The Only Way

Recap Ice Skating Up Hill

We continue with our series in the early church. We are working our way through Paul’s letter to the Romans. This letter was sent to address issue arising within the church. There is a problem because some of the converts were Jewish before become Christian and others were pagans before coming to Jesus. Paul is writing this letter to explain a variety of things. One of those themes is that we are all equal in Christ.

Last week we looked at the fact that everyone is made by God. Every person on this earth that has breath in their lungs was made by God. He made them for some reason. We also looked at the fact that everyone winds up doing God’s will somehow or another, even if they don’t plan on doing God’s will, He uses them for His purposes. Last week we looked at the example of Pharaoh. Pharaoh thought that he was in charge. From the perspective of the world, yes he was in charge. He could decide to do whatever he wanted. No one, save for a few, thought that he was wrong for denying God’s command to let his people go. Most would have thought that he was well within his right to deny this request. God explains that He is the One that has put Pharaoh on the throne. God could have obliterated Pharaoh and his people. He could have wiped Egypt off the face of the planet. However, God does not do that. Instead, He uses Pharaoh and his refusal to show God’s glory. God uses Pharaoh, the most powerful earthly entity at the time to show how mighty God is. Pharaoh rose to power based on God. God is the One who put him there.

Similarly today, the people put in charge have been placed there by God. Now, that is not to say that they are all going to be good and godly followers. As believers, we should pray for the people in charge. We should pray that they are going to be good, but they won’t necessarily be good. However, what we have learned here in Romans is that they don’t even need to be godly for God to use them. If we look at the history of the Israelite kings, we see that some of them are good and godly kings. They follow the law. They do what they can to right the ship and get the people on the path to follow God. Then others come up and we read in the Bible about how wicked that king is. These wicked kings encouraged paganism and child sacrifice. Terrible. But these people all had authority. God used them to show His might. Their poor leadership led them to being sent on exile. They are taken away by pagan nations, but allowed to come back, just as God told them they would be allowed to. Why? Because God said He would do it. God delivered on a promise. God used those times of tumult to show that He is in charge, that He is the One to fear.

All that to say, not everything is going to be happy hunky dory all of our days. Not every leader is going to be wonderful. Not every authority is going to do what he or she can to please the LORD. However, we have no need to worry because we know God is going to use that person one way or another. Romans 8:28 “We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.” I don’t know about you, but that gives me a lot of confidence going into the future. I know we pray for the world and how messed up it is. As bad as it is, it will probably get worse. One day, though, it’s going to be great. One day, God is going to straighten it all out. As dark as times might get, God is going to use them to show His power and might.

We touched on the idea of predestination. Paul explained in chapter 9 that God is merciful to who He will be merciful. He reminds them that God is the One that can make those decisions. Paul also reminds the people that we are the creation, not the creator. The created doesn’t tell the creator what to do.

We also looked at the issue of the Israelites trying to get to heaven by works of the Law instead of faith. We cannot rely on our works to get us into heaven. That’s just not going to work. Today, we are going to continue on with the theme. If you have your Bible, please turn them to Romans 10:1–13

Romans 10:1–13 CSB

Brothers and sisters, my heart’s desire and prayer to God concerning them is for their salvation. I can testify about them that they have zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. Since they are ignorant of the righteousness of God and attempted to establish their own righteousness, they have not submitted to God’s righteousness. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes, since Moses writes about the righteousness that is from the law: The one who does these things will live by them. But the righteousness that comes from faith speaks like this: Do not say in your heart, “Who will go up to heaven?” that is, to bring Christ down or, “Who will go down into the abyss?” that is, to bring Christ up from the dead. On the contrary, what does it say? The message is near you, in your mouth and in your heart. This is the message of faith that we proclaim: If you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. One believes with the heart, resulting in righteousness, and one confesses with the mouth, resulting in salvation. For the Scripture says, Everyone who believes on him will not be put to shame, since there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, because the same Lord of all richly blesses all who call on him. For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.

We are continuing on with the theme of election versus choice. It seems like a paradox to us because on the one hand, God knows who is going to come to Him. Those folks are known as His elect. Norman Geisler puts it like this, we are chosen, but free. There is a tension between what Paul is dealing with in chapter 9 and what he is saying here. Last week, we looked at God and His part in the salvation story. God is the One that had predestined Jesus to be the way to salvation. From time immortal, Jesus is the pathway to salvation, even when God was calling Abraham out to go to the land He was going to show him, Jesus was and is the way. Likewise, God also has a working in who is going to come to Him and who will stay away. Make no mistake, God does the work of opening people’s hearts so that they can receive the Gospel. That is done through the Holy Spirit. Also, since God exists outside of time, He must exist outside of time because He created time! Time was not something that we made. A long time ago, I was stuck waiting on a bus with an Ensign and Academy graduate. She looked at me and said, “Well, I really think that time is stupid. As people we never should have invented time. That way, you don’t really have any deadlines to meet, there’s no deadline for anything, and life would just be easier.” I am pretty sure she went so far to say that we would stay as young as we want because time wouldn’t exist. Then I had to burst her bubble and explain that time is going to continue moving forward because of light. Time is measured by light. That’s why Einstein’s discovery about relativity is so groundbreaking. Light is the measurement of time. Since God created time, and it’s not a man made thing, He exists outside of time which means He can see it all in one fell swoop. He is aware of all the events of the universe, past, present, and future, but He can see it in real time because He exists outside of time. When we get to heaven, time will be no more. There is no such thing as time in eternity. All that to say, because He exists out of time, God has what we call foreknowledge. He knows who is going to come to Him and who will not. To be certain, He calls everyone to Himself, but only some will listen.

Paul does not really pay any attention to that tension, does he? It almost seems like a paradox, but it’s not. God brings us to faith, but we have to also follow Him. We have to choose Him. God does not force us to be with Him. Instead, He allows us to do choose. Now, don’t get me wrong, God did the work. He did all the work, we simply take the free gift that is salvation in Christ. That’s it. We get no other real say in the matter. But we still had to make the choice. That’s whyPaul explains here that it is his heart’s desire that his brothers and sisters from the Jewish faith would come to know Jesus as Lord and Savior. God already knows who is going to come and who is not going to come. However, Paul does not, so he will continue to pray for them with zeal. God has known since the beginning who is going to come to Him. The decision has technically already been made, we are just playing catch up in the great scheme of time. God knows, we don’t, so we pray for these people.

How are we chosen and free? Throughout the Exodus story we read that God made Pharaoh’s heart hard so that he would not listen. Was it God that did this? Yes, but only because of Pharaoh’s utter denial of God. God will give us what we want, so we have to make sure we choose wisely. Romans 1:28 “And because they did not think it worthwhile to acknowledge God, God delivered them over to a corrupt mind so that they do what is not right.”

God already knows what our prayer is going to be and what His answer is. He has foreknowledge.

A while back, Chic-Fil-A was doing a promotion where you could buy a souvenir cup. There were a few designs you could get, but you wouldn’t know what the design was because they were encased in a bad that you couldn’t see through. Mary and I had to go to an ortho appointment down in Bristol. Though we don’t have a Chic fil A close to us here, there is one on the way home. So Mary asks for the chicken. I tell her to ask her mom because she’s got the app. Dania obliges and then Mary asks for two of the collector cups. She knows the right person to ask for stuff like that is mom because Dad is typically the party of no unless it has to do with sports equipment or power tools. Dania buys two of them. On our way back to Saint Paul, Mary explained that there are golden souvenir cups and if you get one of the golden cups, you get free chick fil a for a year. Only one of those cups was given to each store, so there were only 3,000 in circulation. We got home and Mary opened the first bag. It was just the plain cup with some cows on it. Decent cup, but not a big winner. Well, Mary prayed before she opened the other bag. “Lord, please let this be a golden cup”. Sure enough, she opened it and there was the one golden cup in the bag. My immediate reaction, along with Dania’s, was to say, “now look, that doesn’t mean that God gave you that cup specifically because you prayed that prayer.” Except, that’s how prayer works. Technically, God already knew that Mary was going to have the shoulder injury that would lead to all the back and fourth between here and Bristol and He was well aware that she was going to ask for Chic fil a. He also knew that she was going to get that cup. He also knew she was going to get said cup. So the question is, would the cup have been there if not for the prayer? Certainly, God answered the prayer, as basic and as simple as it might have been. The fact is that God knew of Mary’s prayer and what His answer would be well before Mary was ever born into this world. From our finite human perspective we can’t understand it. God has all the foreknowledge there possibly could be. He knows all there is to know. He knows who will answer the call and who will not.

God does His part in the saving, but we still have to receive it. The gift of eternal life through Jesus is open to everyone, but we have to repent of our sin and confess Jesus as LORD. These people that Paul is mourning over think that they can earn their own righteousness. The problem is that there is no way that we can earn our righteousness. All of us have messed up and all of us have been stained by sin. There is nothing we can do to be good enough to enter into heaven.

When Paul and Silas were in prison, an earthquake hit and all the prisoners were loosened from their chains. They had the chance to escape, but they stayed where they were at. The jailer was upset because he knows he is going to be in trouble for losing these criminals. He gets ready to kill himself when Paul says not to harm himself because everyone is still there. Acts 16:29–31 “The jailer called for lights, rushed in, and fell down trembling before Paul and Silas. He escorted them out and said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” They said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved—you and your household.””

It all comes down to faith. It does not come down to the things that we have done. All we can do is trust and obey that Jesus is true to His word. To be sure, we know that Jesus is true to His word. So the question is, do we believe it? Are we sure? We are the only religion that knows where we go when we die and the reason for that is because we know it’s not up to us. I have some Muslim friends and we are respectful of one another. I think it is important to be respectful of everyone’s religion, whether we agree with them or not. These people are faithful, but if we were to ask them if they are sure they are going to paradise when they die, they will tell you that they don’t know. It will all come down to their time of judgment. It will come down to whether or not they have done more good in their lives than bad. That won’t give us any level of real confidence with that, will it? I mean, I can’t go back and count how many good things I have done and how many bad things I have done. Can you? If I was in charge of my own destiny, I would be in a lot of trouble. There’s no way I would make it. When we get to the judgment, it is going to be a matter of whether we knew Jesus or not.

Now, that is not to say that we shouldn’t do good things. We should do good stuff in God’s name. That’s what we are called to do. We are supposed to go and feed the hungry, clothe the naked, take care of the widow and orphan. Those are all marching orders that we have been given. As good as those things are, they are still not going to add up and get us into heaven. Besides, everything we do is tainted anyway. Isaiah proclaims in Isaiah 64:5–6 “You welcome the one who joyfully does what is right; they remember you in your ways. But we have sinned, and you were angry. How can we be saved if we remain in our sins? All of us have become like something unclean, and all our righteous acts are like a polluted garment; all of us wither like a leaf, and our iniquities carry us away like the wind.”

Wiping something with a dirty garment isn’t going to make it clean. Our works are tainted with sin. So even the good stuff we do are like filthy rags. Again, that is not to say we shouldn’t serve. We are going to camp here in about a month and a half where we will be assigned a mission for the week. That mission will serve certain people and help them. Though those mission projects will help the people in North Carolina, they will do nothing to get us into heaven. It’s Jesus and His work that does it.

I am sure you are there asking, but Andy, how can we be sure? and I’m so glad you asked that question. We can be sure because that’s what God has promised. He is the One that promises eternal life through His work. That’s how we can be certain.

But it comes down to faith. It comes down to truly believing that Jesus is who He says He is and putting our hope and trust in Him. That’s it. We believe and we confess. We confess Jesus is Lord, we believe that God raised Jesus from the dead, we believe that through Him we are justified, and we confess that we are saved. We’ve talked before about this world not being our home. We already have our ticket to our final destination. You know, when you go to an airport, you can tell the people who have their confirmed tickets and those that are trying to fly standby. The people flying standby are at the counter anxiously waiting to see if someone isn’t going to show up and they can take their seat. meanwhile, the people that have their confirmed flight are patiently waiting at the gate. There’s nothing they need to do, they know they are safely on that flight. If we can be that trusting of the airlines, given the various things that go wrong, surely we can trust God to do what He says He is going to do. Surely we can trust Him to save us.

Paul makes sure to explain that there is no distinction between Jew or Greek when we know Jesus. Part of the problem was that the converted Jews thought that perhaps they had a little more authority than the pagan converts. There were also others that looked down on the pagan converts because of how they lived before coming to Christ. 2 Corinthians 5:17 “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, and see, the new has come!” The past is gone. When God sees us, He sees His Son’s righteousness on us. So we should not look at other brothers or sisters in the faith as if we are superior to them in any way. There’s no distinction. This week at the Mission Council, we heard from a church in Woodstock. Come to find out, in Woodstock there is a chicken hatchery that employs a lot of Ethiopians. So this church developed a service specifically for the Ethiopian Christians to come and worship. What’s the difference between those Ethiopian Christians and the Christians that attend the other church services? In our eyes, there might be plenty. But in God’s eyes, there is no distinction.

There’s the story of the lady that gets into heaven. As she is walking around, she sees some of the people from her life and they are giving her a quizzical look. As she sees them, she says to Peter, “I can’t believe that she made it to heaven, I can’t believe that this other person made it too. I just don’t understand why they are giving me those looks.” to which Peter responds, “Well, they are just as surprised to see you.”