What you and I are desperately in need of is a Savior, not a season — and self-righteousness condemns us just as surely as lawlessness does.
The good news is that God offers mercy to people who have no hope of earning their way to Him. Romans 2 shows that religious, "good" people are just as condemned before a holy God as anyone else, because heaven requires perfection, not goodness. Our only hope is not behaving better but believing in Jesus, who satisfied God's justice in our place.
A story from life
Story about forgetting to buy his wife a Christmas gift in their early marriage
Rewind AI contributed study material from the sermon transcript; church-authored wording and verified sermon quotes keep their own source. Always trust the sermon itself over anything here. How Rewind uses AI
Point 1 of 6
Following God is not a simple checklist — Paul refuses to make it that easy.
Pastor Daniel opens with a lighthearted marriage story about learning his wife's coded language, then applies it to Romans: we wish following God were as simple as a list of rules, but Paul insists we live in a tension between lawlessness and self-righteousness, and neither one saves us.
Rewind AI contributed study material from the sermon transcript; church-authored wording and verified sermon quotes keep their own source. Always trust the sermon itself over anything here. How Rewind uses AI
Point 2 of 6
Jesus' parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector shows that only the desperate one goes home justified.
Working through Luke 18:9-14, Pastor Daniel explains that a Pharisee represented the best of the best of first-century Judaism while a tax collector was the worst of the worst, yet it was the tax collector who beat his chest and pleaded for mercy who left justified, while the self-satisfied Pharisee did not.
“You and I cannot save ourselves”
— Pastor Daniel Goulding
Rewind AI contributed study material from the sermon transcript; church-authored wording and verified sermon quotes keep their own source. Always trust the sermon itself over anything here. How Rewind uses AI
Point 3 of 6
Romans 2 turns the finger back on religious, church-going people who condemn the 'sinners' of Romans 1.
Paul says that judging others for lawlessness only proves you know the standard, and therefore condemns yourself, since you do the same things in secret. Pastor Daniel uses Jesus' raising of the standard on adultery (looking with lust) to show all of us are guilty, not just the obviously immoral.
“Anytime you're pointing a finger at somebody else, you've got three fingers pointing back at yourself”
— Pastor Daniel Goulding
A story from life
Story about church people confronting him about his tattoos as a youth pastor
Rewind AI contributed study material from the sermon transcript; church-authored wording and verified sermon quotes keep their own source. Always trust the sermon itself over anything here. How Rewind uses AI
Point 4 of 6
Don't confuse God's patience and mercy with His approval.
Using a Fry's self-checkout illustration about scanning less and less of the cart without getting caught, Pastor Daniel shows how we mistake the absence of immediate punishment for divine okay-ness, when in reality God's kindness is meant to lead us to repentance, not comfort us in hidden sin.
Illustration
Analogy of gradually scanning fewer items at a self-checkout line and mistaking no consequences for approval
Rewind AI contributed study material from the sermon transcript; church-authored wording and verified sermon quotes keep their own source. Always trust the sermon itself over anything here. How Rewind uses AI
Point 5 of 6
There is a coming judgment where God will judge everyone according to what they've done — including believers' secret lives.
Pastor Daniel distinguishes a first judgment (whether Jesus is Lord of your life) from a second judgment for believers, where God asks what we did with what He entrusted to us; he pictures believers bragging about houses and possessions only to hear God call it worthless, since it's forgiven people, not good people, who go to heaven.
“Don't confuse God's patience and mercy with God's approval”
— Pastor Daniel Goulding
“it's not good people that go to heaven. It's forgiven people that go to heaven”
— Pastor Daniel Goulding
Rewind AI contributed study material from the sermon transcript; church-authored wording and verified sermon quotes keep their own source. Always trust the sermon itself over anything here. How Rewind uses AI
Point 6 of 6
Paul's bleak picture in Romans 1 and 2 is meant to set up the greatest news the world has ever heard.
Peeking ahead to Romans 3:23-26, Pastor Daniel shows that everyone — unrighteous and self-righteous alike — has sinned and falls short, yet God freely and graciously declares us righteous through Christ's sacrifice, received by belief, not behavior.
“it is not about what you do. It is about who and how you believe”
— Pastor Daniel Goulding
A story from life
Story about his father giving his mother re-gifted and impulse-buy Christmas presents with no real intent behind them
Rewind AI contributed study material from the sermon transcript; church-authored wording and verified sermon quotes keep their own source. Always trust the sermon itself over anything here. How Rewind uses AI
Take it into your week
We need a Savior, not a season — so stop trusting your own goodness and start believing in Jesus.
Application
Stop comparing yourself to other people
Pastor Daniel says the only comparison we're allowed to make is to God's own standard of holiness, not to people who seem worse off than us.
Don't mistake God's patience for His approval
If sin hasn't caught up with you yet, don't assume God is fine with it — His kindness is meant to lead you to repentance, not comfort you in what you're hiding.
Examine what you're really building your life on
Ask what you're doing with what God has entrusted to you this week, rather than chasing houses, cars, and possessions that will burn away at judgment.
Trade self-righteousness for honest desperation before God
Whether you've never trusted Jesus as Lord or you've drifted into relying on your own behavior modification, admit you're in the same desperate need of grace as anyone else and believe in Jesus.
Rewind AI contributed study material from the sermon transcript; church-authored wording and verified sermon quotes keep their own source. Always trust the sermon itself over anything here. How Rewind uses AI