paul, after all, gives us an out?  He writes: “To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, [God] will give eternal life” (2:7).  It’s where our priorities lie—our aim in life.  And I daresay there are many people all over the world, many of them not Chrisitan, who, despite their brokenness, persist in doing good, being kind, patient, humble, charitable, and so forth.  The question is who is being glorified and honored by our choices and actions?  Who do people mean to glorify and honor by their choices and actions?  Why are they living one way rather than another?  Paul is saying that those who persist in seeking to glorify and honor God shall have the reward for their persistence.  We wouldn’t persist, if it was just for our own honor and glory.  What moves a person to seek to honor and glorify God is a relationship with God, a vital relationship.  That relationship is only by faith, and it begins with God who takes the initiative.  God, through faith, moves a person to live one way rather than another; God moves such people to persist.

Our Westminster Shorter Catechism, intended to teach children the basics of our faith, begins by asking about our main purpose in life.  The catechism answers that the main purpose in life—everyone’s life—is to glorify God: to live so that the honor, thanks, and praise go to Him.  So, happiness is not the main idea in life.  The main idea in life is God.  And we may think, why is God so eager for praise?  Is He so vain?  But it isn’t vanity, beloved: it is justice.  In this life, the One who least ought to get the dirty end of the stick, who continually does get the dirty end of the stick, is not us but God.  He means to do something about that, through us, through faith.

And there are many who have zero interest in living to glorify God.  It’s not that they are opposed to it, or anything so consciously rebellious or defiant as that.  God is just not their focus, not where their main interest, their main mission, lies.  God is not their life objective.  They aren’t open and avowed enemies of God—nothing so dramatic; they aren’t dramatic people.  Other things just mean more, matter more, to them.  God isn’t really a real thing, for them.

“But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger” (2:8).  I doubt there are many out there who would agree that they are rejecting the truth when they reject that Jesus is Savior and Lord, but it isn’t their perspective that counts.  It’s how God sees things, because all are accountable to their Creator.  I doubt there are many out there who, rejecting Jesus, the Bible, Christianity and Christians, would agree that, therefore, they are following evil.  Not many people are going to say they are following evil!  No!  They are following good, what’s right—according to whom?  In most cases, according to the people around them, according to the spirit of the times.  When it comes to what counts as truth and right conduct, we tend to rely on others: we learn truth and right conduct from what others do, and then do the same, and call it truth and right conduct.  But if there is a way, another way, and it is God’s way and therefore true, really the only way that is . . .?  Then to persist in following any other way can only end in God’s “wrath and anger.”  And we’re hurt and staggered that people don’t listen, won’t listen . . . are maybe even unable to hear.  Why won’t they receive Jesus?  Why won’t they leave the sinful course they’ve put themselves on?

“There will be trouble and distress for every human being who does evil” (2:9).  There is no alibi or excuse.  It’s not any label that covers over offenses, violations, and sins—“Christian,” “faithful,” “believer.”  Oh, just go ahead and do it, and God will forgive you, after, anyway, is not the argument of the wise or the faithful.  God loves me and forgives me, so I will do what I want.  The prodigal son came back, beloved, humbled, with a new understanding so sharp and bright it hurt.  Wagering on God’s grace is not the way of holiness, or righteousness.  It’s not any label that covers over offenses, violations, and sins, but a life, a life given for us, which becomes life in us and life for us, our way of life.  Paul writes that there will be “glory, honor and peace for everyone who does good” (2:10).  We truly do true good when we do it for God’s sake, listening to God when He commands us as well as when He commends us.