God's "Chosen"

Sorry for the long wait. When I wrote this it was offline on my tablet, then I got busy with school and never grabbed it to publish. But we're back now!

Read Romans 2

So yesterday I wrote about how Gentiles are indeed not righteous. They knew God, but turned their back on him for pieces of wood and stone. Today, in Romans 2, we see something similar about the Jews, God's chosen people.

You can see the Jews in the church sitting there nodding as the first chapter is read. "Yes you Gentiles are nothing but filthy sinners!" This is a major problem that was in the church in Rome, that the Jews, who were kicked out of the city and then were allowed back in, and they began bashing and hating on the Gentiles in the church. But then we flip to chapter 2 and see Paul turn to the Jews to let them have it.

You have NO excuse people. You judge them for their sin which only brings judgment upon you! You condemn yourselves! And you knew that judgment brings condemnation, yet you still did it, doing the very same sin that you have condemned! Do you really think you can escape judgment just because you are God's "chosen?" Do you think God is just going to give you his forgiveness with you not repenting of your sin? Or did you just not know? You too are deserving of God's wrath.

That's just the first five verses. Paul threw down on these guys. He isn't happy with them. But in these verses we see something that answers a question that I've had for a long time: What comes first in the Christian life and salvation? Grace or faith?

Some say that grace is given to us in full and by that grace we have faith that the grace is there.
Others say that there is no grace before faith, but by faith we receive grace in full.

I'm in the middle, and verse 4 is why. "God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance." God has shown grace to us, just enough so that we know that it's there in full and enough to have faith and to be led to repentance. And because of that faith that the grace in full is available, we take that step, being action of our faith, and repent. What this comes down to then is

Grace-->Faith-->Action-->Grace

Now this is not saying that we save ourselves, that is the point of the first three chapters, we are not righteous, because if we were then we wouldn't need Jesus. But it's like we're hanging from a cliff, and Jesus tosses down the rope. We can either think we can climb up the cliff and save ourselves, but we can't because we're not strong enough, or we can grab onto the rope, hoping that the person on the other end will pull us to safety. But it takes action to prove our faith that grace is there to be had.

Make sense? Good!

Verses 6-11 then is more of this. Paul is writing to the Jews about reaping what you sow, and warns them in verse 8 especially, "but for those who are self seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury." Looking after #1 is what our culture is always telling us to do, that's self seeking, that's not obeying the truth that God is number one, that's thinking that you are doing everything right. That's wrong. To all that do this, they will reap what they sow, there will be distress for them, they will drink but never be satisfied.

But for those of us who listen and obey the truth, and keep our eyes on the only one that matters there will be glory and honor. Both to Jews, and also to Gentiles, because God shows no favoritism.

Again, keep in mind while looking at this that, from the text, we can see that Jews are looking down on the Greeks in the church because they are not descendants of Abraham. Tomorrow we'll finish up chapter 2. GET PUMPED!