Having a family has been a wonderful blessing for me for a multitude of reasons.  Of course I am amazed and thankful that God would bless me with such a beautiful and serving wife, and three gorgeous children, but I am also thankful for other reasons.  I am thankful that my family has been integral in showing me my own sin.  What do I mean?  Often when I discipline my sons I ask myself the question, “Why do they keep doing the same things over and over?”  For instance, Isaac loves climbing to the top bunk and jumping on the bed, he also loves pretending that the bunks are a sea-going ship.  Anyway, the longer I think about it, I am guilty of the same vice, falling back into the same sins again and again.  And just as I hypocritically say about my son - and just as many of us may say about others - “when will they ever learn,” we should be saying about ourselves.  We as men and women in the church sometimes remain very eager to deal out death and judgment, but maybe we have a plank in our eye; maybe we should consider Paul’s words in Romans 2:1-11

Therefore you are inexcusable, O man, whoever you are who judge, for in whatever you judge another you condemn yourself; for you who judge practice the same things.  But we know that the judgment of God is according to the truth against those who practice such things.  And do you think this O man, you who judge those practicing such things, and doing the same, that you will escape the judgment of God?  Or do you despise the riches of His goodness, forbearance, and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance?  But in accordance with your hardness and your impenitent heart you are treasuring up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, who will render to each one according to his deeds”: eternal life to those who by patient continuance in doing good seek for glory, honor, and immortality; but to those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness - indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish, on every soul of man who does evil, of the Jew first and also of the Greek; but glory, honor, and peace to everyone who works what is good, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.

What first strikes me about this text is that there is a group of people so confident of themselves that they are judging others.  However, the peculiar thing is that this group of people seem to be unaware, or at least negligent, of the fact that they are practicing the same sins for which they are judging others.  The question seems to be either, “Are they that stupid,” or “Are they that prideful.”  And I think it is usually the latter, but may be both - I speak from my own intermittent stupidity here.  Anyway, this was surely a massive affront to the religious people Paul was addressing, both Jew and Gentile.  This should also be an affront to many of us.  When we bring charge against anyone else I think it is wise - because of this text and many others - to pay careful attention to our own pride and sin.  After all, there seems to be some truth to the old axiom, “It takes one to know one.”  Paul is not telling them not to judge, rather he is warning those who trust in their own righteousness against judging, because in their own righteousness they are just as hopeless as anyone else.

This brings us to the next point in the text.  Paul is addressing people who are clearly trying to do good deeds, but there is an absence of repentance and an absence of reliance upon God’s grace.  It is as if the “good deeds” done apart from a repentant and humble heart do nothing but “treasure up wrath.”  This is the delusion of those who are self righteous, they think they are by their own power headed toward God when in fact they are headed away from Him.  And as Paul writes, they don’t know that “the goodness of God leads them to repentance.”  Thus, we can conclude here that it is the height of folly to be deluded in such a way, and this folly is the systematic illness from which flows the symptomatic self righteous judgment of others.

There is certainly much more in this text than I can deal with in one morning, but I will conclude with what I believe to be a central point in Paul’s argument.  We Baptists who proclaim the solas of the reformation - sola scriptura, sola fide, etc… - might expect Paul to say something like, “rely solely upon the grace of God,” but he doesn’t.  In fact, across Pauline literature, we get a very different feel for his doctrine of faith and works.  Here he writes, “eternal life to those who by patient continuance in doing good seek for glory, honor, and immortality.”  He basically tells them to do good.  Remember his rejoinder in Philippians?  “Work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who is at work within you, both to will and to work for His good purpose.”  Are the reformation solas wrong?  No, but I think they are an incomplete attempt to describe what Scripture does so well on its own.  Yes, Paul affirms in many places that we are saved by faith even as he is doing here, but his practical advice to daily life is simple, “Do what is right.”  This righteous behavior is not apart from relying upon the grace of God or the goodness of God, in fact, it is motivated by the character of God - “those who seek for glory.”  Neither is this righteous behavior that which looks down upon others in judgment, because this righteous behavior is that which is motivated by the goodness of God shown to a helpless soul.  This truth should unify the church, both Jew and Gentile, because all are saved in the same manner and all live righteously in the same manner - by the gospel, the power of God unto salvation.