Zeal without Knowledge

So let's begin with a word of prayer Father we thank you for The opportunity to be in your house.

We thank you for the ability to open up a Written copy of your word and to do so freely one that has been Translated into a language that we can understand and that we can look at and be able to See what it is that you have preserved for us and Lord as we Continue now with our study of Romans We pray that you would keep us ever mindful that we are not reading simply the words of men But that we are reading the words that you have inspired that you have superintended That you have overseen for us to ensure that we would know your will by knowing your word Your word is the lamp unto our feet and the light into our path And I pray as we study tonight that you would give us Fresh eyes to see what your word has to say fresh ears to hear And Lord God that in all things that we do we would glorify you in Jesus name.

We pray and for his sake father God Keep me from error as I teach in Jesus name.

Amen As I said, we are back tonight in our ongoing study of the book of Romans We have gone over I Guess it's been Two or three years that we've been studying the book of Romans and that's what's gotten us to this point To get us to chapter 10.

In fact, I remember when I first decided to do Romans And I did I did Romans and Hebrews together which some people said was kind of a fool's errand because both of the books are so intense Theologically and to do one on Sunday morning and one on Wednesday night was was going to be very tough And and I must admit they were correct studying for both has been tough.

However by taking the summers off to do the various things that we've done that sort of helped and Every once in a while on Sunday morning like this coming Sunday morning I'll deviate from Hebrews a little bit and that'll that will help me maintain my my studious sanity as to not always be Submersed in the depth of theology which is found in both Hebrews and Romans because that's what we see Really in the New Testament, you know, we could kind of go over each of the New Testament books in each of the New Testament books provide for us Different avenues by which we learn and for instance if you looked at the Gospel of John you would say there's there's wonderful examples of the deity of Christ and who Christ is and really if you just wanted to know what Christianity is all about in the sense of who Jesus is what he came to do and Just the principle foundation of our belief the Gospel of John really is beautiful And if you look at something like Luke and Acts boy You have a historian's point of view of what happened and you look at something like Matthew You have a very Judaic Jewish has a Judaistic the Jewish view of Christ and and and who Christ was I mean all of the New Testament books provide for us these these different Insights into who Christ is and what he has done and then we come to the book of Romans and and and like I said in Hebrews and we find these two really what are just just two great works of theology and as I said Romans is Just one of the most profound theological works in the New Testament It's it is the closest thing that we have to a systematic theology textbook We were not given by God a textbook of systematic theology.

We were given Scripture which includes for us narrative and Historical situations and all these things which we have to interpret but the Romans is written for us very much like a systematic theology So before we began with chapter 10 tonight what I wanted to do Since I know it's been a few months since we've looked at it together I just want to go through each chapter and just sort of just remind us what we've learned so far So if we're looking down each one if you think about chapter 1 Romans chapter 1 you have Paul's Introduction and then his thesis statement, which is about the gospel He says I'm not ashamed of the gospel for it is the power of God and the salvation For all who believe to the Jew first and also to the Greek if you think about it That is his thesis statement for the entire book because he includes I'm not ashamed of the gospel It is the power of God and the salvation for all who believe Which includes the Jew and the Greek and if you broke that down and just really separate it at all You'll see that he really outlines that's an outline for the book because he focuses on the Jew and the Greek He focuses on how salvation is through the gospel and belief in Christ alone and he focuses on the power of that saving faith So really that's that's the thesis.

So what we have in the first is his thesis statement in regard to the gospel That's what chapter 1 is about but it also has The first instance after the thesis in chapter 1 is the revelation of man's sin Because he begins in Romans chapter 1 to tell us that the The wrath of God is being poured out against all unholiness and unrighteousness of men and godliness and unrighteousness of men And he begins to expound what that is and expound what unrighteousness is and he tells us about man's sin in chapter 1 and then in chapter 2 He tells us that even the people who have the law are Still sinful who would they be that would be the Jews, right? So in chapter 2 he really focuses on Jewish sin if you if you want, I'm really I'm just doing a brief overview I mean we could go back and look at all these but in in in chapter 1 He's focusing on the pagans sin and in chapter 2 He's focusing on Jewish sin and then chapter 3 he begins with that that marvelous passage where he says what he says that About Jews and Greeks are both under sin for there is none righteous.

No, not one.

There is none who seeks after God There is none who doeth good not even one.

So really chapter 3 is All are condemned.

That's what we get in chapter 3 is all are condemned And then in chapter 4 What do we begin to learn in chapter 4 he begins to explain to us the doctrine of justification? Yes, if all are condemned Jews and Gentiles are both sinners Which that includes the whole world if everyone is a sinner all are condemned.

How are they made right with God? Well in chapter at the end of chapter 3 in the beginning of chapter 4 and all throughout chapter 4 he tells us about justification he tells us about justification and Then it goes on into chapter 5.

He continues the justification but in chapter 5 he begins to give us historical Context Because in chapter 5 he begins to tell us about how Adam brought sin into the world through one man Romans 5 12 through one man sin entered the world and death through sin and death spread to all men because all men sinned, right? So we understand he begins to give us a historical context as to why everyone is a sinner and why? Through one man all have been condemned and through one man all will be Saved he shows there's only one way that all have been made sinners and that's through Adam and there's only one way all will be made Righteous and that's through Christ.

So that's the historical context that he gives us in Romans 5 and Romans 6 He begins to talk about the doctrine of sanctification now Justification is how we are made right with God by the virtue of the work of Christ Sanctification is how we are conformed to the image of Christ right by the work of the Holy Spirit.

That's right So justification Christ died for me so that I would be justified before God and then Sanctification because Christ died for me and now the Holy Spirit is inside of me.

I have been given the power to live for God in the image of Jesus Christ, so Sanctification is chapter 6 Sanctification actually goes from chapter 6 all the way to chapter 8 If you were making an outline you could say it would go from chapter 6 to chapter 8.

There is an entire thesis on the subject of Sanctification so that gets us to Romans chapter 8 from Romans 1 to Romans 8 This is a broad overview, but this is what the book is about now We get to Romans chapter 9 Romans chapter 9 Paul begins To focus on a new subject and actually the subject will go from 9 to 11 From Romans chapter 9 through chapter 10 and into chapter 11 Paul will focus on this question Has God Abandoned Israel Question mark that's the focus of Paul in Romans chapter 9 10 and 11 We know this because at the beginning of chapter 9 is when he begins asking that question He begins asking that that he says he says what about the fact that most of Israel doesn't believe in Christ Does this mean that God has abandoned Israel and what is Paul's answer to that? He says no He says because first of all look at me.

I am a Jew I believe in Jesus Christ and as such it's proof positive there that he hasn't abandoned all Israel But that there is a remnant in Israel There is a people within the nation of Israel that God is going to save just like there's a remnant within the Gentiles so the question Chapter 9 has God abandoned Israel and Paul goes and he says certainly not what we have to remember What does he teach us in Romans 9 that salvation? Election is never based on Nationality election is based on God's choice and God has chosen to expand the gospel From the people of Israel to the whole world God has it has chosen to go from focusing his attention Just on the Israelites, which is what we see throughout the Old Testament If you think about it, God started with his attention on Noah Well, actually you could go back to Adam but from Adam there was Seth and then from Seth down the line came Noah and then from Noah's family came Abraham right and Abraham was the focus of Genesis and then Abraham Isaac Jacob and Jacob's twelve sons out of them came a nation And where was God's focus in the Old Testament is on bringing the blessings to that nation and rising up a people to glorify himself and to demonstrate his holiness goodness graciousness and love through the nation of Israel then when the New Testament time comes when Christ comes The promise that has been given to the nation of Israel this promise of election is now Expanded to include people of every tribe every tongue every nation It's no longer just within the nation of Israel It's now gone out into the whole world Which is why Jesus is go therefore into all the world and preach the gospel to every nation Baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son of the Holy Spirit So we see the expansion of the gospel in the New Testament, but Paul still has to deal with the question What does that mean? He's abandoned Israel and the answer of course is No So that's where we are in chapter 9 and at the end of chapter 9 We read these words if you want to open up your Bibles to Romans chapter 9 and verse 30 This is the context leading into chapter 10 Romans chapter 9 and verse 30 says what shall we say then? 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 Why because they did not pursue it by faith, but as if it were by 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 Paul is expounding on the idea that Israel has failed to see Christ as their Messiah They have failed to understand the doctrine of salvation by grace through faith alone and instead they have tried to replace this the doctrine of salvation by faith alone with a doctrine of works righteousness Which is what we saw throughout Jesus's work we saw these people who were very much workers for their salvation But were not Genuinely righteous the Pharisees I mean they did all kinds of good things in the sense of they kept the law to a tee as best they could Yet they were still not righteous So that's kind of what he's talking about here in Romans 9 30 to 33.

He says you've got Gentiles who haven't even pursued righteousness But they've attained it because they believed in Christ and believing in Christ is what gives real righteousness Then you have a group of people over here who've tried to get righteousness by works and they haven't attained it because they haven't gone To the right Avenue.

They've got they've tried to get it by what they did rather than believing in Christ So that's how Romans 9 leaves us.

It leaves us with Jews who are trying to attain righteousness by works and Gentiles who even though they were not righteous in and of themselves Have believed on Christ and thus found true Righteousness, so that's where we are.

That's what that's the context and I know I use a lot of our time tonight Just building the context but really I don't I don't plan on going that far in Romans 10 tonight as you know There's there's there's no reason to be in a hurry when we start looking at these verses.

I want to break them down So let's look now at Romans chapter 10 and verse 1 Paul begins in Romans chapter 10 in verse 1.

He says this Actually, let's do this just because we haven't done it yet Let's start in chapter 10 and verse 1 and let's read down through Let's see Let's read down through at least first Let's just read through verse 3 that's the first three verses we're going to break those down but let's read it Let's read it get context for what we're learning Romans chapter 10 and verse 1 says brothers my heart's desire and Prayer to God for them 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 of the righteousness of God and seeking to establish their own They did not submit to God's Righteousness.

Well, let's go to verse 4 for Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes That's what we're going to focus on tonight.

Just those just those four verses And let's begin Just looking at verse 1 Paul says brothers my heart's desire and prayer to God for them is That they may be saved well who Automatically just so we understand who we're talking about when he says my heart's desire for them.

Who is the them? Israel right we understand the context here.

We understand who he's talking about the them is Israel.

He says He says my heart's desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved This is simply a reiteration of something He's already said if you go back to chapter 9 and you look at the very beginning of chapter 9 you will see in verse 2 He says I have great sorrow and unceasing Anguish in my heart for I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers my kinsmen according to the flesh Does Paul really believe what he's saying? Absolutely, he's saying it.

He's saying not only do I wish they could be saved But I wish so much that they could be saved that I would be willing to give of my own Salvation I would be willing to give up Eternity if it meant the salvation of my brethren So I come back to chapter 10 in verse 1 and I and I'm reading these two parallel passages together So when he says my heart's desire and prayer to God for them is that they might be saved That is an important emphatic statement for Paul Now something that needs to be remembered Paul does believe And what we call divine election Paul believes in divine election because he just spent an entire chapter teaching it.

He just spent an entire State he just made an entire Argument about divine election yet at the same time as he's believing in divine election.

He's still Crying out for the salvation of his people.

He understands that God's degree decree is certain But he also understands that God's decree is secret.

Let me say I'm gonna write that on the board.

That's important God's decree is one certain But it is also Secret What I mean by that has God ordained whom he will save The Bible clearly says that he has do we know who it is? No, it is this he only he knows as such I Have the power To do two things very well.

I have the power to preach the gospel to everyone I meet because I don't know If God's going to open their heart or not and I have the power to pray for everyone I know Because I don't know who God is going to open their heart or not And I have the example of the Apostle Paul who here tells me That he's praying for Israel Who have yet believed in Christ have not at this point and he's saying my prayer to God for them Is that they? may be saved Beloved don't ever let your reformed theology ruin your evangelism because if you do then you really don't believe in reformed theology Let me say that again.

Don't ever let your reformed theology ruin your evangelist Just because we believe God is sovereign does not believe that gives us the right to hold back the gospel and not preach it in fact because we believe God is sovereign we believe we are the Instruments in his hand to proclaim the gospel as such we should be on the front line Believing that God has his elect Among the Muslims God has his elect among the Mormons God has his elect among the atheists God has his elect among the Jews God has his elect among the Africans the the Asians the the the Russians the the Czechs whoever God has his people in every tribe tongue and nation and as such we go to them and share the gospel Because we don't know who they are We know he knows who they are.

All we got to do is preach the gospel and let it land Wherever it will Yes Yes, and oh, yeah, that's No, they couldn't because they would deny Christ as being The second person in the Godhead they would deny the Trinity so cannot be the same God.

Absolutely But I don't want to get to verse 2 just yet I'm getting there.

I promise because I Want to just spend one more minute on verse 1 before we before we go to verse 2 because in verse 1 he says brothers My heart's desire and prayer for them is that they may be saved Let me ask you this question Did the majority of Israel receive Christ and get saved? hmm Well have the majority of Israel accepted Christ No, no I mean if you go back to that time if you look back in history the majority Did not the church was always a minority group within the nation of Israel so Even though Paul prayed for them to receive Christ Paul prayed for the conversion of his brethren at the same time It did not come to fruition in the fullness that he probably would have hoped for Now when I bring that up, I bring that up because I often have people ask me Well, you know what brother I I I don't know who to pray for.

I don't know how to pray for him I don't know this, you know what what to do with my prayer life.

I because I don't know what God is doing Here's the thing.

You don't have to know what God is doing to pray You don't have to know what God is doing to seek God in prayer Let me break this down a little a little bit more simply Sometimes I have parents ask me I'm afraid I believe in election.

I believe in God's sovereignty, but I'm afraid because my child, you know I don't know if they're going to come to faith or not.

What do I do and I say pray for them Pray over them pray about them pray pray pray and then trust God Because that's all you can do You cannot force the conversion of your child.

You cannot force the conversion of your spouse You cannot force the conversion of your uncle and father mother grandmother or anyone else all you can do is share the gospel and Pray and trust God and know this God uses means To bring about his ends and if God has placed it upon your heart to pray for somebody That should give you confidence That God is working in that situation Does that always mean it's going to turn out the way you think it should know because again Paul prayed for all of Israel We know all of Israel did not get saved, but yet Paul still prayed We don't give up.

Hope we don't give up prayers for people who we know do not know the Lord We continue to pray for them, and I know it's hard.

I have family members that I've been praying for for years and sometimes Sometimes it can get tiresome When you see somebody acting the fool When you see somebody just displaying the utter depravity of their heart gladly and happily and acting like just Insane people and you sit back and you just go man.

He is hopeless Or she is hopeless.

They're not hopeless And I think about Paul because Paul he's been stoned by these people He's been run out of town by these people he's been held back from fellowship from these people He's a person who if anybody should have been tired of dealing with them It's him if anybody should have been tired of praying for them and just wanting to throw up his hands and say God Just don't let them what you want Because that's what we do sometimes you said well God you take care of him because I don't want to deal with him no more That's not what Paul did Paul continued to pray for them.

He continued to lift them up to God Trusting that God will do right and that's what prayer is prayer is an action of trust I'm Telling you God my desires Trusting that your will will always be done and your will is what is right? That's why we always pray thy will be Done we always pray that in fact I've heard people say not to pray that and I tell people if you can't pray that I will be done You can't pray that the very prayer Jesus taught us to pray our Father who art in heaven How would be thy name thy kingdom come thy will be done? If you can't pray that I will be done and you can't pray the model prayer And you really don't understand what prayer is Prayer is the idea that you need to be conformed to God not that he needs to be conformed to you I think oftentimes we think God needs to be conformed to us.

We are trying to get God to change his mind No, that's not what prayer is Prayer is seeking God seeking God's will Seeking God's grace seeking God's favor, but never seeking that God Change his mind So I just wanted to mention that because he says my heart's desire and prayer and the fact that he uses the phrase and prayer to God reminds us of Paul's unwavering commitment to his brethren the unwavering commitment to national Israel that Paul has he's praying for them that they may be saved and Then in verse 2 now, we're going to get to where you read It's fine Absolutely Well verse 2 he says I bear them witness again.

Who's to them? It is Israel I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God but not according to knowledge now in this what we see is somewhat of a testimony From Paul.

This is actually sort of a veiled testimony Because if there was anybody in Israel who was zealous at this time for Israel and for the doctrines and the beliefs of the people of Israel it was Paul himself and He's saying they have zeal without knowledge Really and truly if you think about just that phrase zeal Without knowledge you could say that equals Paul Zeal without knowledge was Paul Because there was not a Israelite Who was more zealous than he was prior to his conversion to Christ in? fact I'll read his own words to you Galatians chapter 1 verse 13 He says for you have heard of my former life in Judaism how I persecuted the Church of God Violently and tried to destroy it and I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people so Extremely zealous was I for the traditions of my father's see right there He says I was so zealous.

Not only was I was I was I following after the traditions? But man, I was the first one to oppose the church.

I was willing to destroy it.

So he was Certainly zealous Philippians chapter 3 He's giving his pedigree Philippians chapter 3 verses 5 and 6 He says I was circumcised on the eighth day of the people of Israel of the tribe of Benjamin a Hebrew of Hebrews as to the law of Pharisee as to Zeal a persecutor of the church as to righteousness under the law blameless Here we said he said as to righteousness I was Perfect according to my understanding but remember what he hadn't He didn't have that He had all of that With none of that He had zeal Without knowledge said that's what I'm saying.

Verse 2 is personal testimony He's talking about them, but he's talking about himself too because that's where he was at 22 3 Again he's giving this spiritual resume asked 22 3 He says I'm a Jew born in Tarsus of Sicilia But brought up in this city educated at the feet of Gamaliel Gamaliel the great teacher According to the strict manner of the law of our fathers being zealous for God as all of you are this day All three times Paul gives his pedigree his spiritual resume his life before Christ What does he say about himself? I was zealous but Ignorant zealous but ignorant beloved that That little statement zeal without knowledge that zealous, but ignorant that problem has not Stopped to this day.

There are a ton of people who are very zealous, but who have no knowledge They don't know God They don't know true righteousness But yet they are so consumed with what they believe that they're willing to fight to the death For it as I said this problem persists today There are so many who are violently zealous over their religions yet They do not truly know God through faith in his Son and it's not as if the knowledge is not there No more than ever the gospel is being proclaimed throughout the world yet because of man's sinful nature and desire to proclaim his own Righteousness apart from the supernatural work of God.

He will not come to him, but will stay in his ignorance It see the thing is people will stay in their ignorance Because of their zeal their zeal will keep them ignorant Paul would have been just as Ignorant to the day he died if Christ had not revealed himself to him Because he was so zealous For the traditions of his father's that he would have stayed just as ignorant had God not revealed himself through Jesus Christ to him directly And beloved that the sad thing is as I said, we can look at our world today and we still see Zealousness we still see that going on.

We see I mean it takes real zeal To kill yourself over your religion, would you agree? That it takes real zeal to believe in your religion so much that you would be willing to fly an airplane into a building Take the lives of thousands of people don't you agree that it takes zeal to do such a thing that you have to be zealous for your religion But yet Zealously ignorant people are the ones who are so dangerous.

In fact, there was an entire during the time of Christ There was an entire political group and most of you know this what were they called? The zealots didn't wasn't there one Simon the zealot, right? Simon the zealot one of Jesus's own apostles Had come from the political group known as the zealots.

And what did the zealots do? The zealots were a form of Ancient terrorists they would go and they would fight against the armies of Caesar They would fight against the taxation of Rome.

They would fight against those things through physical barbaric means They would do battle against them Yes zeal Can be expressed in many different ways, but often it leads to violence and it's not based on a knowledge of Christ belief in Christ Never leaves.

Well, I mean, let me back this up.

Let me let me say this the correct way trust in Christ Should not ever lead us toward violence against others with the gospel Belief in Christ should lead us towards taking the gospel to people in grace and in love Which is why I can look at the history of the Christian Church and I can say yes, I believe the Crusades were wrong I believe the Inquisition was wrong.

Well, there was the Roman Catholic Church.

That's not that well be that as it may Before we begin splitting that here.

Just remember Bloodshed in the name of Christianity has happened But it is not based on knowledge It's based on ignorance Thus the zeal without knowledge has not been held back only to the Jews But this has found its way Into the church and throughout the centuries.

We've seen it erupt in the church We've seen ignorance of the truth erupt in zeal and in bloodshed sadly today There is still a lot of zeal in the church and ignorance, but it's not demonstrating itself in bloodshed anymore How would you say today's zeal without knowledge is demonstrating itself? You said judgmental behavior What else? Okay, you said by the tongue use of the tongue zeal without knowledge You said various beliefs Demonstrating themselves.

I Would well go ahead focusing on emotion You see what I was going to say is this and just because every time I read this verse I get a picture in my mind And and I certainly do not want to I do not want to pigeonhole this verse.

I believe I've executed the verse I believe you understand what Paul means by what he's saying.

But if I were going to say does this have a contemporary application? That's what I would talk about now.

I would say in the church.

There is a great contemporary application in this There are a lot of people who profess faith in Jesus Christ and man They're willing to fight for that faith in Jesus Christ And you better not take my Christmas tree and you better not take my Merry Christmas on and you better not take this or that But they don't know enough about Christianity to fight themselves out of a wet paper bag They fight for it, but they don't know anything about it.

That's dangerous Because that's zeal without knowledge It happens I see it all the time when I watch the news and I see these talking heads on television that are Propagating Christianity and then I hear him talk about Christianity.

I'm like stop.

You're not one of us You're really not scared Boys talk about oh Yeah, that's that is exactly a great example.

They have all this zeal, but their knowledge is Ignorant I Think everybody knows what he's talking about the churches that show up at these military funerals With these signs simply to bring degradation to the to the family that is it is not Christ like Whether or not We're standing for something that is true and holy such as the marriage that marriage should be between a man and a woman whether or not we're standing for that truth to stand it at the graveside of a person and Simply spit on their grave and hold up signs and embarrass the family and an attempt to be ugly is not Christ But so yeah, I would say that's they have all this zeal But their ignorance as anything in the world a lot of times these churches are full of people these thousands of members in these churches They come for the emotional appeal the fact that the pastor has a has it has a sweet tongue And he can really he can really tickle their ears You know and he and he really gets them going and they are excited to hear what he has to say But they don't know any more about Jesus Christ than they came than when they left or when they left them when they came Because they're not being taught but they have zeal But it's a zeal without knowledge as I said, there's so much application that can be made from this verse And I don't want to stretch it beyond its contextual Basis, but I just wanted to demonstrate that that Paul's problem here is not a problem unique to first century Christianity This is a problem that has persisted throughout the ages of the church and beyond There are always people who have great zeal for what they believe but are very ignorant of the truth All right Now I said we were going to try to get to verse 4.

What time is it? Okay, we can probably get to verse 4.

We'll see Because in verse 3 He goes on to sort of explain their ignorance.

He goes on to explain what it is.

He's talking about in verse 3 he says for being ignorant of the righteousness that comes from God and Seeking to establish their own They did not submit to God's righteousness Paul has already established that Israel's failure was that they were attempting to work their own righteousness and they weren't seeking God's righteousness God has even revealed to Israel that his holiness and righteous character abhors evil even in its smallest manifestation yet Instead of Seeking God by faith They have tried to cleanse themselves and make themselves righteous How many of you read the holiness of God? Few years ago.

We did that book at the holiness of God, okay Didn't see a whole lot of hands.

So let me make sure I I Because this is important In the book the holiness of God R.C.

Sproul makes a very important point and that is this God's holiness is the part of his character.

It's the it's the overarching underlying part of his character that that Really makes up the whole of Scripture when it comes to the issue of salvation because It is God's holiness which separates him from us You see when when man was in the garden There was no separation from God because God in his holiness There was no separation in the sense of there was nothing that had offended him.

There was nothing that had compromised his holiness but as soon as sin entered into the human race, there was a compromising of the relationship and a separation and since that time There has never been a way to come back into Union other than the person and work of Jesus Christ Outside of Christ.

There is no way to bring back the Union which was separated by sin And that's if you go back to verse 3 He says being ignorant of the righteousness that comes from God and seeking to establish their own.

They did not submit to God's righteousness you see That's the whole point They were seeking to establish righteousness of their own the one thing that will never be and Please put this in your mind the one thing that will never happen You will never ever Establish righteousness on your own you won't do it And you might say well what if at this moment right now? I stopped sinning and I live the rest of my life, and I never sinned again How about then would I then be righteous? Well, no because right now is not the beginning of your life You began life however many years ago.

It was and at the very beginning of your life to now has been sin so you can't establish righteousness based on what you're going to do in the future if you've already sinned in the past and If any of you were at least intellectually and emotionally honest you wouldn't say you were going to go the rest of your life without ever sinning again So right now we understand And somebody says well wait a minute pastor being righteous doesn't necessarily mean being sinless because Wasn't Noah called righteous yet, Noah had sin Wasn't Job called righteous yet Job had sinned hey David was called righteous, and we know David had sin So can't we be righteous? Even though we have sinned The answer is yes, but only if the righteousness is given to you You will never earn it By what you do The only righteousness we have is the righteousness that comes from God Through the work of Jesus Christ.

It's in this passage if you look at verse 3 for being ignorant of the righteousness that comes where? from God This very passage right here teaches what we call the doctrine of double imputation What double imputation when I when Christ died for me my sin was imputed to him That's first imputation his righteousness is then given to me That's what we call double imputation or that or how I become righteous and the righteousness that I have comes from God You see that was the problem with the Jews they were trying to establish this the righteousness of their own Instead of receiving the righteousness from God through the work of the Lord Jesus Christ That was the problem can you be righteous and be a sinner only if your righteousness comes from outside of yourself Martin Luther painted a very interesting picture when he said Christians are like snow-covered piles of dung snow-covered piles of dung life Because we are sinful people who have been covered in the righteousness of Christ We are sinful people who have been wrapped in the righteousness of Christ I love I always love that little snow-covered piles of dung.

That's what we are We are because he said if you look out at a field and you see these piles of snow, they look beautiful But you know what's underneath? That's what we are Because we have sin we have offended God we are not holy he is holy but because of the work of Christ We are made holy Made righteous.

That's why I said that book the holiness of God R.C.

really goes to a great length of explaining the separate nature of God to us and Yet at the same time how he reached down into the muck and the mire of our sin pulled us up Make us holy and seated us at the right hand of God The right hand of power that is Ephesians 2 talks about being seated in heavenly place not the right hand of God That's Christ seated in heavenly places.

That's Ephesians 2 So again, Dr.

John MacArthur said this only the most arrogant fool would claim to be perfectly holy Yet perfect holiness is the only standard acceptable to God for that reason It becomes obvious that apart from God's graciously granting us holiness No, man can hope to achieve it in Apart from the righteousness of God given to us We are not Righteous and that's why it goes to verse 4 and that's what we're going to end tonight.

He says for Christ is The end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes I tell you what, I don't know how anyone I Don't know how anyone ever deviated from this doctrine I don't know how anyone ever deviated from the doctrine of justification by faith to grace by grace to faith in Christ We know the whole church did and the Roman Catholic Church moved and deviated from this but it seems so obvious What is being taught in the pages of Scripture that the righteousness that we have is not our own It comes from outside and anybody who tries to establish this or right? If you that's the thing that kills me about the Roman Catholic Church It's because they did try to establish the righteousness of their own They had all these things you had to do you had to do penance and you had to go to confession and you had to say the Rosary and you had to do all of these things these external things to buy righteousness Purchase a relic or visit a relic or go and be in the presence of a relic or go up these steps And here Paul makes it so clear.

He says Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone Who believes and that goes back to what we talked about in the beginning has God elected who will believe? Yes, but yet at the same time we can still proclaim to the world Whosoever believes in him will not perish but have everlasting life because we know that whoever does believe in him Are the ones that he has opened their heart to do that And no problem with John 3 see people say oh, man, you were falling John 3 16 is a problem.

No, it's not Your ignorance of John 3 16 is a problem.

John 3 16 is just as reformed at any other dress reformers Romans not Because it says basically the same truth and that is whoever believes in Christ will be saved But why do we believe in Christ? Because God has opened our heart to do so so that when we face the Lord We will not face the Lord with any goodness that we have brought to the table We will not face the Lord being able to say hey, I was smart enough to believe in Jesus even though so-and-so did not We will Yeah, he just wasn't smart enough to believe in Jesus No We will face the Lord knowing that everything we have ever done That has been good and righteous and holy has been because the Lord showed favor and grace to us No, I I would say that we are We are born in sin the Bible teaches but but even further than that I would say that we do have an innate understanding That God exists Romans chapter 1 tells us that the very nature of the way things are ordered Demonstrate that God exists and it takes a suppression of that for somebody to become an atheist Which means yes by nature We know that God exists as we grow up and see how the world is ordered and see that we are human beings and we have A soul we have a spirit.

We know that there's more to us than just this flesh and these hands and feet and head There's a natural understanding that we are more than just this flesh But as we age The Bible says we suppress the truth and unrighteousness Why? Why would we suppress the truth? Because we don't want the guilt that goes along with sin How do we get rid of guilt? We suppress the knowledge of God That's how we get rid of guilt is if God is the one making us feel guilty, well, I just won't believe in God It's not that the atheist Doesn't believe in God.

He literally doesn't want God to exist Because if God exists he has someone to answer to You have to convince someone I Well, we got to verse four tonight and this is by the way for those who haven't been with us in the past doing Bible study What I normally do rather than doing a sermon like thing, which is sort of a sermon But what I do in Bible study is I sort of just go Until we're done I go and whatever verse we're on.

I just took my marker I put a big star next to it and that's the verse we'll start with next week and it's to me It's the best way just to go through the scripture verse by verse line by line and learn what we can As we study it together.