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[0:00] I want you guys to open your Bibles to Romans chapter 2.

[0:17] We're still in the book of Romans, and we are in chapter 2 again this week. And we will begin this morning reading in verse 17. So I want to ask you guys, as you turn there and find it in your Bibles, to stand with me.

[0:31] And we're going to read down to verse 24. Romans chapter 2, 17 through 24, the Apostle Paul writes, But if you call yourself a Jew, and rely on the law, and boast in God, and know His will, and approve what is excellent, 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, an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of children, having in the law the embodiment of knowledge and truth, you then who teach others, do you not teach yourself?

[1:06] While you preach against stealing, do you steal? You who say that one must not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples?

[1:17] You who boast in the law, dishonor God by breaking the law. For as it is written, the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.

[1:32] We give you thanks for this word. And pray that you would be greatly honored in our time spent upon it this morning.

[1:42] We pray in Christ's name. Amen. You know, some of the most helpful and the most hurtful and damaging things that we have available to us on a daily basis are stereotypes.

[1:57] Which is another word for assumptions that we make about people and places and things that we see around us. Oftentimes, the assumptions that our brains automatically make without us even realizing it, they actually help us and protect us as we go through the day.

[2:12] So you don't have to constantly, sort of consciously think through everything that you're doing as you're, say, driving down the road. Your brain in the background automatically makes assumptions about the road, about the workings of your car based upon your past experience.

[2:27] And you don't even think about that. It's just assumptions that your brain is constantly making to help you get through the day on sort of cruise control most of the time. We make assumptions all the time.

[2:38] And those assumptions take the forms of stereotypes oftentimes. Things that we assume to be true about places and people based upon the outward appearance of those places and people.

[2:50] So, for instance, I took the boys, or at least I took Nate and Calvin. We had one of Nate's friends who was over. And then we took Carson with us as well.

[3:00] And so I took the four boys over to a go-kart track this week. It was one off of 59. It's been there forever, I think, since I was a kid. And it looks the same way it used to. All the games are from, like, the 80s.

[3:11] And so it was kind of cool for me. I don't know how it was for them, but it was kind of cool. And so we got there to the go-kart track. And the two older boys were old enough to do the go-karts, the younger ones. We just played games inside. But one of the funny things that happened was, as we were up exchanging, you know, the tickets.

[3:26] You know, you have to spend like $1,000 to get a blow pop with all the tickets you have to get there. But they're counting their tickets. We're giving them all the things at the front so they can pick out the pieces of candy and little plastic toys they want.

[3:37] And this lady starts asking me a question. And I thought she assumed I knew how the process worked because I was up there with four kids working through the process with the guy on the other side of the counter. But what I didn't realize is the guy on the other side of the counter had walked off while I was talking to the kids.

[3:50] And she keeps asking me questions. And then in the middle of it, I realized she thinks I'm the guy who's supposed to be behind the counter. She thinks that I work here. Because I was able to answer her first question, she just starts asking me all these questions about what to do here and how does this work and how many tickets can this get and that and those sorts of things.

[4:07] And finally I said, wait, I don't work here. I don't really know all the answers to your questions. And so in the back of my mind, I'm thinking, why does she think that I work here?

[4:17] What am I wearing and what am I doing? And I concluded it must be that I look as young as the 20-something-year-old guy behind the counter. And that's why she thinks I work here. I just look that young.

[4:27] Never mind I'm surrounded by kids, you know, that I've drugged with me there. But I did the exact same thing, I think, either the day before or the day after. Again, I took a couple of the boys over to Target.

[4:38] Nate had some leftover birthday cards that once he discovered he had them, he had to spend them, right? That's how it works. And so we were in the video game section looking at things and there's a lady in the video game section moving some games around with a red shirt on.

[4:51] What was Target? So she's got a red shirt. I just assumed that she worked there. So I started asking her some questions and she answered the first few questions. She knew the answers about some of the games. And then I started asking her if she can help us with this and help us with that.

[5:03] And finally she says, I don't work here. I work for Nintendo. I'm just delivering games, right? And I said, I'm sorry, but you did wear a red shirt to Target. She said, yeah, I know, I know, I wore the red shirt.

[5:14] But we do those kinds of things all the time. We just kind of see the surface, the exterior of someone or something and we make all sorts of assumptions. And our brains do that without us even knowing it most of the time.

[5:26] We just judge things around us on outward appearance. But I'm thankful that this chapter of the book of Romans tells us that God does not operate that way.

[5:36] He does not merely judge us based upon outward appearance or even the merely outward things that we do. In fact, if you'll remember last week, last week we were in the middle of chapter 2 and we began, we began in verse 11 where we're told that God shows no partiality.

[5:59] That God is not one who looks at the outward appearance. Literally, God does not take faith. God does not judge something by the outward appearance of it. He does not judge people merely based upon the outward things that they look like and the outward things even that they do.

[6:15] We ended last week on verse 16 where Paul tells us that His God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus. He judges our secrets.

[6:25] He knows our hearts. He doesn't only know and see what we're actually doing physically on the outside. He sees all the motives behind what we do. He sees the real reasons for our actions.

[6:37] And He judges us not only based upon what we do outwardly. He judges us based upon the inward motives that lead to those outward actions. God is not a face taker. He's not fooled by all of our outward performances.

[6:49] He knows what's really there. He knows what's really going on inside of us. And that greatly, greatly matters upon Judgment Day.

[7:01] Jesus demonstrated that kind of knowledge. You remember the story of the rich young ruler? Jesus is speaking to us. It's recorded in the Gospel of Luke for us where Jesus speaks to this rich young ruler and He lifts off some commandments because the rich young ruler had asked Him what He must do to enter the Kingdom of God.

[7:17] And so He lists off some of the commandments, Ten Commandments. And the rich young ruler simply replies, Well, I've done all those since I was a kid. I mean, I've got that down, so everything's fine. To which Jesus then replies, Okay, now that you only have one thing left you've got to do.

[7:29] You've obeyed those? Good. Now go and sell everything that you have and give it to the poor. At which point the rich young ruler, we're told, walked away sad because he had a lot of wealth.

[7:40] Because Jesus was not fooled by this man's statement that He obeyed all those things from His youth. Perhaps that was true. It's probably true that He'd never killed anyone. It's probably true that that young Jewish ruler had never entered into a pagan temple to offer worship to an idol.

[7:56] Those things were probably all true about Him. But Jesus knew that deep within there was buried an idol within His heart. Jesus could see it. Jesus could know it. And Jesus identified it for the man.

[8:07] And that's how God operates on Judgment Day. That's not just something that Jesus does during His earthly ministry to impress the disciples and other people around Him. That's Jesus showing us what the future judgment is going to be like in some sense.

[8:20] Because God sees all the way to the heart of it. And much of chapter 2 is focused upon God's ability and God's commitment to actually judging us based upon what's really, really there.

[8:36] Not merely outwardly, but all the motivations that lead to those outward actions. In fact, Paul is laboring to show us in this chapter that God's judgment is fair.

[8:48] God's judgment is just. Because there is nothing outward about us that gives us an advantage over anyone else. And so we saw last week Paul dealt with the issue of the law.

[9:00] That since the Jews possess the law and God is going to judge people based upon what they do, does that not on its surface give to the Jewish people an advantage on Judgment Day?

[9:11] If you say to someone, I'm going to judge you based upon what you do, and you only give to one group of people the list of commands, that seems to give them an advantage. To which we saw the Apostle Paul respond by saying, No.

[9:24] The Gentiles have the law written on their heart, and each group, both Jew and Gentile, will be judged according to the knowledge that they possess. The Gentiles, according to the law of God written on their heart.

[9:34] The Jews, according to the Torah, which God had blessed them with. Now he's going to continue this week in our paragraph this week, by advancing that argument forward, but also tying it back to what he said at the beginning of this chapter regarding hypocrisy.

[9:51] That God is going to judge based upon the standard that he has given us, but he's also going to judge us based upon our inward obedience to that standard.

[10:03] Not merely our outward performance. In fact, he lists here in this paragraph, nine things that are at least claimed to be true by the average Jewish person of which he speaks here.

[10:19] Take a look. I want you to see what these nine things are. You begin to see them in verse 17. We'll just count them off, alright? Number one, if you call yourself a Jew, if you rely on the law, if you boast in God, that's three.

[10:33] If you know His will, if you approve of what is excellent. So those five, that's the first five things, alright? Call yourself a Jew, rely on the law, boast in God, know His will, approve of what is excellent.

[10:44] Five claims that are made by them that Paul doesn't, by the way, challenge whether or not these things are true. He just states them. If this is the claim that you're making, you're a Jew, you rely on the law, you boast in God, you know God's will, you approve what is excellent or the better things, and then, number six, verse 19, if you are sure that you yourself are a guide to the blind, a light to those who are in darkness, an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of children.

[11:14] So, they are claiming to be Jews, which we will talk about in more detail next week at the end of chapter 2. Next week, we'll talk about God's judgment and Jewish identity.

[11:26] So, we won't really cover that this morning. We'll deal with that next week. But, they claim to be a Jew. They rely upon the law. They boast in God. They know His will. They approve what is excellent. They claim to be a guide to the blind, a light to those in darkness, an instructor of the foolish, and a teacher of children.

[11:40] Nine things that are claimed to be true about the Jewish people in general that Paul, by the way, as I said, does not challenge here. He just says, if this is true about you, if these are the kinds of claims that you make about yourself, then what about this?

[12:02] So, you have to notice, it's kind of hard to see at first, but you have to notice the structure of this particular paragraph. He has these nine things. If this is true, or since these things are true for you.

[12:12] And then he gives, he lists twice the basis of these nine things. And both times it is, you believe these things about yourself because you have the law. Notice the first time he says it.

[12:23] Verse 18. He lists five things, and then he says, these things are claimed to be true about you because you are instructed from the law. And then again in verse 20, he lists four more, and he says, having in the law the embodiment of knowledge and the truth.

[12:37] Or we might say, because you have in the law. So, because you have the law, you make these claims about yourself. And since you make those claims, here's my question for you that he asks in verse 21.

[12:53] You then who teach others, do you not teach yourself? So, there are nine claims made on the basis of their possession of the law.

[13:04] And since those things are assumed to be true, Paul then says, do you then teach others, teach yourself the very things that you claim to be teaching to others? That's the basic structure of the first part of the passage right there.

[13:19] But before we move on, I want us to talk about these nine things because I think it might be tempting of us to say, well, anybody who would claim this kind of stuff has got to be arrogant. I mean, surely the basis of Paul's condemnation of them is their own boasting and their own arrogance.

[13:35] Who would make these kinds of claims? Who would stand up and say something like this with a straight face? And so we might think that on the surface, Paul is condemning these Jewish kinsmen of his because they are boasters, because of the things that they say.

[13:48] But I don't think that's true at all. Not one of these things is a bad thing in the Apostle Paul's eyes. Not one single one. In fact, many of these in other places in his writings, he urges us as followers of Christ to pursue.

[14:04] We could walk through some of them. He says if you call yourself a Jew, I said we'll deal with that next week, but you can at least look down to verse 28 where Paul talks about an outward Jewishness and an inward Jewishness.

[14:17] He says, No one who is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical, but a Jew is one inwardly. And circumcision is a matter of the heart, not by the letter.

[14:28] His praise is not from man, but from God. So for Paul, the claim to Jewishness is not a negative claim. The issue is whether or not you are merely an outward Jew or you are an inwardly heart circumcised Jew.

[14:43] So this is not a negative thing to claim to be a Jew in Paul's mind. Not at all. You just want to make sure you're the right kind of Jew in God's eyes. And then to rely on the law, that's not a bad thing for the Apostle Paul.

[14:59] We might tend to think that it's a bad thing to claim knowledge of the law, to point to God's law as the basis of our knowledge and our confidence before God.

[15:10] But that's not a bad thing. Just simply read through the Psalms of David. Over and over, David praises God's law and talks about how much he loves God's law. In fact, if you want to turn over to 1 Timothy, even the Apostle Paul, who preaches throughout his letters that we ourselves have been freed from the law, even the Apostle Paul speaks in glowing terms about the law itself.

[15:39] In 1 Timothy 1, verse 8, he says this, Now, we know that the law is good if one uses it lawfully.

[15:54] So we'll just pause there. We're not going to study 1 Timothy today. But there is a sense, according to the Apostle Paul, in which the law is good and in which the law can be used in a lawful fashion.

[16:06] The law is not automatically a bad thing. We are not under the law anymore, but the law itself is not bad. In fact, Romans chapter 10 tells us that Christ is the end of the law for righteousness.

[16:19] So to claim to have the law as a basis for your own righteousness is bad, yes. But to appeal to the law, which Paul does over and over throughout the book of Romans, or to use the law lawfully, rightfully, is a good thing.

[16:35] So this is not a bad thing in Paul's mind. If you know God's will. Well, Paul prays oftentimes that those whom he's writing his letters will know His will.

[16:47] He prays also that others will be able to discern or prove the excellent things or the better things.

[16:57] We see this same language elsewhere in the prayers of Paul. These are not bad things. These are, in fact, many times good things.

[17:09] And then, what do we do about knowing His will? Would anybody claim that to know God's will is negative, is bad? No, of course not. The Apostle Paul over and over tells us that we need to know God's will.

[17:21] We need to pursue God's will. This is part of his basic message that he preaches all the time. These aren't bad things. These are good. What about the other things? What about the things that they claim to do?

[17:33] They claim that they are a guide to the blind. That they are a light to those in darkness. An instructor of the foolish. A teacher of children. Are those bad things?

[17:43] Of course not. I mean, those things are part and parcel of the Great Commission. The Great Commission includes teaching all things that Jesus commanded us. Part of our task in taking the Gospel to the world is to be a light to the world for those who are in darkness.

[18:00] That's why Jesus says that we're not to hide away our light, that we are the light of the world and we're to let it shine. Don't hide it away. So, a light shining in the darkness is good. Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 4 that the Gospel itself takes away the blindness of those who were blinded by Satan.

[18:17] And it's our task to proclaim that Gospel. So, it's not a bad thing to be a guide to those who are blinded by sin and unable to see by presenting the Gospel to them. It's not a bad thing to bring the light of the Gospel and to shine as a light in the culture so that people might see Christ.

[18:34] All of these things are in and of themselves good. Teaching and instructing others in the Word of God. These are good things. There's nothing wrong with these things.

[18:45] Paul doesn't condemn these things. Paul doesn't condemn their claims to have done these things. What Paul condemns is their hypocrisy.

[18:56] Because for all the claims that they make, at the end of the day, these things are not true about them. The God who can see the secrets of their hearts knows and sees.

[19:10] These things are not true. Take a look at what he says. Verse 21, You then who teach others, do you not teach yourself?

[19:21] He gives three examples of this. Fairly simple examples. While you preach against stealing, do you steal? You who say that one must not commit adultery, do you commit adultery?

[19:34] You who abhor or hate idols, do you rob temples? So three examples. Stealing, adultery, and involvement in some way, some sort of peripheral way with the idolatry that's happening in the world around them.

[19:49] Examples that I think that Paul's readers would have readily understood and readily understood what he meant by that. For us, we might need to tweak these so that we can better see and understand. We might want to name some other things.

[20:02] So we might say something along the lines of, you who preach against stealing, you who tell others that they shouldn't steal, do you cheat? Do you tell little white lies on your tax forms?

[20:15] Do you do that? You who tell others that they shouldn't steal, do you correct the cashier when they give you too much money back, too much change back? See, we do these kinds of things.

[20:27] So that outwardly we'd say, I'm not a thief, but inwardly, and at times we have been thieves. Or, consider Jesus' commands pertaining to lust and adultery where Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount, He says, I say to you that everyone who commits lust in the heart is guilty of adultery.

[20:46] Everyone who lusts after another woman is guilty of adultery, He says. Spiritual adultery. Which, who of us could claim to be free from that sort of sin?

[20:58] No one could. No one could. We claim to be free from idolatry. And yet, so many of our decisions that we make on a daily basis are not rooted in God's Word, are not rooted in our commitment to Christ.

[21:17] They are rooted in other goals that take primacy in our lives. So that our career goals, while it's not bad to have career goals, our career goals take primacy and they begin to pull us away from fellowship with other believers.

[21:33] Because if we're going to accomplish the things that we set out before us as a career, we're just not going to be able to do all those other things, all those one another commandments, some of those are going to have to slip to the wayside so that I can pursue this particular career goal.

[21:45] And we make an idol out of our careers or out of the goals that we set before us in our careers. Or sometimes we do that with our children. We want so badly for our children to succeed at various things.

[21:56] We want so badly for them to have it better than we did or to have things that we didn't have. And we begin to pursue those things and yet we don't point our kids to Christ.

[22:08] We spend more time teaching our kids how to catch and throw a ball than we do explaining the Gospel to them. And the ideals that we have for our children take the place of an idol in our heart.

[22:27] Or sometimes it's just in the things that we say and proclaim. Sometimes it's just the hypocrisy involved in condemning one thing and giving another thing a pass.

[22:40] So that often times we will stare and we will condemn any sort of sexual immorality that we see around us happening in the world.

[22:51] Whether it's homosexuality or any sort of sexual relationship happening outside of marriage we will openly as a church and sometimes even as individuals say well that's wrong. That shouldn't be happening.

[23:01] And we're bold and we say that sort of thing and yet we say nothing about the issue of divorce. When Jesus says anyone who divorces his wife except for the cause of sexual immorality and marries another commits adultery we say nothing.

[23:21] You see we are like the people that Paul has his sights set on here in Romans chapter 2 we are filled with small subtle hidden hints of hypocrisy.

[23:34] They're there and we have to root them out. We have to be very careful that we don't allow them to gain a foothold in our hearts and in our lives because once they gain a foothold we can't see them anymore.

[23:48] We become blind to all the small hypocrisies in our lives and they grow into larger hypocrisies and then we find ourselves defending things that we do that we would have never defended before and yet we do it with such ease we would have never defended that before.

[24:07] You know we are I think on the whole people human beings are creatures of extremes. We just sort of are. We tend to extremes on various issues and we find it difficult to reach sort of a moderating position.

[24:24] Of course moderation is not always good. Sometimes people under the guise of moderation are really on the extreme and so it can be a very deceptive thing and sometimes the truth is what sounds extreme to some people.

[24:36] So for us to say that there's only one way of salvation and that's through faith in Christ sounds extreme to a lot of our culture and we want to maintain our extreme statement and position on that particular matter.

[24:47] Right? But in so many other areas we tend to extremes when those extremes are really off the mark. And I think that in in our thinking about how we render obedience to God in our thinking about what do we do with all the commandments of the Bible I think that we tend toward various extremes.

[25:08] And on the one hand there are those who tend toward legalism. That would have been the Pharisees in Jesus and Paul's day. That would have been the Apostle Paul at one time. There are those who tend towards legalism.

[25:20] Towards the outward performance of the commands of God. The mere outward performance of those commands. And that we begin to pursue legalism to the point that legalism becomes the goal and obedience to the commands.

[25:35] Obedience to all the details becomes the goal of it all. And when it becomes the goal then it suddenly shifts in our minds to becoming the means by which we stand before God righteous.

[25:48] You don't start that way but you slowly move in that direction. See that happening in the book of Galatians. The Apostle Paul writes to the Galatians and he says you began well.

[26:02] You started well. You began with faith in Christ as the only ground upon which you have a right standing with God. And then someone came in and they began to suddenly tilt you in another direction until now you're at the point to where you're on the verge of abandoning the Gospel that I preached to you.

[26:19] All because of legalism. And legalism is a constant threat to the church of Christ. It constantly rears its head over and over again.

[26:30] Not just in history but in our hearts and in our lives. And there are many of us who have a natural leaning towards legalism. But there is another extreme that I think is equally dangerous.

[26:43] The big theological word for it is antinomianism. That sounds like a long word but it's not complicated because anti means you're against something. And nomianism comes from the Greek word namos which Paul uses over and over in Romans and simply means law.

[26:56] So it's the against the law-ism. Right? And this is the kind of attitude that says well if we are justified by faith alone in Christ alone if that's the only grounds of our justification then rendering obedience to the commands of God has no strictly speaking place in our lives.

[27:17] And that's not true. It doesn't often get stated that way. Usually it's stated something along the lines of well I'm justified by faith alone and that gives me freedom.

[27:29] I'm free in Christ and because I'm free in Christ I am free to do some of the things that I once considered a little taboo. Because I'm not right with God on the basis of those things and so I can pursue those things or I can at least allow those things to have a small little compartment in our lives.

[27:47] And so even though the Apostle Paul tells us in the book of Ephesians to let no corrupting talk come out of our mouths often times we will claim freedom in Christ as an excuse for corrupting talk to enter into our normal way of speaking.

[28:09] And we'll say I'm free and anytime somebody says you really you might want to watch how you say things maybe don't say things that way or maybe don't maybe don't speak to people that way or maybe don't use those particular words because they're they're they're offensive to people often times you'll hear but I'm free.

[28:24] I'm not under the law anymore. I'm free. To which I would say but Paul spoke to people who were free in Christ. He said don't let corrupting talk come out of your mouth.

[28:38] Free people. You see Paul will spend the first four chapters of this particular book dealing with legalism. Taking it head on. And so we will too. We'll spend a lot of time talking about not depending upon the law for your right standing before God.

[28:54] Because Christ is the end of the law for righteousness. You don't pursue the law. You don't pursue obedience to the law in order to gain a right standing with God. And we will say that over and over and over and yet we will get to chapter 6.

[29:10] And Paul will turn the tables and he'll say so what do we say then? I mean should we just since this is true should we just not is it okay just to sin? And then grace will increase all the more because every time that you sin you need more grace and God is glorified by the giving of grace and so ought we to just say you know what?

[29:27] We are free from the law and we're not saved by works of the law so let's sin and let God pour out His grace more and God will be more glorified by grace and to which Paul responds by saying no!

[29:39] God forbid! Let it never be! We can't pursue that path because the kind of faith in Christ that justifies is the kind of faith that loves Jesus so much that it begins to create a lifestyle of conforming to His commands and His ways.

[30:05] We want to avoid these extremes. We don't want to be antinomians. We don't want to proclaim freedom and do things that the Bible tells us not to do but we also don't want to make the things that we do we don't want to make those the basis of our standing before God.

[30:21] We don't ever want to do that because at the end of the day what is at stake in all of these things is the glory and honor of God Himself.

[30:33] Paul's not upset with his Jewish kinsmen because they make these kinds of claims. He's not. He's upset with his Jewish kinsmen because they make these kinds of claims even though they don't measure up to their own standards and that dishonors God.

[30:51] Take a look down towards the end of this paragraph. Verse 24. Verse 23. You who boast in the law dishonor God by breaking the law.

[31:05] The law is not bad. The law is good. But those of you who are boasting in it those of you who are making the law your basis for your standing before God you're dishonoring God because you don't live up to the standard that you proclaim.

[31:21] And none of us does. None of us is capable of rendering to God the kind of obedience to His law that would result in eternal life. That would result in a right standing before Him.

[31:32] None of us does that. Paul couldn't do it. His Jewish kinsmen couldn't do it. And he says because you claim to do it you are dishonoring God. You tell people to do this and yet in your hearts you break those very commandments that you are holding over others.

[31:53] And in your breaking of them you are dishonoring God Himself. and that's really been the issue all along hasn't it?

[32:07] In Paul's indictment of all of humanity Gentiles Jews everybody the issue has really been the honor and glory of God all along.

[32:18] Look back in chapter 1 we see this same sort of language. Verse 21 For although they knew God they did not honor Him as God or give thanks to Him but they became futile in their thinking.

[32:35] Verse 23 They exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images. Verse 24 For therefore God gave them up in the lust of their hearts to impurity to the dishonoring of their bodies same word among themselves because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worship and served the creature rather than the creator.

[32:54] Verse 26 Again this word For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. Verse 28 They did not see fit to acknowledge God.

[33:04] The issue here the issue with sin has been and always is the honor and glory of God. And the problem with hypocrisy is not merely that it offends others or it lays on others a burden that we're not willing or able to bear ourselves.

[33:20] That's a problem but that's not the main problem. The main problem with hypocrisy is that it dishonors God. Paul says to his Jewish kinsmen in verse 24 quoting from the prophets of the Old Testament he says as it is written the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.

[33:53] The name of God is blasphemed dishonored among the Gentiles because of you. I saw this week a Facebook post by a friend of mine from high school.

[34:10] I haven't seen the guy probably really since middle school because I think he moved away in high school so maybe he was a friend a childhood friend. I hadn't seen him in a long time over 20 years I think and he posted a link to this article that was about things that the church needs to face up to realities that the church needs to deal with why people are leaving the church and the church needs to need to recognize that people are leaving the church for this reason but but as he links to it above it he himself wrote I grew up going to church and I used to like going to church and going to Sunday school and learning from the Bible but this is why I don't go to church anymore and this is why I don't take my kids to church and he linked to the article and some of the things in the article were I think off base illegitimate critiques The church by people who don't understand what the church is really about but some of the critiques in the article were dead on because when the church begins to say one thing and do another or when the church begins to focus on something other than the gospel and push people in a direction that moves away from the gospel you need to do these things you need to be involved in these programs you need to participate in this sort of thing or these are the sorts of expectations that we have when we come in to worship and we want to meet all those when the church begins to focus on things other than the gospel the church which claims to be the proclaimer of the gospel becomes a hypocrite and it's a tragedy that that drives people away from the church that's a tragedy but it is far far worse that it brings dishonor and disrepute upon the name of God because we are called in all that we do to glorify

[36:19] God as individuals and as a church and the great burden of this text and of my heart this week has been to say to us we need to pause each of us our families and then us as a church we need to pause and we need to look and we need to pray and we need to reflect upon where has hypocrisy gained a foothold in our lives where is it where has it sunk its teeth in where has it dug its heels in where where is it gaining ground within our hearts and within our lives because God knows that he will judge us by the secrets of our hearts where is it identify it and root it out because what is at stake in all of this is not only the reaching of the nations if the name of God is blasphemed among the nations because of us they will not trust in the name of God that's true that's at stake in this but far more is simply the blaspheming of God's name

[37:30]  God has destroyed nations because of the blaspheming of his name God has moved the course of history because of the blaspheming of his name God poured out his wrath on his son because of the blaspheming of his name and nothing brings dishonor upon his name quite like the sin of hypocrisy and everywhere we see it and everywhere we find it whether it is the kind that claims legalism or the kind that looks like antinomianism whatever it might be whatever kind of hypocrisy might take root in our hearts we must root it out dig it up and get rid of it for the sake of God's name among the nations let's pray I think