A Matter of the Heart

Let’s pray one more time.

Our Father in heaven, we come again in prayer. I suppose it can feel like we have a lot of prayers in a service, but that’s because there are a lot of things to pray about. And so, now we need your help. We call this the prayer of illumination – not that there’s any darkness in you, but there is a lot of darkness in us, darkness in our world. We are hard of hearing. We can be hard of heart. So, we would be remiss if we did not ask and, in fact, plead with you that you would speak to us. Make me a humble instrument and vessel for your Word to go forth. May there be an unction from your Holy Spirit. May there be an anointing of the Word upon your people, that we might be not only hearers but we, with faith, would receive it. We would be changed. We would be transformed, and some people would be saved. We ask in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Continue our series in the book of Romans, coming this morning to the end of Romans chapter 2, the last paragraph, verses 25 through 29. Romans chapter 2. Follow along in your Bible. You want to have your Bible open as we work our way through the text this morning. I’ll read, beginning at verse 25:

“For circumcision is indeed 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, nor is circumcision outward and physical, but a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart by the Spirit, not by the letter. His praise is not from man, but from God.”

We are blessed in this congregation. We have a lot of very nice policemen and women in our church. Nice is maybe not the strong enough word. Professional, cordial, kind, dutiful. We are grateful for the law enforcement officers that are part of this congregation and those that watch over the campus during the week and here on Sunday. And yet, no matter how friendly a policeman may be, it is still a terrible feeling when you see the blue and red lights behind you. This is not a story – nothing happened to me this week. I’m okay, here in one piece, but we’ve probably all had that experience. And whether you think you’ve done anything wrong – and I know when you get pulled over, we all immediately think, “I did nothing wrong!” – turns out you usually did. But your heart starts pumping, and when the officer comes up, you suddenly – you can’t remember what state you were born in, where your license and registration. You think, I’ve been meaning to put that in here for years. You start thinking about how fast you were going, if you – did I drive past a school bus or not? Did I – I must have made a mistake on my taxes, and they found out. They’re coming to get me. I used water on the wrong day. Something is happening. It’s a terrible feeling, and we respond differently, but nobody likes it.

In our first years of marriage – this was 20 years ago – I remember Trisha calling me. It was on a Sunday. Maybe we were driving separately to church, and she was just – she called me, and she was in tears. I said, “Oh no, what’s wrong? What happened? Is everything okay?” She said, “I got pulled over.” I asked her if I could share this story, and it was still pretty raw when she said I could, 20 years later. She recounted all the things that happened, and she had merged wrong or hadn’t pulled to the side. And to make matters worse or more pronounced, she was pregnant. Now, that was kind of like for 20 years, it was a pretty good bet she was, but she was pregnant, and it was her birthday. Yeah. Yeah. There’s a reason they’re called law enforcement officers, not gospel enforcement officers, because it didn’t matter. This man did not – I don’t know if she told him it was her birthday. She said, “I didn’t cry in front of him.” You can tell me if that helps or not, but she just felt absolutely embarrassed. And many of us have had an experience of being suddenly pulled before some authority figure. I even find it just a little bit – sometimes if one of you has to come, you have a meeting and it’s for nothing bad, but you come to the pastor’s office, and suddenly you feel like you’re in middle school again, and you’re going to the middle school principal’s office. If you’ve ever had to suddenly be put before someone in authority – I remember I was a junior or senior year in high school, and I was a pretty good kid, I think, but I got pulled out of the classroom. I had said something sarcastic and snippy to the teacher. I was wrong, and it was really rude, and he had it right, and he just said, “Kevin, out in the hallway.” Everyone was like, “What? Kevin gets out in the hallway?” And he chewed me out, appropriately – loud enough so everyone still in the classroom could hear – for shooting off my mouth and not being very respectful. And then I had to go down to the principal’s office. It was a new experience. I just thought you just went there when you got awards or something. And they said, “What are you doing here?” And I told them, and I had to sit there for a time and felt very embarrassed and was going through my head of all of – even when he was talking to me – of all the explanations, but I knew deep down I had really messed up.

You’ve had the experience, perhaps, of being caught. Maybe it’s with a spouse, parents, a coach, a boss. Maybe you’ve had to go before a literal judge, and we have some judges in our congregation. It’s a frightening thought, even the most confident among us, to have to suddenly be pulled up and brought before someone who stands or sits in authority over us, especially when we know that we have indeed broken the law. There will come a day for every one of us, and it may come as a great surprise – we don’t know when the Lord Jesus will return. You don’t know how many more breaths you have except that, each one of us, fewer breaths to the end than when we started this morning. And we will have to stand not before a police officer or an angry teacher or a principal or an earthly magistrate but before the supreme judge of the earth. And I can say this without a shadow of a doubt – it’s true of you, and it’s true of me – whatever you think of God this morning, whatever you think about God, you do not think of him highly enough. You and I do not grasp his holiness enough, his majesty enough. Here’s our own Westminster Confession. This is about as good as you can get in a paragraph: “There is but one only, living, and true God, who is infinite in being and perfection, a most pure spirit; invisible; without body, parts, or passions; immutable; immense; eternal; incomprehensible; almighty; most wise; most holy; most free; most absolute; working all things according to the counsel of his own immutable and most righteous will, for his own glory; most loving, gracious, merciful, long-suffering; abundant in goodness and truth; forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin; the rewarder of them that diligently seek him; and with all, most just and terrible in his judgments; hating all sin; and who will by no means clear the guilty.” Those are human words in one long sentence to describe him who is transcendent and ineffable. We will have to stand before this God.

Paul has been dealing in chapter 1 and chapter 2 with this sober and awful reality that all of us will stand before God. And he has been dealing in chapter 2, in particular, with the Jew, with the religious insider. Though most of us are not Jews, this is very relevant for us, because in his category he’s really thinking about the person who took their faith seriously, who took religion seriously. The person who had been surrounded by religious things his whole life. We might think of a conservative, Bible-believing, evangelical Christian – that sort of person – standing before God Almighty. And in chapter 2, Paul examines several arguments one might make as you have to stand before God, how you might defend yourself, and one by one, he has proven that all of them fail. “I’m better than others” – that’s verses 1-3. You judge other people. Well, as soon as you judge them, you judge yourself, because you do the same things that they do. That’s not going to work. You can’t do it by comparison. Verses 4 and 5: “Well, maybe God won’t judge. I haven’t seen his wrath poured out in the world. It doesn’t look like Sodom and Gomorrah. It doesn’t look like the flood.” Well, he’s patient, and you’re storing up wrath for yourself. What about verses 6 through 11? “Well, I’m one of God’s favorites.” Doesn’t matter. He has no partiality. When it comes before the judgment scene of Christ, there are no favorites. “Yeah, but I’m a pretty good person,” verses 12-16. Now, you may think you’re a pretty good person, but it doesn’t matter that you hear about good things. Are you a perfect, faithful doer of all those things? “Well, but I have a special relationship to the law.” That was last week, verses 17 through 18. “I boast in God. I know his will. I’ve been instructed in the Word of God.” And then verses 19 and 20, not only that, but “I have a special mission to teach others. I have a close relationship to the law, and I make it my mission to instruct those in the Word of God who live in darkness.” And Paul says, “Well then, let me by cross-examination ask you a few questions. You who fancy yourself a great teacher of everyone else, why don’t you teach yourself? Before you’re ready to point out the darkness of everyone else in the world, what about the darkness in your own heart? One by one – I count six; you could enumerate them differently – at least six defenses that the Jew is likely to put before God, and one by one, Paul says, “It won’t work. You’re guilty.”

This last paragraph comes with one final appeal, one last piece of evidence that Paul – remember he’s Jewish, so he’s not anti-Semitic here as he talks about the Jews – Paul imagines one last piece of evidence. After all of this has failed, the Jewish person, he imagines, has one final pieces of evidence he might slide in front of the judge, one last thing he can make as a case for himself. After all else has failed, he stands before the judge, stands up tall, puts his shoulders back, his head up, and he clears his throat: “Your honor, but have you forgotten that I’m a Jew, and I’ve been circumcised?” So, one final appeal. That may seem strange to us. It’s not the thing that we would think to bring before the judge, but you have to recall the central role that circumcision played for the Jews. The removing of the foreskin of the male member – circumcision was that marker which separated Jews from Gentiles. And remember that Paul’s imaginary conversation partner, this Jew, has often brought up the law, but when did circumcision come? Circumcision was not established with Moses, but with Abraham. So, he’s going 400 years back, way older than in this country is. 400 years earlier than Moses, all the way back to Abraham and the establishment of the covenant of circumcision. This was the sign of the covenant established with Abram in Genesis 17. As a sign, circumcision pointed to spiritual realities. This is really important to understand the Old Testament connection to the New Testament. Paul is not inventing new significance for circumcision. It always had these spiritual realities and was meant to carry this spiritual dimension. The Old Testament and the New Testament witness to the spiritual significance of circumcision. So, it’s not that Paul is just saying I’m kind of – I’m just rambling on about something new about circumcision. No, this spiritual dimension, as it points to the work of the Spirit cutting away the flesh of the heart – this was already there in the Old Testament. Remember? That’s why Jesus can say to Nicodemus in John chapter 3, “You who are a teacher of the law, this thing I’m talking to you about – the new birth, you must be born again – you should have known this. This is in your Bible. This is not just something talked about in the new covenant. You should have understood this.”

Leviticus 26, “If, then, their uncircumcised hearts are humbled, and they pay for their sin, I will remember my covenant with Jacob and my covenant with Isaac and my covenant with Abraham, and I will remember the land.” Notice the language of an uncircumcised heart. Deuteronomy 30:6, “The Lord your God will circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your descendants so that you may love him with all your heart, with all your soul, and live.” Jeremiah 4, “Circumcise yourselves to the Lord” – now, these were Jews, already circumcised physically, but Jeremiah says, “Circumcise your hearts, you men of Judah and people of Jerusalem, or my wrath will break out and burn like fire because of the evil you have done, burn with no one to quench it.” The prophets, and indeed Moses before in the Torah, made this connection. The cutting away of the skin, physically, was a pointer to the corresponding cutting away of the flesh of the heart that was supposed to take place in the Jew. We see this here in Romans 2. We’re going to see it again in Romans 4. This was not merely a figurative use of the word that then developed later in the history of Israel. This was true to its original meaning and significance. I’m trying to disabuse us of the notion that says, “Well, circumcision – it was just an ethnic boundary marker. It was just something that said nationally, physically, you’re a Jew.” We have all these texts, and there’s another dozen like it, which point to the circumcision of the heart. In other words, it was never meant to be a mere outward sign. It was always meant to signify spiritual blessing that would be realized in the heart.

Circumcision was never meant to be a mere sign, just like baptism is not meant to be a mere sign. It is a sign. It’s applied with water, and it points to spiritual realities, which are meant to be received by faith and then effected in the heart. Circumcision pointed to blessing for the covenant keeper and cursing for the covenant breaker. Think about this dual – there’s sort of a major theme with the happy music, and then there’s a minor theme with minor chords, scary music. Circumcision, cutting away of the foreskin of the flesh – the blessing it pointed to was the cutting away of the flesh of the heart, that one might be blameless before God, one would be righteous before God, that you would have the Lord as your God. It pointed to nothing less than union and communion with Yahweh. But – here’s the minor theme in the minor key – if you did not keep the covenant, you did not circumcise your heart, then circumcision pointed to the absence of that union and communion with God, so that there’s a play on words here. Genesis 17:14, “Any uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin shall be cut off.” So, if your foreskin is not cut off, you will be cut off from [your] people. Whoever has been cut off, he has broken my covenant. So, it pointed also to a warning of judgment. If you are not cut in the heart, if you are not given to a new spiritual principle in your life, that cutting off of the foreskin pointed to blessing if you were pure of heart and had union with God or a curse and being cut off from God. You know, the cutting goes both ways. So, here’s how Sinclair Ferguson puts it: “The covenant established by circumcision” – I want you to listen carefully, it’s a little theology here, to these important words. He says it was established unilaterally. That means it was God’s idea. God didn’t get together with humans and say, “Let’s establish a covenant.” God established it unilaterally and unconditional in its creation. He goes on, “but bilateral” – that means two parties – “and conditional in its application.” So, in its creation, he says unilateral. Unconditional in its application – that is, you had to be a covenant keeper. There were conditions. Now, those conditions did not mean that in the Old Testament you merited God’s favor, and you somehow earned your salvation. There were conditions. Condition is not the same as meriting salvation, but there were conditions to be met. Or to put it this way, God’s signs, either in the Old Testament or the New Testament, always call for a response of faith and repentance on the part of the recipients if they are to receive the promised blessings. Otherwise, if they are not received with faith and repentance, those signs then become symbols of curse and judgment.

Baptism functions the same way. It’s in Peter’s epistle that he also has this major theme – you know, the waters of baptism point to forgiveness and cleansing and union with Christ and righteous, all of that. And then there’s a minor theme. He connects it to the flood. They’re also the waters of judgment, if you prove to be a covenant breaker. So just like Paul says here, there are some of you Jews, you’ve been physically circumcised, but I’m here to tell you, you are not spiritually really circumcised. You might say to us, there’s some of you been physically baptized. Spiritually, you don’t have the reality. I don’t see it. This is the warning that he’s given. Lest the Jew stand before God and say, “I have the sign of signs to show that I’m a good, religious person. I’m not like the pagans. I’m circumcised.”

So, look at verse 24, or 25 rather, and following. He says in verse 25, circumcision is important. Notice he doesn’t devalue it. He says it’s of value. And we’re going to come next week to chapter 3, because the question, you can understand, that Paul anticipates with all of this he said about the Jews standing before judgment – someone’s likely to say, “So, was it pointless to be a Jew? All we got was extra suffering and heartache.” He’s going to say, “No, no, no. There’s been a lot of privileges, a lot of advantages. So, he says circumcision is of some value, but if you don’t keep the law, it’s pointless. If you fail at one point of the law, you are considered a breaker of the whole law. You get pulled over, and those sirens come before you, and you are going 70 in a 35 – please don’t do that. Doesn’t help the officer to say, “But I paid my taxes. Huh? And I got a permit for that shed in my yard. Can I go now? I kept the law in other areas.” I didn’t pull you over for that. You’re a lawbreaker, because you failed in this area. Paul says that’s circumcision. That’s pointless. If you didn’t keep the law – verse 26 – if a man keeps the law, that would count as circumcision for him. He’s dealing with a hypothetical category. He doesn’t say explicitly that anyone can keep the law in such a way that it’s tantamount to circumcision, but he’s saying if one could, that would be more important, and that would be equal to circumcision. All throughout the Old Testament – I hope you know your Bible – all throughout the Old Testament, God is saying, “I desire mercy more than sacrifice. I desire love more than that you follow every jot and tittle with a bad heart from the law.” Now, Jesus says, “I didn’t come to overturn the law.” He’s not against those jots and tittles of the law. But he says if you get all the little, teeny things, you get all the little building codes, and you’re a horrible person, that doesn’t count for anything. Verse 27: this person, if he kept the law and was not circumcised, he would judge you when you think you have a right to judge him. And then he comes in verse 28 and 29, the conclusion of the matter. Keeping an external ritual does not make you a true Jew. Paul will come later in Romans 11 – that’s a very difficult, controversial passage. What does Paul say there about the future of ethnic Israel? So, he still has a category for ethnic Israel. But this Jewish person who is to inherit the promises of the new covenant is one who is a Jew truly and spiritually, which means the renovation of the heart. You cannot get into heaven by just having the right country flag or having the right parents or grandparents or the right tradition. Verse 29, to be a true Jew, God must be at work within you from the inside out. So, it’s not a matter – you’re not going to get it by just keeping the Mosaic covenant, the letter. In fact, no one’s done that. It’s a matter of the Spirit giving you a new heart.

You notice in verse 28 and 29, verse 28 has two denial statements. One, no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly. Second, circumcision is not outward and physical. And those two denial statements are matched in verse 29 by two affirmations. Okay, so if that’s what a Jew is not and what circumcision is not, what is it? Well, a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart. As we did last week, let’s step back for a moment and try to put this in some contemporary analogy. Not a political statement – I’m just thinking of an analogy to try to convey why this would feel so shocking, because many of us are familiar with this verse. It sounds kind of good. Yeah, it’s a matter of the heart. I like that. And circumcision, that’s not something we’re arguing about a lot. Or who’s a true Jew? But the scandal might feel something like this. It’s like coming before the magistrate or before some tribunal, and you’re trying to prove your citizenship, your American citizenship. You say, “I got my social security number right here. I got the card. My mom saved the birth certificate. Here it is.” Or, “I have a card that says that I have now become a citizen.” And you’re presenting all the documents. It’s as if the magistrate says, “I want to know what you really think about America. I want to know what you feel about this country. I want to know what you believe about this country. As if he had said – it’s just an analogy, not a political statement, just trying to how it would land on you – as if he had said law-abiding, patriotic, illegal immigrants are more real Americans than you are. Oh, pastor, what? I was trying to give you – that’s what it would sound like. That’s what it sounds like. Not advocating that citizenship just works by saying, “I’ve asked America into my heart. Now I can vote.” We need to have some better methods than that. But you can see how this would land on a Jewish person. What? Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. My whole life I’m a Jew. I keep the law. I have evidence. I have circumcision, at least the men would. I’m a Jew.” And Paul says, “No. That, apart from the corresponding heart – in fact, if you have someone who’s a Gentile, and they kept the law when you didn’t, I’m saying that’s a true Jew and not you. I’m saying that person’s the real American and not you. Yes, that’s going to land and cut a little bit to the quick.

And then to add to it, he says the praise comes from God, not from man. Now that may seem strange – why that saying at the end? Because you can imagine the Jewish person is suggesting, but I look the part. I fit in. My community recognizes me as a solid, religious person. You can ask anyone. They’ll all tell you. They even remember when the rabbi came when I was 8 days old, and I was circumcised. They’ll tell you. I’m a good Jew. Ask anybody. And Paul says, “I don’t need to ask everybody. I just want to ask one person. I just want to ask God.” I just want to ask God what he says about you, because the praise that comes from everybody else – all your other religious friends – is not worth anything if you are not pleasing to God. Now, I hope you can see that Paul’s argument here, though it gets into some of the robust theology about circumcision, and you follow the logical arguments of these verses, at the core it’s really quite simple. And it has massive implications, not just for the Jews in Paul’s day, but for our understanding of true religion more generally.

I would say there are in human history across the whole world, there are two predominant forms of false religion, and I don’t mean false religion like they’re worshiping Satan, and it looks real scary. I just mean it’s not true religion. Two kinds, and they usually go hand in hand. One is a works righteousness. All of the religions in the world that tell you, what does it mean to be a part of this religious tradition? Well, there’s certain things you do, and you’re a good person, and you get into the afterlife, or you achieve nirvana with some effort, and you get into heaven. Some kind of works righteousness. This is based – finally, the grounding – on what you do. This religion is about becoming a better person, a better version of you. What if the better version of you doesn’t exist? Because more of you is more of the wrong you, and you actually need a new you. That’s what the gospel is. But that’s the first, and together with it, here’s the second form of false religion. Not only a works righteousness, but a mere formalism. Formality is not bad. Look, we got a formal pulpit, and we’ve got communion trays, and the elders are going to go – it’s all, you know, for churches these days, it’s pretty formal here. A mere formalism, however, is deadly. Romans 2 has mostly been about the first danger, the danger of thinking that you can keep the law. But here at the end of chapter 2, it’s about this second danger, that Paul’s audience and all of you would know religious ritual does not save you. Religious ritual does not save you. You’re without excuse. You cannot stand before God someday – you’re in this church; maybe you’re sleeping, that’s your problem; maybe you’re not paying attention, your problem – and stand before God and say, “My pastor, I just thought because I was a member of Christ Covenant, and I was a baptized member, that I was good to go.” I’m telling you. Oh, it doesn’t matter what I tell you. God’s Word tells you without a work in the heart, you’re not good to go. Religious ritual will not save you. There are invisible things that must be going on inside of you that God can see.

Again, verse 25, circumcision is of value. The sacraments are of value. Baptism is essential for every Christian. Circumcision was God’s idea. Baptism is God’s idea. Jesus said at the great commission, you’re going to baptize. Circumcision was a sign and seal, just like baptism is a sign and seal. The Lord’s supper is a sign and seal. Christianity, like the Jewish faith it sprang out of, believes in the importance of ritual, of signs, of symbols, of traditions, of habits. Don’t hear the message that Christianity is against all those things. It’s not. But your confidence, my confidence, must not be in these things as mere signs. Divinely given privilege does not guarantee divine acceptance. All of you have many divinely given privileges. How do I know? Because you’re here, and you’re in a church that preaches the Bible, and the air conditioning turned on, and you can probably understand English and read a Bible in a language you can understand. Privileges. To be given those divine privileges, however, is not a guarantee of divine acceptance. You only have to know a little bit about how most religions work, and sometimes, indeed, how Christian traditions work, that it is – the sort of entropy of religious impulse is always to devolve into a works righteousness and into a mere formalism. There are people in the mountains in Tibet or Bhutan in the east – old women spinning prayer wheels, putting prayers in there and just spinning, every revolution supposed to be another prayer, just a ritual, a spin of the wheel. People all over the world think I will light this candle, this votive, or I will sprinkle this incense in this holy place. I will offer a sacrifice. Hindus – if I can just dip myself in this dirty Ganges River, all can be atoned for. If I can just keep a meticulous record of my ancestors – you realize many of the ancestry websites come from Mormon groups trying to find their ancestors so they can baptize those ancestors for the dead. If I could just apply this ritual, this baptism for the dead, or maybe if I could purchase an indulgence. We have Catholic friends. I have Catholic friends. The Catholic Church still sells indulgences. Not gone in the Reformation. I could purchase an indulgence, perhaps, that would lessen the time, or make some kind of pilgrimage – something, some kind of ritual that would–. Maybe if I attend mass multiple times a week, or maybe if I go to a certain number of Bible studies, if I can just show to God enough rituals. That’s how religion always devolves into mere formalism, mere ritualism. I did some things for you, God. Look it. I have the sign. I haven’t seen this movie for a long time, so it probably needs to have all sorts of caveats to not go see it, but you remember the line from Jerry Maguire – not the “you complete me” line, but “show me the money” line? You stand before God, and you say, I’m baptized. I took the Lord’s supper. I have a church membership certificate. I have a diploma from a Christian school. I got an extra certificate in counseling and theology. I wasn’t even sure if this was okay, but I got a tattoo on my arm in Greek, Hebrew, Latin, just to be safe. I’m one of your chosen people. And God’s going to say, show me the heart. Show me the heart.

A Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart. What’s going on inside of you? Stephen, in Acts chapter 7, preached that long sermon. They hated him for it. They killed him for it. You remember what he says at the very end of that sermon? Here was the conclusion when they reached the climax of their fury: “You stiff necked people,” he concluded, “uncircumcised in hearts.” You see what he’s saying right there? You’re not real Jews. That is, you’re not what Jews ought to be on the inside. Uncircumcised in hearts and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit. As your fathers did, so do you. Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute, and they killed those who announced beforehand the coming of the righteous one, whom you have now betrayed and murdered, you who received the law as delivered by angels and did not keep it. That’s quite a sermon. Now when they heard these things, they were enraged, and they ground their teeth at him. And then they picked up stones. They threw them until he died. And who was there, approving the murder? They put their cloaks at his feet. This young man who might have said, “Hey, Simeon, that’s a good rock right there. You can really – you can get that in your hand. Now you can really get some velocity on that. Go ahead. You’re going to want to wind up. Let me take your cloak. Anyone else? I’ll hold onto that for you. Let me take your garment. Let me take your outer tunic. You’re going to want to really, really throw some shoulder into this one.” That young man who was there: same man who wrote the book of Romans. Saul. Paul. You think Paul, who was there nodding his yes and amen to the stoning of Stephen, as he watched over their cloaks? You think Paul persecuting the church? You think he was going to forget that circumcision does not save you? Because that was Paul. They heard the message, “you uncircumcised hearts and ears,” and they killed him for it. And Paul was right there saying, “Atta boy! How dare this man say that we crucified the righteous one? How dare he tell us that we’re not Jews, and we have circumcised our hearts yet to be done?” You think Paul was going to forget this? You think he was going to forget the essential importance of having a new heart? You don’t think that everything with him every day of his life reminded him – chief of sinners. Being a Jew was not going to save Paul. It wasn’t going to save me. It wasn’t enough, because I was the religious insider par excellence. I had all the credentials, and I had a hard heart. And so, I applauded them as they killed God’s prophet.

Friends, being a Christian is not, first of all, a matter of being baptized, though that’s important. Or going to church – you should. Or owning a Bible – you should. Or wearing a cross necklace. That doesn’t matter. What matters more and matters first is what’s going on in your heart. Is there faith in your heart? Is there repentance in your heart? Is there mourning for sin in your heart? Is there joy in Christ in your heart? Nothing will suffice when you stand before the judge, the Lord God Almighty, except that you have a heart of faith that joins you to Christ. Let’s pray.

Our heavenly Father, we give thanks for this, your holy Word. And would you, by your Spirit, so work in that very organ of faith – our hearts – to repent, to believe. Cut us, wound us, and then heal us, we pray, that we might be joined to Christ and with him know forgiveness of sins, that you might reach down to this heart of stone and give us a heart of flesh. We pray that you would do it for Jesus’ sake by your Spirit in each one here. Amen.