Romans 9:30-10:21, How Do You Get It?, Dr. John Carpenter

Starting Romans chapter 9 verse 30 all the way through the end of chapter 10

Hear the word of the Lord What should 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 based on works

They have stumbled over the stumbling stone as it is written Behold, I'm laying in Zion a stone of stumbling in a rock of offense and whoever believes in him

Will not be put to shame 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 that righteousness of God and seeking to establish their own

They did not submit to God's righteousness for Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes

For Moses writes about the righteousness that is based on the law That the person who does the commandment shall live by them, but the righteousness based on faith

Says do not say in your heart who shall ascend into heaven

That is to bring Christ down 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 in your mouth and in your heart that is the word of faith that we proclaim

Because if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead

You will be saved for with the heart one believes and is justified and with the mouth one confesses and is saved

For the scripture says everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek for the same

Lord is Lord of all Bestowing his riches on all who call on him for everyone who calls on the name of the

Lord will be saved How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed and how are they to believe in him of?

Whom they have never heard and how are they to hear without someone preaching and how are they to preach?

Unless they are sent as it is written how beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news

But they have not all obeyed the gospel for Isaiah says Lord who has believed what he has heard from us

So faith comes from hearing and hearing through the word of Christ But I asked how have they not heard?

Indeed they have for their voice has gone out into all the earth and their words to the ends of the world

For I asked did Israel not understand first Moses says I will make you jealous of those who are not a nation

With a foolish nation. I will make you angry Then Isaiah is so bold as to say

I have been found by those who did not seek me I've shown myself to those who did not ask for me, but if Israel he says all day long

I have held out my hands to a disobedient and contrary people May the

Lord add his blessings to the reading of his Holy Word Whatever wanted something but didn't know how to get it

You know, there are lots of goals people have Things they want but they often lack the knowledge of how to attain their goals

Wanting isn't enough. You have to know how To get whatever it is.

You want people want to get rich and they often think well I can cook And they'll open a restaurant and they'll think they can get rich by doing in a shop what they do in their kitchen

But they don't know how to go from the kitchen to a business So about 60 % of restaurants fail in the first three years a lot of people want to lose weight

But they don't know how to get rid of the fat Weight loss programs promise you that you can eat rich food and big portions

It's not really big but they Insinuate that and not exercise and the weight will just melt off just take their pills or drink their drinks.

You should know better than that Some people want to be athletic But they don't know how to get it sellers of exercise machines will promise that in just a few minutes

Just a few times a week. That's all you got to need. It's all you need using their machine. You will be fit know that it takes work to People want to be beautiful and want to be attractive at least as best they can be

How do you do that? Well lose weight in shape go to a salon Of course, it depends on what you think is beautiful beauty is in the eye of the beholder

They say different cultures have different ideas of what it means to be beautiful in 19th century America and Britain Maybe before even but at least in the 19th century

Women having as slim a waist as possible was seen as beautiful and so they would wear corsets

Tied as tightly as they could make themselves slim at the waist in traditional

Chinese culture Small feet for women were seen as beautiful girls Usually about from the ages five to nine sometime in that range would have their toes

Curled underneath their soles of their feet sometimes actually breaking the toes and then the foot was bound as tightly as possible making it kind of arch upward and Keep it from growing.

It was all to have Those beautiful small feet that they adored now.

It had to be an incredibly painful I can't imagine how painful it must have been but people are willing to suffer much for what they regard as Beautiful many people have a strong desire to be right

You've got a morally beautiful to feel that they are on the right side of history That they're these people who don't need to be ashamed of who they are

What they believe what they stand for and that's a large part of the attraction to whatever the last few years has come to be called what wokeness

That that you've arrived that you've awakened to the right causes particularly about race and homosexuality and Transsexuality and you don't need to be ashamed of what you believe and what you stand for because you're woke it's become popular because with the collapse of much mainline religion, they offer a sense of righteousness of Spiritual beauty that's why their adherence, you know, the woke often have so much zeal

But it's a zeal without knowledge Well, how do you get right how to get beautiful well we see that here in four parts first how not to get it second how to get it third how to get it out and then finally

What's the difference? Well first starting in chapter 9 verse 30 how not

To get it. That's how not to get right here. We have people who want something what is called

Righteousness, they wanted a lot They are pursuing a law that would lead

To it would lead to righteousness Notice that pursue others the law should lead them to righteousness.

They're pursuing the law But they don't get it now They're they're straining for it pursue means to strain to suffer for it like chasing something desperately

Being willing to like being willing to bind your feet They're willing to work hard for it. They're willing to sacrifice suffer the reason a lot of people who

They may say they want to lose weight or get in shape but the reason a lot of people say that and really don't is because many of them aren't willing to To work for it

They think they can just take a pill or drink a protein shake and that'll be good enough some of these companies are preying on that people don't have a wish but they don't really have a

Have a willingness to suffer to work The reason a lot of restaurants go under is often because those who run them aren't willing to work the long hours and doing most of the work themselves

But here in verse 30 are people Who are willing? To work to suffer to pursue all for their quest in for righteousness notice verse 30 the words used

Gentiles did not Pursue that is to run after to put effort into getting

Righteousness, they weren't pursuing it many Israelites like Paul did pursue it.

They exerted themselves in strenuous religious efforts to be right with God but still

They didn't get it Because they went about it the wrong way because they lack knowledge

Why number 32 it says because they did not pursue it by faith, but as if it were based on works

They assume what many people today still assume still believe that if they work hard enough if they're good enough

They apply themselves enough. They can be right They can have righteousness

But they wouldn't trust the one whom God sent notice that phrase but as if it were

Based on works and when you say as as if He walked in the room as if he owned the place

She talked to me as if I were a child What we mean is that reality is different than the way the person is acting as if it is

He doesn't own the place. I'm not a child So here they pursued a right relationship with God The wrong way

With without knowledge without understanding they were and we are he says supposed to believe

But they wouldn't oh now they do all kinds of other things that exert themselves that abstain from foods that offer

Sacrifices they give 10 % that organized their whole lives around any requirement every regulation of the law

But they wouldn't trust God. So in verse 33, they they stumbled over the stone that God laid in Zion That's the true temple that God raised up there.

How do you get a right relationship with God? Isaiah tells us quoted by Paul here in verse 33. He says behold look

God is laying in Zion That is in Jerusalem. Look there. We've been going through the

Sunday school. That's virgin. He begins his life like look Look to the Lord. It doesn't take effort to look you have to look so here look to Zion Jerusalem to what

Christ did there on the cross and the resurrection laying the foundation stone for the true temple and for our lives look to that and You won't be ashamed

How do you not get right with God By works if you think you do you're proud of your good life your years of attending church or the prayer you prayed at the right invitation

You are then stumbling over Christ Rather than trusting him Paul one of the

Israelites to be saved in verse 1 it begins chapter 10. He yearns for it He prays for it, but most of them

Would not because they stumbled over Christ. They had a zeal that is they had a passion for God in verse 2

They're on fire for the Lord. That's what the word zealous means to be fiery That's why they worked as hard as they did.

They kept the Sabbath I mean, they're willing not to work a whole day out of the week. They're losing income.

They're losing money Because they're not working because they're keeping God's law. They didn't eat pork. I love pork.

You need shrimp I love shrimp if they wouldn't eat it because they were zealous to pursue God. They were so vigilant to tithe

That if the mint plant in a pot on their windowsill if it produced ten mint leaves

They'd be sure to tithe one of them Scrupulous to keep every regulation some are so committed.

They'd be willing to die as martyrs But they didn't know how To be right with God Zeal without knowledge without knowing how to be right with God Won't give you a right relationship with God now something that enthusiasm for God Just by itself is good

Even if it doesn't lead to knowledge of God that commitment without truth that heat without light. Well, that's good enough

In fact some churches some Christians spend a whole lot of their time Especially for their youth appealing to their youth trying to get them to be on fire for the

Lord So that's good enough just by itself People will look to others who are willing to go door -to -door

Giving out watchtower magazines Or others are willing to spend two years of their youth trying to win others to their to their doctrine

Even if their doctrine is wrong But all that zeal without knowledge Doesn't get you right standing with God And verse 3 being ignorant of the righteousness that comes from God Righteousness that comes from God is that's the gift that he's giving through Jesus.

They're ignorant of that They're seeking to establish their own righteousness their own way of being in a right relationship with God like Frank Sinatra They'll do it their way

They did not submit that is humbly accept what comes from God. Look at that word in verse 3 submit.

He did not submit To God's way of righteousness one of the most offensive words to proud people submit

People who think they can do it my way God says we got to submit to submit means that you you accept.

It's not you earning It's you bowing How do you get a right relationship with God?

Don't try to do it your way submit to what

God offers Because he says in verse 4 Christ is the end of the law for righteousness

They thought the law was the way they could get right with God through their own working But here

Paul says the purpose of the law. It's what they were end means their purpose. The purpose of the law was

Christ Purpose the law was Christ for being right with God Christ is how you get right those who believe get it for those who don't believe

Well, there is no other way Even if you work hard and you sacrifice There is one foundation stone you either build your life on him

Or you stumble and are broken How not to get it?

Your way He didn't tell us even more clearly how how to get it for verses 5 to 13 second

How to get it? Well the works way the way people do who live as if it were based on what they do is summed up in one word do

In verse 5. Here's a list of the things you have to do now do it It's a word of command do and live but in verse 6 we have the answer to that question

How do you get right with God? Well you believe It's not the word of command, but the word of faith the word isn't do it's believe

We only have to believe because God has brought his salvation Near to us in verses 6 to 8

We don't have to climb up to a mountain To get it because Christ has brought it down to us some cultures

They love to have prayer mountains and you got to go up there and you fast for 40 days You got to really work hard to show your zeal for God.

He says I brought it down to you We have to go searching in canyons or caves or or somehow go to the dead and some kind of mystical experience

I'm gonna bring it up from the grave because Christ has brought it up to us when he was raised So in verse 7 who will go down to get it?

We don't need to ask that It is here as present. It's available right now. The word to us is not do but believe

That's why it is the word of faith It's a proclamation about what

Christ has done not a command about what we must do It tells us what he did and now our response to it is to believe

To submit to it to accept it One of the unique phrases in Romans, I believe is only in Romans talks about the obedience of faith

You know you people would think what does that mean the obedience of faith is that the is that means you believe and then

Obedience comes from that or is that means there's a command to believe and then you obey it by believing versus the latter your command to believe

That's the command believe and Then if you really do believe that you obey that command to believe to have faith

It will show in your obedience throughout all your life. So how do you get it? Well some people reading so far think well

It's not by works. It's in my heart. It's in my mouth. So it's a feeling And you can't tell me my feelings are wrong

Someone to find faith simply is a sense of dependence People express that sense of dependence whatever you want to depend on as long as you're depending on Something depend on your ancestors on your family on Buddha on Mohammed or whatever

God or experience You are you feel depended on it's all Whatever works for you, but they just say but to be precise

The idea that you have to be knowledgeable about what exactly you have faith in they'll say well that's not important But that's not what

Paul is saying here by this word of faith There is a word means a means a word a statement means news facts of faith

Things you have to believe in an announcement about what Christ has done that we are Supposed to believe it we are supposed to trust in Certain certain statements about what happened

It's in our heart and then we believe them in our heart and in our mouths We say them and it's precisely verse 9 these things that we have to believe these facts

Confessing that Jesus is Lord that he's God That he's the master the

Lord that we are calling for salvation because there is no other name to call on for salvation that that's what we must

Confess what we must say to get right with God and in it's our heart We must believe that God raised him from the dead now, that's not a parable raising for the dead

I've got a symbolic story of just love triumphing over hate There are some doctrines you absolutely must believe in order to be a

Christian at all In order to be right with God at all faith Is it good enough if it's not faith in the right thing and two of those doctrines in verse 9?

Listen for us Jesus is Lord and He truly came out of that tomb

Resurrected. It's not a symbolic story. That's a fact of history We believe it and then you confess it with our hearts in verse 9.

We trust him We trust that the sins that deserve God's wrath were paid for by Christ on the cross

And so we say with our mouth Jesus is Lord and it has to be Jesus Is Lord not anyone else we want to be

Lord now Buddha and I'm a Hamid or an unknown God Not our money not our morality. I might not mean my ego

Jesus is Lord faith in what Jesus did so fills our heart that we say it comes out through our words

So we say he is Lord and Lord means that he's our master having Jesus as your

Lord It's not an optional kind of extra for the really committed. You can have him as your

Savior, but not your Lord And that'd be good enough. No The minimum is that you confess?

He's your Lord and of course you confess that because you believe that when we do that we believe and we say We are saved now that doesn't mean that we earn it by saying the magic words

Some people treat verse 9 and 10 as the magic formula for salvation

In other words to say these words Like abracadabra Leave this one little fact and you're saved

No, what he's saying here is if you are saved You trust him

You believe in your heart That's what you're like if you're saved and you say Jesus is

Lord You confess him That's what you do if you're safe If you're an apple tree you bear apples if you're saved you trust him in your heart

You believe God raised him from the dead you confess Jesus as Lord How do we get it right standing with God It's not one way for one person another for another person or for one group different for another group

It's not different for the whites and different for the blacks and yet different again for the Chinese in verse 11 Everyone who calls on the name of the

Lord Everyone will not be put to shame. So many people are trying to avoid shame

They want to be on the wrong side of history says the way to avoid shame is to call on the name of the Lord for everyone and Paul means everyone from every nation every ethnicity for there is no

Distinction for them and the big distinction between Jews and Greeks There's no distinction between different kinds of people

Everyone is saved the same way and the offer is made to all people everywhere in verse 12 The same

Lord is Lord of all bestowing his riches on all Who call on him the word of faith is for all kinds of people drawing them together?

To the one Lord who blesses everyone and then Paul quotes the Prophet Joel everyone who calls on the name of the

Lord Will be saved and here the name of the Lord is the name of Jesus who is

Lord we call on that man who was God submitting to the news of what he did for us and He saves us

Well, that's how you get it and it's for all people How do you get it out?

third part How did we get the word of faith? to everyone everywhere in verses 14 to 18

How did we get it out? Here he makes us think through what we have to do one little step at a time

Everyone is supposed to call right? It's call You first have to believe nobody's gonna call if they don't believe

Well, they can't call it someone they don't believe it in verse 14 How are they to believe in him whom they have never heard?

Well, they can't Someone has to tell them the word of faith that is what

Jesus did So that they can believe it so that they can call on him so that they could be saved

So someone so someone has to tell them someone has to take the message and if someone has to take the message

Some other people have to support the people going out giving the message the word there at the end of verse 14 preaching

Does it doesn't just mean preaching Like what I'm doing right now. How can they hear without someone preaching you think well, okay, that's all that matters

It's just preaching. Well, actually the word there is more generic term. Just mean generally proclaiming

Communicating it's passing the word along literally it could be translated as good news telling

However, you tell the good news Not a kind of communication the kind of communication doesn't matter it matters what you say

Not how you say it. You can say it chatting with someone What I want informally over lunch

Say it by texting by social media by giving good books Say it by songs and say it by Teaching or you can say it

Yes by what I'm doing preaching if they are to call in the name of Jesus They have to believe and if they're to believe they have to hear about him if they hear about him

Someone has to tell them someone has to bring the message of what Jesus did to them

So they need a messenger and if there's going to be messengers Someone has to send them in verse 15 the messengers need support

They need people who are willing to provide for their needs to hold them up They need a church to send them

How do you get the word of faith out? Well, we sin people

We give our time our money even our admiration We esteem as beautiful their willingness to go to be sent

Give their lives. Maybe your life maybe to travel overseas like Mary has

Maybe to travel to North Hills apartments, but four to five miles from here Maybe just to travel out of your door

To do what you can do maybe to help run Jim jr Here maybe to drive a van prepare a sandwich or a lesson to go out and bring the word of faith

The good news and how to be right with God to people how beautiful are the feet of those who bring?

good news Because their feats what takes them and they're bringing the good news

So this beautiful beauty they say is in the eye of the beholder. We consider beautiful whatever it is that we value your ugly dog might be beautiful to you a perfect pass for a touchdown

Might be beautiful to you if it's your team if it's to us to Smith in overtime a

Check for a lot of money might be beautiful to you In the past Chinese saw small arched feet for women as beautiful Here the feet of the messengers in which they walk out walk out of that door away from home and family

To go take that word of faith to get it out That's beautiful Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and God himself beholds their feet what they're walking on to take the message and He beholds it is beautiful and what

God sees is beautiful is beautiful indeed Don't you want to be seen as beautiful by God Then take part in his beautiful Expedition if we want to be a church that God sees is beautiful.

We need to be getting his word out That's why we have our ministry to children and the youth and the young adults

That's why we're sitting in a gym right now other than traditional sanctuary now a gym doesn't interfere with the worship service on on Sunday mornings

The basketball markings on the floor do not interfere at all with our singing praises to God are taking the

Lord's Supper or hearing the word preached and It helps us reach the kids

Because they'll come for the basketball court. They won't come for pews and stained glass. So it helps us get the word out

So even if you prefer pews and stained glass and carpet and a beautiful traditional sanctuary, you should look at this building it's kind of basic and Functional as it is, but it draws in the children and the young adults

And you look at it and enables us to give them the word of Christ So you look at it look around Admire it and think man this place is beautiful Some people think that if you believe in what we've seen in Romans 9

Why would you care about evangelism? You know when God wants to save the heathen he'll do it himself the mock but God has not only chosen who gets saved but how they get saved and He shows us here that his children children of the promise his people his true people

They get saved by hearing about what Jesus did for them from people who go

Through churches that sin They hear it God's people hear it.

They get faith. God gives them faith through what they hear so they call on the name of Jesus and They're saved

How do you How do you get it out? We take part in the beautiful expedition

Lastly, well, what's the difference? What's the difference between those who get right with God and those who don't what distinguishes them?

That Paul deals with in the last few verses from verses 18 to 21 Most of which are quotes from the Old Testament and which take us back to that original question

Why does so many Gentiles why there's so many Gentiles non -jewish people now who have a righteousness?

Have a right relationship with God and so few Israelites have it There's so many

Israelites are born into the right nation You know born hearing God's law and they're not right with God while others

Who weren't born in the right nation who weren't born in in a culture where they heard God's Word? And weren't at all pursuing

God who weren't who were just living for the weekend. They were partying They're the kind of party animals that living for pleasure that he attacked in chapter 1

Would exchange the truth of God for a lie had been given over to gross immorality And so many of them were now coming into the church now right with God.

Why? What's the difference between the two between those saved and those not?

They've both heard No, it's not as though the Israelites haven't heard they heard The Word of Faith has gone out to them

Messengers like Paul with beautiful feet have brought it to them, but God has not used it to create faith in their hearts.

Why? Well, it's both God's sovereignty and their responsibility

Who has believed the gospel who's believed our report according to Isaiah 53 only to those whom the arm of the

Lord has been revealed That's the very next line in Isaiah 53 without revelation people don't believe so while they may have heard

The messages was given was spoken to them But it wasn't revealed to them

He made them the unbelieving Israelites jealous. They saw the non -jewish people the the non people of God The people he calls in Hosea quoted from the chapter 9 not my people.

He saw them responding Coming to the Lord. They're loving his work They're reading and they're living the same scriptures that they have been taught as children and instead of being

Motivated by that to believe in their Messiah to and believe in Jesus do they were made jealous and God says in verse 19

That he did it. I Will make you jealous. I Will make you angry and he made them angry by converting people who used to have no fear of the

Lord who were by definition Fools the fool says in his heart. There's no God The fool lacks fear of God, but now

They do fear Revere God and worship now on the other hand in verse 20 those who were lost and who weren't looking to be found

Now they're found Amazing grace is right. So people scoff at us at simple words, but it's right we once who were lost and now

It's not that we found our way We heard the offer and we're so noble of people we found the right decision to make no

It's not that we found our own way out But that the Lord found us God says I have been found by those who did not seek me

How were we found? Well, the Lord showed himself to us even before we asked for him. The Lord takes the initiative and finds those

Not looking What's the difference between those saved and those not Is it some are striving for righteousness?

Is that it? Is it hard work? What's the difference It's God He has mercy on whom he will have mercy

Not that people aren't responsible. They are they make their choices here. They are disobedient. They're contrary

They won't submit to the righteousness that God gives as a gift. They won't obey the gospel interesting phrase there obey the gospel they won't do it and Simply believe

God patiently endures them. He says all day long in verse 21.

He pleads for them but they're disobedient and unbelieving and contrary other words

Opposing God's way and say I'll do it my way What's the difference between those saved and those not for those saved

God uses his word to create faith in them Notice verse 17 faith comes.

What does faith need to come? Well faith is kind of created in us by our free will isn't it by our decision?

Now here faith is coming. This means it was somewhere and it's going somewhere else faith comes from Not our free will

Not our being persuaded Not our rational decision. He's not ultimately God may work through that But that's not where it comes from Faith comes from hearing

That's God's sense faith. It's a gift of God. He sends it through us Hearing someone speaks it we hear the

Word of Christ the message about Jesus That's why we host kids here every Sunday afternoon. God has both the people and he has chosen a way

He has that to get those people by us telling the Word of Christ God both has a people he has chosen and The way he has chosen to get those people by telling the

Word of Christ Well, someone told Gladys Aylward a poor English girl born in 1902

She was saved at the age of 18 when a stranger after church in London Not just talking about sports or politics or the weather how hot it is today

But asked her directly about whether she believed She believed the gospel she had heard in the church

And then she knew after that she knew how to be right with God and she built her life on the stone God laid And so she was not

Put to shame as soon she read a magazine article about China. They changed her life

She kept thinking about the the millions of people there in that distant land She's in London and she's thinking about the people in China who had not yet heard the word of Christ Someone needs to take it to them.

He tried to motivate others to go help other to be other people to be missionaries

She first wanted to be a cinder She she believed how beautiful out of the feet of those who go who go tell the good news and she looked for someone with beautiful feet, but then when no one

Least no one around her went She thought then she would go she would be the one sent

And so she wanted to tell the Chinese the word of Christ, but she didn't know she didn't know how to do it

She was told to attend missionary training school at first which she did but after three months the mission agency flunked her

Saying that she was they decided for certain. She was too old at the age of 26 to learn Mandarin That would be true for me, but she wanted to go to China Anyway, how will they hear without a messenger?

She was a poorly educated maid, but told God you have me You have my

Bible my money not much of that. She's only a maid She couldn't earn enough money to even get a ship to go to China with so she set out all by herself on October 15th night 1932

Across the English Channel to mainland Europe, which she got a train first to Russia then across Russia across Siberia all the way across Asia to Japan and Then finally got a ship from Japan to China all over land

Then to the inland city in China of young chin and the mountainous province in the mountainous province of Shanxi There she founded an in the end of the eight happinesses great name for an in Every night she gathered the guests to tell them the

Word of Christ. And yes, by the way, she did learn Mandarin Eventually, she became such a part of the Chinese Society She was even recruited by the

Chinese government to help stamp out the foot binding of little girls in the early 20th century

The Chinese government outlawed foot binding on the girls. And so the local government official notice

It's Gladys Aylward's feet were not bound and she asked her to go out and campaign in their area against it and she used the traveling that's required to the outlying villages as part of this campaign as an opportunity to spread the gospel there and As she did she encountered many orphans and started taking them in and then when

China was attacked by Japan She had around a hundred children a hundred orphans that she was taking care of as the

Japanese invasion grew nearer Threatening massacres she gathered up her 100 children

Nearly escaped the city Single -handedly led the children over mountains on foot for about a month hike on those feet

At one point having to ferry them across a river to a safer province

About a hundred miles away where she settled the children and began to spread the gospel there, too

How do you get it a right relationship with God you believe the word about Christ How do you hear about Christ a messenger has to be sent?

How do you see a woman like Gladys Aylward who walks away from home? Gives her life to take the message of Jesus treks a month over mountains and rivers for 100 miles