Romans 2: God Calls Everyone, Do Not Despise His Kindness

Introduction

"Our subject this morning: how God calls everyone. Yes, literally everyone." Preaching at the Metropolitan Tabernacle in London, Dr. Peter Masters opens Romans 2 with a conviction: every man and woman who has ever lived has been visited, in one way or another, at one time or another, by almighty God.

His central text is Romans 2:3: "Do you think this, O man, who judges those who practice such things, and do the same, that you will escape the judgment of God?" Around this verse, he walks through verses 1 to 11: the goodness of God that people despise, the wrath they store up without knowing it, and the eternal life offered to those who seek it.

This message is addressed to you personally. If you have never responded to God, if you have ridiculed him or pushed him away so many times that the very idea of God seems absurd to you, the preacher tells you plainly: this call was addressed to you, and it is still addressed to you.

Message Outline

1. A Call Addressed to Everyone

• John 1:9 says of Christ that he is the light who, coming into the world, "enlightens everyone." To some degree, God's call goes out to all.
• We think of people far away, raised from childhood in a pagan religion: what do they know, what do they hear? Yet Scripture teaches that a call from the one true God reaches every living soul.
• Paul stresses the individual. In verse 1: "O man." In verse 3, again: "O man." In verse 6: God "will pay back to everyone according to his works."
• We may vaguely think that God reaches millions of people. The preacher brings us back to what matters: "you, out of millions, you as an individual."

2. Do You Think You Will Escape Judgment?

• At first, the chapter seems aimed at Jews who look down on pagans, who are ignorant of the law of Moses. Paul tells them: you who feel superior, you do the same things. Wake up. But these words apply to all of us.
• The Greek word translated "escape" means to flee. The tense of the verb implies that you are already under judgment.
• The preacher's picture: you have been arrested, the handcuffs are on, the charges have been read. There you stand in the dock, with guards at the doors. Do you plan to jump over the barrier and run? "Ridiculous. It is over. You are cornered."
• No one is foolish enough to believe they will run away on the day of reckoning. Yet by pushing aside every thought about God, about the meaning of life and about the hereafter ("Forget it. Later. Later."), you live as if you could.
• The apostle's reasoning is severe, but it is, says Peter Masters, "a reasoning full of kindness."

3. The Riches of His Goodness

• Romans 2:4: "Or do you despise the riches of his goodness, forbearance, and patience?" The Greek word means to think down: to belittle, to diminish, to count as nothing.
• "Riches" conveys the idea of fullness. God's mercy is as great as it can be: infinite, without measure.
• How has God been good to you? He formed you with care. He gave you a conscience, one of the most unfathomable things, which no one can explain. He gave you the capacity to love, to be happy, to know joy, and also sadness.
• He gave you your memory, your aptitude for numbers or business, or an artist's temperament: "your unique distribution of abilities and gifts."
• Forbearance and patience do not say the same thing. Forbearance measures the size of the offense: your hostility, your indifference, the insult of ignoring him. Patience measures its length: 20, 30, 50, 70 years of kindness, and still no thanks, no love, no prayer, no seeking after God.

4. The Messengers God Sends You

• God's goodness also comes through people: perhaps parents, or a friend who once asked you: "Are you walking with God? Do you know the Savior?" He told you how he came to know him, and you pushed him away.
• Peter Masters remembers a very hardened atheist who seemed to know nothing about God. In passing, the man mentioned that he had heard someone on the radio tell how he had repented and found the Lord. He added: "You know, all that sort of thing." The preacher was astonished: this man had already heard all of it, and often.
• "You would be surprised at the number of encounters with God, stirrings in the heart, and calls" in the person who seems the most closed.
• Christ said to Saul of Tarsus: "It is hard for you to kick against the goads" (Acts 26:14). God had pricked his conscience many times before his conversion.
• God's goodness also means sustaining you, keeping you alive, and letting you recover each time you have been seriously ill.

5. God's Goodness Leads You to Repentance

• What you do not realize, what you have not taken into account, is that "the goodness of God leads you to repentance." It leads you, it draws you.
• The preacher compares it to a simple gesture: holding the hand of a small child anxious about the first day of school, of a person who can no longer stand steadily, or of a blind person, and guiding them. "It is a tender act."
• On your side, there is hostility, unbelief, lack of interest. On his, there is this tenderness that draws you.
• Repentance translates a Greek word meaning a change of mind: a complete change of attitude toward God. It is the Spirit of God who melts the heart and makes you see your hostility and your wrong way.

6. Storing Up Wrath Without Knowing It

• Romans 2:5: "But according to your hardness and unrepentant heart, you are storing up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God." Hardness means a heart that has become calloused. Unrepentant means refusing to change your mind.
• "You do not realize you are doing this." Each time you ignore God, you store something up, but not a treasure: a provocation.
• Peter Masters' illustration comes from his school years, in the days of corporal punishment. An old teacher, gentle and kind, close to retirement, never sent for the punishment book. Yet one pupil kept provoking him with insolent questions, to the point that his classmates told him to stop.
• After a long silence, the teacher said calmly: "Go and fetch the punishment book." The pupil tried to apologize; the order was repeated. While he was gone, another teacher, a big sports coach, arrived with the cane. The preacher makes clear that he does not approve of corporal punishment: it is an illustration.
• "Is this what we do with almighty God?" The moment when we go too far will come, and "your last breath will be your call to go and fetch the book." It will be too late.
• In verse 8, those who do not obey the truth "obey unrighteousness." Without Christ, you think you are free, but you are an obedient servant of sin and unbelief, standing at attention like a soldier.

7. Seeking Glory, Honor and Immortality

• Romans 2:7 speaks of those who, "by perseverance in well-doing seek for glory, honor, and incorruptibility." This verse is not about winning God's favor through good works: the whole epistle teaches that Christ suffered and died at Calvary to bear the punishment of every sinner who believes in him, by faith and not by works.
• Doing well, here, means seeking eternal life. "That is all God asks: that you come to say, I need eternal life."
• Like Christian in John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress, who is suddenly gripped in his heart: "I must reach the Celestial City."
• Glory: purity, understanding of all things and perfect communion with God and the Savior. Honor: being a child of God, a son or daughter of God, a citizen of the kingdom of heaven. Immortality: never dying, never knowing corruption. You can already taste a measure of it today.
• Verse 11: "For there is no partiality with God." Educated or simple, rich or poor, qualified or not, it makes no difference. What matters is to give up rebellion and say: "Lord, forgive me. Save me. Change me. I trust in Jesus Christ."
• It is said that the epistle to the Romans is a book of doctrine. The preacher answers that the Gospel is already there almost before the apostle has begun.

Key Takeaways

• God calls every person, individually. Even the one who seems the most closed has received many calls.
• Pushing away every thought about God amounts to believing you can run away on the day of judgment, which is impossible.
• God's goodness, forbearance and patience are immense: he has put up with the size of your offense and its length.
• Each refusal stores up not a treasure, but a provocation toward God. One day, it will be too late.
• God asks you to seek eternal life by coming to Christ, by faith and not by works.

Personal Application

1. Which calls from God do you recognize as you look at your life: a person, a word you heard, an illness you recovered from?
2. Which thoughts about God, the meaning of life or the hereafter do you tend to put off until later?
3. Looking at your life, your conscience and your abilities, how does God's goodness toward you show itself?
4. Do you think you are free? What do you really obey in your thoughts, your moods and your choices?
5. Have you ever said to God: "Forgive me, save me, change me"? If not, what is stopping you today?

Verses Cited

• Romans 2:1-11
• Romans 2:3
• Romans 2:4-5
• Romans 2:7-8
• John 1:9
• Acts 26:14

Frequently Asked Questions

Does God call everyone?

Yes, according to Peter Masters. John 1:9 says that Christ is the light who enlightens everyone, and Romans 2 addresses the individual: "O man." Every man and woman is visited by God in one way or another, even the one who grew up in a pagan religion or who says he is an atheist.

What does "despise the riches of his goodness" mean in Romans 2:4?

The Greek word means to think down, to belittle, to count as nothing. To despise God's goodness is to ignore everything he has done for you: he formed you, he gave you a conscience and your abilities, he put up with your hostility for years and he sent you messengers.

Does Romans 2:7 teach salvation by good works?

No. Peter Masters points out that the whole epistle teaches salvation by faith in Christ, and not by works. To persevere in well-doing, in this verse, is to seek glory, honor and immortality: to desire eternal life and to come to Christ to receive it.