Notes from Lance Shumake's sermon on Sunday, February 25, 2024.
Sermon text: Romans 2:17-29
We don’t find confidence in having the law
We don’t find confidence in keeping the law
We need to pose ourselves the same challenge: is our church community, and are we as individuals, attractive? Is our humility, love in hard situations, grace under pressure, and so on obvious for others to see? Are we living as an advertisement for God, or as a “Keep clear” sign? Only the gospel produces churches and people who commend God to the world. Moralism cannot.
—Tim Keller, Romans for You
We don’t find confidence in outward signs
So what if you have been baptized? So what if you are a church member? This only counts for anything if there has been a real change in your life, if your heart has been truly affected. Don’t you know that you are not a Christian if you are only one externally, that real Christianity is not about having confidence in external things? No, a Christian is someone who is a Christian inside; what matters is inner baptism, a heart-membership of God’s people. And this is a supernatural work, not a human one.
—Tim Keller, Romans for You
We only find confidence in Jesus as He changes our hearts
Isn’t this a fitting climax to the argument in chapter 2? What Paul has been driving at all along is this: God is going to look at the heart. We can come adorned with all kinds of externals, but if there is no circumcision of the heart, it will be to no avail. He is a Jew who is one inwardly, and real circumcision is of the heart, by the Spirit—that is by the Holy Spirit—not by the letter.
—R. C. Sproul, The Gospel of God
Philippians 3:4–9
[4]...If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more: [5] circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; [6] as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless. [7] But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. [8] Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ [9] and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith.
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