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Welcome to our drive time devotions to the book of Romans. We are in week two
looking at chapter two of Romans this week. Today we're going to look at Romans
chapter two verses one to five.

As we start this second week, I thought it might be good to give a sort of a you
are here picture. You know how when you walk into a mall they'll have a dot that
shows you where you are in that great big mall. There's a lot of concepts in
Romans.

So as we start each week we'll probably take a few minutes to realize where we
are in the study of this incredible book. Remember that last week we talked
about the fact that Romans is a history changing book and that we to understand
God's truth have the power to change history by understanding God's truth. We
talked last week about the outline of the book of Romans that it helps us to
understand the truth about sin, salvation, sanctification, sovereignty, and
service, sin in chapters one through three, salvation in the rest of chapter
three through chapter five, sanctification, our growth in chapter six through
eight, God's sovereignty in chapters nine through eleven, and then service in
chapters 12 to 16.

We are in the midst of Romans chapters one through three. We're talking about
sin in order to change, in order to see change in my life, in order to see
radical change in our world, in order to see change in history. We have to be
brutally honest with ourselves about sin.

In the last chapter we saw together there's no excuse for our sin because we can
all know God from what he's made. In Romans chapter two we're going to see a
second reason that we have no excuse for our sin. The first was creation.

A second reason is our conscience. We can all know God from what he has made
from creation, but we can also all know God from how we are made, from our
conscience. There's something built into every one of us that understands there
is a God.

Romans chapter two verse one says this, "You therefore have no excuse, you who
pass judgment on someone else. For at whatever point you judge the other, you
are condemning yourself because you who pass judgment do the same things. "
Romans the second chapter is a chapter that's all about the problem of being
judgmental.

There is lots of confusion about being judgmental in the world today. And Romans
chapter two clears up a lot of that confusion. It tells us the difference
between being judgmental and trusting God as the judge.

If you're driving down the road and you see a sign that says danger, bridge out,
one of the worst things you can do is think that sign's not for me, it must mean
someone else. When we talk about being judgmental, we're talking about a sin
that we are all in danger of, that keeps many people from getting to know and
understand the true God, who he is and what he wants to do. This is a sin that
all of us are going to have to deal with the rest of our lives.

This sin, this struggle with judgmentalism. So I want to take a look together
through Romans chapter two of what God has to say about it. There's a definition
that God has of being judgmental that I think might be different than ours and
it's vital to understand.

Being judgmental is one of the most dangerous of sins, but we miss the point if
we allow false, silly, confusing definitions of being judgmental to replace
God's clear word. No one wants to be judgmental, but a lot of people end up
being judgmental. So what do you watch out for?

Well, Romans chapter two, the first few verses tells us. Watch out for, first of
all, condemning others while excusing yourself. That's what we just read in the
first verse.

You have no excuse. You who condemn others and yet excuse yourself. Now who
hasn't done this?

We've all done this, beginning when we were kids, pointing the finger at someone
else hoping to keep the blame off of us. In fact, you might be doing it right
now. Instead of thinking right now in this moment about how you might be
judgmental, you might be thinking about how big a problem others are having with
being judgmental.

Remember as we read these words about being judgmental that Paul was a Pharisee.
The Pharisees were a very judgmental group. They tried their best to keep all
the laws of the Old Testament and were very judgmental toward those who did not.

And so Paul certainly knew and understood the attitude that he was talking
about. He certainly understood who he was talking to because he'd struggled with
this himself. And he says in these verses, whenever you judge others, you're
judging yourself.

You might remember in the Old Testament the story of David and the prophet
Naaman. David had committed sin with Bathsheba, committed adultery, and then he
had had Bathsheba's husband put forward in battle so that he was killed. Two
sins, the sin of adultery and the sin of murder.

And yet no one was confronting David with this sin, and he wasn't accepting that
he had sinned. Naaman the prophet went to David and told him the story of a man
who had only one sheep and another man who lived next door who had many, many
sheep. And he'd come and stole the one sheep of this one man.

And David, who had grown up as a shepherd, you might remember, was just
incensed. He was filled with anger. And he said to Naaman, "Who is this man?

" And Naaman said, "You are the man. " When David judged others, he was judging
himself. We all struggle with this.

We need to realize that one of the keys behind understanding our own
judgmentalism is we try to hide from our own sins by judging others. You can see
a second attitude behind our being judgmental in verses two to four of Romans
chapter two. Those verses say, "Now we know that God's judgment against those
who do such things is based on truth.

So when you, a mere man, pass judgment on them and yet you do the same things,
do you think that you will escape God's judgment? Or do you show contempt for
the riches of his kindness, tolerance, patience, not realizing that God's
kindness leads you toward repentance? " A second attitude behind our
judgmentalism is contempt for God's plan.

I hope you heard as I was reading those verses three aspects of God's plan,
kindness, tolerance, and patience. Our plan oftentimes is that God should act
sternly and swiftly against sin, other sin that is, not our sin, other people's
sin, that God would somehow call fire down on them, especially if they've hurt
us. And then maybe they'll repent, but we don't really care about that in that
moment.

We're just angry. God's plan is different. This is an amazing verse.

God's kindness leads us to repentance. In fact, this is such an amazing verse,
we're going to take some time later this week just to focus in on this phrase.
God's kindness, God's tolerance, God's patience, tolerance, there are a lot of
definitions of tolerance in the world today, but here's a biblical definition.

Tolerance is God tolerating the pain that sin causes while he waits for us to
repent. Thomas Carlyle once said, "Foolish men, imagine that because judgment
for an evil thing is delayed, there is no justice, but only accident here below.
Judgment for an evil thing is many times delayed, some day or two, some century
or two, but it is as sure as life, as sure as death.

" We have to trust in God's plan, and when we don't, we end up being judgmental.
There is a third identifying mark of a judgmental spirit in these verses. In
verse 5, Romans 2-5 says, "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.

" Third reason is our stubbornness. There's the problem in black and white. You
and I are judgmental of other sins because we're stubborn, we're unrepentant
about our own sin.

Jesus taught us that it's those who recognize how much they've been forgiven,
who are the most forgiving of others, and those who are the most stubborn about
their own sins, hiding from their own sins, usually are the most stubborn about
judging others. Now I would just say to you, don't get caught up in cultural
confusion with this subject of being judgmental. I can say that what you're
doing is wrong without judging your eternity and your relationship with God.

The idea that not being judgmental means I can't ever say that that's wrong or
that's right, that's not what it means in the Bible. Not being judgmental means
I have no right to judge your relationship with God, your eternity with God, or
your salvation before him. God is the ultimate judge for that, and we look to
him together.

Not being judgmental doesn't mean you have to ignore the truth, it means you
have to love people like Jesus did. My in-laws, Dot and Jimmy Warren, had a
profound influence on my life and on the life of hundreds of other people,
greatly due to the fact that they understood how to offer love and truth without
being judgmental. This had a deep influence on their relationships.

Instead of rejecting a pastor who had divorced his wife and left the ministry,
they kept the door open, and they slowly brought him back to spiritual health.
They didn't excuse his sin. They accepted him, though, in a way that let him
know he was not alone.

Instead of making those who didn't know Christ feel like outsiders, they
welcomed them as part of the family around a supper table or as fishing partners
out on a lake. And instead of allowing their concern for their daughter,
Shondell, now my wife, who was dating a very young Christian, to cause them to
look down their spiritual noses at that guy, they welcomed me with open arms and
became a major influence in my growth in Jesus and my call to ministry. They
understood grace and truth.

You might even want to set this phrase to memory. I can make judgments without
being judgmental. Judgment means being honest, just being honest about my sin
and other people's sin.

Being judgmental means hiding behind the sin of others. It means talking about
how bad they are in a way that makes me feel better about myself. It means
jumping to conclusions because I didn't really want all of the facts, and it's a
lot more fun to point fingers anyway.

I have to make judgments in this world, but I am not the final judge. We're
going to talk about that some more tomorrow as we walk through Romans chapter 2.
But right now, as we close this time together, let's talk to God about our
judgmental spirit, how easy a temptation that is.

Ask for his strength. Would you pray with me? And as you pray, would you just
say to Jesus, "Jesus, I admit it.

Sometimes I have a judgmental spirit. It's easy for me to jump to conclusions.
It's easy for me to think the worst.

It's easy for me to puff myself up by putting other people down. I want to thank
you for who you are, and God, I would like to have your character. God, thank
you for your tolerance.

Thank you for your patience. Thank you for your kindness. Thank you that you've
been tolerant and patient and kind with me.

And Jesus, help me to love others like you love me. In your name I pray, amen. "
Tomorrow, we're going to talk together about the cure for our judgmental spirit,
found beginning in Romans chapter 2 verses 6 to 10.