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Let's pray together, our father and our God, we thank you for this opportunity to be in your house and to examine your word and Lord, as we have spent so many weeks looking over Romans chapter nine, as it is such a watershed passage in regard to your sovereignty and in regard to your dealings with your people, Israel and your church, we pray, oh God, that you would encourage us now as we finish out this chapter and look at the final four verses, encourage us, oh God, to seek the truth, to apply the passages where we should and where we need them most and Lord, as we look tonight at that very important subject of coming to you with empty hands of faith and not trying to bring our works of righteousness to the table, as Lord, we see in this passage that the great failure of Israel was trying to find righteousness by works of the law, rather than by faith, we pray, oh God, that you would encourage us in understanding how you declare someone righteous and we pray all this, Lord, in Jesus name, amen.
We come this evening to our last lesson in our study of Romans chapter nine, as we have seen, Romans nine is the apostles apologetic, his defense for the message that he has proclaimed thus far in this work, his message has been a straightforward presentation of the gospel throughout Romans.
We have seen in chapters one through three, he proclaimed that all are sinful and worthy of judgment, Romans chapter four and five, he proclaimed justification was not a result of works, but was based on faith and the work of Christ for the Jew first and also for the Greek.
It's all based on faith and Romans six through eight, he demonstrated that faith will not be devoid of works, something that we all need to remember, and we all need to also recognize that if we have faith, it will be accompanied by sanctification and chapter eight at the end of the chapter.
He proclaimed the wonderful statement of security that God will never forsake his people and that nothing, neither life nor death, nor angels, nor powers, nor principalities or anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus, our Lord.
As a result, in Romans nine, Paul began dealing with the objections, the anticipated objection asks Paul, if you say God will never forsake his people, why are most of Israel and unbelief? And Paul's response is that national identity does not assure someone is a true member of Israel, a member of the true Israel.
In fact, he says, not all who are descended from Israel are Israel.
A key to understanding Romans nine to eleven is that passage, because that really is sort of the that's the thesis, because remember, Romans nine to eleven is one thought.
Romans nine to eleven encompasses all that Paul is saying about God's relationship with Israel, God's relationship with the church.
And he's saying not all of Israel, not all who are descended of Israel are Israel.
And that is a that is a thesis statement that he defends and defines throughout nine through eleven.
And he proves in that statement, two things.
Number one, Israel is more than a national heritage, and number two, salvation is more than a national promise.
In fact, he's proved salvation is not a national promise.
Just because someone is born of Israel doesn't mean they are going to be saved.
Now, some in Israel would have found such a teaching very offensive.
In fact, some may have been angry and called God unjust based on the Old Testament promises.
They would say, God promised Israel all these things.
He promised Israel salvation.
I'm an Israelite, thus I deserve to be saved.
Thus, what you're saying, Paul, that not all people born of Israel are going to be saved, then you're saying God is unjust because he made this promise to Israel.
And now he's redacting that promise.
And of course, Paul spends his time declaring that God is totally righteous in showing mercy to whom he will show mercy and compassion to whom he shows compassion and that he is not obligated to show mercy to any individual, even if that individual just happens to be in the nation of Israel, because God's promises have always been to those people who are of the faith of Abraham, not just those people who are of the nationality and heritage of Abraham.
Come on in.
It's OK.
I'd rather you be here.
Yes, over here.
We can push back.
We'll square it off.
Yes, I'm OK.
When you talk about the divided kingdom in history, when you have the ten tribes of the north and the two tribes of the south, the ten tribes of the north were overtaken by Assyria and the two tribes of the south were overtaken by Babylon.
It is the two tribes in the south that we follow the timeline of history and they actually come back and become Israel again.
The tribes of the north are never reestablished after they're being overtaken by.
You will never find again the reestablishment of those of those tribes as tribes.
OK, they and I'm trying.
I think it's seven.
It's seven something B.C.
with that when the ten tribes are overtaken.
But it's 586 B.C.
200 more years when the Babylonians took over the southern tribes.
Yes, seven point two.
I knew it was seven.
Yes, seven point two B.C.
is seven point two B.C.
The northern tribes are taking captives never again to their disperse at that point.
But after you remember when the southern tribes, I'm going to get their history lesson with the southern tribes are taken by Nebuchadnezzar and you have the situation with Daniel and the situation with the other prophets during the during the you have the reign of Nebuchadnezzar.
And then you have the reign of Belteshazzar, his son, or his name.
They say that because of his son's name, Belteshazzar.
Yes.
OK.
And that's what I saw the writing on the wall, of course.
And then you see the fall to the Medo-Persian army.
And then you have Cyrus is the one who leads, who allows them to go back and reestablish the Jewish community.
And then you have Ezra and Nehemiah who go build the wall and the reestablishment of the Jewish community.
After that, you don't ever see the ten tribes of the north reestablishing anything.
So any Jews that are that are a part of this are coming back under the Ezra and Nehemiah reconstruction, whether they're coming out of Assyria or out of Babylon.
In fact, where do the Sumerians come from? The Sumerians are half Jewish, half Gentile.
They're a race of people that were birthed out of the intermarrying of that situation that occurred.
So that's why the Sumerians are always considered less than people by the Jews.
And why, you know, Jesus, when he traveled through Sumeria, he met the Sumerian woman.
People would have found that very offensive.
Not only was he talking to a woman, but he was talking to a Sumerian.
And you have the situation with the good Samaritans, Jesus telling the story there when he told the parable.
All right.
As I said, when we look at this passage.
No, please.
That's if I didn't say it all, it would drive me crazy.
So I had to say that.
When you ask the question, I got to get it all out.
But again, but again, getting back to Romans nine, Romans nine is all about reminding us that God's salvation mercy is going to be given to whom God chooses.
God is sovereign over his mercy.
He gave it to Abraham.
Why did he give it to Abraham? Abraham was the son of Tara.
And from all we know about that period of time and where they live, they probably were idol worshippers.
They were not worshippers of the one true God.
It wasn't that Abraham was deserving, that Abraham was given mercy and grace in God's eyes.
And then you have Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Jacob's sons were given mercy.
Salvation is given to whom God chooses.
Now, last week we looked at the passage wherein Paul quotes the Old Testament prophets Hosea and Isaiah to support his thesis.
His thesis is not all Israel is going to be saved.
Just because you're born an Israelite or Jew doesn't mean you're going to be saved.
And that's his thesis.
And then what does he quote? He says in Romans nine, twenty five, Hosea prophesied that those who are not my people, I will call my people.
And we spent time talking about that last week.
Who are the people who are not God's people? The Gentiles.
And he says, those people I'm going to call my people, those who are not beloved are going to become mine because the gospel is going to expand beyond the borders of Israel and is going to encompass the whole world.
Likewise, excuse me.
Likewise, in verse twenty seven, Isaiah also prophesied that though the number of the sons of Israel be as the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them will be saved.
And we talked about how important that word remnant is, because what we see is that never in history is there a time where there are Jewish people that are not saved.
You can never go back in history of our world and find a time when there were not Jewish saved folks, because God has kept for himself a remnant.
Even today, we call them what Messianic Jews.
We call them Christian Jews.
We call them completed Jews.
I call them Christians because they're Jews by birth, but they're Christians by rebirth.
And Paul never called himself a Messianic Jew.
He called himself a believer, a Christian.
You see what I'm saying? So that the remnant will always be there and it will be there among the Jews and it will also be there among the Gentiles because that expansion has happened.
We'll see more about that.
Chapter 11.
Now, tonight, we're going to move on to Paul's next assertion, wherein he continues to anticipate questions in regards to God's freedom of choosing to be gracious to the Gentiles and to harden the Jews.
Has there been a hardening among the Jewish people? Yes.
Do most Jewish people reject Christ? Yes.
And we see that in Romans 11 as well.
But again, when we get there, we'll deal more with why that is.
But for tonight, we're going to read Romans 9, verses 10 through, I'm sorry, Romans 9, verses 30 through 33.
And we're going to deal with the shift in focus here because we'll see a shift in focus.
Romans 9, verse 30 says, What shall we say then? That Gentiles who do not pursue righteousness have attained it, that is a righteousness that is by faith.
But that Israel who pursued a law that would lead to righteousness did not succeed in reaching that law.
Why? Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as if it were based on works.
They have stumbled over the stumbling stone as it is written, Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense, and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.
Father, as we give exposition to this text, I pray that you would keep me from error, open our hearts to the truth and understanding that your word might be glorifying to you as it's preached.
In Jesus name.
Amen.
You're taking notes and you still have your notepad available.
Probably most of you don't have your notes.
And that's cool because we've been going through this for so long.
But if you got it, here's your last one.
We've seen that Israel's unbelief is consistent with God's plan because, one, it was consistent with his promises, two, it was consistent with his person, three, it's consistent with his prophetic revelation, and four, today it is consistent with his, big word, prerequisite, I have to keep the P, the prerequisite of faith, the prerequisite of faith.
So we'll see what that means as we go through the text, the prerequisite of faith.
Romans nine, verse 30, Paul asked the question, what shall we say then? This is a pretty common way for Paul to begin.
He'll ask the question, what shall we say then? This is Paul's way of summing up something.
He makes a statement.
In this case, he's made the statement that God has prophesied through Hosea and Isaiah that only a remnant of Israel would be saved and that salvation would extend to the Gentiles.
That's what he said.
Only a remnant of Israel will be saved.
Salvation will extend to the Gentiles.
What shall we say then? Or what's the result of that? What do we know based on that? And then he comes and he says that Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness have attained it.
That is a righteousness that is by faith.
But that Israel, who pursued a law that would lead to righteousness, did not succeed in reaching that law.
You really got to understand this is a strange turn of events in the history of God's people.
On one hand, you have a group who have not been pursuing righteousness at all, yet they received it.
On the other hand, you've got a group that has been pursuing righteousness, yet they have not received it.
I mean, that's what the text says.
He says those who didn't pursue righteousness got it.
Those who did pursue righteousness didn't get it.
And if nothing else, that seems on the surface to be somewhat paradoxical.
But before we move on to Paul's extended explanation of the reality, I want us first to make note that he is giving us an explanation, even in what he's already said.
Note that he says that the righteousness that the Gentiles found was based on faith.
So if you think Gentile righteousness is based on faith.
But conversely, Israel's righteousness is based on what? Based on what? Works or the keeping of the law.
So we just we can say works.
That's fine.
That demarcation is the one that makes this entire passage make sense.
The Gentiles were not seeking righteousness, yet they attained it.
At first, that seems kind of paradoxical, as I said, because the Israelites were seeking righteousness, but they didn't attain it.
It is not as if they were both seeking the same type of righteousness.
That's the issue when it says that the Gentiles were not seeking righteousness.
What it's referring to is that the Gentiles were not seeking righteousness based on an external right.
Based on some kind of meeting of some external code or meeting of some external list of demands.
However, that's exactly what Israel was trying to do.
In fact, the high priests of Israel and the leaders of Israel, the Pharisees, their whole lives were spent in the pursuit of a list of requirements that could somehow make them righteous.
Now, Paul goes on to ask a question and we're going to explain more of this as we go along.
So I'm not trying to go too fast, but I want to I want to read to you what Paul is saying here, because he says he asked the question, why? Verse 32 at the very beginning, he says, why? Why is it? Because it's natural.
If I say there's a group of people over here not seeking righteousness and they find it, there's a group over here that are seeking righteousness and they don't find it.
Why? It doesn't make sense.
The natural question is why? Why would Israel not succeed in reaching righteousness if they're looking to find righteousness? Well, the answer is right here, because they did not pursue it by faith, but instead they tried to pursue it by works.
They wanted a righteousness based on what they did, but there's a problem with that.
Righteousness has never been counted to anyone based on what they did ever in the Bible.
Will you find that a person is declared righteous by God based on their works? Old Testament, New Testament.
And I'm saying this because I'm simply referring to this is what Paul teaches.
What is the main passage that Paul exegetes in Romans chapter four? Genesis fifteen six.
What is Genesis fifteen six say? And Abraham believed God and it was imputed unto him as righteousness.
If you don't have a whole lot of the Old Testament memorized, you need to memorize that one.
Because if somebody ever questions you on sola fide, the reformed doctrine of justification by faith alone.
I can argue that from the Old Testament.
The justification is by faith alone.
I don't even need Paul's New Testament.
I can demonstrate the Old Testament, the justification at the very first man who is called righteous in Scripture, who is called just before God, Abraham, that he is called just based on faith, not on works.
Before he ever did anything good, before he was circumcised, before he took Isaac on the Mount Moriah, before he did any of these good things, the Bible says he believes God.
And it was counted unto him as righteousness.
Now, if I want to prove that what I'm saying is correct, I simply fast forward to the New Testament and I look at Romans chapter four, verse one, and this is what it says.
What shall we say was gained by Abraham, our father, according to the flesh, which means in layman's terms, what did Abraham get for his works? What shall what was it counted to him because of the flesh? For if Abraham was justified by works, he had something to boast about before God, but not rather he had something to boast about, but not before God.
For what does the scripture say in here? He quotes Genesis 15, six.
He says, Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness.
Now, to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift, but as his due and to the one who does not work, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness.
The whole concept of justification by faith alone is found throughout the scriptures and it's found first in the person of Abraham.
Of that, there is no doubt those who rail against justification by faith alone.
I had it happen just this week.
I have a video up on Sola Fide on YouTube and I got a Roman Catholic came in and started hammering away at Sola Fide.
It happens all the time.
People come in, they leave their comments, they drop their grenade and run because that's what they can do.
They're, you know, they're keyboard tough guys and keyboard commandos come in and they leave their little comments and run.
And but the argument of justification by faith alone seems like such an inane argument to me because it's like it's so obvious.
Paul is arguing this case all throughout Romans.
He's arguing this case all throughout Galatians.
He argues this case all throughout the New Testament, that the reason why we are saved is because the righteousness of Christ, not because of the right righteousness that we established on our own.
And that's why this is so important, because it's not just that our faith makes us righteous.
It's the object of our faith.
And what is the object of our faith? The work of Jesus Christ.
Might I add the completed work of Jesus Christ.
That's the object of our faith.
That's what brings us righteousness.
That's what brings us justification.
When the object is our own works that we tried to add to what Christ done or worse yet, replace what Christ has done with what we've done.
We have stepped away from the gospel and we have come to a works based righteousness, which is no righteousness at all.
Now, this is the message of the gospel, that our works are not the sufficient cause of righteousness, they never have been, they never will be.
Works will never be a sufficient cause of righteousness.
We receive a righteousness that is out from outside.
Martin Luther, and here's an interesting phrase, Martin Luther introduced a word into the Christian lexicon.
And it is the word alien.
Right.
Did he just say alien righteousness? Right.
Alien righteousness.
What is an alien? Big eyes, little mouth.
No, that's not an alien.
That's what we that's that's the sci fi version of what an alien is.
An alien is some well, alien means from the outside.
You know, we talk about having certain inalienable rights.
What is inalienable here at all time? You've heard it.
It's in our is that the Bill of Rights, the Constitution? No, I'm saying what document is that in? Is that the Constitution or Bill of Rights? Constitution.
We've been endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights.
And what does inalienable mean? They don't come from outside.
They're inherent inalienable.
They're from they're given to us by God, endowed by our creator with rights that weren't given to us.
The government doesn't give us these rights.
The government doesn't give us the right of life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.
Those rights are given to us by God.
Now, you know, political, but but the point is that's the word inalienable.
So you know what it means for something to come from the outside.
That's what alienable is, something that does come from the outside.
And when Martin Luther talked about an alien righteousness, he's talking about a righteousness that doesn't come from within, but rather it comes from without it comes from somewhere else.
And if you want to just write this down, Philippians chapter three and verse eight, the apostle Paul writes this.
He says, indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Jesus Christ, my Lord, for his sake, I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith.
So where does our righteousness come from? The text itself says it comes from God, that our righteousness is not from within our righteousness, does not come from trying to find righteousness by working through the law.
But the righteousness that we have is given to us from God, our standing, our declaration of being just comes to us from God.
Beloved, that is the crux of the Reformation.
For years, the church had taught justification by works.
You know, one day I may end up in a genuine debate with a Roman Catholic and I will say this before it ever gets that far.
A Roman Catholic would say we don't believe in justification by works.
We believe that there is a treasury of merit and that that merit is drawn upon by all people and that that treasury of merit is the leftover merits of the work of Jesus Christ and the saints and all of these things and that those merits apply to us.
And as we go through the seven sacraments, each one of the sacraments applies to us another measure of grace by which we're able to draw from the treasury of merit.
OK, I understand that at the end of the day, it's still it's still not.
Being satisfied with the finished work of Christ, there's a lot to it and they would say it's all of grace because grace is what established the treasury of merit.
Grace is what gave all these saints the ability to have extra merit that they didn't need.
So they were able to give some to us, so on and so forth.
But at the end of the day, what was being taught during the Reformation, which caused men like Martin Luther to stand against the established church, was that you were somehow justified by works.
Because when they stood up and said, no, we teach Sola Fide justification by faith alone, they were condemned and the writings of the Roman Catholic Church condemned.
I believe it is in Vatican to the writings condemned the doctrine of Sola Fide.
So by being a reformed church, what we are saying is we stand against such teaching and we stand with the Bible, which teaches justification by faith alone and not of works, lest anyone should boast.
So, again, this, however, is the crux of the Reformation and we should understand it.
We should understand what Sola Fide means, Sola Fide does not mean justification by works can be without faith or without just the Sola Fide does not mean that we are justified by faith and we won't have any works to show for it.
We need to understand that I had a very good conversation today for the first time in a long time, I was able to truly go through the gospel with a young man from beginning to end.
In the classroom, generally, if I say anything at all in the classroom, it's in short sound bites because a student will ask a question about heaven, hell, Jesus, this or that, or they'll be in a conversation and they'll say, Mr.
Foster, you're a preacher.
Tell us what you think.
And when they do that.
Well, hello, I can introduce into the conversation and I'll and I'll usually reiterate, you asked.
Well, today, a little boy, he said, and I knew I knew.
I mean, this kid, you know what he's had a lot of discipline issues over the years or over this year.
But this kid, he's never given me one ounce of problem.
And he was sitting there and he was he was kind of just kind of a hangdog look on his face, because I had been talking to the assistant teacher in the classroom about a situation that she was going through and she had a theological question and I made sure I answered it where everybody could hear.
Because, again, that's my prerogative.
And I did that, I answered it very, you know, because she asked the question loud enough for everybody to hear.
I answered the question loud enough for everybody to hear the young man.
So I got this little hangdog expression on his face and I said, and he said, Mr.
Foskey, he said, he said, I do bad stuff all the time.
And he said, how can I go to heaven? I was like, oh, I was like, Blue 42, I'm about to tackle you with the gospel, son.
I think I was so excited.
You don't do that to a pastor, you know, because you're excited at that moment.
I literally just just now thinking about I was like, I mean, I got up, I went and sat next to her.
I don't know.
It never has it been never.
And honestly, I sat down and I said, I want to ask you a question.
I said, I said, do you really feel like you don't deserve to go to heaven? And he said, I really do.
I really feel like I've been bad.
I said, good.
He said, good.
I said, yeah, I said, because most people I got to convince that they're sinners before I can explain grace to good people, don't go to hell.
I said, most people think they're good and they're going to heaven and I got to convince them they're bad before I can get them saved.
Not that I'm getting them saved anyway, but, you know, with the old adage is true.
You give you give the law to the proud and you give the grace to the humble.
When you find somebody who's proud, you share the law with them because the law breaks your heart and shows your sin.
But this boy was already broken.
He was already in need.
He was already there saying, I'm lost.
What do I do? Well, man, now you can talk about grace.
And I got an opportunity to share with him the simplest gospel in the world, and that is the gospel of Jesus Christ.
And that is that it is not what we bring to the table because he said, Mr.
Crosby, I go to church and he did.
He showed me his website, his pastor's website.
He had already showed that to me earlier today.
He said, go to church.
I read my Bible.
He says, but I'm I don't know.
He said, because I do so much bad.
So I got to share grace with him and what it means to be justified by the faith in the Lord Jesus Christ alone.
That's a wonderful gospel to get to share, because you know what? And I'm not using this to throw off the Muslims don't have that gospel, Jehovah Witnesses don't have that gospel, Mormons don't have that gospel, Catholics don't have that gospel, only the biblical gospel is the gospel.
That's the only thing that can bring salvation to someone who knows they don't deserve it.
That's the key to all this.
The reason why the Gentiles were righteous, because they said we have nothing to bring except faith in Jesus Christ, and even that is a gift from God.
They weren't pursuing righteousness by some kind of list of standards.
They didn't have anything to bring to the table.
The Israelites, the Jews, the Pharisees, they were trying to bring everything to the table, they were trying to bring it all.
And as such, they missed the point completely.
Verse 32 says they have stumbled over the stumbling stone.
As it is written, behold, I'm laying in Zion, a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense, and whoever believes in me or in him rather will not be put to shame.
Who is the stumbling stone, beloved Jesus Christ is the stumbling stone.
Why is he a stumbling stone? Because to those who would try to arrive at righteousness on their own, the proclamation to submit and trust in Christ for righteousness would be profoundly offensive.
If I look at somebody who's trying to establish their own righteousness and I say, no, give up your own righteousness and trust in the righteousness of Christ, that's offensive.
But I'm so good, I've done all this, I've established a righteousness of my own.
And you say, give that up and trust in Jesus.
That's offensive.
But I've got so much, I'm bringing, what did Paul say? He says, if it was based on this, he said, I was a I was a Pharisee of Pharisees.
If they were based on goodness, I'd be bringing a whole satchel full of goodness with him.
But it's not based on that.
It's not based on what I've done.
He said if anybody was going based on their holding to some sort of law, it'd be me.
And you might think Paul was being somewhat prideful on that.
He was just being honest because that's the way they felt.
The Pharisees felt like if anybody was making it on the on the on having kept the list of righteousness, it was us, the Pharisees, and he was one of them.
And this was a hurdle that many of them could not get over.
This was so much of a problem that when Jesus is that this was so much the problem when Jesus taught in his public ministry over and over again, he was dealing with people who were proclaiming their own righteousness.
They refused to see their need to repent and believe.
Instead, they kept saying, but we're the sons of Abraham.
But we keep the Sabbath, but we do this and we do that.
They would not submit and repent and believe.
Now, I want to show you something very quickly just to parallel this passage with another passage in First Corinthians.
So hold your place in Romans nine.
Turn to First Corinthians chapter one, because Paul expands this idea of Christ being a stumbling stone in First Corinthians one.
I want to show you something, because this is even more as to why Christ is a stumbling stone.
First Corinthians chapter one, verse twenty two says, For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom.
But we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called both the Jews and the Greeks, Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God.
The part I want to focus on is you notice he uses the word stumbling block there in much the same way he used it back in Romans chapter nine.
But look at what is the stumbling block here.
The stumbling block is not just Christ.
It is the preaching of Christ crucified.
You see, to many Jews, the idea of a crucified Messiah did not meet the preconceived notion of what the Messiah was supposed to be.
Messiah was supposed to be a conqueror who brought the kingdom of God in the wake of his ministry.
And as soon as Christ's crucifixion was preached, it became offensive to the Jew.
And to accept a Messiah who was hung on a cross by a Roman centurion, a group of Roman centurions, that to me is offensive and as such, the preaching of the cross of Christ, the very thing which saves the work of Jesus on the cross, is what would have offended the Jews the most.
However, the great promise is made to those who receive him, because when we look back at the text in Romans nine, it says that the one who believes in him will not be put to shame.
In the end, God's people will be vindicated for their faith.
And that is simply a reiteration of Romans 8, 28, which promises that God is causing all things to work together for our good.
In the end, we'll be vindicated.
In the end, it's all going to work out.
We're trusting in Jesus Christ and in his work and in what he has done.
And in the end, we will not be put to shame.
Now, we've looked at the text, we've understood the text, I want to seek to bring some application tonight.
Remember how expository preaching is supposed to go.
You read the text, you understand the text and you apply the text.
I want to spend a few moments on some application.
The first and most profound application that I draw that I think we should draw from Romans 9, 30 to 33 is this.
The danger of pursuing righteousness by works, that is what we see in Romans 9, 30 through 33, the danger of pursuing righteousness by works.
And beloved, that is not a problem that is unique to Jewish people.
It is not a problem that was unique to the Pharisees.
In fact, it is a natural inclination of all people.
We know by experience that people want to feel justified in what they do, even when what they do is completely wrong.
Isn't that right? When you find somebody who's doing something that is one hundred and eighty degrees away from what they're supposed to be doing, when they're doing wrong, what do they do? They justify what they do.
They try to seek their own righteousness in it.
As a result, we see people all the time trying to make up for what they've done or trying to pay back what they've done, make amends.
Others simply just try to justify their behavior and say, hey, it was necessary.
One of the saddest things in the world is to hear a man who cheated on his wife try to make that right by saying, well, you know, she was doing this.
She didn't cook or she didn't work, she didn't take care of the kids or she didn't paint the house or whatever she didn't do, and they find try to find justification in their sin.
Some might question this.
Now, I put this note in my notes for a specific reason, because, you know, we're good reform folks.
And some might question this from a reform perspective, because you might ask the question, now, wait a minute.
We say no one seeks for righteousness, yet we just see here that Israel is seeking for righteousness.
But what you have to understand.
Is that all people and hear me now, all people seek self-justification and self-righteousness, everybody seeks self-justification and self-righteousness.
The Bible declares, however, the truth that there is none who are truly righteous.
No, not one.
And there are none who seek for God, no matter how hard we seek righteousness on our own, apart from God, we will not obtain it.
Why? Because God is the only way to righteousness.
If we try to circumvent God and try to establish a righteousness of our own, what we will become is we will become self-righteous.
And isn't that the problem that Jesus saw when he came to the earth? Isn't that the sin that he most adamantly proclaimed against as he was going? Think about the parable of the two men who went into the temple.
I love that parable because it's justification by faith alone again.
You say you see that everywhere, Pastor.
Yeah, I do, because I think it's all over the Bible.
Because two men went up to the temple to pray, one was a Pharisee, the other a tax collector.
The Pharisee drew very close, but the tax collector stood afar off and the Pharisee said, Lord, I thank you that I am not like this man, the tax collector, but I pay my tithes and I do this and I do that and I'm a good person.
And what did the tax collector do? But he stood afar off and he beat upon his breast and he says, God have mercy upon me as sinner.
And Jesus said, and it is that man who left justified.
Ah, if you look it up, that's the word that's used, that man left declared righteous by God.
Why? Because he brought nothing in his hand to God.
He simply beat upon his chest and he says, God, have mercy on me.
When we come up to God and we say, God, look, I made you this purple crayon.
And because of that, I deserve to be righteous.
We demonstrate that we don't really understand what righteousness is.
As the hymn says, nothing in my hand, I bring only to the cross, I that's all we can do.
The problem with the Pharisees, they were seekers of righteousness, but they were ones who did not find it.
In fact, they had law after law that sought to keep them in a righteous condition.
But what did the Pharisees lack faith? You might say, well, wait a minute.
They believed in God, beloved.
When was the last time you thought? And if you think this, don't that faith equals believing in God.
Faith is not believing in God because James tells us that even the demons believe and tremble.
So if you believe that faith simply means people say all the time, oh, yeah, I have faith.
I believe in Jesus.
But does the trust relationship that you have with Christ affect your life? Have you been born again? And as such, it has resulted in a love for God, for Christ and for his body.
If it hasn't been beloved, I will tell you, you have not been born again.
That's I had that conversation today, too.
Later in the class, one of the young men behind him, he said, Mr.
Fossey, do you have to go to church and read the Bible to go to heaven? And I didn't answer immediately.
Because I wanted everybody to I wanted everybody to really focus on what I was going to say, because when you ask that question, it's it's almost pregnant with the desire for an answer.
Everybody wants to hear that because what everybody wants to hear is, no, you don't have to read the Bible and go to church, go to heaven.
I said, well, let me just say this about that.
I said, the Bible says that unless a man be born again, he shall not enter the kingdom of heaven.
And it also teaches that if a person is born again, he will have a desire for God.
He'll have a desire to seek the Lord.
He'll have a desire to seek the Lord's word and to be with the Lord's people.
So I say to you, if you lack that desire and you haven't been born again, if you haven't been born again, no, you're not going to have to preach in school.
But I get kicked out, but yes, yes.
But the point still, you know, the question people want to ask, well, does that mean I have to do it? And what I went on to say, I said, son, going to church, reading the Bible, praying, this is all the result of being born again.
I said, it's what happens as a result.
I said, if somebody says, I go to church, I read my Bible and I pray so that I can get into heaven, then they're relying on a workspace righteousness.
And they're in the same place the Pharisees were 2000 years ago.
They're basing their faith in the wrong thing.
That's the point.
Yeah, that's the point.
When somebody starts on my workspace righteousness, well, did I do enough? Did I do enough today? Yeah.
Yeah, that's what I've been saying this whole time.
Sure.
And that's what I've been saying.
If you are born again, the result of that will be a life lived for Christ.
But I believe that one of the most dangerous and I say this and I don't believe this is I don't believe this can be refuted.
Honestly, I believe one of the most dangerous things facing the world today is the reliance on self-righteousness.
So many people rely on their own self-righteousness and they think that is what is going to establish them before God.
And you just ask anyone you spend, you go to the grocery store, not on the way home and you go up to somebody you don't even know.
And you say, hey, can I ask you a question? Yeah.
Are you a good person? I would tell you ninety nine thousand times out of a million or a hundred thousand, whatever it is, the next number, ninety nine thousand times out of a hundred thousand.
Everyone, not hush, ninety nine out of a hundred, we'll just go with that because I know that works.
That person will say yes.
And the Bible declares most men will proclaim everyone his own goodness.
Most men will proclaim everyone that's Proverbs 20 and verse six.
We proclaim our own goodness.
And that's the problem, we've convinced ourselves we're good.
Yeah, I live by the golden rule.
I live by the Ten Commandments.
I love it when they say that because, boy, I body slam them with the Ten Commandments because it don't take three minutes.
It don't take three seconds.
It don't take three commandments before you realize that's a lie.
Nobody has never not lied.
No one has ever not hated.
And I can tell you, I haven't met a man yet who wouldn't say he didn't break number six in his heart if it weren't with his physical body.
Number six is to look upon a woman with lust, as Jesus said.
Well, the first four.
Yeah, yeah.
You know, we don't count the first four.
And I'll finish this story and we'll be done because I think this story is and some of you may have heard the story before.
But this is something that happened to me, happened to me years ago, back when we used to have a food pantry here at the church.
When I used to spend most of my time working in the office, I do most of my work off site now.
But when I used to spend a lot of time in the office, we had a food pantry and people would come to the church and we'd get food from the church.
It was right in there.
A man came to the church and he asked me for food.
And I'd come down preparing a box of food to take with him on his journey wherever he was going.
Well, those were nice times because it would give me an opportunity to share the gospel.
Sometimes it's frightening times because you don't know who this person is.
And sometimes people are not safe.
But this guy seemed all right, so I invited him in, gave him some food to eat while I was doing the other.
And I was talking to him about the gospel.
And I was explaining to him about giving up my righteousness, my attempts, my vain attempts at my own righteousness and trusting in Christ for salvation, 100 percent, fully and completely the finished work of Christ, giving him my sin and receiving from him his righteousness.
I was telling him this and he looked at me and I remember it to this day standing right in that kitchen.
He said, Pastor, you've got to get off that.
He said, you got to quit relying on other people.
You got to pull yourself up.
Now, I found this ironic from the man who was coming here because he was having trouble providing for his own physical needs, that he was at that moment berating me for establishing righteousness on someone else's work, the work of Christ.
So that was a bit ironic.
But it gave me a glimpse into the man's heart.
You see, this man was destitute.
He couldn't provide for himself the bare necessities of life, clothing, shelter, food, nothing.
He had nothing except his self-righteousness.
And beloved, that happens all the time.
People give up everything, live without anything and still hold to the fact that I'm good.
Until the change of heart comes and we see ourselves as we truly are, we will never be prepared to receive the righteousness which comes by faith alone.
The righteousness of God, through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Father, as we thank you tonight for giving us this hour of study, we just want to praise you for every day that you give us to spend with our church family and with our individual families at home.
We find it so valuable, God, to have this time to invest in your word.
And we look forward, Lord, to the next few months where we're going to take a break from looking at Romans and we're going to examine some of the things that are going on out in the world, some of them, Lord, that are even frightening.
Issues of how religions have cropped up to oppose the truth of your word, and I just pray, Lord, that you would encourage my heart as I'm teaching on these things to seek the truth.
Never, Lord, that I would seek to misrepresent any group, but only to preach the truth.
And, Lord, I thank you again for the study of Romans.
I thank you for now giving us a break.
And I pray that as we go through these months, that we'll continue to remember what we've learned so that when we come back and begin studying again after the summer is over, that you'll just put us right back on this track.
In Jesus' name we pray, we say, Amen.
I, beloved.