Romans Chapter 10

Sovereign Grace Family Church

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Well, good morning gentlemen y'all would take out your Bibles and turn to Romans chapter 10 Well again, I want to kind of remind you but I'm gonna move over a little bit that air coming out kind of hard I Kind of remind everybody where we are we had been we have been doing a chapter-by-chapter overview of the the book of Romans the epistle to the Romans and As I've said often this is Paul's Magnum opus.

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This is the Considered to be his great work.

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It's Closest thing we have in the New Testament to a systematic theology Paul outlines the doctrines of sin justification sanctification election and when he does it he does it very clearly as a As a way to try to grow the Roman Christians the ones who are in Rome try to grow them in their understanding of the of the faith and in Romans 9 10 and 11 Paul is addressing an important question in regard to the Jewish people.

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The question is this if God sent Jesus to save the Jews Why have so many Jews rejected Jesus and that's a legitimate question If you figure Jesus said I came to save the lost sheep of the house of Israel I mean Jesus said those very words and most of the Jews of Paul's day rejected Christ Does that mean God's Word failed? That was the question that Paul That was in Romans 9 if you remember last week Paul says is it as if the Word of God has failed and he says no because God chooses not the nation of Israel by virtue of having been born of Abraham, but God chooses Individuals from within the nation which sometimes the Old Testament refers to as the remnant So it's not the whole and he goes through the example of how God chose from Abraham Isaac and from Isaac He chose Jacob and and even though there were other brothers.

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He chose specifically these individuals and God chose them before they were born.

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He uses that example with Jacob and Esau He says before they were ever had done anything good or bad God made a choice of Jacob And not Esau and then he goes through this Argument with himself where he's imagining an objector.

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He's saying that Okay.

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Well, does that mean God is unfair his own righteousness with God by no means for God says I will have mercy on whom I have mercy and I'll have compassion on whom I can have compassion God is free in his distribution of grace God is not obligated to give anyone grace The only thing God is obligated to do is to give justice because he is just But if God chooses to hold back his justice and give mercy that's his prerogative, but he doesn't have to and so he says I give mercy to whom I will and on and whom I will I Give compassion or give justice So this leads us to the end of chapter 9 Where he's going back and forth in this sort of argument looking at Old Testament He's talking about what Isaiah said he talking talking about what the Old Testament Scriptures say and he's saying why is it though that? That Israel has not believed.

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Why is it that Israel has not trusted and Why is it that Christ is a stumbling block to them In fact, he is and he said he would be and this leads us to chapter 10 Where he continues this line of questioning and what we're going to do today Is we're going to read chapter 10.

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We're going to read all the way to the end.

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It's only Let's see here how many 21 verses and then we will pray and we'll begin our time of study So let's read Beginning of verse 1 it 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.

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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 will 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.

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But what does it say? The word is near to 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 But 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 upon him For everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed and how then will they believe in him whom they've never heard? And how then will they 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 by hearing and hearing through the word of Christ But I ask have they not heard indeed they have for their voice Has gone out into all the earth and their words the ends of the world, but I ask did Israel not understand First Moses said I Will make you jealous for those who are not a nation and 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 have shown myself to those who did not ask for me, but of Israel.

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He says all the day long I've held out my hands to a disobedient and contrary people Let's pray Father Your word is truth.

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I Seek to give an understanding of it that you would keep me from error for Lord The meaning of the scripture is the scripture and therefore to preach wrong Interpretation would be to preach the scripture wrongly.

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I Pray to be protected from that and for these men.

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I Pray Lord that you would open up the hearts of the believers to better understand what your word has to say And I pray Lord for those in the room who have not yet bowed the knee to Christ that today would be today a Day of reckoning for them Lord that they would see Christ as The only one who can save a person who is lost in sin and that they would recognize That It is those who in genuine faith Receive the Lord Jesus Christ who call upon the name of the Lord Who will be saved and none others? We pray this in Jesus name and for his sake Amen So what I've been doing each week is is I've been Reading each verse and sort of giving an understanding of it as we go sort of like a commentary style of teaching This week.

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I want to try to maybe go a little bit more quickly because I noticed last week I got I would say I don't say bogged down, but I got so caught up in verses 1 to 13 I didn't really get to the rest of the chapter and that sort of happens I get caught up in the beginning and I don't get to the rest and this week.

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I'm really really Wanting to make sure that we focus Between verses 13 and verse 18 Actually even further down.

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I want us to focus on that portion.

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So I want to get there relatively quickly Not that it's more important, but I think it's something that I can stress an application among us and do so Well, so hopefully that will make it there today Beginning of verse 1 he says brothers my heart's desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved So right away we have to ask the question the word there them is a is a pronoun Pronouns have antecedents antecedents are the nouns that precede the pronouns and give us the definition of that particular pronoun Who is the them in that sentence? Israel I mean based upon everything he has been saying since chapter 9 In fact, if you if you go back to chapter 9, you'll notice he says almost the very same thing at the beginning of chapter 9 He says I would myself be accursed if it meant the salvation of my kinsmen According to the flesh and he says that is Israel, right? So he tells us beginning in chapter 9 who he's talking about So when we get to chapter 10, it's almost as if he's saying the same thing again brothers And in that he's speaking to the Roman Christians.

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He says my heart's desire And the phrase heart's desire there is very similar to the way we use it in English It's it's still the same way and in the Greek language that Paul is writing in He's saying that the desire of my inner man the desire of my soul the desire of who I am and my prayer to God for them Is that they may be? saved Paul truly does care for the Jewish people.

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He truly does care that they have by and large rejected Jesus Christ Even to this day that is the truth There are those today who call themselves messianic Jews those are Jewish people who believe in Jesus.

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They say there are followers of Messiah Typically if you meet one, they will usually instead of calling him Christ, which is the Greek word for Messiah They will usually call him Messiah or Messiah, which is the the Hebrew way of saying Messiah But they're followers of Jesus and they are in the minority you would agree that the minority of Jewish people are followers of Jesus the majority of Jewish people reject Jesus as being the Son of God now some of them will say he was a prophet some of them will say he was a Good man or a good teacher but if they reject who he is as the Son of God then they have rejected what the Bible says about him and They are not his followers And so Paul is concerned for them and he says I want them to be saved Now verse 2 he speaks about their Understanding He says for I bear them again.

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That is the Jewish people of his day I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God but not according to knowledge now that is Somewhat of a insult now, I don't think Paul is intentionally being insulting But there is a hidden well not hidden but a subtle Dig in that phrase.

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He said they have they have a zeal for God, but it's zeal with ignorance It's zeal without knowledge now, let me ask you this and I and I I I'm trying to get you guys interactive I Want you to feel like you can engage What are some groups today that we could say that same thing about they seem to have a zeal but without knowledge Muslims yeah I mean, wouldn't you say a person who's willing to die for what they believe has zeal right zeal is zealousness something that they're Passionate about and there are certainly many Muslims are willing to die, but we would say they have a zeal without knowledge Okay, so that's very good example.

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What's another? Catholics very good.

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A lot of them are very very Passionate about being Catholics.

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I run into a lot of them online because I have a active Teaching page online I do things on YouTube Facebook and other places and oftentimes Catholics will come on and engage and Say I'm wrong for not obeying the Pope or I'm wrong for not following the rules of the Catholic Church and things like that And it is true.

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They have the great zeal, but it's not according to knowledge It's according to their traditions and it's not a minute much of which is not correct All right.

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What's another example? I have one in my mind.

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I'm trying to get to not and both of those were great Muslims Catholics Very good examples Yeah, that's the one I was thinking about and I only think about it because they're so zealous They'll get up early on a Saturday morning walk the neighborhood.

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That's zeal I mean, don't you think that I mean how many if true followers of Christ had that same? Zealousness to get out and drive around neighborhoods and get out and and go door-to-door and hand out Gospel tracts and talk to people about Jesus.

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That'd be a wonderful thing But that's not who we see out there.

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We see out there and when I use this expression, I'm using it in the technical sense I'm not using this as an insult But what we see out there are the cult groups and what is a cult group a cult group is a group that denies the Orthodox Teachings of Christianity that would be Jehovah Witnesses and Mormons and and other what we I'm not saying they are the occult like Satanism, but cult groups are groups that would deny that the the Orthodox view of Christianity.

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Yes The Christian religion is so rich They can get on TV and preach the word instead of having people driving around neighborhoods on bicycles Well, there is there there is a broader Multimedia Presence for Christians But the problem what we also see in that is there's a lot of bad teaching on TV and video and radio as well a lot of false teachers and stuff, too So a lot of the people with a lot of money are actually propagating false Gospels So we have to there's a difference between being cult group and being a false teacher there from a technical standpoint But there's a lot of guys on TV or false teachers, unfortunately But yes, there are people like there are good teachers on the radio and on television R.C.

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Sproul John MacArthur Paul Washer.

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There are a lot of good guys out there So yeah, we have that ability and they do do that And and so there they there there is there is a spreading of the gospel.

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I agree with that There's a spreading of the gospel.

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I just I like the idea that if a Christian if somebody told me from my church Hey, I want to go walk this I want to go off the neighborhood and meet my neighbors and share the gospel I would be excited because that's zeal I just like that but doesn't mean they have to just saying I think that that's good and we see that among the Jehovah Witnesses And the Mormons, but we don't see that among Christians so that's that was my only point right and what I'm saying is those people have zeal without knowledge.

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Yes Is that part of becoming a member of the church? Yeah, the Jehovah Witnesses have a Standard that you have to do those things there.

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They could they're called publishers a Jehovah Witness Who goes out and hands out literature? They're called publishers that's what there's those people that come to your door and that's part of being a Jehovah Witness is having that time and Mormons when they grow up Mormon boys have to go on what they're called missions And that's those two boys that are on the bicycles that come to your house They're on their mission and that's something they do between like 18 22 years old They go out knew that that's why they're so young come into your house And they have a thing on there says elder, but they're like 18.

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I always get a kick out of that They're elders at 18 years old.

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Yes, sir Okay, am I right? Yeah, did you do your mission? Okay No, no, no, but you're right, but a lot of them that grow up in it In that family a Mormon family the parents save money for the mission because when they go on the mission they pay for absolutely nothing Yeah, they're required by their mission to be fed clothed and Housed by the churches and the members of the church Yeah It's usually away from home right and it usually it's very seldom that they get placed anywhere near their home.

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Yeah it's like a separation thing and they go to what's called the MTC, which is the Missionary Training Corps and They're taught certain languages for certain countries.

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They go to and they're taught the culture that they're going to go to and preach Whatever they're preaching and it's a standard because when you see The missionaries come into the home They're taught they teach you exactly the same way each set is taught to teach you in the exact way flip cards cups And you a book of Mormon say pray about it.

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See what what is revealed to you.

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That's all a standard Thing everybody does the same thing and again, that's zeal Yeah, it's zeal and that's what I'm saying, but it's zeal without the truth zeal without knowledge and somebody say Oh, that's harsh for you to say that's what Paul's saying right here And he's saying it about the Jewish people.

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He's saying the Jewish people have zeal and did they have zeal? Yes, they love their country.

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They love their temple.

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They love their priests.

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They love their Pharisees.

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They loved the system But it was without they had a love for these things, but it was without knowledge and how many people even among Christians They love churchy anity, but they don't love Christ They love all the things that the church provides Society and friendships and cliques and you know Relationships, but they don't love Jesus One of the most dangerous things you can do is find yourself in a place where you love the atmosphere, but you don't love God Where you love the people, but you don't love Christ And that's where a lot of people find themselves.

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So they have zeal but not according to knowledge Now he goes on to say what they are ignorant of they are ignorant But what are they ignorant of? verse 3 He says for being ignorant of the righteousness of God and seeking to establish their own They did not submit to God's righteousness Now that is a hugely important sentence because this actually explains to us the problem among the Jewish people It says they were ignorant of the righteousness of God and instead sought to establish their own now In your mind If you go all the way back to chapter 1 of Romans Paul says this he says the gospel is the power of God Unto salvation for everyone who believes for in it the righteousness of God is revealed From faith to faith as it is written that just shall live by faith That's a quote from Habakkuk 2 4, but he's saying there the righteousness of God is By faith not by trying to establish my own I receive a declaration of righteousness by trusting in God Not in trying to establish my own righteousness.

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This is why Jesus said I didn't come to save the righteous But sinners I didn't come to call the righteous but sinners and and one might say well, no one is righteous that's true, but there are those who think they are and if you think that you are righteous if You think that you are holy apart from Christ.

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You will never seek a Savior if you think that you're good enough By the way, isn't that the motto of the modern age? I'm good enough.

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I'm smart enough people like me You know, I'm I am the man.

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I'm You know, I'm good and that's the problem And so we look here at verse 3 says being ignorant of the righteousness of God You see the Israelites had the Hebrew people had the scriptures, but they didn't understand what they lacked They lacked the righteousness of God and they were trying to establish their own.

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They did not submit to God's righteousness Instead they tried to have their own righteousness and verse 4 is the key.

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He says for Christ This is key for Christ is the end Of The law For righteousness to everyone who believes now, I didn't write the word in I wrote the Greek word the word there is tell us He says Christ is the tell us for righteousness to everyone who believes the the tell us of the law So when we we ask the question the word end It says end of the law We have to ask the question how is Christ the end of the law now, there's different ways to understand the word end We can say the word end is like the termination point of something like if I said and here's where the story ends That means it's over.

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All right, that's the end but you could also say that end can mean purpose So like if I say the end of set-free is that you all would go back to previous life Reproductive God honoring lives.

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That doesn't mean that's the end.

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That means that's the goal, right? Right.

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So the word end and that's where I wanted to point to the Greek word Tell us because the word tell us can mean termination point or it can mean goal And in this I think both have the idea.

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I think I'm gonna write the word goal up here Both have the idea But I think the word goal is the better way of understanding this because here it this way Christ is the goal of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes Because the law according to Galatians had a purpose and it was to point us to who? Christ the law is our schoolmaster to to lead us to Christ so Christ is the goal Christ is the is the point that the law points to because Christ would come and Fulfill the law he would be the goal and in him we find our righteousness.

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Yes That's right, that's right and he fulfills it Yes, I said it's ever five He didn't have a lot but he still broke Okay, actually what it says it says it says that those who died after Adam died having not the law So Adam did have a law don't eat of the tree Adam did have a law Yeah, Adam had a law don't eat of the tree He actually had he had the law of the garden which was ten and keep the garden and don't eat of the tree So he had a positive and a negative law Right.

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He had the positive which was keep the garden ten the garden and the negative was don't eat of the tree He broke the law and those who died after him between him and Moses did not have a law Yet they still was Adam yet They still died and the point of that in Romans 5 is to say Adam's death affected all of us Because even though they didn't have the law they still died Why did they die because they were in Adam and Adam brings condemnation on all of us the Adamic sin Brings the Adamic nature on all men and that's the meaning behind chapter 5 So Christ is the goal of the whole law Christ is the that You could say did the law terminate with Christ? Well, it terminated in one sense because it found its fulfillment in him But that doesn't mean the law has no more value.

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We still understand that God's law is valuable, right? We still don't want to murder.

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We still don't want to steal.

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We still don't want to lie Those are still valuable to us But the purpose of the law was to show us our need as my brother just said show us our need for a Savior So Christ becomes the goal of that.

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He's the goal of the law for everyone who believes.

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Yes No to tell us I is well, yeah, I guess there's a similar route the idea is it is finished it's completed I'd have to look up the the etymology of both of those to see the connection But I know tell us is end or goal and to tell us I may have that within it I'd have to look at and see but likely similar.

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Yes all right, so This ends this section where he says for Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes and now He's going to go and use a series of scripture verses to prove what he just said now I will say this I preach without notes when I'm here.

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I just preach straight from my text So I don't have a reference to every one of these Old Testament points I didn't take the time to write them all down.

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But what Paul does is he gives a shotgun? This is actually one of the highest concentration of Old Testament passages that he's going to go through pop pop pop real quick I know one of them's from Leviticus 18 a couple of them are from the prophets So he's going to give us a bunch of scripture in a row If I if I can think about it this week I'll try to get them all written down and give them to you if you'd like them But but if you have a study Bible is probably in there They usually have the cross-reference notes But I just want you to hear it because it's the point of what he's doing Similar to what he did in Romans 3 remember Romans 3 there's none righteous.

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No not one none who seeks after God That's a series of quotations to he's quoting Old Testament scripture He's taking the Old Testament, and he's using it to make his point.

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He's not necessarily Exegeting the Old Testament he's drawing from it to say here's here's what we know and here's what we know Moses writes about the righteousness that is based on the law that the person who does the commandment shall live by them, okay? That's that's important if you say I'm going to be saved by the commandments guess what you're saying I Gotta be I got to follow them all you can't just follow one James tells us that he says if you break the law at One point what are you? You're a lawbreaker you've broken them all right if you say I've never killed anybody But I've committed adultery you've broken the whole law because one you know one crack breaks the whole The whole table right the whole tablet of the law so he's saying he's saying the person who who says I'm going to keep the Commandments has to keep all the commandments and the only person who did that was Jesus Jesus But the righteousness based on faith Says and this is where he begins to quote scripture He says do not say in your heart who will ascend into heaven that is to bring Christ down or who will ascend into the Abyss that is to bring Christ up from the dead, but what does it say and again? He quotes scripture the word is near you in your mouth and in your heart That is the word of faith that we proclaim Because if we confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised from the dead you will be Saved so he's saying this you can't go you can't go into heaven and bring Christ down You can't go into the into the abyss and bring Christ up you say well that doesn't even make sense what he's saying is you? Cannot reach this goal by your effort Even if you could go to heaven you can't go ahead to heaven and bring Christ down You can't go to the abyss and and and draw anything up You can't pull yourself up by your own bootstraps the only thing you can do is trust in Christ Notice what he says because if you confess with your mouth That Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised from the dead you will be saved That's the point you cannot do this by works It must be by faith alone it cannot be done by effort, but by releasing effort and Trusting in Christ.

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It's like the man who's paddling to keep himself afloat And he's paddling and he's paddling and he's paddling and he feels himself going under the water.

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He feels himself drowning He's paddling.

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He's paddling and right next to him is a life ring Now he could simply take the life ring and put it around him and he wouldn't wouldn't have to paddle anymore Because the life ring would save him But he doesn't because why he's convinced he can do it himself And Paul saying you can't do it yourself.

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You can't paddle long enough because eventually you're going to drown Instead Believe on Christ and he will save you and he gives us two things to consider He gives us Confession and faith He says 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 and he goes on to say for with the heart One believes and is justified and with the mouth one confesses and is saved and then he quotes another scripture Where he says everyone who believes on him will not be put to shame now Why is it that there are two things mentioned here? he mentions not only faith, but he mentions a confession and the reason I think is relatively simple, but still needs to be stated and that is that faith that is only interior is A faith that is not being lived if we say well, I believe in Jesus, but I'm never going to talk about him If I believe in Jesus, but I'm not going to confess him.

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Is that true faith? What does Jesus say if you deny me before men I will Deny you before my father in heaven.

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So there is something about a confession by the way This is why I think baptism is so important because baptism is our confession When we receive the sign of baptism, what are we saying to the world? I am dying To self and I am living for Christ.

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I am being buried with him in baptism I'm being raised to new life.

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I am receiving the sign of my Confession by the way, we won't we won't baptize someone unless they confess Christ I don't think I'm sure you guys wouldn't either would you baptize somebody who says I reject Christ? No Would you baptize somebody who says I'm not willing to say Jesus is Lord.

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No, and when someone comes to our church Let's say they've already been baptized Let's say they're coming from another Baptist Church or something and they want to join our church We still make them stand in front of the church and say I believe that Jesus is the Christ the son of the Living God That's the confession Peter made remember when Jesus said who do you say that I am and some say Elias and some say John the Baptist and some say the prophet and Jesus said but who do you say that I am and Peter said thou art the Christ the son of the Living God and Jesus says Flesh and blood do not give this to you.

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But my father who is in heaven has given this to you Remember he told him that Confession what we call the good confession that that confession is the confession of truth that Christ is in fact the Son of God And this is what it says It says if you believe that in your heart you will confess it with your mouth And I would have a really hard time believing that someone could truly believe it in their heart if they were unwilling to confess it with their mouth Now one additional thought on that in the time of Christ Confessing.

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I'm sorry the time that this was written time of Paul about 20 20 30 years after Christ If you confess Christ with your mouth that could mean social Disconnection it could mean social stigmatization could even mean social banishment You could lose job Family or even life so like for us Somebody confesses Christ.

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What do we do? Yeah, you know the church claps.

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Somebody's baptized.

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We stand up You know, we're excited when somebody's baptized, but in the first century it was not that way in fact, I will Again add another historical note during this time in history the Caesars considered themselves to be gods on The money it was stamped Kaiser Koryos Kaiser Koryos was Caesar is Lord The Christian response was no Yeshua Koryos Jesus is Lord and What do you think the response of the government was when they commanded that you say Caesar is Lord and you said no Jesus is Lord Insurrection traitor They were even called atheists Early Christians were called atheists because they did not believe in the gods of Rome Because they would not worship Caesar as a god And they said no Not Kaiser Koryos, but Yeshua Koryos Jesus is Lord So again now you'd come back if you believe in your heart you will Confess with your mouth, even if it means what? death So that brings it into a different context doesn't it how many people would walk for the first Baptist Church Downtown if they knew that there were going to be men lined up with with rifles and willing to take them to jail.

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I And I don't mean yeah, I mean it's funny, but it but it's true, isn't it? It's exactly what happens in other parts of the world and that's why we see Christianity flourishing in the third world That's why we see Christianity flourishing in China and in Russia and in places where Christianity is not welcome and yet the church still grows Because the true people of God will say Jesus is Lord even if it's at the tip of a sword So beginning of verse 12 He says for there is no distinction between Jew and Greek for the same Lord is Lord of all Bestowing his riches on all who call upon him.

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What's again? What's the point in all of this? He's saying why has Has God abandoned the Jews no, he hasn't abandoned the Jews because everybody can believe now everybody can be a Follower of Christ.

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It's no longer Jew and Gentile now It's all under one banner and that is Christ.

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I showed this last week.

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I'm going to show it to you again The way the Jewish people saw the world was Jew and Gentile and They saw a distinction and a separation But the way the Bible describes it is more like what we would call a Venn diagram where you have Jew by birth and Gentile by birth The Jews by birth and the Gentiles by birth Some of them trust in Christ on both sides and those who are in Christ are the true Israel The true Israel is made up of Jew and Gentile who are in Christ and if you want to follow that up go to Ephesians chapter 2 beginning at verse 11 and read all the way to the bottom as Paul says the wall of Separation this wall right here has been taken down and we are now one in Christ Jesus Well, the tearing of the veil was in the temple where the temple kept the people from the presence of God and by Christ coming He becomes for us the presence of God within us and now the veil is no longer necessary There's no longer separation between God and man.

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He is in us if we are in Christ So that's just a quick little thought with if you are in Christ you are according to Galatians 6 You're part of the Israel of God You are according to Romans 4 a son of Abraham a true son of Abraham by faith Jesus said God is able to raise up Abraham sons of Abraham from these stones God could make a son of Abraham of anyone and he does through faith in Christ But now we're going to get to that part I wanted to talk about and I got eight minutes left so I know it was going to happen But let's talk this part beginning at verse 13 and often pastors will take this section somewhat out of context and just preach this and I Didn't want to do that today I wanted to do this within the context remember the context is the Gospels gone to the Jew and the Greek the Gospels gone Jew and Gentile now He says for everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.

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Who's the everyone there? He's saying this and this this and this everyone.

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He's not just saying everyone indiscriminately.

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He's saying Jew and Greek It's for both Because that's the way they saw the world They saw it with a hard separation a hard wall But he says everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved and then he goes and he asks a question How then will they call on him whom they have not believed and how will they believe in him whom they've never heard and how? Will they 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? Those are three important questions The first question is how they call on him whom they have not believed Okay, you can't call on someone if you don't believe on them If you don't believe that they are if you don't believe in who they are and it says how will they believe if they've never? heard This is the great missionary passage.

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I'll let you just let me finish this thought.

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I'll ask you answer your question This is the great missionary passage We think of people in places like Africa China and many other places who've never heard the gospel and what do we do? We send missionaries there why because they can't believe if they've never heard you can't believe in something You've never heard and so Paul asked that question How can they believe unless someone is preaching to them? and how can someone be preaching to them unless they've been sent to preach to them and So this becomes Again, the great missionary passage of Scripture which says we got to send people out to preach so people will hear and believe.

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Yes Yeah, if somebody if you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ Even if it's at the end of your life Now I don't tell people to count on that I say believe on the Jeep believe on Jesus now because you don't know if the end of your life is going to be tomorrow, but yes We know that there is such a thing as deathbed conversion because it happened to the man on the cross next to Jesus Is that what you're talking about deathbed conversion? Yeah, we know that it can happen But we I don't I tell people I say I don't count on that because I want to be right with God now Not then I want to have full assurance not some kind of you know Placid maybe it'll happen right before I die type of insurance But yes, anyone who calls in the name of the Lord anyone who truly trusts in Christ can be saved no matter how wretched no matter How sinful no matter how distant from God they've been this is my hope for I mean, I have a son who's not saved I think I've told that story before my son.

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I pray for my son all the time That he would come to Christ.

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He grew up here in the gospel.

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He knows the gospel But he hasn't trusted in Christ.

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So my prayer for him is that So yeah, yeah that anyone who believes is put into Christ that man on the cross when he looked at Jesus and he said Remember me when you come into your kingdom.

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Jesus said today thou shalt be with me in Paradise what greater promise in the whole world? Could you imagine Jesus looking you in the eyes and saying that when you die? You're gonna be with me in paradise and to know it with that kind of certainty That is a foxhole That is Yeah Yeah, he knows he's dying.

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He knows with every breath.

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He takes it's about to be his last and he uses what little bit of Air he has to say Lord Remember me when you come into your kingdom That's it.

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I preach a sermon about those two men There's one on either side of Christ one believes and one doesn't and that's a picture of the whole world It's a picture of the whole world Because you either believe in Christ or you don't and The ones who believe in Christ will be with him and those who don't will not and that and it really is What side of the cross are you on? That's the title of that sermon.

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But yeah, it's a very important question So getting back to these questions are these questions inspire us to Share the gospel these questions inspire us to go because guess what? There are people who need to hear and Paul says how will they hear unless someone preaches this also tells us something else People do not get saved apart from the preaching of the word Now that doesn't mean that they have to be preached to from a pulpit It might be somebody just sharing the gospel with them at a coffee shop That's still proclaiming the word that is still in one sense that's still preaching So this is why I encourage people wherever you are whenever you are if God opens the door to proclaim the gospel to someone Proclaim the gospel.

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I carry in my in my wallet.

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I carry gospel tracts These are just little Where that I think I may be out because I give them away at the fair That's what we've been doing this week.

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But they're they're they're Little get business cards and on the back it explains the gospel very simple language very simple writing and I keep them in my wallet So if I go to the hospital and I get on if I get it, I go to hospitals visit people I go to hospital and I get on an elevator.

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I've only got 30 seconds with this person I don't have time to explain to them the mysteries of Christ and the you know I don't really have time to even introduce myself But I can reach into my wallet.

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I can pull out my card and I can turn to the person I can say Hey, I just want you to know that that Jesus loves you and I do too and here's this card and you might think all those don't do anything I've known people who have been saved By such a simple interaction a lady that went to my church.

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Her name was Sybil Taylor She was in a wheelchair from the age of 12.

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She was a paraplegic She was in an accident and she was sitting in a lobby waiting on her husband.

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She was about 30 I think 30 years old she was sitting in a lobby waiting on her husband To come in and get her She's down to a wheelchair a lady walked up to her and said, you know Jesus loves you and so do I and I want you to have this gave her a gospel track from that gospel track She began to start going to a Bible study.

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She was saved Her husband was saved her husband went to seminary and became an elder and he was an elder in our church So what I'm saying is don't ever discount the power of the gospel, even if it's written down I'm preaching through the gospel mark on Wednesday nights at our church and last night was my first sermon and I said understand when the Writers of the Gospels wrote those four Gospels.

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They weren't writing biographies of Jesus Matthew Mark Luke and John are not biographers Matthew Mark Luke and John are evangelists.

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The purpose of the Gospels is that you would believe in Jesus They are writing his story so you will believe in him In fact John says that in John's gospel He says these things have I written that you may believe on the Son of God.

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He wrote the gospel as a tract Now it's a long track.

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It's a 21 chapter track, but it's still a track.

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It's a story about Christ that you would believe And how will they believe if they've never heard and how will they hear unless someone preaches to them? And how will someone preach unless he is sent? Now in with this thought we do say that preaching is not someone takes on themselves But preaching is something when we talk about sending the church sends out preachers The church sends out missionaries.

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And so I often will ask people.

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Are you connected to a local church? People who go out and hand out tracts or preach on the street and everything That's great.

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But you should do it within the context of your church and with your church not opposed to a church I see people out preaching on the street.

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I'll ask them.

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Are you connected to a church? No, I don't go to church I just believe in Jesus what Jesus tells us the church matters and the church actually sends out the preachers the church I believe in ordination because the Bible says that the the elders of the churches The church laid hands on them and laying the hands on them was symbolic of the spirit among the people Being within the man and preaching among the people So there's more to this than just evangelism.

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There's the the context of the local church.

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All right, we're out of time Anybody have any questions? Was this helpful? Well good.

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Well, we'll we'll continue next week finish up chapter 10 and go to chapter 11.

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Let's let's end with prayer Father I thank you for your word I pray that we would hear the word which tells us to preach and Lord that we would understand or that calls Calls us to preach and we understand Lord the importance of sharing the the gospel of Jesus Christ and and Lord the importance of the church sending missionaries and raising up pastors and preachers and Lord that every individual has a responsibility to be an ambassador for Christ and help us to be good Ambassadors for him in Jesus name.