God's Wrath

 “Gods Wrath” // Message @ JRCC – Sunday, March 6, 2011

Text: Romans 2:1-16 // Series: “But Now…” The Greatest Words Ever Spoken

Good morning, welcome here, friends.  I’m going to invite you to grab your beverages and come on back in and take a seat.  This morning, we are launching into a new teaching series for the season of Lent.  How many know what this Tuesday is?  Mardi Gras, which is French for “Fat Tuesday”.  Does anyone know what Fat Tuesday is?  The last night of eating fatty or rich foods before you give them up for Lent.  In the Christian calendar, Lent is the 40 day period leading up to Easter Sunday in which a person voluntarily choose to give something up as a way of reminding themselves of what Jesus gave up for us.  Just like we have a season of preparation and anticipation leading up to Christmas, which we call Advent, so too there is a period of anticipation and preparation leading up to Passion week, which this year will be on Sunday, April 24.  And Ash Wednesday is the first of those 40 days.  Now, in the Christian tradition, you begin the season of Lent in a very un-Mardi Gras fashion, with something called the imposition of ashes.  We don’t necessarily have a tradition of practicing it here at JRCC, but I think it’s a good tradition.  The tradition is that you save the palm branches from the previous year’s Palm Sunday gathering and you obviously let them dry out, you burn them and collect the ashes and you host an imposition service where the priest or pastor takes those ashes and puts the sign of the cross on your forehead as a way of reminding us of how quickly our praises can fade and how deeply enmeshed in our own hurts, habits, hang-ups and sins we are.  The sole purpose of an Ash Wednesday gathering is to remind us of how dark the human heart is and how sinful we are so that the power of the message of Jesus’ saving work on the cross and his triumph over death, hell and the grave is that much more stark and clear and apparent.  I love the starkness of that contrast… the jubilant atmosphere of Fat Tuesday butts right up against the solemnity of Ash Wednesday…  

As we go through the Lenten season this year, we are going to engage in a study in contrasts…  Darkness and light.  Sin and Salvation.  Before and After.  Death and Resurrection.  Because in some places, like the book of Romans, the Bible is particularly clear about these contrasts.  And there’s a little phrase and an image that you can see on the front of your new Momentum Journals which might help solidify this in our corporate and individual thinking…  One of the great preachers of the last century was a man by the name of Martin Lloyd Jones.  He was the pastor at Westminster Chapel in London, England and he made it his work to study and preach the book of Romans.  He ended up writing a 14 volume commentary series on it because it was full of such depth and rich theology.  Once, when he was asked about the contrast he replied “There are no more wonderful words in the whole of Scripture than just these two words, “But Now.”  Once you were far from God, but now, Romans 6:21, you have been set free from sin.  For we were controlled by the sinful nature, BUT NOW, Romans 7:5-6, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit.”  But Now just may be the greatest words ever spoken over your life and mine and so we’re going to spend the weeks leading up to Easter studying 4 chapters of the book of Romans.  So, let me give you a quick overview and then we’ll dive into our topic for this morning.  You’ll want to flip to page 28 in your journal if you’d like to take some notes:  First thing is to note the connectivity between our last series and this one…  Romans is

• Is like the ‘Genesis’ of the New Testament…  It’s about worldview

–     “What is God like?”  We’re going to go there this morning… 

–     “What is the meaning and significance of Christ’s life, death, and resurrection?” Written as a letter to explain this to people, like you and I, who were not physically present for these history-altering events (separated by geography), but they were also separated culturally so we’ll see a lot of contrast language between Jews and non-Jews (called Gentiles), between faith and works as the author, one of the early Christian apostles, a man named Paul, wrote to a church in the city of Rome.  The purpose of his writing this letter is very much a live question for us today…  If the events of Jesus’ life show us who God is, and His death and resurrection had saving meaning for all humanity

–     “How should we respond if these things are true?”  There’s a lot of weight there.  It’s a book heavy on history, reflection and searching for meaning.  But there are some unique idiosyncrasies

• Lot’s of on (and off) topic muttering by Paul – he rambles.  He’ll be talking about this, then he’ll go over here, then back…  It takes work to follow his logic sometimes because it is:

–     Very dense philosophically & theologically - so we can’t cover it all here in Sunday morning.  You’ll notice you reading plan on pages 13-16 where you’ll read the whole book in smaller chunks

–     Our plan: Teach through chapters 2, 3, 5 & 6

So that’s where we’re headed and why we are headed there:  Because those questions are important for us to consider.  Take the first one, for example – what is God like?  Romans 1 and then into chapter 2 takes a hard look at this question so if you have your Bibles, please open them to Romans 2 and we’ll pray as we look into God’s Word this morning. 

A friend of mine once came to me and said, “Brad, I would become a Christian except for two things…  Number 1, Christians as pretty judgmental.  And number 2, as I read the Bible, I think that they get this from God, who seems pretty darn judgmental, even angry to me.  I mean, what’s up with God’s wrath?”  In popular culture, this often gets expressed in cartoons…  For example, the earth as God’s Stress Ball.  Or this one from the Farside, [piano] What’s God doing right now?  He’s up in heaven, watching and waiting for me to do something bad – his divine hand hovers over the SHIFT key, and then boom!  He’s going to come down hard on me.  Or this one [fist], which is from an evangelistic tract from the 1950’s…  There’s sinful man and boom – God must pour out his wrath on sin.  Doesn’t that just make you want to become a Christians right now?  And so a thinking person has to ask and answer the question, is that what God is like?  What do we do with the biblical teaching on God’s Wrath?  I’ll be suggesting this morning that the doctrine of God’s wrath is profoundly good news and we’ll explore why together today.  Let’s read from Romans 2, which actually begins in Romans 1:18 with a discussion of how God’s Wrath is poured out against unrighteousness… 

The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness

Then he goes into a discussion on natural revelation, skip to verse 29. 

They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips,³⁰ slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; ³¹ they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. ³² Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.  Chapter 2…

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 Now we know that God’s judgment against those who do such things is based on truth. ³ 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? ⁴Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, forbearance and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness is intended to lead you to repentance?  So in this short text:

What do we learn about God?

1.       God is Just

- “God, in His justice, will punish anyone who does such things” (2:2)

God’s justice is profoundly good news!  We saw this in Genesis and we see it playing out on the nightly news as we watch things unfolding in our world…  There are things that are profoundly wrong with our world and some of these things are perpetuated by wicked people.  It is profoundly counter our cultural notions to label or name people as wicked but as you watch what is unfolding in Libya under the rule of a tyrant who is murdering his own citizens, our hearts cry out for justice.  And this is particularly where God’s wrath is good news.  Because it is close tied to a sense of justice.  It means that there are things in our world that God is rightly and righteously upset about.  The wrath of God is good news because there are things in our world that are wrong and that cry out for justice.  And so here in Romans we learn that God is just.  The He will set things right.

But we also learn something about ourselves, and it isn’t pretty…

1.       We are Judgemental 

          - “You who judge others do these very same things” (2:1)

You see, it’s easy for us to sit in our comfy chairs and watch TV and condemn others.  But you are also sinning by sitting in judgment on them.  It’s not your job – God is the righteous judge.  And that’s where my friend had their observation about Christians being judgmental correct – we have been at points - but their facts wrong.  Take, as a bad example, the Baptist church in the US who this past week won the right in the Supreme Court to protest a military funerals.  What are they protesting?  How much God hates things!  It’s so easy for us to slip into double standards as we sit in judgment over others, all the while, we are sinning ourselves.  Look at the list again from Romans 1…  There’s some big stuff in there to be sure, but there’s also much more subtle sins in there; gossip, deception, disobedient to parents…  The text is reminds us, you think you’re so holy or smart or close to Jesus – watch out!  You’ve just fallen into the trap of judgementalism.  Which is NOT your job or my job.  God himself is the righteous judge and He is just in punishing wrong doing.  All wrong doing. 

But NOW, we see another amazing contrast:  we learn another thing about God is this text:

2.       God is Kind, Tolerant and Patient            

- The goal: recognition & repentance (2:4) 

It’s like the story of Noah’s ark, God decided to send a flood but he gave people 100 years and a crazy huge object lesson to say “I am inviting you to turn from your ways, recognize the reality of my judgment and repent.”  This is where all too often where we love to land – God’s tolerance.  The French skeptic Voltaire once said “God will forgive, that is His ‘business’”.  Which is true.  But the image of God as soft, gentle, kind and tolerant of everything and everyone which is highly pervasive in our culture, doesn’t square with the totality of the Biblical text.  Last night, there was a sketch on Saturday Night Live where one of the cast members plays the devil and makes social commentary.  And he says God is all loving and tolerant and stuff.  That’s His thing.”  Which it is, but a God who is all fluff without a sense of justice and wrath is no God at all.  It’s like a parent who lets all kinds of stuff go on in the house in the name of tolerance and lets the kids do their thing.  Well, if my kids were allowed to do whatever they wanted, they’d eat crap for breakfast, lunch and dinner.  They’d treat people as their personal servants, they’d grow up into egocentric, maniacal human beings who did whatever they wanted with no thoughts as to the consequences!  And, quite frankly, I would too J.

But that’s where in this text, we learn the second shocking thing about ourselves… That even though God is kind and patient,

2. We are Persistently Stubborn  Listen to Romans 2:5 and following

- “But because 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”                                                                    Romans 2:5 NIV

 ⁶ God “will repay each person according to what they have done.”^[a] 7 To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, he will give eternal life. ⁸ But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger.

So this text is a kind of juxtaposition…  That God is tolerant and patient but that even so, we are hell-bent in our stubbornness.  And as a result, God’s judgment is just because it is based on our actions and more fundamentally, rooted in His righteous character. 

So, at this point you might still be saying why is God’s wrath good news?  Because it means that there is a standard.  Look at verse 16 of chapter 2 – This is the message I proclaim – that the day is coming when God through Christ Jesus, will judge every one’s secret life”.  The good news is that there is a standard.  

The BAD News:  because we have failed to meet that standard,

• We are enemies of God
• We are objects of His wrath   

The Bible is clear that God’s wrath is directed against those who choose to remain in the condition of enemies of God.  Who reject Christ and His work on the cross.  Jesus clarifies this in John chapter 3…  He’s in a discussion with a highly religious person who wants to know if he’s going to make it to heaven.  And Jesus is 100% clear in his response.

Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God's wrath remains on him.” (John 3:36)

This past week, I had the privilege of sitting with two women in their 90’s and praying with them.  When you sit with someone who is dying and who knows they are dying, they are not usually trying to advocate their own goodness.  They are usually saying ‘here’s what I need to tell God I am sorry for.”  When we get to the end of our lives, we realize with precision and clarity that we may not be as good as we thing we are.   

The hard truth is that biblically speaking, each of us deserve God’s wrath.  We deserve, because of the wrongs that we have committed and the good things we have left undone, to sit under the judgment of Almighty God.  But that’s where those two words BUT NOW are such incredibly good news! 

The Good news:

• Through Christ’s death, we are spared God’s wrath. 
• We move from judgment to freedom

Right from the book of Genesis, God has a plan to deal with the human sin condition in a way that satisfies the need for justice and you does not involve the complete annihilation of each and every person who ever lived!  God put in place a plan whereby you and I could be spared the wrath of God and move from judgment to freedom.  Paul uses the image of turning or making an about-face…   Making a different choice (the language of parenting) 

“You turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come.”                        (I Thessalonians 1:9-10)

So something profound and amazing happens when you and I choose to accept the reality to what happened on the cross.  Invitation: There is only one way to be saved from the wrath of God.  That’s why we are going to celebrate communion more regularly this season.  The image that I want you to keep in your mind is that of a shield. 

-      BUT NOW from Ephesians 2:11 -

-      Implication: Rejoice!  Enemies can be reconciled.  You can live free from fear of being struck by a Divine lightening bolt.  You can embrace life and JOY because you are shielded from God’s wrath by the blood of Christ Jesus.