The Stumbling Stone
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Sermon Title: The Stumbling Stone
Scripture: Romans 9:24-33
Occasion: The Lord’s Day
Date: January 28, 2023
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Scripture Transitions Sermon Title|Quotes |Emphasis
PRAY
Ephesians 1:2 “Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.”
I pray that last week’s sermon was helpful in knowing who the God of Scripture really is.
As a minister, I trust by faith that His Word will not only grow us but keep us.
Today, there is a bit of a transition, that helps us to see the other side of of the coin, if you will, of God’s Sovereignty.
Meaning that Sovereignty or more specifically, that God’s sovereign election is not the only topic of discussion in this chapter, nor is it the entirety of the bible.
There is two major doctrines that flow through the bible:
God’s Sovereignty.
Man’s Freewill.
or
God’s Calling (election/choosing)
Man’s Faith. (Man’s responsibility)
Today we will see that God not only cares deeply about you knowing Him, but He cares deeply about you knowing what is required of you to know him.
The question today that we must answer and wrestle with is this:
What is the greatest obstacle to salvation? (Repeat)
Some may say it is indifference.
Some may say it is religion.
Some may say it is sin.
But as we navigate this passage today, I want you to have in the forefront of your mind:
What is the greatest stumbling stone to salvation?
So today I have labeled my sermon:
“The Stumbling Stone”
And our goal, is to, Lord willing, answer that question in our time together.
PICKING UP WHERE WE LEFT OFF LAST WEEK
Last week we took a peek behind the curtain of God’s sovereignty.
We talked a lot about God’s sovereign mercy.
We saw that God not only endures sinners with much patience but by His sovereign mercy alone saves sinners unto salvation.
By mercy, only by His own sovereign mercy is anyone saved.
We saw in the text that the reason God has chosen some to salvation by His mercy, and left others to themselves for damnation, was for the ultimate reason of showing forth His glory.
His glory is the reason for everything.
And God saw fit that the best way to magnify His glory was through Sovereign election.
And this of course it what Paul continues with here in vv24-27
Romans 9:22–24 (ESV)
What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction,
in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory—
even us whom he has CALLED, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles?
Paul continues the theme of Sovereign mercy here with this word “Called”.
This word “called” is mentioned 3 times in 3 verses.
v24- Called
v25- I will “Call” my people
v26-they will be “called” ‘sons of the living God.’’’
This greek word Expresses the concept of calling both as naming and as summoning.
In other words, God by His sovereign mercy has the “right” or “sovereignty” to name or summon those He desires according to His infinite wisdom and good pleasure.
Paul makes it extra here that this calling is not only for the those who are Israelites but this call is also for the nations.
This is reminiscent of Pauls opening words in this letter to the Romans, when He said,
Romans 1:1–6 (ESV)
through [Jesus] we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations,
including you who are CALLED to belong to Jesus Christ,
But don’t miss the point here; the calling of God is predicated on God’s right to show grace and mercy to whomever He wills.
God’s calling is not based on ethnicity, whether your rich or poor, whether your your religious or non religious. No friends, God’s calling is predicated on His mercy to “make known the riches of his glory” (v23).
God’s calling is not partial. God’s calling is based on His mercy and nothing else.
So Paul, of course, continues to make His case, as He has for the last 24 verses, by anchoring His argument in the OT scriptures.
He uses the prophet Hosea.
And the prophet Isaiah.
Let’s start by trying to understand how Paul fleshing out this non-partial “calling” through these paraphrased quotes in Hosea.
Who is the prophet Hosea?
Hosea was a prophet, a very wonderful man, a very loving man, a very forgiving man, a very gracious man.
In Hosea 1:2 God commands Hosea to do something very peculiar.
When the Lord first spoke through Hosea, the Lord said to Hosea, “Go, take to yourself a wife of whoredom and have children of whoredom, for the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the Lord.”
Now we don't know whether this wife (Gomer) was a harlot when he married her but what we do know is that she became one.
So essentially as Hosea goes, Hosea lives out a parable as his wife was a harlot to him.
That couldn't have been easy.
But side note: God does not call us to easy things. He call us to trust him by faith.
That’s exactly what Hosea did.
And through this parable God put’s on display how the nation of Israel is a harlot to her husband, which of course, is God.
So verse 6 of Hosea tells us Hosea 1:3-4
Hosea 1:3–4 (ESV)
So he went and took Gomer, the daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son.
And the Lord said to him, “Call his name Jezreel,
The name of Gomers first born was “Jezreal” which means “God sows” or “scattered.”
She also had other children with very important names as well.
Hosea 1:6 (ESV)
She conceived again and bore a daughter. And the Lord said to him, “Call her name No Mercy, for I will no more have mercy on the house of Israel, to forgive them at all.
Then in Hosea verse 9 Gomer has her final child Hosea 1:8-9
Hosea 1:8–9 (ESV)
When she had weaned No Mercy, she conceived and bore a son.
And the Lord said, “Call his name Not My People, for you are not my people, and I am not your God.”
So get the picture of what’s going on here:
God’s commands Hosea to marry this women who becomes a prostitute.
This prostitute gives Hosea three children
1. One named God sows or scattered.
2. One named No Mercy or Not pitied.
3. And one named Not my people.
God reveals here through Hosea and Gomer is heart towards his adulterous people.
The children of unfaithful Israel are pictured as scattered, Not pitted, and not the people of God.
Simply put God sends a clear message: My relationship with you is severed.
You were once gathered now you are scattered.
You were once shown mercy now you are not shown mercy.
You were once my people but not you are NOT my people.
But that is not the end of the story for Israel. No, no, no.
“And in that day, declares the Lord, you will call me ‘My Husband,’ and no longer will you call me ‘My Baal.’
For I will remove the names of the Baals from her mouth, and they shall be remembered by name no more.
And I will make for them a covenant on that day with the beasts of the field, the birds of the heavens, and the creeping things of the ground. And I will abolish the bow, the sword, and war from the land, and I will make you lie down in safety.
And I will betroth you to me forever. I will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love and in mercy.
I will betroth you to me in faithfulness. And you shall know the Lord.
“And in that day I will answer, declares the Lord, I will answer the heavens, and they shall answer the earth,
and the earth shall answer the grain, the wine, and the oil, and they shall answer Jezreel,
and I will sow her for myself in the land. And I will have mercy on No Mercy, and I will say to Not My People, ‘You are my people’; and he shall say, ‘You are my God.’ ”
My family and I read the Biggest Story Bible Storybook by Kevin DeYoung for our family worship time and, interestingly enough we landed on Hosea yesterday. God’s timing is perfect!
And this is what Kevin DeYoung wrote about this in this children’s bible:
“The big point of the biggest story is that we have a loving God who loves unlovely people. God wasn’t finished with Israel even when Israel wanted to be finished with him.”
So here is what we need to understand about the context of Israel here in Hosea.
The prophet was referring to the rejection of God, Yahweh, here.
And then the judgment that came on them and then the restoration to come.
And the prophet Hosea really lived to see that!
He lived to see that northern kingdom conquered by the Assyrians, devastated by the Assyrians.
The people of Israel became, in a very real sense, not the people of God.
What that simply means is that God took His hand off of Israel and they scattered.
They were no longer pitied or shown mercy by God, and what happened?
Devastation by God’s enemies.
YET in 518bc after all of the devastation that came with the conquering of the northern kingdom, and all the devastation of the conquering of the southern kingdom, God brought them back!
God brought them back to the land.
God gave them back their land.
Gave them back their temple.
Gave them back their nation.
Gave them back their identity.
And so historically then what you have here is a prophecy related to Israel being scattered, not any longer pitied or cared for by God, and no longer having a relationship with Him and yet some day being brought back from that and becoming a people who were once not a people.
Now you can understand what Paul has in mind here in Romans 9:25.
He's talking about Israel.
There's no other way to explain it.
He has to be talking about Israel because that's who Hosea is talking about.
You might say, "Why is this important?"
Listen carefully:
It's important because what it means is that the prophets of old saw that Israel would enter into unbelief.
And this has the premise of Paul whole argument here in Romans 9.
“How are you surprised (fellow jewish friend) that you are in a mass unbelief when the prophets prophesied that you would!”
In Hosea there is an obvious immediate historical fulfillment of these prophecies.
As the people were severed from God, and carried off into captivity from which eventually God brought back the southern kingdom and a remnant of the northern kingdom.
So the prophecy was historically fulfilled in the restoration after the Babylonian captivity.
But that was only the first fulfillment, a historical fulfillment.
There was yet a future prophetic perspective.
And Paul here identifies it with the unbelief of the Jews during the time of Christ.
He says,
"Look, we are not surprised now when we see Jewish unbelief and we see them separating themselves from God and we see them denying the gospel.
We are not surprised now when they enter into unbelief and sever themselves from God.
Because Hosea said that that's the kind of people they were.
And Hosea saw it in the immediate sense and the Spirit of God saw in the very words He gave to Hosea the future sense."
So the Holy Spirit applies through Paul what Hosea saw historically to the time of Christ.
And the Israel of Christ’s time were also prostitutes, also harlots who abandoned God and forsaken Him.
Do you know happened to Israel in 70 A.D.?
The jews were scattered, not pitied and not My people.
The whole historical scene took place again at the devastation of Jerusalem when the Jews were scattered.
Beloved, the jewish people have suffered much.
It's as if God does not have mercy on them, isn't it?
They're not His people for this period of time.
And so when we read the passage in Hosea then, we say yes, God anticipated the unbelief of Israel both in Hosea's time and here the Holy Spirit tells us even in the time of the apostle Paul, the time of Christ.
So the unbelief of Israel doesn't violate God's plan, it actually fits it.
Israel is not now the people of God. They are a not pitied people. They are a scattered people.
But the question for us is is Israels unbelief permanent?
No it's not permanent, look back at verse 25 again and see what it says.
Romans 9:25 (ESV)
As indeed he says in Hosea, “Those who were not my people I will call ‘my people,’ and her who was not beloved I will call ‘beloved.’ ”
Israel is not now the people of God but they will be.
This of course refers to Israel’s restoration.
Look at chapter 11 verse 1.
Romans 11:1 (ESV)
I ask, then, has God rejected his people? By no means!
Romans 11:2 (ESV)
God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew.
Look at verse 26 in the same chapter.
Romans 11:26 (ESV)
And in this way all Israel will be saved, as it is written, “The Deliverer will come from Zion, he will banish ungodliness from Jacob”;
And verse 27 says,
“and this will be my covenant with them when I take away their sins.”
In other words, those who are not now a people will become a people.
Those who are not now beloved will become beloved.
But the point of the text is just to show you that for the time we are not surprised at the unbelief of Israel.
We saw it historically.
And that historical unbelief became prophetic of the unbelief that exists since the time of Christ UNTIL one glorious day when their belief comes during the time of the tribulation prior to the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.
So we're in the time now when Israel fulfills the prophecy of Hosea.
They are a scattered, not pitied, not My people.
Now Peter refers to this same idea, this same concept in 1 Peter 2:10.
He refers to it indirectly and identifies it with the church.
And that's kind of an interesting thing.
I don't think he directly quotes Hosea, and there are many others who agree that it true.
I think he alludes to the same concept, only in this case, it's the church.
Because the Church also were a scattered, unpitied people who were not the people of God when we were saved, right?
So Peter applies the same principle to us.
For Gentiles outside the covenant are a scattered, unpitied people without a relationship to God.
So if your tracking what I’m saying:
Hosea directly applies the prophecy historically in his time.
Paul directly applies the prophecy in his time.
And Peter indirectly associates the concept with the identification of the church as a no people who become the people of God by God’s mercy and grace.
You might say, "Well now wait a minute, how can Peter take something clearly referring to Israel and apply it to the church?"
Very simple, are you ready for this?
When Israel becomes scattered, unpitied and has no relationship to God, they're just like the Gentiles, right?
They're just like the Gentiles, no difference.
Jew and Gentile in unbelief are equally not God's people, are equally not pitied by God in a special covenantal way, are equally scattered and unsaved.
And so Peter sees the general truth of the state of Israel as a general truth also true of the Gentiles.
But Now notice in verse 25 the beautiful set of terminologies that that are laid up for us:
"My people, My people, My beloved," and the end of verse 26, "sons of the living God."
Beautiful terms.
The Lord's going to bring these scattered, no pitied, unsaved people back and call them, get this: “Sons of the living God”!
Now Paul while he's in Hosea comes to another verse in Hosea and quotes it in verse 26
“And in the very place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’ there they will be called ‘sons of the living God.’ ”
Now Paul gets this out of chapter 1 verse 10 of Hosea where it says,
Hosea 1:10 (ESV)
And in the place where it was said to them, “You are not my people,” it shall be said to them, “Children of the living God.”
It's kind of interesting because he simply paraphrases Hosea 2:23 but he does a direct quote of Hosea 1:10 . It's almost verbatim quote.
And again this text affirms the same thing.
Look at verse 26 of Romans 9,
“And in the very place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’ there they will be called ‘sons of the living God.’ ”
The point is simple here folks and it’s wonderful: Israel will be re re-gathered to be called again the sons of the living God.
So please note that the use of Hosea's prophecies is not particularly to emphasize Israel's restoration, though that appears in the prophecies that He'll call them back to be His people, His beloved sons of the living God.
The particular point in using the prophecies is to show that a future restoration of Israel demands a falling of Israel.
You don't have to restore what hasn't been lost.
And the point is that Paul is saying we're not shocked by Israel's unbelief, quite the contrary.
We expected it because God promised their restoration from that unbelief.
So when you look at the gospel being presented and you ask yourself the question as I have been asked by Jewish people, “if your gospel is true, why didn't the Jews believe it?”
I say it was planned in the prophecy...it is the perfect plan of God that the Jews would have to be restored from unbelief.
So we're not surprised they've entered into unbelief from which they'll be restored.
And may I encourage you with this, my friends, have the Jews gone into that unbelief?
Have they gone into that unbelief and become a scattered, not pitied people without a relationship to God except for a few? Is that true?
Then if we've seen that come to pass, what else must we see come to pass?
Their restoration.
And I fear that many christians are willing to see Israel enter into the prophesied unbelief but refuse to let Israel be restored. And you can't pick prophecy apart like that.
Then Paul moves to the prophet Isaiah in v27 and says,
And Isaiah cries out concerning Israel: “Though the number of the sons of Israel be as the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them will be saved,
for the Lord will carry out his sentence upon the earth fully and without delay.”
And as Isaiah predicted, “If the Lord of hosts had not left us offspring, we would have been like Sodom and become like Gomorrah.”
Isaiah prophesied this in Judah under Uzziah, which began about 760 B.C.,.
Isaiah prophesied for about 48 years and he cried out to the people, he cried out to them that though you number as the sands of the sea, though there are many Jews, only a small piece will be saved, only a small group will be saved, only a remnant will be saved.
So, you see, Isaiah saw the unbelief of Israel, too.
He saw that not all Jews were going to be saved.
Now I think Isaiah again, like Hosea, historically was looking at a very near fulfillment.
Isaiah was looking at the near conquest, looking at the captivity, looking at the enemy who was going to come historically and haul the people away.
He was looking at something that was imminent on the historical calendar.
BUT what the Holy Spirit had in mind was not only that but something future as well.
For out of all of the Jews in the time of Christ, only a few believed.
And out of all the Jews since the time of Christ, only a few believe, just as it was in the time of Isaiah.
So the events of Jewish history monitored by Hosea and monitored by Isaiah are pictures, prophetic pictures of the events about the time of Jesus Christ and the presenting of the gospel and the age in which we live when the Jews have also rejected God and been severed from Him, scattered.
There were only a few, by the way, who were saved out of the Assyrian conquest, just a few.
And this remnant is a sort of typification that only a few (a remnant) will be saved in this age.
v28 Paul goes on to say,
for the Lord will carry out his sentence upon the earth fully and without delay.”
God is a just God.
For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished.
And here in v28 we are reminded that God’s judgment is not only thorough but it’s swift, without delay.
He will carry out His sentence, His Word (is what sentence means), fully and quickly.
Then Paul to remind us of God’s thorough and swift judgment He takes us back to the words of Isaiah 1:9 that reminds us of what took place with Sodom and Gomorrah,
Isaiah 1:9 (ESV)
If the Lord of hosts had not left us a few survivors [Remnant], we should have been like Sodom, and become like Gomorrah.
Romans 9:29 (ESV)
And as Isaiah predicted, “If the Lord of hosts had not left us offspring [Seed], we would have been like Sodom and become like Gomorrah.”
This is where this section wraps up. Follow it.
Isaiah said only a remnant or “few survivors”.
He changes remnant to seed in Romans 9:29 but it means the same thing:
A small group, seed, a small thing, just a little bit, enough to get started again, just a little.
The objective of this reference, like the former reference from Isaiah, is to demonstrate that God planned it all.
And He planned that not all Israel would be saved, not all Israel would be exempt from judgment.
The Jews of history face tremendous judgment.
And the Jews at the time of Christ face tremendous judgment because the Jews of history rejected God, the Jews of the time of Christ rejected God.
The parallels are obvious.
And the only reason any of us is saved, look at verse 29, is because the Lord of Host left us a remnant.
The Lord of Hosts left us a small seed.
Why is He called the Lord of Host here?
Isaiah 1:9, Lord of hosts means Lord of everything. (Sovereign!)
The hosts are the angels, the stars, the heavenly bodies, the planets, Lord of...Lord of the much, Lord of the many.
Don’t miss this: Isaiah says by contrast, "The Lord of the much and the Lord of the many and the Lord of the hosts has chosen a seed."
Why?
Because of His mercy. No other reason.
So now Paul transitions from God’s Sovereignty in vv6-29 to human responsibility in vv30-33
This is where we will end our time.
We will end our time exactly where the Lord desires for us to end our time every time:
What does God require of us for salvation?
Well, Paul emphatically answers that question with faith.
Like the old George Michael song goes.
“I gotta have faith, faith, faith”!
This is a matter of faith here friends.
Paul says in Romans 9:30-32
Romans 9:30–32 (ESV)
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 based on works.
If you want to do an impression of the apostle Paul, you can just go around asking the questions “What shall we say, then?”
He asks this question 7 times in the book of Romans!
Paul with this question is providing for us the conclusion and summation of chapter 9.
With all that said…
Let’s talk about Faith!
29 verses about God sovereignty, now let’s close with three verses, talking about faith to end our time.
I hope you see how Paul by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit weighs doctrine here.
One clearly needs more explanation than the other.
Paul tells us that the gentiles do not “pursue righteousness” and yet have somehow attained it a right standing with God
What does that mean? How is this possible?
This word that Paul uses for Pursue is an athletic word which means to “to run after something swiftly in order to attain a prize or to reach a goal.”
There are two meanings here:
That rather than looking for God, these pagan gentiles were running after the things of this world. But one thing is for certain, they were not looking for right standing with God. (Romans 3)
V30 is implying that there was divine intervention that happened that caused these pagan gentiles who were not seeking for God or right standing with Him, to somehow find God’s righteousness.
Paul uses another athletic term in v30 when He says, the gentiles did not pursue righteousness [BUT] have attained it.
This word “Attained” is an athletic word that means “to lay hold of an esteemed prize.”
It is like the prize at the end of the race. They attained what they were not even seeking, what they were not even looking for.
v30 is a beautiful picture of salvation. It’s truly Ephesians 2:1-5
And you were dead in the trespasses and sins
in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—
among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.
But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us,
even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—
Here is the simple formula of salvation folks:
God initiates, we respond by faith, and we attain salvation.
Salvation is a gift of grace alone that is to be accepted by faith alone.
This is of course contrasted with Israel in v31.
Romans 9:31–32 (ESV)
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.
Israel in contrast to the gentiles who were not in anyway pursuing righteousness, Israel is portrayed here as running hard after the law.
They were strenuously, energetically trying to attain a right standing before God.
They had the covenants.
They had the law.
They had the prophets.
They had the temple services.
They were so into this they added over seven hundred more commandments to the Word of God.
I mean, the Bible wasn’t enough for them.
They wanted more steps in the ladder to try to reach God.
“Israel who pursued a law that would lead to righteousness,” means they were seeking the law for right standing with God.
They were trying to keep the law as a means by which they would attain to a right standing before God.
And that is just the way the natural mind functions and works.
All of the religions of the world, wherever they are found, every false religion, all teach that you have to do something, you have to be something, in order to find a right standing before God.
And leading that parade was the nation Israel.
There was no nation that pursued it more wholeheartedly than did the nation Israel.
And at the tip of the spear were the Pharisees who even separated themselves from their own nation in order to get to the head of the line, in order to be wholeheartedly in pursuit of this self-righteousness.
Notice what it says.
It is the total opposite. “did not succeed in reaching that law”
Meaning that Israel did not arrive at what the law required and the reason is because that the law requires absolute perfection.
The law says that if you break just one commandment, you have broken them all.
I mean, how many links in a chain have to break before the entire chain is broken? Just one.
And how many stones have to be thrown through a glass window before the entire window is shattered? Just one.
The law says that you have to be as perfect as God is perfect because the law is a reflection of the perfect holiness of God.
And Israel was under the false delusion that they could meet that standard or that God would somehow just grade them on the curve, that they were better than other people, better than other nations.
But as they were in this state of self-deception, they failed to attain that which they were pursuing, the very righteousness of God.
And so, here is a very relevant point for us even as we live now in a Gentile-dominated world.
How possible it is to be religious but lost!
How possible it is to be sincere up to your eyeballs, but to be sincerely wrong!
Churches today are just like Israel in the first century.
Churches today are filled to overflowing with unconverted, unregenerate church members who are just like Israel, who are pursuing a righteousness of their own.
They are like what Jesus said of the Pharisees long ago, “They honor Me with their lips.”
Their choir is phenomenal.
The soloists they can strut out are amazing.
“They honor Me with their lips but their heart is far from Me.”
We see how this is so relevant today, don’t we?
How easy it is to have full heads but an empty heart.
To know all of the answers but they are the answers to the wrong questions.
To know the pastor but not to know the Lord.
To to come to church but to have never come to Christ.
This is the hardest person on planet earth to reach with the gospel.
It would be easier to reach a Gentile who is not even looking for right standing with God than to try to reach a very religious person who is steeped in their religion but never sees the need to be born again.
The gospel is always for the down and out.
The gospel is always for the out blatant immoral person.
The religious person never perceives that they are the ones standing in the need of the gospel, and the reason why they are not converted is not because they are too bad to be saved; it is because they are too good to be saved.
It is their own morality and their own pursuing of righteousness that prevents them from ever attaining to righteousness until God removes the scales from their eyes, until God awakens them from their slumber, until God blows a trumpet in their ear, and they finally come to the realization that their own self-righteousness will not give them a right standing before God.
You can be born into the Church, but until you are born again by the Spirit of God, you will not even see the kingdom of heaven.
So, that is the rejection, and that rejection continues to this present hour in Israel, as well as outside of Israel with Gentiles.
Romans 9:32 (ESV)
Why [did they not succeed in reaching the law]? Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as if it were based on works.
Romans 9:32–33 (ESV)
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.”
This is a quote from Isaiah 28:16.
Here's the answer to the question I gave you at the beginning of my sermon:
The greatest obstacle to salvation is self- righteousness.
Because you can't get saved if you don't know you need it righteousness?
Jesus is the righteousness that you and I need to stand before God.
And if we think we can go to heaven based on our own righteousness, we stumble on Christ, we trip over him and fall. O what a great fall it is.
We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners;
yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified.
Romans 1:16–17 (ESV)
For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.
For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”
1 Corinthians 1:19–25 (ESV)
For it is written, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.”
Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?
For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe.
For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom,
but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles,
but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.
For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.
1 Peter 2:6–7 (ESV)
For it stands in Scripture: “Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious, and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.”
So the honor is for you who believe, but for those who do not believe, “The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone,”
Open to me the gates of righteousness, that I may enter through them and give thanks to the Lord.
This is the gate of the Lord; the righteous shall enter through it.
I thank you that you have answered me and have become my salvation.
The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.
Until you believe that Jesus is the cornerstone of salvation He will always be the stumbling stone to your salvation.
Until you trust in Christ to be the rock of your salvation, He will always be the rock of offense to your salvation.
Israel, just like us, think that our righteousness will get us to heaven.
But John reminds us, using similiar language of Paul here,
John 3:16 (ESV)
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes [faith/trust] in him should not perish but have eternal life.
Righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. -Romans 3:22
There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, -Romans 3:22-23
and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.
-Romans 3:24
Paul ends this section to both jew and gentile, with an attempt to calm our fears. Because it can be scary to stake all of you faith and trust in something.
We begin to count the cost of what this will mean if we place our faith Christ.
All these fears rise up in us, and God says to our fearful heart:
“whoever believes in [me] will not be put to shame.” “will not be disappointed”
romans 5:5 Paul tells us that God gives us hope when we place our faith in him Romans 5:5
Romans 5:5 (ESV)
hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.
God will be with you.
fear not - You will never be alone again.
Come, believe, and find salvation in the chief cornerstone, Jesus Christ our Lord.
As the old Hymn, “My faith has found a resting place” goes,
My faith has found a resting place
Not in device nor creed
I trust the Ever-living One
His wounds for me shall plead
Enough for me that Jesus saves
This ends my fear and doubt
A sinful soul I come to Him
He'll never cast me out
I need no other argument
I need no other plea
It is enough that Jesus died
And that He died for me
PRAY