The Gathering Surf City

Whoo. Alrighty.

We continue in Romans.

I'm enjoying it and hope you are.

And if you're getting the gathering
in the Word Devotionals,

then you get the message before I preach
it because it goes out Monday

through Friday,

and it was fun for me.

A couple weeks ago,

I did a podcast with a one of the professors
from Bruton Parker College

University down in Georgia,

and he was asking me that the title
of the conversation was From

Hermeneutics to Homiletics.

And I said,

well, before we talk about this,

you need to explain it.

No, I'm just kidding.

But anyway,

the idea of how to prepare
to preach,

and God's done a lot to prepare
for this morning's message,

and quite honestly,

because it's very simple,

y'all might get to the
pancakes early.

I don't know.

But Romans,

chapter two,

verses five to 13.

We're picking up verse five from the
end of last week's message because

it leads us into this
week's message.

And verse five starts
with the word but.

But because of your stubbornness.

And why does it start like that?

Because when it talks
about in verse four,

God's kindness,

God's restraint is given
to lead to repentance.

But because of your stubbornness
or your hardness of heart and

unrepentant heart,

you are storing up wrath for yourself
in the day of wrath and revelation

of the righteous judgment of God,

who will render to every man
according to his deeds,

to those who,

by perseverance and doing good,

seek for glory and honor
and immortality,

eternal life.

But to those who are selfishly ambitious
and do not obey the truth,

but obey unrighteousness,

wrath, and indignation,

there will be tribulation and distress
for every soul of man who does

evil of the Jew first and
also of the Greek.

But glory and honor and peace to every
man who does good to the Jew first

and also to the Greek.

For there is no partiality with God.

For all who have sinned without the law
will also perish without the law.

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

For not the hearers of the
law are just before God,

but the doers of the law
will be justified.

Alrighty, let's just pray together and
hope and pray that God gives us

understanding. God,

we thank you for your word.

And we thank you,

God, that indeed you have spoken.

And we thank you for the apostle
Paul and God his obedience and

willingness to write down that which you
inspired and placed in his heart

to give for us and to Us
all these years later,

God help us to recognize
and discern God,

what you are showing
us about yourself,

God, what do we need
to see about you,

God, that it might change us.

God, thank you for this time,

thank you for this hour.

Thank you for the opportunity,

privilege God that you give us to come
and gather in this place that we

might get a little better
glimpse of you.

And we pray it in Jesus name.

Amen. Alright,

so thus far we have basically Paul's
introduction of himself.

Hi, I'm Paul.

I'm a slave of Jesus.

God revealed Jesus.

God has given us grace.

Grace. And God has provided for us this
opportunity to know him through

the gospel.

And Paul is saying,

I've been appointed an apostle.

And God has revealed this
idea of faith and belief.

And God told me that I need to preach
and am sent to preach the gospel

and that's the apostleship.

And I want to come to Rome
and preach there in Rome,

but I'm actually also called to preach
everywhere else in the Roman

Empire. And why?

Because the gospel is the power of God
unto salvation to everyone who

believes. To the Jew first
and then to the Greek.

In it,

the righteousness of
God is revealed.

So God has revealed himself,

God is revealing his righteousness.

The world rejects God,

the world rejects his righteousness.

And so Paul begins this for the
next two and a half chapters,

from halfway through chapter one to chapter
three starts to point out the

sin that is rampant in the world.

I mean,

he just breaks it all down that,

guess what?

Everybody sins,

everybody's unrighteous.

We're going to get to that as we work
our way the rest of chapter two,

chapter three,

and you know,

the passages in verse three because
it's kind of the beginning of the

Roman road that says,

you know,

for the wages of sin.

Well, I mean,

for all have sinned and fall
short of the glory of God.

There's none righteous,

no, not one.

None of us are righteous.

And yet judgment's coming.

Judgment's coming,

y'all. So what Paul is going to do in
the next several verses of chapter

two is to take us from God's
revelation of himself.

Now the reason I'm looking down the whole
time is because I did write all

that down.

I'm not used to reading
stuff like that.

But so God's going to take,

I mean,

Paul's going to take us by inspiration
of God from the point of the good

news, the gospel,

to why there's a need
for the gospel.

Well, what's the gospel for?

What's the gospel supposed
to Accomplish.

Why is God revealing himself?

Why is God revealing
his righteousness?

Because quite honestly,

we need it.

We need good news,

we need righteousness.

We can't achieve it in
and of ourselves.

So God is revealing his righteousness
from faith to faith.

For the righteous shall live by faith
or the just shall live by faith.

Which goes all the way back,

as we mentioned,

to the book of Habakkuk.

This idea of God's imputed,

imparted, given to us,

righteousness, because that's the
only way we can be righteous.

And there's a word in this text
that identifies the problem.

Verse 8.

But to those who are selfishly
ambitious,

now, as we work our way
out of verse 13,

we're going to see this
transition into God.

Wanting to highlight
the disobedience,

rebellion, rejection by the Jews
of God's outreach to them,

his providing for them his oracles,

as we saw last week,

that it was to the Jews that
God gave his oracles,

the oracles of God.

So they received something of God,

of God's revelation of himself.

And yet still,

still they rejected.

Why did they reject?

Because they were selfishly
ambitious.

Why do people today reject God?

Because of selfish ambition.

Okay, so as I began working through this
this week and really going back

through, and some of the devotionals don't
actually address a lot of what

I'm going to address this morning,

but title of today's message
is simply no escape.

Because we've talked the last two
weeks about God's judgment.

God's going to judge,

right?

And guess what?

Last week the point was
God's going to judge.

So I don't have to,

I don't have to chase you around,

point at you about what
you did wrong,

right? I mean,

obviously all I got to do is
read the Bible and go,

let's look at a few things,

right? I mean,

God's already judging and has
judged and will judge.

And in the day of judgment,

there will be wrath.

So I challenged myself because I believe
God was challenging me to

examine my heart.

Just like two weeks ago when I said,

you know,

when I read this sin list
from chapter one,

what does it do?

It puts me on my face.

God, show me my sin.

Don't show me your sin.

I don't want to know your sin,

right? Don't show me
my neighbor's sin.

Don't show me my family's sin.

God, show me my sin.

Reveal to me that that which has originated
in my heart as selfish

ambition, what I want,

when I want it.

Remember that I say that a lot.

And it's funny that people say
it back to me as a joke.

And I go,

what's going on?

Well, why'd you do that?

Because I want what I want.

And I go,

exactly. That's what
I'm telling you.

See, it's the selfish ambition
that produces that.

It's a selfishness,

right, that causes us
to act on our wants.

So I began to kind of walk out
my own heart again this week.

And it really comes as a result of some
conversations and discussions

that we have.

And I go back to a question
I ask myself all the time.

As a youth pastor for 14 years,

it was always really easy for
me with young people to go,

well, why'd you do that?

And then get the answer,

well, I don't know,

right?

And I say,

well, I can tell you,

but you don't want to hear it,

right? And that's kind of the thing.

So I start asking myself,

well, why do I do what I do?

What is it that causes me to rise up
in pride or arrogance or anger?

What is it that causes me to
rise up in judgment or.

Or some sort of vindication
against society,

culture, politics,

agendas, all that kind?

What is it in me that makes me want to
rise up and sort of exert my self

righteousness against all the unrighteousness
in the world?

Right. I challenge myself in that.

And so I started looking at some things
and remembered that In Matthew,

chapter 15,

verse 19,

Jesus is talking about the
heart because he says,

out of the heart comes evil thoughts.

Murder, adultery,

immorality, sexual immorality,

theft, false witness,

slander. Out of the heart that
comes out of my heart,

right? And then I began to
think about King David.

And King David was a man
after God's own heart,

so. And yet he was corrupt.

If you study David's life,

whoo. And it's easy for me to watch the
best movie on King David and go,

oh, look how corrupt he was.

Well, what am I doing?

I'm judging.

I'm judging back through
the centuries,

right?

Why? Why would I do that?

Well, if you really want
to take a sort of a.

Let's call it a rationalization
approach to it.

Well, because I don't want
to be like that,

right?

I don't want to pursue the
way David pursued,

right? Well,

no, I mean,

we want to be righteousness.

We want to honor God,

but because God's providing and giving
and imparting and imputing to us.

Righteousness. But how do we do that?

Right? This is going to be our challenge
as we Walk out the whole book of

Romans, and we're only
in chapter two.

So I got a feeling that.

And I've already outlined this
all the way up to June.

And I'm looking and I'm like,

this is going to take us apart,

you know?

Yah. This is going to cause us to really
examine the depth of our being.

So it really comes back
to a simple question.

Why do we do what we do?

And then I look at the
two great commands,

and this has been great conversation
over the last couple of days.

Particularly, do we love God with all
our heart and soul and mind and

strength, depending on which
gospel you read.

Do we love God?

Do we love God?

I had a teenager years ago ask me,

is it possible to be
in love with God?

Well, that's a very cultural
way to ask the question,

isn't it?

Because teenagers are all concerned
about falling in love.

And so that's what she was thinking,

can I be in love with God?

And I think there is an.

I think that out of our obedience
and surrender,

we act with love toward God.

But can we be emotionally
in love with God?

That's an examination of the heart.

On the way to the gathering this morning
at like quarter till seven,

except it felt like
a quarter to six.

I don't know why.

On the way in,

there was a song that
came on my playlist,

and it was just,

I love you,

God. And that was the lyric,

I love you,

God. I love you.

Does that mean I feel it or is that just
what's coming out of my mouth?

Do I feel a love for
my heavenly Father?

I was showing some folks in the hallway
this sort of juxtaposition of

pictures. How y'all like that word?

Took a picture yesterday in the
yard of me holding Ezekiel.

Little boy,

he's about this big right now.

And I was holding him in the yard
and Angie took my picture.

And so I sent it to my sister,

I sent it to my niece and.

Because they want to keep up with
Ezekiel as he grows up.

And then today,

when I pulled up Facebook thing to
share the worship gathering this

morning, there popped up a memory
in my Facebook of Eli and I.

We were standing on the stage down at
the high school for the elementary

school talent show.

And Eli's about this tall,

and he's looking up on the podium because
he's my co emcee for the talent

show, right?

And he's trying to read a joke
that I gave him to tell.

And I'm looking over his shoulder
and somebody said,

what are you looking at?

Because you look like you're.

And I was looking over his shoulder,

doing like this.

I had this wrinkle and all that.

It looked like I was being very judgmental
of what he was reading,

you know.

And I looked at that and I thought,

okay, father and son and
father and grandson,

and there's a son in between that.

And I thought to myself,

I thought,

do I love God?

I love God like that.

Love the Lord your God with
all your heart and soul,

mind and strength.

And then I thought about,

if I'm just running at Kiwanis
park all by myself,

I'm going to get to the text,

y'all. You guys really want.

I went through the text and I was going
to unalign all the important

words I wanted to cover.

And I'm going to just
be honest with you.

I don't like the whole text,

underline the whole thing.

So I'm going to get there.

So you might not get
out early after all.

Running at Kiwanis park yesterday,

I thought,

as I run,

does God know I love him?

How does he know?

1st Samuel 16,

7. As Samuel was looking at the sons of
Jesse and fine looking young men,

he said,

certainly this is the king that
God wants to appoint.

And God says,

sammy, don't look at the outer man,

because what?

Because the Lord looks at the heart.

And then I.

That bounced me off.

These verses have nothing to do with
each other except it's the same

sentiment. If you go to
2nd Corinthians 9:7.

Paul is encouraging the Corinthian
church to get ready to take up an

offering because he's getting ready to
keep going on his mission journeys

and they've promised an offering and
he's coming to get an offering.

And y'all think I'm about to
go into money and I'm not.

But anyway,

Paul to the Corinthian
believer says,

give as your heart directs the
motivation of the heart,

that's what goes to the text.

But because of your stubbornness and
what unrepentant heart you are,

storing up wrath for yourself in the
day of wrath and revelation of the

righteous judgment of God.

So God is going to judge.

God is the judge.

Judgment is coming.

How will you be judged?

Will you be judged by the clothes
you wear on Sunday morning?

No, but I was as a kid,

just so you know,

with them patent leather
shoes I had to wear.

That hurt my feet,

right?

God's looking at the heart,

the stubbornness.

Unrepentant heart is
storing up wrath.

God's righteous anger,

not temper.

Tantrum, anger,

not emotional reaction,

but the response to rejection and rebellion
because of selfishness,

because of selfish ambition,

right? The righteous
judgment of God,

who will render to every man
according to his deeds.

Doesn't say to lost man,

doesn't say just a Jewish
man to every man.

Every man will be judged
according to his deeds.

Why according to his deeds?

That makes it performance related.

That makes it work,

salvation, right?

No, because the counsel of
the whole scripture is,

is that our deeds are produced
out of our hearts,

right? So if I'm running,

is God going to say,

that was a great five mile run,

Bobby? No.

What's he looking at?

He's looking at while I'm running,

do I love him?

Right? While I'm telling jokes,

do I love him?

See, so and then it says to those who
by perseverance in doing good,

seek for glory and honor
and immortality,

they're going to get eternal
life by perseverance.

That means acting out of the
love that we have for God.

Love the Lord your God
with all your heart,

soul, mind and strength,

folks.

Don't turn it into a list
of dos and don'ts.

Don't turn it into religion.

It is,

it is a love relationship with
our heavenly Father.

It is an intimacy with God.

So what does that mean I've
got to do in my own life?

That means every day and as much
as I can all day long,

I need to work for the stimulation
in my heart to love God.

So yeah,

I look forward to a song that pops
on my little earbuds and says,

I love you God.

And we just sang that one where,

oh, there you are over there.

I love you Lord.

Right?

I mean,

we're encouraged to,

with our mouth express
our love for God.

Why? Because what Jesus,

out of the heart come all
these other things.

But what proceedeth out
of the mouth starts.

So if I can say to God,

I love you,

God, then the idea is that
that comes from my heart,

comes out of my heart.

And so I'm looking as to those who
by perseverance and doing good,

seek for the glory,

honor, many more times they
get eternal life.

But to those who are selfishly ambitious
and do not obey the truth,

but obey unrighteousness,

guess what their reward is?

Wrath and indignation,

tribulation, distress for every
soul of man who does evil.

Of the Jew first and
also of the Greek,

don't you love how when he said,

the gospel is the power of God unto salvation
to everyone who believes to

the Jew first and to the Greek,

guess what?

Judgment and wrath to The Jew
first and also to the Greek.

What does it mean?

It just means everybody.

So it's not about an ethnic context.

It's not about any of those things.

It's about what's in the
heart of mankind.

And I've known some really
good looking,

quote Christian people,

right? Look great.

But that's looking at the outside,

not the inside.

Whew.

So as we tribulation
now in verse nine,

some of your translations will say,

there will be tribulation and distress
for every soul of man who does

evil. That's a contextual
insert right there.

Because if you read it
straight through,

do not obey the truth,

but obey unrighteousness,

wrath and indignation,

tribulation and distress for every soul
of man who does evil of the Jew

first and also to the Greek.

But glory and honor and peace to every
man who does good to the Jew first

and also to the Greeks.

For there is no partiality with God.

I underlined that one twice.

God doesn't pick and choose who gets
judgment because everybody gets

judgment. See,

God has reached out to the
world with his love,

with a kindness and patience
unto repentance,

right? Look at the world around you.

Is it our job to judge?

I've already said no
two weeks in a row,

right? I've already said
no two weeks in a row.

But why is God so tolerant?

See, that's a big word in
our culture right now.

God's not tolerant.

He is patient because he wants people
to know his love for them so that

they can respond in love to Him.

See, why do I do what I do?

Why have I been to church?

Probably, and I'm using the
word intentionally,

why have I been to church
all my life?

Because it was indoctrinated into me.

Well, at some point that
was a true answer.

Why now?

Because I want God.

I want to love God.

God sees whether or not I
have love in my heart.

God sees that I can't look at your heart
and tell whether you love or

not. God can.

So God sees the motivation
of the heart.

No partiality with God.

And then verse 12 begins this.

As we work our way into
chapter three,

you're going to see it.

For all have sinned.

For all who have sinned without the
law will perish without the law.

All who have sinned under the law
will be judged by the law.

Now people start taking this all
apart and those under the law,

this just is kind of repeating that sort
of differentiation between the

oracles of God who received the oracles
of God who were established under

the law of God,

okay, Because we're about
to break into the whole.

Where we've already dealt with
the sin of the Gentiles.

We're about to get to the sin of
the Jews in the book of Romans.

Just so you know,

we'll be judged by the law,

for not the hearers of the
law are just before God,

but the doers of the law
will be justified.

We get to next week,

we start talking about,

forgive me,

but we start talking about circumcision
of the heart.

See, that's in Romans.

That's understanding that what God
is looking at is not the outward

display, but the inward posture
and attitude of our lives.

So as we consider this sort
of verses 5 through 13,

we know that we're about
to get to verse 14,

where we start off,

it's kind of the continuation,

but it works itself.

So when Gentiles,

right?

So Jesus,

I mean,

Paul, God,

by inspiration,

Paul is writing to us
and giving us this.

This trajectory of how God
has revealed himself.

Okay? Can you imagine?

And I remember seeing
it in movie form,

because I'm a child of the 70s.

I remember seeing it in movie form.

Oh, Abraham kind of out tending some
of his daddy's flock or something,

and he's out in the wilderness and
trying to take the sheep to water

because that's what shepherds do.

And all of a sudden,

a voice somehow,

some way to Abram,

Abram, not Abraham.

Yet some voice says to abram,

abram, I want you to
leave your family,

your land,

your people.

Go to a land that I will show you.

I mean,

how does that conversation start?

Okay? I mean,

is it not Abram by himself with a bunch
of sheep out in a wilderness type

area, Mesopotamian plain,

somewhere in Ur,

going, what's all this about?

And God revealing himself individually
to a man and saying,

I will make of you a great nation.

Right, folks,

if you hear the word of
God from this table,

as I share on Sunday morning,

great. If God speaks to you,

I love it.

That's what we do.

Want to take a portion of scripture,

try to break it down to the point that
we can understand what it is God

was saying in 55-57 AD through
Paul to the Romans,

and yet carried down through
the centuries to us?

What is God saying to you?

Is God saying to you,

that preacher wants me to walk down
the aisle and get in the water?

Right? Is that what God's
saying to you?

No, God's saying to you,

I love you.

Love me back and act like it,

because the deeds of your
Heart will be judged,

man. Can I just tell you,

it's kind of where I've
been this week,

and I walk through the theme of scripture
that God's not looking at my

shirt, which.

My button's broken right here,

y'all. I'm afraid that it's going
to pop off completely,

and then I'm going to have one
button down and one not.

And that's just out of order.

That looks bad.

You should have sewn a new button on
that before you wore that to church

this morning.

Right?

He's not concerned about this.

He's concerned about this.

And he wants to nurture
this like a daddy,

a heavenly daddy.

He wants to nurture our hearts.

Perfect message yesterday,

Cole.

He wants to nurture our
hearts like a daddy,

you know?

And so this morning,

when those two pictures popped up
on my phone and I'm holding my

grandson, I was like,

see, that's going to be crazy when
that kid's old enough to walk.

Because I told him yesterday,

I said,

dude, when you're able
to walk and talk,

we're gonna play,

we're gonna dig holes,

we're gonna run.

And that's what I was telling
him yesterday.

He doesn't have a clue.

He's just like.

And I go,

I got plans for you,

big boy.

Right, right.

Because then I look at the picture that
popped up this morning of Eli,

and he's got that long blond
hair in that picture.

You.

You know that he had looked like
a surfer kid that hated surf.

He did hate surfing.

It's not like he looked like.

And I thought,

you know.

And I don't want to minimize
the perfect,

incredible, overwhelming
love of God,

but does my son know
that I love him?

Does my grandson know
that I love him?

You see?

Well, see,

we need to make sure
that our actions,

our words,

our attitude express our
love back to God.

Do it in your devotional time.

Study the word of God.

Study what God has said.

Let God know by your choices,

actions, attitudes,

everything. Let God
know you love him.

I love you,

Lord, for your mercy.

Something. I don't memorize
y'all songs.

You know that,

right?

So I've sung to you two
weeks in a row now.

And everybody,

last week.

I had a few folks last week say,

can you write down the lyrics
to that Patience song?

Google it.

It's in there somewhere.

Anyway, folks,

God's judgment's coming.

We don't strive for perfection because
we'll never get there,

but we do strive to perfect
our love for God.

All right,

if you don't know Jesus.

That's where it starts.

I always tell folks it starts
with knowing Jesus.

Maybe you're here this
morning and yeah,

like me,

you kind of had that church introduction
to faith or to the gospel or

whatever. But one of the things that
we've really going to be centering

on in the days ahead
is the fact that,

you know,

loving God is our first
priority to love God.

Our second priority is
to love each other.

Okay? So if you don't know Jesus,

we want to introduce you
maybe as a Christian,

you know,

there's some priority problems in your
life and you need to pray about

that. And if you want
to be a member,

quote of the gathering,

you can come be a member
of the gathering.

We'll tell you what that means
and what that looks like.

But just respond to God this morning because
God has said to you at least

that he loves you.

Okay, let's pray.

God, thank you for today and for what
you're doing in our hearts and

lives. And I thank you,

God, for your word that.

Yeah, this is a harsh scripture.

This is a text that tells us
that in selfish ambition,

God, we somehow want to
pursue our own way.

Like those who would
promote themselves.

God, help us to bow.

God, help us to surrender.

God, help us to love youe back.

God. This morning as we sing,

God, just hear our hearts.

Let us sing our Love to youo with whatever
the words of the song are.

Help us to love you as we sing.

Help us to love you as we respond.

And we pray it in Jesus name,

Amen.