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The River ChurchSermons

The NEED

The NEED of the Religious, Pt. 1

Chuck Lindsey · Sunday, 11 May 2025 · Romans 2:1-16 · 54:56 · 9,107 words

Romans S3 · 2:1-16 Grand Blanc

There is no public page for this message yet — the transcript below is the whole of it.

Many think being a good person is enough, but the sermon shows that heaven requires perfect, sinless righteousness no one can earn. God offers forgiveness and righteousness as a free gift to anyone who humbles themselves, admits their need, and turns to him. The message warns that moral people are without excuse because everyone knows right from wrong through conscience and creation. The preacher calls listeners to confess their sin, stop resisting God, and accept his rescue.

What this sermon is about

Ranked by keyness against every other sermon in the corpus. Each one is a word this sermon actually said — nothing here was written by a model.

person 63 wrong 40 god 168 stand 28 judge 22 sinless 11 inexcusable 6 nice 14 unsaved 13 mistake 11 judgment 19 turn 26

Topics

Sin 6 The Wrath of God 4 Judgment 3 Obedience 2 Salvation 2 Grace 1 Condemnation 1 The Law 1 Conscience 1

Scripture referenced 23

Verified against the transcript. A reference the recording does not support is never listed here.

Romans 2 5:23 Romans 2:1 5:31 Romans 2:15 10:06 Romans 2:16 14:46 Romans 2:16 14:49 Romans 2:15 15:16 Romans 2:1 18:00 Romans 2:1 18:00 Romans 2:2 20:19 Romans 2:3 20:58 Romans 2:4 25:18 Romans 2:5 30:07 Romans 2:5 33:22 Romans 2:6 38:54 Romans 2:7 42:38 Romans 2:7 42:54 Romans 2:7 45:25 Romans 2:8 45:52 Romans 2:8 45:59 Romans 2:8 47:25 Romans 2:9 51:07 Romans 2:10 51:55 Romans 2:11 52:03

Transcript

Every word, as spoken, with the second it was said. Each word links to its own entry in the index.

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I think I'm going to be okay.

As long as I'm a good person, it should all work out.

I mean, I'm not like a murderer. I'm not a thief.

I'm not trying to hurt anybody, you know.

I'm a pretty good person, especially if I compare myself to some other people I know.

And I think God sees that. I think God knows that.

I think I'll be fine when I die.

I mean, if there's a hell, I'm sure it's for bad people.

And I'm not a bad person. I should be okay.

You know, there's a lot of people that have that way of thinking.

But if that is what you believe, every person who believes that

is going to find out when they die that they have believed a lie, right?

We are not okay. Not on our own. Not apart from coming to him.

There isn't anybody who, you know, is better off than anybody else.

You might have grown up in a church home.

You might have...

You might have grown up in the opposite of that.

You might have grown up doing pretty good things, being a pretty good person.

You might have grown up being a little punk.

I don't know what your background is, right?

But we are all in the same situation.

And these three chapters in Romans are trying to prove it to you.

We all have the same need.

And so if we think that we're going to be okay as long as we are pretty good,

we are going to find out the moment we die that we have bought and believed

a lie.

Listen, the requirement to enter heaven, please hear this.

It is not to be better than most people.

It is not to be nicer.

It is not to generally do good and let your good outweigh your bad.

The requirement to enter heaven, according to the Bible, you must be perfect.

Now go ahead and raise your hand if you're sinless.

You would have just...

You would have ruined it all if you'd have raised your hand.

Okay, you're the liar.

Okay, all right.

Right?

So you have to be perfect to enter heaven.

Not better than others.

To say it a different way, you have to be sinless to enter heaven.

Now, again, perfection and sinlessness, that's not possible for me.

I can't make myself sinless or perfect.

I can't do that.

Neither can you.

You can't take enough showers to make yourself spiritually clean.

That doesn't work.

And even if from this moment forward,

you were like, I will never sin again.

First of all, not going to happen.

Second, I mean, just drive on 75 and see if you are sinless, right?

But like, not going to happen.

But also, you would still have the issue.

If you never sinned again, you still have the issue of all of your past sin.

You are not perfect.

And so, but that doesn't matter.

Like, to enter heaven, you're going to have to be sinless.

You're going to have to be perfect.

And nobody is ever going to enter.

Heaven, who is not sinless.

And the only way to become sinless is for God himself to remove your sin.

Okay, this is not possible for us as people.

You can't go to church enough to do it.

You can't be nice enough to do it.

You can't be good enough to do it.

Only God can forgive sin.

So the only way that this happens for a person to become perfect,

the Bible calls it righteous.

So rightness before God.

The only way that happens is by a person seeing

their need.

It's by a person seeing their need, humbling themselves,

coming to God for the complete forgiveness of every one of their sin.

And this is a gift that God gives to every person who will admit this need.

Have you done this?

Have you humbled yourself before God?

Have you seen your need?

Have you come to him in that need?

You see, the problem for us is that we don't know how to do it.

for very nice people. And many of you are very nice people. The problem for very nice people is

that we can think we are okay. That we're not in need. That we're not like others who, yeah, they

need to be saved. But me? All right. Everything is okay. I'm going to be fine. God knows I'm doing

my best. See, Paul turns to this person in Romans 2 and says, all right, let's talk about your need

now. Look at verse 1. Therefore, Paul says, you are inexcusable, O man. Who is Paul talking to?

Who is this man that is inexcusable? This person that is inexcusable before God? Well, the answer

is given. It's the person who judges others. It says there, therefore, you are inexcusable, O man,

whoever you are who judge. So this is the person who looks at others and sees their wrongs,

calls it wrong,

but then, catch this, doesn't see their own wrongdoing. Does not judge themselves. They only

judge others. You see, Jesus, we talked about this in the Sermon on the Mount. You get into a problem

when you judge others and you don't judge yourself. The judgment begins with me, not with you. It

begins with me. If I don't judge myself and I judge others, I am guilty. And that's what this says.

This is a person who compares themselves,

to other people, to make themselves feel better. I'm not like that, so I must be okay. They make

judgments about others, ignoring their own wrongdoing. They excuse their own as not as bad

as others, even if they're doing the same things. Isn't it interesting how when you do something

that you hate other people doing, you know, other people do, you give yourself, there's always a

reason for it, right? I'm driving like a crazy person because I got to get there and,

and, and everybody will just understand, you know, that I got, I got places I got to be and,

and I've had a bad day and it's been hard and I got to get home. And so that's okay for me. But

if you see somebody else driving like that, you're like, oh man, I hope there's a cop,

bad person, scum of the earth. You know, what are you doing? You're endangering everybody around you.

Get out of my way. You know what I mean? Like, right? This is what we do as people.

And, and it's common to all of us. But because of this, we're told we are actually without excuse

before God. When we stand before God on judgment day, the person who is just morally good and nice

will have nothing. They'll have no defense. They'll have nothing to say as to why they

rejected him. You say, why? Well, very simply, the person who is judging other people for wrong

is admitting that they know the difference between right and wrong, right? So, so the good person,

the person who is morally better than others, they are productive members of society, right?

They are, they are nice people. They work, they provide for their families. They cut their grass

on time, right? Some of you, you know what I'm talking about, right? All right. They don't leave

their trash cans out too long. They shovel their driveways. They shovel other people's driveways,

right? They are very nice people. They would help you change your tire or carry something

into your home. They're donating to, you know, needs or humanitarian things. They're decent

people. And these decent people, maybe you're one of them. You're,

you're a moral person. You're a good person. You would look at the, the people that are doing

evil, the stuff that we saw in the previous chapter. And you would look at that with disgust.

You're like, how in the world can people be doing these things? Oh, it's disgusting.

What in the world is, is it coming to, right? People just stealing stuff in broad daylight.

Who does this? Get your life together. Jeez, on the, on drugs and all these other, just come on,

man. This is disgusting. Nice people, good people with a sense of right.

And wrong and morality. They look at others and they go, that's terrible. But Paul says,

this makes you inexcusable before God. Why? Because, um, when he says, why did you reject me?

You cannot say, I didn't know the difference between what was right and what was wrong.

I didn't know because you were, you were able to point that out in all kinds of different things,

all kinds of scenarios. You are admitting that there is,

all right and wrong. And so you will have no excuse before God.

The person who is judging others for wrongdoing is at the same time condemning themselves.

They are admitting that there is a right and wrong.

It's called the conscience, right?

This is a term we use.

It's called the conscience in verse 15.

Paul talks about it.

And we said it's the second way that every person knows that there is a God.

Everybody knows there is because of two things, right?

The first one is creation.

We all live in creation.

We all know we didn't make it.

We all know somebody above us had to.

We are all answerable to him.

That is what the Bible says.

Every single person will have no excuse before God

because we live in something that is masterfully designed,

powerfully brought into existence, all of this,

and we have no excuse as we stand before God.

I didn't make any of this.

Random circumstance did not make any of this.

How many of you guys went home and shook your junk drawer

to see if stuff would come together?

How many of you did it?

Okay, right?

Order never comes from chaos.

We talked about it last week, right?

So creation says there is a God.

He is above us and we are accountable to him.

But then there's a second witness and that witness is inside you.

It's called the conscience.

And it is the understanding that there is a right and there is a wrong

and it is inside of you.

The Bible says God has written it in your heart.

Every single person has the law of God written inside what is right and what is wrong.

And we either agree to it and follow it

or we don't.

We reject it.

We rebel against it and we do wrong.

Every single person has these two things.

So the person that is good and nice and moral

but rejects God is inexcusable

because they reveal that they know the difference.

Understand something.

When you say that something is wrong,

you are appealing to a standard that is outside of yourself

that defines right and wrong.

What do I mean?

Well,

if there was no right,

if there was no wrong at all,

you would never be able to say

that someone shouldn't do something,

right?

If there was no actual truth,

no actual right and wrong,

you'd never be able to say that someone shouldn't do something.

All you'd be able to say is,

please don't hurt my family.

Not that it's wrong for you to do so,

but I just don't want you to.

It's not my preference for you to steal all my things.

what do we do?

It's not right for you to do that.

Don't do that.

It's wrong.

You shouldn't do those things.

That kind of a statement is an appeal to a standard

that we are admitting exists.

We're appealing.

Maybe we don't realize it.

We're appealing to the law being written on the human heart.

We're saying you should not do that.

If we say there is no absolute truth,

realize what you're doing.

That is a self-defeating statement.

How many of you believed that at one point?

At one time,

right?

There is no absolute truth.

And anytime someone says that to me,

I always say,

are you absolutely sure?

They just look at me like,

what?

I was like,

well,

didn't you just make an absolute truth statement to me?

You told me there is no absolute truth.

You said that definitively.

So I say,

well,

I disagree with you,

right?

Because there is no absolute truth.

Someone who says to me,

you can't tell me that what I'm doing is wrong.

I go,

but didn't you just tell me that what I was doing was wrong by telling you that what you were doing is wrong?

Didn't you just defeat your own argument?

Right?

You see,

we get,

we lose our minds.

If we have this idea that there is no actual right,

there is no actual wrong.

We lose our minds.

But the point I'm trying to make,

right,

is if a person truly believed there was no wrong,

there was no right,

then listen,

we just have to let people do whatever they wanted to.

And we couldn't have a problem about it.

And we shouldn't talk about right or wrong.

And we definitely shouldn't talk about rights,

which seems to be something everybody wants to talk about today.

Don't judge me for anything,

but I have my rights.

Where do we get this idea?

That there is right and there is wrong.

Where are we?

Where is,

where is all of this coming from?

Well,

that's Paul's point.

Everybody is going to stand before God without excuse because we all know that there is in fact a right and wrong.

And we got to work really hard to push against that.

We all adhere to this inward law in one way or another,

or we reject it in one way or another.

You may be doing it here today.

And you see this in verse 16,

14 down to verse 16.

Take a look real quick.

Skip down there.

It says when Gentiles are unsaved people,

Paul's talking about when they do not have the law.

this when they don't have the Bible, when they don't have, you know, the, the written law in

front of them, look what it says by it's literally their inward nature. They, they do the things that

are written in the law, right? And wrong. It says these, although they do not have a law, they become

like a law to themselves, right? It's this thing, verse 15, they show something, they prove something

that the work of the law has been written in their hearts. Look what it says. Their conscience

also bearing witness and between themselves, their thoughts, accusing or else excusing them

in the day when God will judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ, according to my gospel. So

the conscience either condemns them or shows them their need to be saved. Now, the way that it points

to the existence of God is the same way the creation does. When I look at creation, I say,

where did this all come from? When I look at this universal sense of right and wrong, I go,

where does this come from? Where is this?

This sense that there is a right, that there is a wrong, that it's not just up to us to figure it

out and decide whatever we want to decide about this thing. Every society in history has always

had certain things that are always wrong. Did you know every society in history has always considered

it wrong to be a coward? Did you know that? Every society in history has always looked at cowardice

as a wrong thing, as not a good thing. Where'd we get these ideas? Do you know every society in

history has always had the idea that it is wrong to inflict harm upon the innocent or the defenseless?

Every society has always had this understanding. And we got to work really hard in our country

today to try to make it seem like that's not a bad thing. That's not a wrong thing,

that that's someone's choice to be able to inflict harm on the innocent. We've always

understood these are universal ideas because they are universally written on the heart of man. And we

either adhere to them or we reject them. And so, you know, there's a reason that there is a right

and wrong, and that is because there is a God. And God is right, and God is good, and anything God

would not do is wrong, right? So there is a right and there is a wrong because there is a God.

That's the whole point. That's the point that Paul is trying to make. And so here it is, right?

This whole thing, Paul says, this is what happens when you do this. When you say there's

right and wrong, you're judging yourself. You're condemning yourself. Look at verse

one. For in whatever you judge another, you, watch this, at the same time, you condemn yourself.

As I'm judging others, I won't be able to say to God, I didn't know that there was a right and

wrong. Now the question becomes, am I personally adhering to the thing I am judging others about?

And the answer, of course, is no. Look at verse one, the end of verse one. For you who judge,

you practice the same things. So it doesn't matter how good we think we are. As we look at others,

others in judgment, we make ourselves guilty, right? I look at others and I say, you shouldn't

be doing that. But am I doing that? We tell other people, hey, you're wrong for, for lying. But then

we lie. We tell other people, man, that, that, that evil, that the corruption we see in the

government or whatever that condemns me. Now, when I manipulate situations, when I lie,

when I cheat, when I try to do these things, right? And so here's where every person,

has to be intellectually honest. Haven't you done the very things that you are easily able to point

out in others? In fact, I think there's a correlation between being able to point certain

things out in other people and me doing those things. I can point certain things out because

it's my personal issues, right? It's my personal problems. You know, how about you? You're like,

man, I hate it. I hate it when people are like that. They're so greedy. And then there's this

thing inside of you and you see it because it's there.

You know it because it's there. Look at that person getting so angry. Meanwhile, you're losing

your mind, you know, on the freeway or whatever. Hey, we do the very same things, right? You hate

it when people malign you and talk about your back, talk about you behind your back, but then

you go to somebody and you talk to that person about how that person maligned you and talked

about, about you behind their back, right? It's like, you've just done the exact same thing.

And so as we do this, we are condemning ourselves. Realize as you point your finger, you have three

of them pointing back at you, right?

So I only point this way now.

right? Like that's, so you, you are doing bad things, all of you, right? I never, never,

never do this. I'm like, take a look over there. See that over there, right? It's just to be

consistent, you know, so stupid, but this is what happens, right? When we're trying to compare

ourselves with others, we're condemning ourselves at the same moment. So notice verse two, but we

know that the judgment of God is against truth or is, excuse me, according to truth against those

who practice such things. God's judgment, his, his justice is always right. God sees everything.

He misses nothing. And so God says, I see you doing what you're condemning in others. God sees

it. And so again, the point of this is meant to make us stop and say, am I guilty? Am I in need?

That's the point of what Paul is doing. Take a look at verse three. He's driving it home, right?

He's trying to,

he's turning the screw a little bit. Do you think this, right? Oh man, you who you're looking at

everybody else, you're condemning everybody else. Do you think that you, you who are judging

everybody else, practicing those things, do you think as you're doing the same thing that you're

going to escape the judgment of God? And of course the answer is no. Every single person is going to

stand before God. Every one of us is going to stand before God.

No one is going to escape that process. And it's right there that it's going to be,

you're either given entrance into heaven or, or sentence into hell. It's right there.

And when we stand before him again, realize he sees everything. His eyes are described as a flame

of fire. He burns off all this stuff that I do to try to make myself look better. When I try to mask

it, like it's selflessness, but it's really selfish. And I figured out how to get what I want

looking selfless. He's going to burn all that away.

You know what he does? He goes, it was selfish. And you go, no, no, look, look the way I did it.

He goes, yeah, I saw the way you did it. I burned all that away. Cause it wasn't real. You were

trying to get what you want it. His eyes are a flame of fire. They see right through it all.

So he hasn't missed anything, nothing. He hasn't missed it. And so we aren't going to escape the

judgment of God when we have done these same things, but don't miss the words there because

it says that you, it will happen.

It says that you, it will happen. This judgment of God, this judgment of God, this judgment of God,

this judgment will happen. If your sins have not bothered you, I appeal to you today. If your sins

have not bothered you, if they have not horrified, you have not caused you to run to Jesus Christ in

repentance and for forgiveness. I beg God is begging you to see your need today. That's the

point of all of this. You are going to be, unless you turn, you are going to be one of those people

that stand before God. And you're going to be pointing to what you need. And you're going to

be pointing to what you have done that is good. And he is going to look at you and say, I have never

known you. And the Bible says that people are shocked by this. Now, listen, I can't imagine

standing before God and going, well, God, let me just tell you the things I did. Okay. I did this

and I did that. And I did this. I can't even imagine it. Seriously. The Lord's going to look

at me and I'm just going to be like, oh geez. Right? Like I did nothing. I don't deserve to be

here. Why are you here? Well, because the man on the cross said, I couldn't do it. I couldn't do it.

Right? He said, he said it. He said, I, he made a way for me to be here. Right? But that's it. Like

that's all. I cannot imagine standing before God going, well, you know how many times I went to

church? God's like, oh, did not know. Wow. Really? In the thousands. That's amazing. Yeah. You know

how many times I got there early too. You know what I gave Lord? You know, when the last time

I said a swear word was, aren't you impressed? All the angels were like, you know what I mean?

I can't even imagine it. And yet that's how the

Bible describes the unsaved person, the good person, the moral person. They're going to stand

before God and they're going to be like, well, I did this and I did that. And I gave to people

and I helped people and, and, and I did this and that and the other thing. And, and he's going to

say, depart from me. I have never known you. I've never known you. You practice lawlessness. You

live your life in complete rejection and rebellion to me. If you're one of those people today,

you're banking on your goodness.

I pray you will be.

shaken from that and you will turn to the Lord for salvation. Because if you do not, you are

going to find out you are not good enough. Nobody can be. You are going to find out you have never

done enough, not even close. And there's something you might be misunderstanding. You might be

misunderstanding God's goodness. This is a common mistake. Look at verse 4. Do you despise or

literally do you think nothing of the riches of God, of his goodness, his forbearance, his long

suffering? Are you misunderstanding? Are you not knowing that it is the goodness of God that is

meant to lead you to repentance? You see, the unsaved, good, nice person might be making a very serious

mistake, especially here in our country. We might be thinking that God's goodness means that God

is okay with us. Well, we've got food to eat, and we've got clothes to wear, and we've got a car to drive,

and we've got a house to live in, and we're not sick, and there hasn't been major tragedy. And so

we might make this mistake of thinking that the goodness of God, his blessings, we might be

thinking that means God is okay with us, that we're all right. Well, God, you're not smashing

me, and you're not making things hard for me, and I'm not in great difficulty, so maybe you're

okay. Maybe we're good. Are we good? I mean, look at the way God's blessing me. Aren't we good?

I mean, how many people do we hear today in the news, in media, in, you know, celebrity culture,

or whatever, and they live like the devil, but then give thanks to God for his blessings?

They are mistaking the goodness of God for the acceptance of God. And maybe you're doing the

same thing. You're like, you know what? Life's been pretty good. I think God's okay with me.

That is a terrible mistake. It'd be like being diagnosed with cancer. You're told you have cancer,

but then you don't really feel bad. You feel okay. There's not really any visible signs of this.

You're not sitting in a hospital. You're not on medication. You're still going to work, or you're

going on vacation, or whatever. And because of those blessings, you think, there's no cancer.

I don't feel anything. I feel no problems. Everything seems fine. Maybe I don't need to

worry about this. Maybe I can just move on with my life. Many people are making this same mistake.

They're mistaking the goodness of God, which, please hear me, God pours out his goodness on

everyone. Everyone. The criminal, the drug dealer, the nice person, the church person.

God pours out his blessings on everybody. Everybody is breathing. Their blood is pumping.

Food is growing. The sun is in the sky. Air is breathable. God is pouring out his blessing on everybody.

Many are mistaking this idea that because God has been good, they're good. They're okay. Please

hear this. You're not good. I'm not good. God is good. He is good to people who are not good,

because he is good. Not because we deserve it, but because he is good. And so, listen,

this does not excuse my sin. It does not remove my sin. It does not make it so that I'm clean

before God, because God is blessing my life. Oh, I got that promotion. That must mean God is happy

with me. No, no, no.

You're misunderstanding. The goodness of God is meant to lead you to repentance. What does that

mean? Here, God is doing this. He is trying to show you, through goodness, he is trying to show

you your need, your job, your home, whatever, whatever blessings. It's not meant to make you

settle back and go, I'm okay. I'm fine. It's meant to make you, it's meant to give you a contrast.

God, why are you giving me such good things when I deserve such bad things?

It's meant to be a contrast. When you have treated someone poorly, and they treat you with kindness

and grace and mercy, it is meant to break you, not keep you doing what you were doing, right?

It's meant to, it's meant to make you go, why is this person being kind to me when I have been so

terrible to them? This is what the grace of God is designed to do. It is meant to make you say,

God, why? I deserve judgment, but instead you have blessed.

The goodness of God is meant to lead you to repentance.

And if you will not repent, there's only one reason.

And according to verse 5, it is the hardness of our heart.

Look at this.

But in accordance with your hardness and your impenitent heart,

you are treasuring up or storing up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath.

So again, I remind you, we're talking about good people here.

The only reason that a person does not turn to God, there's only one reason.

It's not because of information.

It's not because of circumstance.

It's not because of trouble or the lack of trouble.

There is only one reason that man does not turn to God,

and it's because man does not want to.

We harden our heart towards God.

We reject him.

We push out that information.

If you have not turned to Jesus Christ for salvation today, listen,

I'm just being straight with you.

I'm just being honest with you.

There's no pulling punches here.

The only reason you've not done that is because you don't want to.

That's the only reason.

God has made every way for you to be saved,

every possible way except forcing you.

He will not grab you.

He will not take hold of you.

He will not force you.

He will not twist your arm and make it happen.

You don't want to, and God won't force you.

It's the only thing he won't do.

He's made the way.

It's up to you.

It is the hardness.

It is the impenitent.

The word means I refuse to turn.

I refuse to change.

Hardness refers to my heart being obstinate towards God instead of soft and tender.

And responsive to God.

Can I ask what does your heart look like today before God?

I remember when I came to Christ at 16 years old,

it felt like God reached into my chest,

not like Indiana Jones style, okay?

Not like that.

That's all I can see in my brain.

I'm sorry.

It's like God reached into my chest and he pulled out a rock,

a rock, and he threw that aside and he put into me a heart of flesh.

And in that moment,

everything changed.

I wanted to please God.

I loved him suddenly.

I wanted to worship him with my life.

I wanted my life to bless him.

I was suddenly responsive.

I was reading God's word and it affected me and it impacted me.

And nobody had to come along with a ruler and slap me on the hand and say,

don't do that and follow God and make this happen.

It was like all of a sudden there is this heart of flesh inside of me.

It's not obstinate anymore.

It's not,

it's not fighting God anymore.

Now I want to do what God wants.

It's in me now.

I want to do it.

And that is the difference.

Salvation is God reaching in and he pulls out that heart of stone and he puts

within you a heart of flesh and you want to honor him with your life.

The opposite of that is hard heart,

I will not turn.

When we do this,

we're making,

we're doing something we may not even realize.

We're,

we're actually storing up God's anger against us as we refuse him.

Verse five says we are treasuring up for ourselves wrath in the day of wrath and revelation of

the righteous judgment of God.

And so,

you know,

here God is,

he's trying to rescue you and,

and you're pushing against him and you're refusing him and you're fighting him.

He's pleading for you to turn to him.

He's pleading for you to recognize that you are not righteous.

And so the immoral person,

as we talk,

as we talked about last week,

they try to hold this back from hitting them.

But,

the really nice person does the same thing.

We just do it in a,

in a more polite way.

Instead of fighting God,

we're just like,

you know,

it's no big deal.

I'll go to church.

That's not a big deal for me.

I'll be okay.

You know,

everything's fine.

It's like,

it's like we're cool.

We're unaffected.

We're not bothered.

We'll just add it.

We'll add it.

Like we added an insurance policy to our house.

We'll add church and God and religion to our lives,

right?

We don't really need it.

Not really.

Not really worried about a flood,

but sure.

I'll put the flood insurance on my house cause it's 20 bucks,

but I'm not worried about a flood taking all our stuff away.

It's the same way people deal with the Lord.

You know,

I'll add religion to my life just in case it's like a,

like a little backup policy for when I get to heaven,

you know,

just in case I didn't do enough.

I've got the policy.

did you see my policy?

you know?

Yeah.

what's happening.

Nice people think that it's bad people that need to be,

be saved when it's everybody that needs to be saved. And what we're doing when we reject God

is we're actually storing up God's anger against us. His wrath, judgment, what has to come down

against our sin, right? It's been said, right? Either you pay for sin or it's already been paid

for, right? And so if you have not turned to Jesus for salvation, understand something. Your bill is

getting longer and longer. You're going further and further into a debt you can never repay,

not ever. You're storing up more of God's anger against you, more of the justice that is required.

If you think about it this way, it's like committing a crime and instead of turning

yourself in, you continue to commit the crime, right? I had a dream about this not very long

ago. It was like I had committed this crime and I was on the run and I knew I just needed to turn

myself in. But for some reason, I didn't know what to do. I didn't know what to do. I didn't know

I kept doing stupid things and committing more crimes. And then I was like, my whole life was

like evaporating. I was realizing everything is going away. This is all going to catch up. I'm

going to be in prison forever. Do you have these dreams? Was this like a burrito I ate that night?

I don't know. I don't know what happened, right? But it was like terrifying, this idea. I'd like

killed somebody or something. And you're like, what? Right? It was crazy. But like, instead of

turning yourself in, it's like, you just keep going. I'm going to keep running. I'm going to

keep running. That's what people are doing. Instead of turning ourselves in, it's like the

charges are just piling up every moment, every day. To turn yourself in would be to come to God

and say, I have sinned. I have done wrong. If you have not done that, you are the person that is in

danger here. Now, we said it last week. Wrath is not something God is pouring out now. It's not

something he's trickling out to people. It is something that is being stored up for a day.

One single day, God will pour out. He will unleash. He will no longer hold back his wrath.

He will pour it out. He is holding it back right now. And there's a reason he's holding it back.

We talked about this last week. He's holding it back. Here it is. Maybe you're mistaking the

goodness of God again. God is holding back his wrath to give you time to repent. You can think,

well, I got all the time in the world. No, you don't. And you can think, well, look at all. I

mean, I can decide on my deathbed. Well, you don't know when that is. You don't know, right? And so

God is giving you time. He's holding back his judgment. You don't know when that is. You don't

judgment to give you time. Don't mistake that for you being okay. You're not okay. If you have not

hated your sin, hated your sin, and run to God for his mercy, you are in great danger today. Please

don't think coming here changes anything. It changes nothing. Don't think owning a Bible does

anything. It does nothing. Don't think being baptized, taking communion, singing songs, don't

think it does anything. It does nothing. If you do not abhor your sin before God and run to him

for his mercy, it doesn't matter how long you've been in the church. It doesn't matter that your

parents were pastors and Christians and whatever. It doesn't matter. If you do, every single person

must be saved. Every single person must flee to Jesus Christ for salvation. So if you've not done

that, God is not okay with you. You are not okay. You're not going to make it. You must flee to Jesus Christ for salvation.

You must turn to him for salvation. Verse six makes it clear. Nobody gets a pass. It says God

will render to each one according to his deeds. What does this mean? Well, let me just say it does

not mean that God is going to let people into heaven based on if they've done good things and

God is going to send people to hell if they've done bad things. That's not what this means.

It's actually, excuse me, it's actually the description of the Christian life. God is going

to render to each of us according to our deeds, whether we have done good,

in our lives, which means to follow the Lord and do what he wants us to, though we fail and all of

that, or whether we live our lives in complete opposition to God, God is going to give us what

we wanted, right? We are going to stand before God in judgment. Every single person is going to stand

before God. Now, please hear this. You can only stand before God in one of two ways. The first

way that you can stand before God is to be judged for what you have done. I don't want to stand before

based on what I have done.

Thank God there's a second way to stand before God,

and that is to stand before God to be judged based on what he has done.

And that is what the Bible says.

I can stand before God to be judged by what Jesus has done,

instead of what I have done.

If you turn to him for salvation, this is what happens.

Of course, we talk about receiving Jesus,

but understand the Bible more often talks about you being put into Jesus Christ.

And what this means is that when you stand before God,

guess who you are standing in.

You are standing in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, before the Father God.

And so when God looks at you, he sees his Son.

And so he is not looking at what Chuck has done.

He is looking at what Jesus has done.

Folks, it's perfection.

It's the only way you'll enter heaven.

So here's the real question.

Are you in Christ?

There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ,

Are you in Christ?

You're in church.

You may not be in Christ.

The only way you'll enter heaven is if you're in Christ,

because that is the only thing that makes you perfect.

Your sin is removed.

His perfect sinless perfection is, is your,

is the criteria by which you are judged.

You stand before God.

You're in him.

God sees him and not you.

This is what it means.

And guess what?

Instead of receiving the condemnation that I deserve,

I receive his reward.

That's what the Bible says.

Do you realize you receive Jesus's reward as you stand before God?

Instead of the condemnation and the judgment that I deserve,

I'm going to receive Jesus's reward because I'm in him.

And the only way to be in him is to come to him,

is to humble yourself and come to him in your need today to turn to him.

And he says he will, he will hide you in Christ.

Oh, I love it.

What a beautiful picture.

So I ask you, how will you stand before God?

Will you stand?

As the Bible says, naked and exposed before the eyes of him to whom we must give an account,

he sees everything.

Or will you stand before God, hidden in Christ, his righteousness and not your own?

Well, those who come to God will receive this.

Look at verse seven.

It says eternal life, eternal life.

That's what it means to be saved.

Eternal life, ongoing forever.

Never stopping is the idea life forever.

But then look at this eternal life is what it means to be saved.

What is given to verse seven, those who by patient continuance and doing good,

seek for glory, honor and immortality.

What does this mean?

Again, it's the description of a Christian's life.

We've talked about it many times.

You want to know if you're a true Christian?

Do you want to do what God wants you to do?

Do you have that soft, tender heart towards God where you read his word and it,

it affects you, it changes you, it moves you.

Do you stop doing things you would want to do?

Because God doesn't want you to do those things.

Whose will wins?

Whose will drives you forward?

You see, this is the description, patient continuance.

It just means an ongoing desire to do what is good, to honor God with my life.

That's what I want.

It says there, we have a series of desires as a born again person.

We want to please God.

We want to do what's good.

So with our lives, we want to honor God.

The unsaved person has no,

no interest in this.

The born again person wants to please God,

but also there's a desire the born again person has,

and that is to be with God in his glory.

Do you, as a follower of Christ,

do you want to be in his presence?

We're like, well, I don't really want the dying part of it so much,

but I definitely do want to be in his presence, right?

Bible says where our treasure is there,

our heart is also.

We want to be with him.

We can't wait to be with him.

That's what heaven is.

So we want to be in his glory.

But then also born again,

people have a desire for the honor that only comes from him.

This is a word that means he is happy with us.

It's what you will experience when he looks at you and says,

well done, good and faithful servant.

You've been faithful over a few things.

Enter into the joy of your Lord.

Can you imagine the day that he looks at you and says that?

That is the desire of every believer's heart.

Can't wait for the day he looks and says, well done.

And you go, I didn't do anything well, nothing.

And he's like, you looked to me, you trusted me.

Well done, good and faithful servant.

Man, this is the desire, right?

This is what we want.

Well, to these that want these things, verse 7 says, you will receive immortality.

It is a word that means incorruptible, and it describes what heaven is.

No decay, no loss, no destruction, no evil, no anything.

It is life.

It is blessing.

It is encouragement.

It is life forever.

And so that is the description of the person that will enter heaven.

Now, look at verse 8.

Here is the description of the person that will not.

The person that will not enter heaven.

Look what it says, verse 8.

But a complete contrast.

Here is the unsaved.

Are those who are self-seeking.

Please hear this.

The unsaved person does not seek God.

They don't seek the will of God.

They don't want God's will, his word, his ways.

They do not seek him.

They seek themselves at the end of the day.

The unsaved person.

The unsaved person, me, before Jesus Christ, my own desires were the center of my universe.

What I wanted was the most important thing.

My will was the most important.

My life, that is what it was, right?

The unsaved people will not.

The people that will not enter heaven, their lives are defined by seeking to please themselves rather than God.

The self-seeking manifests itself in a few ways.

Look at this.

They do not obey the truth.

It's a refusal.

They will not hear it.

They will not obey it.

They will not follow it.

It doesn't matter what they say.

It doesn't matter how many crosses are hanging in their house.

It doesn't matter how many Bibles they have.

It doesn't matter how long they went to church.

You tell them what God's word says, bing, just bounces right off of them.

They are bulletproof.

They are bulletproof to the word of God, to the will of God, to God's ways.

They are bulletproof to those things.

You will not change them.

They do not adhere to the truth.

They won't do it.

They obey.

Instead, it says, verse 8, they obey unrighteousness instead of righteousness.

Everybody obeys something.

You're either obeying righteousness or unrighteousness.

Your life is either led by you or it's led by God.

Well, here is the result.

They will have this, and terrifying, the end of 8 and 9.

Look at this.

Indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish on every soul of man.

It does evil.

The indignation is the intense anger of God.

The wrath is what we said, God's desire to wipe out all evil.

Tribulation is a word that means to crush, and it's what God will do with his wrath.

He will crush all evil completely.

And there will come a point when God will not hold back his wrath anymore,

and he will crush all evil and all evildoers.

Again, the Bible says it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

The unsaved person might think they're strong.

You ain't.

You're not strong enough.

The unsaved person might think they can handle it.

You can't handle it.

Nothing will stand before the wrath of God.

And the word anguish there, you should really take note of,

because it's a very graphic word.

It's a word that means to narrow, to squeeze,

and it's the idea you can't get out of it.

I found out a few years ago that I was claustrophobic.

I did not know that about myself until I was in a tunnel and found it out

and started to freak out.

And the only thing I could think of was get me,

get me out of here.

And when I hear this word, it's the description of hell.

It's like you're in this confined space that you cannot get yourself out of.

It is terrible, but it is the very thing God has done to rescue you from this.

Please hear this.

Hell is the option for everyone who hates him, who rejects him,

who refuses him, whether they do it with swear words

or whether they do it with niceties.

It is the place that every person who rejects him,

it is where they will be.

And he does not want anyone to be there.

No one.

He said it over and over.

It was not created for you.

It was not created for you.

It was created for the devil and it was created for his angels.

But hear this.

You are eternal.

And there are only two eternal places that you can be.

One is heaven.

The other is hell.

And so God has done everything needed to save you from hell.

The only thing he has not done is forced you.

It's the only thing he hasn't done.

He is not dead.

Taken you, gripped you, made you do it.

That's the only thing God hasn't done.

Every other thing God has done to save you from hell.

He begs you.

He pleads with you.

God does this.

And you say, well, how can hell be eternal like that?

I mean, isn't it like, you know, a decision we make here on earth?

Why would it be so long?

Isn't it like a really, you know, terrible consequence for such a short-term thing?

Well, here's the thing.

According to the Bible, people in hell never stop hating God.

They don't turn from him, not even for a moment.

There's not a moment.

Their hate grows for him.

They curse him.

They bite their tongues and they grind their teeth and they curse God.

They hate him.

And that grows and that keeps deepening for all eternity.

I mean, I know this is probably not theologically sound,

but I truly believe that if someone was in hell and they had a moment where they turned to God,

God would rescue them.

But according to the scriptures, they will not.

They will only deepen.

In their hatred for him.

And so it says there at the end of verse nine,

that all of this comes upon every soul of man who does evil.

The words there do not, they're not talking about you doing good or doing bad.

It's talking about your whole life.

It's talking about what you are, their lives, the unsaved person.

Again, you may be very nice, but your life is set against him.

You reject him.

You don't see your need for salvation.

You don't turn to God.

You are in continual opposition.

To God.

So let's bring it down to you.

Where are you headed?

Are you storing up for yourselves wrath?

God's anger against you because there you don't have to go that way.

Verse 10 tells you instead, you can have glory and honor and peace to everyone who works.

What is good and watch this.

It's available to anyone.

Verse 11, for there is no partiality with God.

Do you know that there's no racism with God?

There's no classism with God.

There's no social.

There's no racial system with God.

He doesn't hear people who have more, you know, more than he hears people who have nothing.

He doesn't hear good people more than he hears bad people.

He will hear the cry of every person.

There is no, there is no partiality with God.

He will hear you today, no matter what you've done, no matter what mistakes you've ever made, no matter how much you've cursed and hated and, and lied and cheated and whatever, it doesn't matter what you've done.

If you will turn to God today.

There is no partiality.

God, he doesn't hear the church kids more than he hears you.

If you turn to him, he will rescue you.

The only reason you won't do it is the hardness of your heart.

It is not because you don't have the information.

You have it.

It is not because you don't have opportunity.

You're still breathing.

You have it.

It is not because of any other reason except the hardness of the human heart.

But man, if you will humble yourself before God and turn to him, he will rescue you.

There is no partiality with God.

What's your need today?

It'd be real with God.

Talk to him.

He will rescue you.

Let's pray together.

Lord, we thank you for your goodness and your kindness to rescue us as people.

Lord, we just admit our need.

If that's you this morning, you're watching online or you're here today and you know you have been resisting him.

You've been in opposition to him.

You must humble yourself right now.

You must ask God to take out that heart of stone.

God, I'm a sinner.

Take out this heart of stone.

Replace it with a heart of stone.

Replace it with a heart of flesh.

Save me.

Ask the Lord to forgive you for your sin, your wickedness, your evil.

God, forgive us and save me.

The Lord is listening to you.

There's no partiality with him.

He loves you.

He always has.

He's trying to rescue you now.

Will you let him?

Turn to him.

We thank you, Lord.

We love you.

Give ourselves to you.

In Jesus' name I pray.

Can we stand together?