Seeing isn't believing; believing is seeing
Notes
Transcript
Sermon Title: Seeing isn't believing; believing is seeing
Scripture: Romans 10:1-8
Occasion: The Lord’s Day
Date: February 4, 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.”
We have turned the corner on the book of Romans.
We are a little over 60% of the way through.
What a sweet a joyous time it has been to study and deliver God’s Word to you, saints.
Thank you for allowing me the privilege. I don’t take it for granted!
Today, we continue Pauls argument that He started in chapter 9.
But now in chapter 10, the apostle Paul is doubling down, if you will, on justification by faith alone.
Of course, the doctrine of Justification by faith alone, is the overarching theme of the entire letter.
So contrary to what some believe about this section of Romans, that Paul has somehow left his theme, or taken a pause in the letter to address other matters, Paul continues to further make His case for the doctrine of Justification here with emphasis an faith, with an emphasis on belief.
Romans 10:4 (ESV)
For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.
Romans 10:9 (ESV)
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.
Romans 10:11 (ESV)
For the Scripture says, “Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.”
Romans 10:14 (ESV)
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?
Friends, we have spent 9 chapters seeing who Christ is.
Seeing what Christ has done for us.
But we must understand that there is a difference between seeing and believing.
There are many here who have seen and have yet to believe in Christ.
My desire for you, is that you would not only see Christ, but that you would throw all of your faith, and all of your trust on Christ.
That you would believe on Christ.
The desire for every christian should be that our lost friends would not only see Christ but believe on Him for salvation.
That belief as we will see today, comes not from zeal, comes not from works, comes not from obedience, but from a spirit granted understanding of the gospel.
Or in the language of Ephesians 1 (paraphrase), “by having the eyes of ours hearts enlightened, to know the hope to which he has called us.”
There is a line from one of my favorite movies that captures this perfectly.
The movie is the Tim Allen classic from 1994, “The Santa Clause.”
The movie is about a guy who through a series of accidents becomes the real Santa Claus.
After he spends Christmas Eve delivering packages all around the world he ends up at the North Pole, where he is trying to make sense out of the experience he’s just had.
There is a scene where he is looking out a window at a square in the middle of the North Pole, where there is a polar bear directing traffic.
He turns to an elf named Judy, who is his minder in the whole experience, and says:
“There is a polar bear out there directing traffic. I see it, but I don’t believe it.”
Judy says: “Seeing isn’t believing; believing is seeing.”
So today, I have labeled my sermon,
“Seeing isn't believing; believing is seeing”
So Paul begins this chapter by revealing His heart for the lost, just as he began Romans 9:1-3.
He says, Romans 10:1
Romans 10:1 (ESV)
Brothers, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for them (Israel) is that they may be saved.
Point 1: Prayer reveals the desire of our hearts.
or we can say it this way, Prayer reveals where our heart is.
Clearly, the Apostle Paul here, is emotionally involved in this conversation He is having with His jewish brothers in the flesh.
This isn't just an intellectual or theological argument for Paul, although one would think that’s the case, coming out of Romans 9.
But Paul, yet again, pauses, and reveals the deepest recesses of his heart- My deepest longing, what would satisfies me most, would be that my lost friends would be saved.
The Apostle Paul agonized with great sorrow and anguish in His heart, Romans 9:1-2 tell us, over the lostness around Him.
And what the Spirit of God helps us to see here is that We pray for what we desire. (What we really want to see happen!)
So the contrast of that is this: We do not pray for what we do not desire.
Prayer reveals where our heart is.
Oh, this brought me great conviction this week.
Friends, if you really desire that your lost family members, and friends, and co-workers, to believe in Jesus and be saved, are you praying for them?
(Mention my brother Steve in Jail, and my neglect of praying for Him. Had this revelation at the outreach at the jail. I stopped praying for him regularly)
We pray for what we desire.
Tim Keller said this,
Our prayer lives—whether we pray, and what we pray—tend to reveal what truly lies in our heads and hearts.
What are you praying for?
What are you agonizing in prayer for, friend?
What are you desiring to see happen in your life?
Material riches or heavenly riches?
An effective method for gauging the condition of our hearts is to assess the subjects of our prayers.
Are you praying “MY will be done, MY Kingdom Come” or are you praying “YOUR will be done, YOUR kingdom Come”?
Prayer is the great revealer of our hearts.
Salvation for Paul’s jewish friends clearly occupied His heart, mind, and prayers.
He deeply desired that they would be saved.
And so at the tip of the spear of his prayers, were prayers for salvation!
Now, what this also reveals is that what Paul’s jewish friends needed most, only god could give.
So He prayed, as a beggar in need, and god alone has the bread that He needed.
God alone saves. And so, Paul prays with an utter dependance upon God’s intervention in the lives of his lost neighbors.
He knew that He could not turn change hearts of His jewish friends.
Pastor H.B. Charles Jr. says this,
“Prayer is arguably the most objective measurement of our dependence upon God.
The things you pray about are the things you trust God to handle. The things you neglect to pray about are the things you trust you can handle on your own.”
So he asks, seeks, and he knocks just as Jesus taught in Luke 11.
And I tell you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.
For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.
What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent;
or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion?
If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”
This is a lesson for all of us.
A mere debate won’t turn a stony heart to a heart of flesh.
No amount of information will save anyone. (His jewish friend had a lot of information! They had the law, the covenant, etc.!)
Only God, by His Spirit, turns stoney hearts to heart of flesh.
So Paul, impudently, prays for the salvation of the lost here.
A great lesson for us.
Paul goes on to testify in v2 that the lack of belief of the lostness of his Jewish friends is not based information, nor is it based on zeal for the things of God (they had treasure troves of information and zeal for Godly things), …
…their issue was based on a lack of spiritual knowledge.
For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge.
Point 2: Zeal without Knowledge is deadly!
We have to understand something clearly here this morning:
Zeal does not equate to understanding.
I have seen this so much over the years in ministry.
People coming into the Church, jumping in to serve in very high level areas (without elder oversight or shepherding), simply because they have a great zeal for God.
Simply because their zeal has led them to serve where no one else is serving.
What happens is that over time, that zeal begins to wear out, and all that is left is a person who has not yet understood the gospel.
Zeal without conversion.
Zeal without the truth of the gospel.
Zeal without knowing Christ.
Zeal without a transformed life.
What is left is a person who has not yet understood the realities of what Jesus has accomplished for them.
And what happens to them?
They burn out.
They walk away from the Church.
They walk away from the faith because they were actually never of the faith.
John talks about this in 1 John 2:19
1 John 2:19 (ESV)
They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us.
Right after that He says this to believers,
But you have been anointed by the Holy One, and you all have knowledge.
I.E. those who go out from us, beloved, that were among us, never actually were of us. (born again!)
The eyes of their hearts were never enlightened to the truth of the gospel.
I can only assume that this is what Paul is praying for in verse 1 of our passage.
It’s the same prayer he prayed for the Church at Colossae
Colossians 1:9 (ESV)
We have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding,
Paul prayed the same prayer for the Church at Ephesus in Ephesians 1:16-18
I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers,
that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him,
having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints,
You see friends, Paul knew first hand, what it meant to be zealous for God.
He went to great lengths to obey God.
He says this in Philippians 3:4-7
Philippians 3:4–7 (ESV)
though I myself have reason for confidence in the flesh also. If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more:
circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee;
as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.
But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ.
Paul knew that if it were not for Christ intervening on the road of Damascus he too would have been lost and bound for destruction.
Paul found out pretty quickly on the Damascus road that His zeal for God, that He spent his whole life pursuing, was not only misguided BUT insufficient in providing him the righteousness He needed before God.
Paul understood very well on that Damascus road that seeing isn't believing, but that believing is seeing.
Paul would later write to the Church at Corinth……
1 Corinthians 1:30 (ESV)
And because of [GOD] you are in Christ Jesus, [CHRIST] became to us wisdom from God,
Friends don’t miss this point:
Paul says that the reason for Israel’s going astray is that zeal is not enough; the zeal must be based on knowledge.
This is a complete contradiction of a common proverb of our time:
“It doesn’t matter what you believe as long as you are sincere.”
Well, Paul says, the Jews were sincere and zealous in their beliefs, but their beliefs were erroneous and mistaken!
A Pastor (Tim Keller) once said this,
Zeal without knowledge or understanding is fanaticism, even terrorism.
He goes on to say..
Imagine a lady who loves her neighbor and sincerely brings her a big bouquet of flowers, not realizing that her neighbor is desperately allergic to them.
That is zeal without knowledge and it could even be fatal.
He continues……
Imagine a person who intensely believes that a poison solution is not fatal.
If she drinks it, she will still be dead.
Her zeal not only did not help her, it helped her die.
Beloved, Zeal without knowledge is deadly.
Paul jewish friends, had plenty of zeal.
They genuinely had sincerity in serving God.
BUT they where sadly ignorant of the righteousness God required of them.
Romans 10:3 (ESV)
For, being ignorant of the righteousness of God, and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness.
Point 3: The issue we are dealing with here is an issue of Vincible Ignorance
Paul is saying here that Israel has a sincere zeal at its base, but they stay ignorant NOT because the information is unavailable to them, BUT because it suits them to stay ignorant.
Paul is referring to here in verse 3 is a vincible ignorance.
Meaning, that they could overcome their ignorance, but they choose not to. It suites them not to submit to God.
Boy, does this hit close to home.
Many of us, have heard the gospel over and over and over.
Some of us bounce around to difference Churches.
We don’t commit to membership of Churches.
We always point out what is wrong in the Churches we bounce around to.
We serve when we want and how we want.
As soon as someone tells us no, we can’t do this or we can’t do that, or that we are living in sin, we move on!
This behavior is very indicative of one’s spiritual state.
Maybe just maybe, if this is you, you are seeking to establish your own righteousness before God.
Maybe just maybe, you are serving God on your own terms and not His.
And maybe just maybe, you have not yet submitted to Christ as Lord.
People with a lot of zeal can do a lot of damage in a Church.
Many Churches have been split by zealous men.
I’ll take a a submitted man over a zealous man any day!
When you truly have someone who has submitted their life Christ, they bring life not only to the Church but everyone around them.
And I have been in ministry long enough to know that one who has truly submitted to Christ at salvation lives a life of joyful submission to Him and His beloved Church.
Submission is evidence of genuine salvation.
Maybe I can say it another way, Submission is the fruit of good tree.
Matthew 7:16–17 (ESV)
You will recognize them by their fruits.
So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit.
We were just learning about this in our study at the recovery house on first Samuel, chapter 24. The difference between
Saul and David was submission to the Lord.
One wanted to do things his own way, and the other submitted to God‘s Way.
Reflection questions:
Have you submitted to Christ as Lord?
Have you submitted to Christ alone as the only way by which you will stand righteous before God?
Christian, which areas in your life, do you need to submit to Christ today?
Which areas in your life are you still striving to establish righteousness on our own?
Repent of trying to establish your own righteousness, and grab a hold of 2 Corinthians 5:21 afresh today,
2 Corinthians 5:21 (ESV)
For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
Lay down all self righteousness and submit to His righteousness alone.
For the person who says today, “I still need more information before I bow my knee to Jesus”, friend you have all you need today, submit to Christ as Lord.
You have all you need to overcome because Jesus made that possible for you!
So, I implore you on behalf of God, be reconciled to Christ!
Don’t be ignorant like Paul’s jewish friends here, by faith, believe and submit to God’s righteousness in the gospel of Jesus Christ TODAY!
For those who are here that might be thinking to themselves, “I’ll never submit to this God. I’ll never bow my knee to Christ. There is no chance I will ever confess Jesus as Lord.”
Friend, I want to give you a sober reminder from the letter to the Philippians.
Philippians 2:10–11 (ESV)
At the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
The jews tried to establish righteousness on their own terms (as many of us have). And consequently, they rejected Christ (as many of us have), stumbled over Christ, and did not submit to the righteousness of God that He revealed in the gospel.
Which leads to verse 4, Romans 10:4
For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.
Paul’s ends this section by saying, “my jewish friends, who I love, and pray for, the fulfillment of the law, righteousness, salvation, is only found in Jesus
So my final point, Point 4, is this: It’s all about Jesus
Too often we can get caught up in too many arguments that have nothing to do with Jesus.
If we don’t eventually get to Jesus, we are wasting our time.
No matter what conversation we are having, we must make it our aim to bee-line to Christ!
Jesus says Himself in John 5:39-40
You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me,
yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life.
Jesus alone has life.
The scriptures have been making there way to the cornerstone, and boom, Jesus our life, has appeared!
What Paul is saying here in in verse 4 is that Christ is the the culmination (both the goal and purpose) of the law!
I like way another translation renders verse 4 (NLT)
4 For Christ has already accomplished the purpose for which the law was given. As a result, all who believe in him are made right with God. -Romans 10:4
I love the way Galatians 3:24 says it
So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith.
When Paul says that Christ is the “end of the law,” (v4) he is putting in startling terms what he has taught in the earlier chapters of the letter.
It is a direct confrontation with legalistic moralists and religious people (the types he is talking about in this chapter).
But please don’t here Paul saying here that the very category of the law is ended, or that the binding nature of the law is ended.
Rather, HE IS SAYING, that Christ ended the law as a way of righteousness, as a way to be acceptable to God.
How do we know that this is the way he is using the word “righteousness” here in verse 4?
When Paul talks of the righteousness that comes to those who believe (as he does in the last part of 10:4), he is referring not to general morality, but rather the state of “rightness with God” that means you have favor with him.
Paul is essentially saying: Christ’s work shows that the law as a way of righteousness is ended, so that faith may be seen as the only way of righteousness.
From Romans 6:1–8:4, we know that what has ended for the Christian is being “under the law” as a system of salvation.
What has NOT ended is our obligation to obey the law as a way to please and express our gratitude to the God who has saved us by grace.
He’s come! Believe on Him for right standing!
Then joyfully submit him and freely obey him with joy and gladness!
It’s our reasonable act of worship! It’s a reasonable response to what Christ has done for us.
Paul then goes on in verses 4-8 showing his kinsmen that right standing with God in the OT scriptures have always pointed to faith in the Messiah!
Right standing with God has never been through works of the law.
It’s always been about Jesus!
So the Apostle Paul takes his well versed jewish friends back to Leviticus and Deuteronomy, quoting Moses, in verses 5-8.
He says …
For Moses writes about the righteousness that is based on the law, that the person who does the commandments 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).
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);
The Apostle Paul here verses 5-8 quotes Moses twice to show us that THOUGH Moses could be read as teaching moralism, HE DID KNOW that law-keeping WAS NOT ENOUGH!
I can’t help but think of the greatest showman movie here:
“Never enough, NEVER , NEVER!”
So in verse 5, Paul quotes Leviticus 18:5, where Moses says about the law:
Leviticus 18:5 (ESV)
You shall therefore keep my statutes and my rules; if a person does them, he shall live by [BECAUSE of] them.
On the surface, that seems to mean that Moses was teaching the possibility of getting salvation (“life”) through law-keeping.
BUT Actually, all Moses was saying was:
If you could obey the law perfectly, you would receive eternal life.
That of course is true!
BUT that’s not the whole picture is it?
Why?
Romans 3:23–24 (ESV)
for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus,
That why the Apostle continues in Romans 10:6–7, by taking the reader to Deuteronomy 30.
He takes us there by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit to help us understand Paul’s argument.
We need to understand the whole of Deuteronomy 30:1–14.
Though he only quotes verse 14 of Deuteronomy, he makes allusions to the whole passage.
In Deuteronomy 30:1–2, Moses alludes to the fact that Israel will stray from God and receive “curses” and punishment.
Then in 30:6 he says:
Deuteronomy 30:6 (ESV)
And the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, so that you will love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live.
Then in 30:11–14 he says:
Now what I am telling you is not impossible to do!
You don’t have to go to heaven or over the sea to do it!
So Paul quotes Moses in Romans 10:6–7 to show what faith knows.
What does faith know?
Faith knows that we don’t need to do anything to be righteous.
Using the language of vv6-7:
You don’t need to scale heaven (Christ has already come down from it), and you don’t need to deal with your own sins in death (Christ has already done that).
So, Paul, is showing that Moses knew that something more than law-keeping was required; and that God had done all that was required for sinners to be made right with Him:
This is all so reminiscent of what Paul said to the church at Galatia (He had Deuteronomy 30 in mind, He had to!)
For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, “Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them.”
Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for “The righteous shall live by faith.”
But the law is not of faith, rather “The one who does them shall live by them.”
Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree”—
so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith.
Go down a little further and read these glorious verses with me…
Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed.
So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith.
But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian,
for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith.
You might be thinking to your self, “I could never be a son or daughter of God, I’ve run too far from God to ever be redeemed and brought near to Him.”
Friend, you don’t have to ascend into heaven, and you don’t need to descend into the abyss today because Christ Has come near to you.
As the protestant, Martin Luther said,
“The Son of God did not want to be seen and found in heaven. Therefore he descended from heaven into this humility and came to us in our flesh, laid himself into the womb of his mother and into the manger and went on to the cross. This was the ladder that he placed on earth so that we might ascend to God on it. This is the way you must take.” -Martin Luther
Paul says to you today friend , quoting moses in Deut. 30:14, “the word (the knowledge you need for salvation) is near you” (v 8).
Romans 10:8 (ESV)
“The word is near you,”
Christ is near you.
Salvation is near you.
Salvation is not out of grasp.
No matter what you’ve done.
Today, the word is near you.
If you see him today as the righteousness of God.
If you see him as Lord, BELIEVE!
A faith that truly saves, BELIEVES!
Take the next step and BELIEVE in the person and work of JESUS! (he won’t put you to shame)
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.
Illustration of the youtube videos online of those who are color blind receiving glasses that allow them to see in color for the first time. Their ability to see in color for the first time brings them to their knees.
Seeing isn't believing,
But believing is truly seeing , friend!
Come taste (believe) and see that the Lord is good.
Come see in color for the very first time!
PRAY