 Today we're in Romans chapter 10. We're going to be looking at verses 1 through 13 As we continue our verse by verse study here in the book of Romans and Some had asked if I'd gone to the doctor for my cough and the answer is yes I did I went on Monday of last week and they gave me some Some coughs a present and they gave me some some pills a horse pill and they gave me some spray Then I went to my pharmacist on Holt and got some medicinal marijuana and it's been just Real groovy, but any I'm kidding. You know, some people think all you did. That's not medicinal at all, but anyway I'm feeling better, but bless the Lord. It's still a little tough to breathe I can hear some of you who are coughing your amens out But lots better than it was before So today we're in chapter 10. Let's begin reading together at verse 1. I'll read to verse 13 and We'll get into our study Romans chapter 10 beginning at verse 1 Paul writes Brethren my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they may be saved For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge For being ignorant for they being ignorant of God's righteousness and Seeking to establish their own righteousness have not submitted to the righteousness of God For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes For Moses writes about the righteousness, which is of the law the man who does those things shall live by them But the righteousness of faith speaks in this way Do not say in your heart who will ascend into heaven that is to bring Christ down from above or Who will descend into the abyss that is to bring Christ up from the dead But what does it say? The word is near you even in your mouth and in your heart That is the word of faith which we preach That if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead You will be saved For with the heart one believes to righteousness and with the mouth confession is made to salvation For the scripture says whoever believes on him will not be put to shame But there's no distinction between Jew and Greek For the same Lord over all is rich to all who call upon him for whoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved Now as we've been looking at the book of Romans we've arrived now at chapter 10 We need to remember that Paul closed chapter 9 by stating that the Gentiles have been granted a right standing before God And he made it very clear that that is because of faith that they have in the Lord Jesus Christ Now that's a theme that Paul has been developing throughout the book of Romans that we should have faith in Christ In chapter 1 remember with me in verses 16 and 17 he had said I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ For it's the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes for the Jew first and also for the Greek For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith as it is written that just shall live by faith In chapter 4 he had said at verse 11 Speaking of Abraham and he received the sign of circumcision a seal of the righteousness of the faith Which he had yet being Uncircumcised that he might be the father of all those who believe Though they be not circumcised that righteousness might be imputed to them also He also had stated that the Gentiles had been opened to Christ and Israel has been rejecting their messiah And he's made it clear that the reason that the Jews believe that they Didn't need Jesus is because they thought they could be made righteous by obeying the law of Moses Paul said that's a great error He said in Romans 932 He said they did not seek a right standing with God through faith, but by the works of the law So they missed the key to being right with God. They missed the element of faith in messiah And he described that as a stumbling stone that Jesus himself was this stumbling stone Paul when he wrote in 1st Corinthians 123 said we preach Christ crucified to the Jews a stumbling stone to the Greeks foolishness And so he's been making it very clear that you need to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ to be saved and He's spoken of the Gentiles now in chapter 10 He reveals his heart and his prayer his hearts desire and his greatest prayer would be that Israel would be saved Notice he says in verse 1 my hearts desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they may be saved When I was going to Bible college and when I was going to some classes Several years ago that the debate Then as is today was does Israel does that you need to? receive crisis messiah to be saved and there are those in the Christian community who would say no What they need to do is they need to just be obedient to the law of Moses and Do their best to be obedient to what they have revealed in scripture Paul would debate that Paul would make it very clear that that's not true at all Paul would say that it's something that is not Found in the Lord's heart nor was it ever found in his writings And so he made it very clear that his desire was for Israel to be saved now It's a good thing for people to have a desire to peace be seen somebody else get saved But Paul was making it very clear that he has a great desire for Israel to be saved And he's going to show this in at least two ways What makes us know that he's sincere about their salvation well one he makes it a practice of preaching the gospel to the Jew first and Secondly he speaks concerning the prayer that he lifts up for them constantly So he would preach to the Jew first and then to the Gentile We see that in the ministry of Jesus Jesus took the message obviously to the Jewish nation that's revealed throughout the Gospels in Luke 4 16 For example, it says he came to Nazareth where he'd been brought up and as his custom was he went into the synagogue on the Sabbath Day stood up for to read So Jesus went to his nation in Matthew 15 24 he answered and said I was not sent Accepted the lost sheep of the house of Israel So Jesus came first and foremost for the Jewish nation then he commissioned his apostles to go out and preach the gospel And he said you're to reach the Jew first Matthew 10 5 and 6 These 12 Jesus sent forth commanded them saying good go not into the way of the Gentiles and Into any city of the Samaritans do you not enter but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel And so Jesus not only went to Israel But he told his apostles I want you first and foremost to speak to the Jews and Then when he was given to us this promise of the baptism of the Holy Spirit in Acts chapter 1 verse 8 He said you shall receive power after that the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you shall be witnesses to me in Jerusalem Judea Samaria and then unto the uttermost parts of the earth and so to the Jew first was the practice When the Apostle Paul was first saved That's the first thing he did as they went into synagogues His normal practice was to first go to the Jew There's a good example of this found in Acts 13 verses 44 through 46 where he were it's spoken of him being in a place called Pacific in Antioch and It says on the next Sabbath almost the whole city came together to hear the word of God But when the Jews saw the multitudes they were filled with envy and contradicting in blaspheming They opposed the things spoken by Paul then Paul and Barnabas grew bold and said it was necessary that the word of God should be spoken to you First but since you rejected and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life behold we turn to the Gentiles So Paul's sincere Concerners for the Jews to hear the gospel Not only did he preach this message to the to the Jew, but he prayed for the Jews In Daniel chapter 9 verse 19 this reminds me of Paul's heart where Daniel said oh Lord here Oh Lord forgive. Oh Lord listen in act Do not delay for your own sake my God for your city and your people are called by your name Paul had this great desire to take this message to the Jewish nation and he prayed for them Fervently he desired them to be saved and he tells us a little bit As a why in verse 2 he says I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge They have a zeal, but it is not informed They have the kind of zeal that that Paul could understand because Paul had a zeal like that too Before he got saved he was breathing out threatening to the Christian community It was taking them and putting him in chains bringing them back and trying them as heretics. He had a zeal for God When he speaks concerning this in his testimony and in Philippians 3 he says it like this in verses 5 through 9 He says I was circumcised when I was 8 days old I am a pure-blooded citizen of Israel a member of the tribe of Benjamin a real Hebrew if there ever was one I was a member of the Pharisees who demand the strictest obedience to the Jewish law I was so zealous that I harshly persecuted the church and that's for righteousness I obeyed the law without fault. I once thought these things were valuable, but now I consider them worthless Because of what Christ has done. Yes Everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord For his sake I have discarded everything else counting it all as garbage So that I could gain Christ and become one with him. I no longer count on my own righteousness through obeying the law Rather I became righteous through faith in Christ For God's way of making us right with himself depends on faith So Paul understood their zeal, but he also understood their lack of knowledge They're going about ignoring God's way of righteousness through faith and their righteousness was based on good works and and following the law of Moses and In doing so they were putting themselves in great jeopardy eternal jeopardy Jesus said it like this in John 5 45 through 47. Do not think that I shall accuse you to the father There's one who accuses you Moses in whom you trust for if you believe Moses, you'd believe me For he wrote about me, but if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words? And so they were rejecting the righteousness that is declared to them in the gospel Notice verse 3 he said they be ignorant of God's righteousness and seeking to establish their own righteousness have not submitted to the righteousness of God so by rejecting the message of the gospel which is Intended to communicate what God has done through Jesus Christ. They remain ignorant of God's righteousness You see in ignoring Jesus and his cross they became trapped in their works Religious ritual is never going to get you anywhere with God Anywhere with him He doesn't command us to believe in ritual. He commands us to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ that we might be saved He doesn't command us to believe in in our in our in our rituals that sometimes We've been raised with because sometimes those rituals though. They may have beautiful meaning Sometimes they come in the way of a real faith relationship with God And we can get caught up thinking that if we do certain things we'll go to heaven I've shared this with you before it bears repetition at this point some of you perhaps haven't heard me share this before But my father-in-law when he Ten years ago had a stroke My son and my dog and my my son and my sister-in-law Patty Went to his house because he usually had come on Fridays He had been here walking the grounds and visiting and all and and he hadn't shown up And so they were concerned and so Patty said to Joseph. Let's go see where grandpa is They went to the house as they went into the house my father-in-law Was on the floor He had had a stroke Joseph had EMT training He began to look and see how See what the condition of my father-in-law was he saw it was very serious. He Turned to Patty and said call 911 Patty calls 911 while Joseph kneels next to his grandfather whom he loved very deeply and Knowing that this was not a good thing knowing that he was Not doing well In a very serious condition Joseph said to his grandfather. Are you ready grandpa? And Grandpa looks back at him and says to him. I'm a good man Joseph My father-in-law was a good man. I loved him deeply. He's a good man And he said to Joseph, I'm a good man, Joseph Joseph says you're a good man Grandpa, that's true. You're not good enough You need Jesus and And Joseph began sharing his the gospel With his grandfather who had really not ever been totally open to hearing before but now was in a condition Where he listened very very sincerely And when he came to the point where Joseph said would you receive Christ as your Lord and Savior will you pray with me grandpa? My father-in-law prayed with Joseph and opened his heart to Christ and a few days later went home to glory We were part of the funeral service that was held here in Chino at one of the local Catholic churches and They allowed the family to come and share a little about My father-in-law Ruben Lopez Prior to that the Catholic priest had gotten up. It was a Catholic mass and He shared some things and and said Ruben Lopez was a baptized Catholic and therefore We'll go to heaven and Joseph was given opportunity to share as were several of us and Joseph stood up there in that Catholic Church and he looked at the hundreds who showed up to hear The service and he said my grandfather is in heaven But it isn't because he was water baptized It's because he received the gospel of Jesus Christ and believed and confessed him as Lord and Savior That's why we can stand up today and say he's in heaven It had nothing to do with water baptism had had everything to do with his faith in Jesus Christ That was not arrogance. That was truth and the people needed to hear the truth I do not enter into the kingdom of God through following religious ritual I enter into the kingdom of God through faith in Jesus Christ. That's how we all enter in we will have works Yes, that follows, but they did not get me into heaven They are done because I'm going to heaven and there's a great difference between the two and Joe and brother And Paul is speaking concerning the reality of that and he's making it very clear He's saying my my Jewish brethren whom I pray for and I love and I speak the gospel to It's my heart's desire that they would be saved He says but they're going about establishing their own righteousness They're going about attempting to enter into the kingdom of God by holding fast to the rules that were given to them Through the Jewish law. He said that's not going to take place. It won't happen You're remaining ignorant of the righteousness of God because in ignoring Jesus and the cross You're caught in a trap of good works In Galatians 2 21 Paul said it like this He said I do not set aside the grace of God for if righteousness comes through the law then Christ died in vain There was no reason for the Lord Jesus Christ to come if I could enter into the kingdom of God by by observing rituals It's been said the cardinal error against which the gospel of Christ has to contend is The effect of the tendency of the human heart to rely on salvation by works The great antagonist to the truth is the pride of man Which leads him to believe that he can be at least in part his own savior You see the Lord Jesus Christ came so that we might have life through him notice first for he said Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes When he says Christ is the end of the law what he's simply saying is this He's saying that the law points to the Lord Jesus Christ is summed up in him We now why cannot the Jews be righteous on their own by following the law of Moses? It's because the law pointed to and was fulfilled by Jesus Christ in Matthew 5 17 and 18 Jesus said this he said think not that I've come to destroy the law or the prophets. I'm not come to destroy but to fulfill For verily I say unto you till heaven and earth pass one jot or one tittle Shall in no wise pass from the law till all be fulfilled And so the Lord Jesus Christ came to to keep all the righteous requirements of the law on our behalf We can't do that, but he did Now he says in verse 5 Moses writes about the righteousness which is of the law the man who does those things shall live by them So Moses's writings reveal the frustration of someone trying to obey the whole law Because the law reveals our our motives that reveals our heart as well as It gives to us insight into our lack of holiness Because we can't do the things that we desire to do Because it's not possible because we're not capable of that and so what what happens is We need to understand that God requires faith on our on our part not simply attempting or trying Galatians 3 12 the law is not of faith the man that does them shall live in them Galatians 3 21 22 is the law then against the promises of God God forbid For if there had been a law given which could have given life verily righteousness should have been by the law But the scriptures concluded all under sin that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe So when you trust in the Lord, yes, you do right Yes, you'll do good things But the good things you do our products of your faith They're not you're trying to make your way into the kingdom of God or heaven Through your efforts, and so he's building that case in verse 6 the righteousness of faith speaks in this way Do not say in your heart who will ascend into heaven that is to bring Christ down from above or Who will descend into the abyss that is to bring Christ up from the dead? Who's going to ascend to heaven or descend to the abyss? Well, obviously for man. It's impossible. So that reveals itself efforts aren't enough But the good news is God has already made it possible by faith to be in fellowship with him. We can't ascend We can't descend we simply recognize that this has been done for us. Jesus is incarnated Jesus died on the cross Jesus was buried Jesus was resurrected and We know why he did that and in that we're required to believe to turn to him to confess our sins receive Christ as our Savior and So Paul is saying verse 8. What does it say? The word is near you even in your mouth and in your heart that is the word of faith which we preach and So the gospel is called the word of faith The gospel is called the word of faith because it is the word that results in salvation And so what we do is we receive by faith the Lord Jesus Christ and That's what we confess is the knowledge of who we are based on whom he says we are that's how you got saved When you heard the gospel message wherever it was whether it was at home because you were raised by Christian parents Whether it was in a Sunday school class at a VBS whether it was at a conference Whether it was at a retreat church service Driving in the car listening to the radio, whatever it was the Holy Spirit broke into your life and spoke to you What caused you to come to faith in Christ was not your efforts to be a good person What caused you to come to Christ was your realization that you're not and that you need to help I can still remember so many times just before getting saved how I began to once again pray to the Lord and ask God Please help me because God. I can't do this by myself. I need your help And that's what brought me into a relationship with God is confessing and asking for help And that's what the Lord will do the word the word of God and how you get saved through that It's called the word of faith and verses 9 through 13 continuing He says if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead You'll be saved For with the heart one believes to righteousness with the mouth Confession is made to salvation For the scripture says whoever believes on him will not be put to shame For there's no distinction between Jew and Greek for the same Lord over all is rich to all who call upon him Whoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved whoever One of the reasons why I Appreciate this movement called the whosoever's It's because they're freaks. No the reason I really the reason I really believe it and And and and like what God is doing so many lives through that movement is because of the word whosoever whosoever God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever Should believe in him Not perish, but have everlasting life whosoever It isn't segmentized Just a certain group are going to get saved and the others are not He says if you come and it doesn't matter who you are Jew or Gentile and you understand that Jesus Christ came That he did what he did said what he said that he died on the cross for the purpose of of atoning for our sin and buying us back If you believe that he was buried but the third day he arose from the dead If you believe that he ascended into heaven that he sits at the right hand of the father If you believe these things these cardinal things that relate to Christian theology that Jesus Christ is the Lamb of God He's the one who takes away the sin of the world if you believe that he died on the cross for you and You have a deep and sincere realization of that that comes to the conviction of the Holy Spirit Who convicts you of sin righteousness and judgment makes you aware that you're lost and he's the Savior and If you say God be merciful to me forgive me a sinner I turned for my sin and I turned to you Paul says you shall be saved He says whoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved God loves you God loves you and sometimes we may not see that sometimes we may not Experience that sometimes we may doubt that sometimes we may even fight against that But the Bible is explicitly clear God loves you and as a one who cares for you and seeks you out When you call upon him he will be found He's good And he seeks the lost And he cares so much that he gave his son to die on a cross in a brutal fashion tortured until he died So that you and I might have life When my daughter Corrine who is an older woman now, but when my daughter Corrine was around five or so right in that area five or six She was in the backyard plane and We had some bricks that she was kind of doing a tight rope on I guess and or something happened that she fell against the bricks and some of the concrete caught hold of her from her ankle and and and Lacerated it and she was in the backyard and and I knew exactly where she was in all of that We were very protective of our kids. I knew where they were at all times one time They wanted to sell lemonade to people driving by David and Corrine So I said of course you can so I put them in the backyard behind a fence Nobody could even see them and they sat there with the sign lemonade five cents For about a half hour and I came out and I said did anybody come and buy any lemonade? No dad I don't know why I had him behind the fence You could not see them because I was one of these fathers who didn't even let them play in the back in the front yard I knew what they were doing in the backyard. She was in the backyard She was playing she cut her ankle and I still remember hearing my girl crying out loudly as she was hobbling She come because crying out Jesus heal me Jesus Heal me There's blood dripping down her little ankle And as her father I stood there and said no, you're a woman woman up. No You know, you've come a long way, baby No, I went running out into the into the yard. I scooped her up in my arms I held there as she cried. I took her into the bathroom washed the wound I Bandaged it for her. I prayed for her. I loved her She called on the name of the Lord Jesus, but God sent her father to care He does that to you too He loves you And he cares and the minute you cry he hears you The psalm the psalmist says you have a bottle that holds my tears He loves you Do not get caught up with this thing in the world that says he doesn't he does How much more can he show you his love than to send his own son to die brutally for you? What else does he have to do to show you how deeply he cares? What else can be done and who here in this room could do more than Jesus did for you? How can I earn my salvation? I can't all I have coming to me is righteous judgment Why because the wrath of God abides on those who do not have a relationship with Christ? So I need a savior and he said whoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved And that's by hearing this word of faith this gospel that says you're a sinner God is not your loss He isn't you need to be found he found you he sent his son Jesus to die on the cross for you He bought you back come to your father. He will be with you, and that's what Paul is saying and we said yes, Jesus Forgive me a sinner. I've sinned in thought. I've sinned in word. I have sinned indeed I am a sinner be merciful to me and God says I wash them with the blood of Jesus Christ Because you called on the name of the Lord you are Saved do not let the enemy tell you otherwise, but live a life that Demonstrates you were bought with a price Glorify God with the body that he purchased use your life to bring glory to him But never take glory from him Paul said my heart's desire is for Israel to be saved I preach the gospel to them, and I pray for them But they've gone about setting up their own righteousness and have not understood that Christ is what the law was Pointing to he fulfilled everything they could not and so what we do is by grace We're saved by trusting him Embracing him, and that's how we enter into the kingdom of God and from that point on we live in a way that Demonstrates that God is my God Jesus is my Savior, and I have the humility to have the humility to demonstrate that through the life that I live Sin so can anybody be saved anybody who turns to Jesus Even the person who is a murderer Well as I recall there was a man on a cross next to Jesus who said remember me when you enter into your kingdom And Jesus didn't look at him and say I'm sorry. You're too messed up He looked at me. He said today. You shall be with me in paradise today Can he save you? Yes, will he save you? Yes, has he saved you most? Yes But if you're a person who has not received Christ you can do that today Call in the name of the Lord and Paul said you shall be saved