Amen. Can we pray? Father, thank you so much for your presence. Thank you for what you are doing through the MMI ministry. Thank you for graduating in Chantal. We ask that you bless them, bless their home as they pour out into marriages. And as they pour out doing your work, serving you, I ask that you will in return refresh them, bless them. And I ask Lord that you bless the time we have together around your world. Teachers speak to us, and we pray that we will hear what the spirit of the Lord has to say to us. This morning in Jesus' name. And everybody says, "Amen and amen." Family, please turn it me to the Book of Romans. This is our closing message this morning on the series. We leave Rome, and we are back in the Psalms next week. We are at Psalm 11 next week. So prepare your heart, mark that on your reading plan, Psalm 11 next week. And then we turn back to the Book of Exodus, where we will complete our series, if you recall. A few months ago we were in Exodus, and we'll just complete our series on Exodus. When you are at Romans chapter 2, please give me an amen. Just a reminder that I do have these tickets available. Actually, there's going to be eight tickets left, it's only 100, and when you are interested, if you're interested, I will forward you the banking details. It will be transferred to one of the pastors at PPC. Reading from verse 17. "But if you call yourself a Jew, and rely on the law, and boast in God, and know his will, and approve what is excellence, because you are instructed from the law. And if you are sure that you yourself are a guide to the blind, a light to those who are in darkness, and instructor of the foolish, a teacher of the children, having in the law the embodiment of knowledge and truth, you then who teach others, do you not teach yourself? While you preach against dealing, do you steal? You say one must not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who are bore idols, do you rob temples? You boast in the law, does honor God by breaking the law. For as it is written, the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you. For circumcision indeed is of value if you obey the law, but if you break the law, your circumcision becomes uncircumcision. So if a man who is uncircumcised keeps the precepts of the law, will not his uncircumcision be regarded as circumcision. Then he who is physically uncircumcised but keeps the law will condemn you who have the written code and circumcision, but break the law. For no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, no circumcision outward and physical, but a Jew is one inwardly and circumcision is a matter of the heart serving God, is a matter of the heart by the spirit, not by the letter. His praise is not from man but from God, amen, and amen. God bless us the reading of this word. Just before we get into the text, we will busy with a case study which we title the four-piece puzzle of Christ's identity. There's four paradigms, four truths on how we understand Christ and his mission and who is the first week of Romans. We mentioned that it is the triune creator covenant Lord that shapes who Christ is. He is part of the triune Godhead. He is our creator as we learned from John 1 and Colossians 1 and 2. He also is a covenant God. He relates to us through covenants and he is Lord, which means he's not just our creator, he is sovereign. That means he does what he wants, how he wants, and he is over all. Secondly, we mentioned that a relationship with the triune covenant keeping God requires our obedience, requires obedience in our part and that is the heart of why Christ came. Thirdly, we address the subject of human corruption, of sin, sin's corruption, and God's response to sin. That shapes who Christ is and why he came and what he accomplished in the earth. And lastly, this morning, the fourth piece that we need to understand about who Christ is, is that God himself saves us. God himself saves us. And in simpler terms, those four pieces really establish who God is, what he requires from us, why sin creates a problem between God and man, and how God himself provides a solution. And so the question is, who is able to solve the complex relationship between God and man? What kind of person would be able to fulfill all of God's promises and inaugurate the saving rule of God in the earth? And the biblical answer is clear and it's simple, only God. God and God alone was able to save us, not an angel, not a cherubim, seraphim, not one of the prophets of antiquity, not any seemingly moral or righteous being, created being, salvation could only be accomplished by God himself. And is this not clear in the storyline of Old Testament history? God is the one who intervenes. God is the one who initiates redemption. We saw that in the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve sent, they hid from God, they did not approach God, they did not come to God. God initiated the act of redemption. God approached him, God sought him out. We see that in the history of Israel, time and time again, it was God who initiated salvation. It was God who redeemed them and delivered them out from Egypt. It was God who brought them out of Babylon and it has always been God himself that has acted to initiate and save his people. And this complex problem that we created, that Adam created, between God and man, was a problem too complex for us to solve. It was a problem that only God could achieve by himself. And so God would provide for himself a ram and a substitute in the ticket. God would provide himself as a sacrifice for the sins of the world. God must unilaterally act himself to redeem mankind who was incapable of saving himself. So it was God, the Son, the eternal Word of God, the uncreated, begotten Son of God. Second person in the divine triune God, he steps out from eternity into time. He becomes our earthly representative, perfectly obeying all of God's commands perfectly and ultimately he becomes a substitute for you and I and it was only God who could save us, only God. And so this is the picture of the biblical Jesus. It we are under the indictments and condemnation of God because we broke a covenant between God and us. We violated the terms of the covenant and his moral perfect being required justice, but he loved us. And in his infinite wisdom, he found a way for his love to save us from himself, from his wrath, from his judgment, from his justice. And so God himself, eternal, uncreated, begotten Son of God would initiate and act alone to redeem us. Amen. That's the public of Jesus. Now when we get into Romans chapter 2, just by way of introduction, I remember some time ago reading about a archaeological discovery by Howard Carter and it was some many years ago in 1922 and he had found the tomb of an Egyptian pharaoh King Tutankhamun. And he found this casket and when he opened up the casket, there was a second casket inside of it. And the second casket was covered with the golden leaf. And he opened up the second casket, and inside this casket was another casket. And this casket, when he opened this casket, there was another casket in it. And this casket was made of pure gold, pure gold. And eventually opened up the fourth casket and found this dead pharaoh's body wrapped in a gold cloth. And his head had a gold face mask on it. And when he unwrapped the body, what he found was a grizzly, leathery, shriveled, a dead body. Caskets of gold were layered beautifully. The exterior was beautifully covered, impressed. You know, the archaeologists all over the world, impressed everyone who was standing there and viewing this beautifully layered caskets. But it did not change the fact that inside of this casket was a dead rotten corpse. And when Romans chapter 2 presents to us is a case where Paul shows us that it's possible to be deeply spiritual and religious on the outside. And you're not converted at odds, not changed at odds. And so we see this contrast between chapters 1 and chapter 2. In chapter 1, Paul argues that sinners, the Gentiles specifically, who were without the law of Moses, without the Torah, will die and be judged by God without the law because sinnersism. And he's given them the law of conscience and he's given them creation to point them to the existence of God and the beauty and power of God because Romans chapter 1 and that from verse 20 says, "For since the beginning of creation, the invisible attributes of God were clearly made visible. His eternal God had in power." And so he gave the Gentiles a conscience, a conscience last week we defined as God's deputy and vice-region that helps us to discern right from wrong and to give us this innate sense of the existence of God. He gave us creation. And now in chapter 2, Paul turns his attention away from the Gentiles and now he takes aim at the Jews, the ones who were accountable to the law of Moses, the ones who did not have just general revelation. Remember we spoke about general and special revelation last week. Now they've been given special revelation which means they have now access to a more comprehensive, detailed world of God and they are accountable to it. So in more than one sense they are more accountable and responsible to God. And now he takes aim at the Jews. And so what we see in chapter 1 and in chapter 2 is this, we see in chapter 1, Paul dealing with the unconverted, irreligious man, the Genta. In chapter 2, he is now dealing with the unconverted, religious man. It's what we see in the parable of the prodigal son in Luke 15. In fact, this is why reading into subtitles and chapters and verses can be a disadvantage when reading because your Bible will mark the parable as the parable of the prodigal son. But it's actually a parable of two law sons. And Jesus tells the story of the younger brother who went out and squandered all his estate and all inheritance that the father gave him. But the story did not just address the issue of the younger brother, but address the issue of the lost elder brother who was in the father's house and took his father who granted and though he was in the father's house and had all the provisions of the father, he was distant from the hearts of the father. And so the real issue with that parable is that the older brother is just as lost as the younger brother. And this is typical of the Jew and the Gentile. The Gentiles squandered everything. But the older brother, who was privileged in a place of privilege, missed his father's heart. Packer stated that the older brother's refusal to celebrate his younger brother's return shows how estranged this older brother was from the father's grace. He was lost in his own self-righteousness and blind to the father's unconditional love. And so Romans 1 verse 16 which was a Clint Priston a few weeks ago really sets the tone and framework for the book of Romans. We Paul declares that he is not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ because it is the power of God unto salvation to all those who will believe first the Jew. Then the Gentile. And so in chapters 1 Paul has to show the Gentiles their need for the gospel. And then in chapters 2 he shows the Jews their need for the gospel. And in order to do that he must now explain and show us how how disastrous and how distant and how condemned we are under his judgments. And so he leaves in chapter 1 the Gentiles with no excuse. He says you are without excuse not even the fact that you didn't have the law. You are without excuse because sin is sin and I've given you a conscience and I've given you creation. And then he turns now in chapter 2 to the self-righteous judgmental moralizing Jews. And he says just as the Gentiles are without excuse you are without excuse either as well. And so what we see in chapter 2 if you put your eyes on the text we see that in verse 2 he shows the Jews that God's judgment is a true reflection of the reality of the condition of the hearts. It's a true righteous judgment. Verse 3 he shows us that God's judgment allows no exceptions. Verse 4a God's judgment unmos all presumption removes away the facades. Verse 4b shows us that God's judgment does involve a merciful call to repentance. He makes provision for mercy. But when his judgment is executed there's no appeal. It's final. Verse 5 he tells us that God's judgment results in terrible horrific retribution. Verse 6 to 8 he shows us that God's judgment is based on what we've really been what we've sought and what we've done. Verse 11 he shows us that God's judgment is without partiality. 8 and 9 shows us that God's judgment has eternal consequences. God's judgment is pronounced on us also individually. Verse 11 to 15 he shows us that God's judgment is made according to light. According to the light we have received according to the revelation we've received. So he judges us based on the fact that somebody can tell you about Jesus. That you have a Bible app on your phone. He judges you for all of that. Verse 16 he shows us that God's judgment reaches the secrets of our hearts. That God's judgment is committed into the hands of Jesus Christ. And so Romans 2 can be divided into a few sections verses 1 to 5 Paul addresses in chapter 2. He addresses the hypocrisy and the self-righteousness of the Jews. Then from verses 6 to 11 he discusses how God will judge everyone and every Jew according to the to their deeds. And in from verse 12 to 16 we have the third section where Paul examines how Gentiles who do not have the law are judged by their conscience and how the Jews who have the law will be judged by the law. And then the remaining two sections we look at this morning where Paul discusses twin themes of the Torah. And that's 17 to 24 we'll look at and then we'll look at 25 to 29. And so from verses 17 to 24 Paul speaks up with how the law is the stipulation of the covenant. It's the legal aspect to the covenant and how the law provides us with God's will. And in from verse 25 to 29 he speaks about the sign of the covenant which is circumcision. And so our first point today from verses 17 to 24 which we'll be looking at is how the Jews have failed to uphold the stipulation of the covenant, how they have failed to uphold the law. And so what we have in verse 17 Paul is contrasting the Jews' possession of the law with their failure to perform the law. And so in verse 17 he says but if you call yourself a Jew rely on the law and boast in God. Being a Jew meant they were distinguished from every other nation. Being a Jew meant that they were a covenant people. Being a Jew meant that they were held to a higher level of responsibility than any other nation. Being a Jew carried some sense of national and religious pride both in the good sense and in the bad sense. And so Paul highlights being a Jew in the bad sense here. And he shows us and he takes aim at the Jews by reminding them that yes you are covenant people. You have received the promise of Abraham and you are established as a people to the covenant of Moses and God has distinguished you as a Jew because you are a custodian of the law. You are possessed of the law of Moses. And in verse 17 we see that it was the possession of the law of Moses that distinguished him as a covenant people. They had what every other nation didn't have the law. Verse 18 we see that not only that they possessed the law but they were instructed in the law. In other words they had an understanding of what the law entailed and that was the will of God. Because the word of God contains the will of God. Verse 19 to 20 we also learn that not only were they possessors and custodians of the law and not only did they understand the revealed will of God in the law but since they had the law and understood the law they had the responsibility to be teachers of the law and communicate God's law to the Gentile nations. And so they were Jews by covenant people. They were possessors and custodians of the law and they also had their boast in God. Paul says you had your boast in God. In other words you have history with God. You can tell stories of how God called Abraham out from Mesopotamia. You can tell stories of how God delivered us as a nation out of a 400 year bondage of slavery under the most powerful dominant nation at the time Egypt. And you supernaturally were delivered and passed through the Red Sea. And how God did that through signs, wonders and miracles and rain down ten plagues on Egypt. You have stories to tell. You can post about how God used men like Samson and David and the Prophet is Deborah and Joshua. You have such rich history of how God has come through for you. You have a testimony and yet in spite of your history with God, in spite of the covenant you have with God, in spite of being in possession of the law of God and having an understanding of his world, you still fail to uphold the righteous requirement of the law. Imagine that. Imagine having history with God. Knowing your Bible. Able to quote your Bible. You have an understanding of his world for your life. You have a testimony of how God has come through for you financially. You have a testimony of how God healed you from your sick bed and yet still you neglect to follow his world. That's why it's important that we have to keep our fictions and our heart burning for Christ each day. Because even with history and testimonies what God has done for you, your heart can still drift. You got to walk with God every day and not allow any room or space for the enemy. Man, I once knew a young lady who had a powerful testimony of how God delivered her from brain damage. Brain damage and how she had this powerful encounter with God. Just to find her share testimony, share a story, many got saved and born again through a story just a year later for her to give her life up with God. You can have history with God. You can have a reputation of being this dynamic preacher. And if we don't keep our hearts burning for him every day, it's easy to drift. That's indictment Jesus holds at the church at Sardis in Revelation Chapter 3. He says, "Man, you guys have a name that you are alive, but you did. You have a reputation, but in reality you are dead. You have a reputation of being this preacher, being this Sunday school teacher. Man, I remember Grenville when someone calls up your name. I remember Devon. I remember Devon. Man, he was such a faithful Sunday school teacher. He used to love the Lord so much. Man, I remember that for God with a big cause. Man, he used to put the church flags up every Sunday morning. Let us never have that kind of indictment against us. We were once known for people who loved the Lord and who served him faithfully. And so when we look further down at verses 21 and 23, by now you should know what an inclusion is. We talk about it quite often. It's a literary instrument that the Hebrew writers use very frequently. They use an inclusion to frame a particular passage of Scripture so that they can highlight it. And so the purpose of an inclusion is really to highlight a point that the writer wants to bring to our attention and focus on. And so you'll find that the two framing thoughts or sentences are either repeated or they rephrased in a similar way. And so verse 21a and verse 23 form an inclusio. If you're reading with me, so you'll see verse 21a, Paul says, "You, then who teach others, do not teach yourself." And look at verse 23, "You who boast in the law, do you honor God by breaking the law." So what is it trying to bring to our attention? What is it trying to bring to the tension of the Jewish people? These two verses convey really the theme of and the point of hypocrisy that he's bringing across to them. And these two verses, the same verse, the verse in between, where Paul lets three specific sins that he accuses the Jews of. And this highlights the hypocrisy because they were so passionate around these three commandments. And so in verse 21b, the first violation and the first son he brings to the Jews' attention. He says, "While you preach against stealing, do you steal?" This is a violation of the eight commandments. And verse 22, second violation, "You who say that one must not commit adultery, do you commit adultery?" This is a violation of the seven commandments. And then the third son he brings to the Jews' attention is a state, "You who abhor idols, do you rob the temple?" This is a violation of the first commandment of the ten commandments. This is the sacrilege. Sacrilege is when you treat something that is holy and sacred as common and in an irreverent way. How is sacrilege a violation of the first commandment? You treat what is associated with God and to God with contempt. And this undermines his supremacy. This undermines his glory. And you diminish what he holds in high value. It's a violation of the first commandment. And so he really goes out of his way to show and point out to the Jews that you are lawbreakers. We have to be careful as people of God never to make light of what God makes a big fuss about. We have to be careful not to diminish in value what God holds in high esteem. And he holds his name in high regard. He holds his worship in high regard. He holds his word with high esteem. He holds the gathering of his people with high regard. And so we don't treat Bible study. We don't treat the preaching of the gospel. We don't treat the reading of Scripture. We don't treat prayer like a light matter. We treat it with honor and respect because he places value on this. He loves his word. He loves it when we pray and come together. He loves when we give. And so we don't put any contempt on what he values. And that means we've got to make time for what he is invested in. We've got to give attention to what he loves. And in verse 24 Paul closes off our first point, closes off the first paragraph and pericope by hurling this last indicting statement at the Jews by saying God's name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you. Because of your failure to uphold the law of God because of your inconsistent work and relationship with God. You have called the unbelieving, irrelevant Gentiles to now curse and insult and blaspheme the name of God. And what Paul does here is he quotes from Isaiah 52 verse 5 which points a finger of guilt at the Jews at Israel for when God brought them into exile because of disobedience. And this caused the nations to mock God and to bad mouth God because in antiquity and in those times it was a battle of the gods. So if you are conquered by another nation it meant that your God was weak. But it was the disobedience to God that made God send them into captivity. And so this is a strong accusation that Paul has at them and he says you Israelize you Jews. You were given the law to be a teacher to the Gentiles but instead the nations that you were called to teach you caused them by your sinful disobedience and conduct to blaspheme God instead. You were supposed to bring them to praise God but you've brought them to shame God to blaspheme against his name. Paul was actually showing them when the rubber meets the road that they were still in exile. They were out from Babylon in exile but they were in a greater exile because they were under the rot and judgment of God. How we conduct ourselves family is never private and personal thing. Never. Your actions and your attitude always have a consequence and always influences the world around you. You never sin in isolation. Sin is never a private matter. The damages are credibility but it also gives people a chance and occasion to blaspheme God and to an impact on our evangelistic efforts and our soul-winning attempts and efforts. If the God you serve cannot change you people and there's no consequence on you. You come to church every Sunday and you sing and you dance and some of you jumping so high and you tithe faithfully and you convince everybody to come to your church because the production is so neat the lights are so nice and the posture preaches so well but this God that you serve is too inconsequential upon you. He raised too inconsequential upon you. You talk about him but we don't see him lived out in your life. You don't allow him to influence your behavior. I might as well club. I might as well drink. I might as well be where I am. I don't want to be a hypocrite. On the other end we attract people to God when we love obedient lives. When we submit it to him we draw people to God because they see you walk into the workplace. Yes I know it's stressful at work. I don't know which job is necessary but when you get into work they look at you and they try to solve this enigma. How on earth do you still have peace? How on earth do you still carry this joy and this bubbling in your heart? Why are you so loving and forgiving? I saw and I witnessed how she spoke to you. You have every right to be unforgiving. What has this enigma and complexity about you? Man when you serve God joyfully it's the greatest weapon of evangelism you have. You can go out and preach in openers and 10 crusades and you can have a loud halo plugged into your bucky 4x4 and you can go preaching all around the street but nothing is going to bring people to Christ like serving him with joy. Now on to our second point paragraph which is from verses 25 to 29. Paul showed the Jews how they had violated and broken the stipulation of the covenant which was in the law. They failed to uphold the law and now he targets circumcision the sign of the covenant and he reminds them yes you have this physical mark on your body yes this points and recalls us back to the promise God made with Abraham they had their boast that they are children of Abraham but circumcision does not protect you from the judgment of God and there are six contrasts that Paul draws here between the Jews and now believing Gentiles. He spoke about unbelieving Gentiles. Now he speaks about believing Gentiles. He speaks about having an outward circumcision opposed to having an inward circumcision. So verses 25 to 26 says for circumcision indeed is of value if you obey the law but if you break the law your circumcision becomes an uncircumcision. Imagine that. Imagine going to circumcision is a grown man. I've seen some guys in Maya's fight believing they're going to circumcision at age 40. Imagine going to all that trauma for a whole week not allowed to wait. You can't wait jeans you can't wait cobalt pants. You just sit there on a fan or going to all that butchery all that butchery the guys they were doing like as a fashion back in my whole church I think come on man it's going to improve things in your marriage and improve things. The guys were fainting and the guys one guy to be rushed to hospital all that butchery just for Paul to come and tell you it's worthless. If you disobey the law you chop yourself for next one nothing. So verse 26 says so if a man is uncircumcised but keeps the law well not his uncircumcision be regarded as circumcision. Otherwise this uncircumcised man that you that you that you look at and judge as being an unbeliever he's in a better place than you and he's able to judge you because you have violated the law. Start states that circumcision minus obedience equals uncircumcision while uncircumcision plus obedience equals circumcision. Second contrast Paul does in verse 25 is between the obedient and the disobedience. With 28 your appearance versus reality they had the appearance of being a Jew but in reality you have to be a Jew inwardly. Verse 29a he does a contrast between the letter of the law and the spirit of the law because it's not just a matter of of keeping the external factors of the law in your heart as a foul of you got to keep the spirit of the law. The law is about love and mercy and grace so you can be involved in all these activities and functions of the law but you cannot uphold the spirit of the law and that's what the prophets came to do. In the Old Testament you were given the law and in the prophets came to remind the people to keep the spirit of the law. Yes you're doing all these formalities in the temple you're keeping the day of a tournament you're keeping all the rituals but your heart is not connected to it so they came to revive the spirit of the law and then we see in verse 29b a contrast between external praise and internal praise. External praise is seeking to praise seeking praise from people. Internal praise is receiving praise and acknowledgement from God instead and verse 29 he speaks about it has a contrast between the physical descent of being a Jew and your spiritual identity as a child of God as as a spiritual Jew and so the physical descent speaks to being at a descendant of Abraham marked by the physical sign of circumcision but the spiritual identity speaks to us being God's people by faith and we marked by a transformed circumcised heart which is by faith circumcision of the heart and modus stated a circumcision is a sign of admission to the covenant as we read in Genesis 17 and it was regarded by the Jews as having the utmost importance so the Jews thought it was unthinkable for a man who was circumcised and admitted to the covenant of Moses that he should not be saved because they thought just by merit of you being a descendant of Abraham you were saved and then Jesus comes to disrupt that thinking when he said I you boast about being a children of Abraham man I can I can raise from these stones children of Abraham because it's about your heart worship is an inward reality and experience of the heart so now Paul takes the central ceremony and sign of the covenant and now he points that it is completely useless and ineffective if you disobey the law of the covenants Paul tells the Jews in Rome that circumcision is no substitute for obedience that comes by faith you as good as been uncircumcised if you circum if you circumcise and you disobey the law circumcision is not this magical charm it's not a silver bullet to protect you from the judgment of God if you have disobeyed God you must affect and meaning of circumcision it was simply a sign of the covenant was a sign pointing you to an inner reality and experience you must possess this is what we try and stress with water baptism people this is what we try and stress with the table of the Lord when we have images these are signs these don't make you right before God there are signs that point to an experience you must possess first hand means nothing if we don't have the inner experience we can baptize you drown you a hundred times but if you have not been born again it is an empty experience man I often tell the story of when when I used to be a teacher back in the years I left teaching because teaching is not for the faint arts in a anger any other teachers here Lord bless you I think I talked for about maybe four or five years Greenville I wrote him in on a gig once you couldn't take it he almost strangled a few kids man I say I have a class of 38 students this came up to the front I knew teaching wasn't for me when my patience broke because I'm a very patient man my wife will tell you I have long suffering it's a grace over my life when Bevan alias long suffering Western you know it's bad because one boy just you evoked a rot of God out of me and his father was a thug so I just reacted so I'm like yeah I'm in trouble yeah came out of it by the grace of God but during that time being a teacher I used to stay in a hostel I stayed in a hostel for a number of years and I used to supervise high school students and the school was in the the hostel was in the school premises and property for those of you from Marisburg and Gomok you know Hayton High I was one of the floor supervisors along with the number of teachers and we we supervise I supervise close to 27 lived in I had a room with a shower on suite everything's living the life and and at all these these kids in this dormitory and every now and again man these kids were naughty man high school teenagers are sneak out go drinking you see you're nothing see no evil yeah no evil in the morning when you doing the checks you just smell the booze and now you must discipline and so every morning it was a practice line up the kids before school we say to our father and they then we get into the breakfast space and they have their breakfast and then I release them and then they come again for lunch which ever teaches available and we supervise during lunch and then evening time same thing supper and in the evening they study for two two and a half hours we'd be there sitting with them while they study every day from Monday Monday to Friday Monday to Friday it may be Monday to Thursday but anyway the one morning get up line them up and boys one side girls one side and we said our father but something strange happens I think you may have let me tell the story for some reason there's this just before we get our father this is demonic manifestation it's a mass manifestation one or two kids it's until 10 20 kids just going ballistic I've never seen something get in my life some of the kids who are going on like like animals and and jumping on burglar gods like monkeys and and one kid in his position kick through the broken the window playing cut his foot and ran around like nothing was gushing out of his leg and the matron on the glory at the time was so startled she called the police I called a few pastors it was just this commotion the principal came in saw what is going on he left he went back the police was there and they were like 50-60 kids all you know disrupted them and it wasn't because I'm annoying to anything it was just because I'm not like I'm been in it something but they were dabbling in witchcraft the night before and so I just happened to come in and think but anyway man we we call two of these kids aside into the Romeo and another pastor Mr. Crompton you guys know Mr. Crompton brother Desi and and we're there we're causing our devils from from these two two kids and and if any of you have been in the exorcism before it's not two minutes and you can go on for a couple of hours it's like yes he's like oh Lord where's the power anyway while we're causing our devils from these kids and also one of the kids who actually wasn't possessed are the school boys uh man he is a party you know sneak out come back drunk you're tapping the girls in the in the hostel he comes and he's over my shoulder and he's shouting they pull my sata pull my sata and he's saying the blood of Jesus is against you like boy you're gonna get yourself a heart the name of Jesus is not a magical job you can just pull out like a weapon anytime you want to live right for this time you want to live right you you can't have an inconsistent work we're calling in and then all of a sudden uh when you in it when you in a time of desperation or need you feel you can just pull out your religion say oh the blood of Jesus is against you satan the name of Jesus is against you and then the Lord must come remind you of the six days of the week you forgot about it now you want to use him as his magical charm and this is what we do this is what what Paul is at racing when we want to be christian we want to be christian we want to look nice trace the parts but when you remove that golden caskets who are you really just god really impact your walk your talk your thinking your monday to saturday how involved is god in your life was it fine just to come here every sunday and look from him proper sing the songs we don't want this kind of inconsistency as believers because it creates a false sense of security and that's why Jesus says many will come in that day and say lord lord i've done this i've done that i've done this i've done that and he will say but i never knew you away from me you work of iniquity and so in conclusion i'll remind you that the relationship with god is a matter of the heart Paul doesn't say one bad thing about the law he's simply emphasizing what the law cannot do the law cannot bulldoze and take over your heart you need to give it over there's some things that the pastor cannot do for you all right now i've gone bless you with 20 000 and save you from your financial woes there's some things that the church cannot do for you there's some things that being involved in church cannot do for you there's some things that even church attendance cannot do for you there's things that the dynamic preaching of the pastor the teaching of the Sunday school teachers cannot do and that has changed your heart you've got to hand it over to god these systems and these things are in place to provide a space where you feel you can surrender to encourage you to do so but you have to surrender your heart to god church life in itself is not the answer to the problem that really awaits us we need a change of heart our relationship with god is not dependent on anything that happens yeah river it's your responsibility it's on you tutors had the best pastor sat under the best preaching had the most practical of teachings witness some of the most spectacular miracles was involved in ministry yet did not take stock of his heart it's a matter of your heart true circumcision is performed by the holy spirit on our hearts the gospel is about our hearts god wants to give us a new heart but we got to hand him over the old one we cannot put our trust in our religious affiliations in our church in in our activities in our affirmations we cannot put our faith in the fact that we were born Christian we cannot put our faith and trust in our heritage and our knowledge and our ceremony these are all false securities our creeds themselves that we confess cannot save us our Christian friends in itself cannot save us you can be baptized and your church attendance can be squeaky clean and we can still be unregenerate and unconverted at heart we can be busy with all kinds of Christian activities and yet still be dead in our trace process being a Christian is not about becoming a nicer person or more religious person it's about having the indwell spirit of Christ living inside of us you want to close with the story of dr. Christian Barnard me if you know he's the first surgeon to ever perform the first heart transplants one day while performing his second heart transplants dr. Philip playberg was actually the second person to receive a heart transplant and he asked dr. Philip hey do you want to see your heart let me remove you want to see your old heart round about eight p.m. the men stood in a room in Johannesburg and South Africa and dr. Barnard went over to his cupboard and he pulled out a glass container big jaw and in this glass container was dr. playberg's heart old heart and for moments dr. playberg stood there and he stunned in silence he looked at this glass container the first man in history to ever hold his heart in his hands for a few minutes he just stood there quiet and he looked at his heart and then he spoke he asked dr. Christian a few technical questions out of the procedure and then he turned and he took a final look at the container and he said these words so this is the old heart my old heart that caused me so much trouble and then he handed it back to dr. Barnard the issue we have family is the issue of the heart God wants to give us a new heart the heart is the chief seat of our worship for this morning i'm going to ask if we can stand [Music]
