Rom 10:1-13 - Knowing Jesus - Starts with Faith

What Jesus did for us is provide us a way to have eternal life with Him, through having a relationship with Him. Eternal life is only through Jesus and last week we learned that eternal life starts with knowing Jesus, truly knowing Jesus.

Knowing Jesus like this, having a relationship with Jesus as Lord of our lives means that His righteousness is imparted unto us. So Knowing Jesus means we are declared as righteous.

But there is an issue that has been happening ever since Jesus came, there are those that taught that you could be good enough to attain this righteousness. That works and following the law could give you righteousness.

There are many churches that teach a form of this still for some reason, that you need to do things and good works to achieve salvation.

There are many people that when asked feel they are good enough people, and have followed enough laws that they will get to heaven.

There is a place in India, where a total of 36,000 Sadhus (Hindu holy men) were part of the estimated crowd of 40 million that attend the two month Kumbh Mela festival in India.

The purpose of the ritual bathing in the river, "They come for forgiveness of sins and salvation. Some thousands come stark naked--some of them rolling on the rough roads for miles, believing the festering sores on their bodies would earn them salvation...Hundreds have kept one arm lifted up for years until the arm gets shriveled with dry gangrene...others have stood on one leg for years, hanging on to a suspended sling while sleeping...all these are done to appease angry gods."

They either do not know, or sometimes do not care that what they are following is false and the one true God offers them salvation that looks different. It is a salvation based not on any good thing they have done but a salvation, or righteousness based on Faith in Jesus.

Righteousness through faith, justified through faith alone, what does this mean and how should it affect our lives?

What are we going to learn from this passage? Salvation, knowing Jesus comes through confession and belief in Jesus that He is who He says he is, therefore righteousness through faith.

10:1-4 – concerning Salvation

The passage today deals with Knowing Jesus beginning in faith in Him and the salvation message, but it starts out in the opposite direction. So, let us start out with a look through the passage to see what we can learn from it.

I had a few questions about vs 1 so let us start there. Romans 10:1 Brothers and sisters, my heart’s desire and prayer to God concerning them is for their salvation.

Some versions just say brothers, and that is okay but what is really meant in passages like this is everyone. That is why versions like the CSB and others have gone to saying “Brothers and Sisters” Not a big deal and not to much use in the grand scheme of the passage so moving on.

“concerning them”. To understand who the “them” is in this verse you must go back to the previous chapter to figure this out.

If we look back, we see that Paul is talking about the Israelites. But we do know that this does not let us off the hook for this applies to our lives as well. Paul’s goal? Salvation.

You see the Israelites had a problem that we read about in Romans 10:2-3 2  I can testify about them that they have zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. 3 Since they are ignorant of the righteousness of God and attempted to establish their own righteousness, they have not submitted to God’s righteousness.

The Israelites had a zeal for God the bible tells us. That is, they had a great passion in their pursuit for the Lord.

This in itself may not seem like a bad thing, to have a great passion in their pursuit for God seems like a good thing. But their zeal was without knowledge.

In other words, their passion for God was lacking. They thought they were seeking the righteousness of God but instead were establishing their own brand of righteousness.

The idea of righteousness is that we are morally right and good, that we have not broken any rules or laws and that based on the one who has created moral law, we have a right standing.

But there are two types of righteousness that are being talked about here. One that comes from God and one that we try and work for in ourselves.

The righteousness of God is what is important, or at least should be. But they where making their own righteousness that they thought would make them good enough.

One the right way and one the wrong way. Paul knows the condition they were in because he was in the same condition at one point.

The zeal they had was for their own brand of righteousness, a series of good deeds and laws that they somehow thought would earn them a right standing before the Lord.

He diagnosed this zeal as in the wrong place and being ignorant. It is in the wrong place because they have not submitted to the righteousness of God.

Romans 10:4 For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes,

For Christ is the true righteousness. So that is where it starts, seeking the right standing before God, that does not come from anything we can do but rather comes from Jesus. This right standing before the Lord is for everyone who believes in Jesus.

10:5-8 – To Everyone who believes

We are getting to where faith come in do not worry, but we have to remember that where it all starts is that right standing before the Lord God. And whether we are trying to gain that right standing on our own or through Jesus.

But we start out with righteousness because that is what Knowing Jesus and becoming His followers does, it declares us as having a right standing before God which is being declared as righteous.

Verse 5 speaks of the law of Moses that they were trying to uphold and receive righteousness by. Romans 10:5  since Moses writes about the righteousness that is from the law: The one who does these things will live by them.

This is taken from Leviticus 18:5. The one who does these things will live by them. If it where possible to have a right standing before God based on the Mosaic law, then there would be no need for Jesus.

The purpose behind the Mosaic law and the sacrificial system was that they could not keep it, they kept messing up and needed forgiveness. The one who can live by and keep the law of Moses could then be saved by it but that is not possible, so we need something more.

That is where the righteousness that comes from faith comes in. Knowing JESUS STARTS WITH Faith and that means our being declared as having a right standing before the LORD STARTS WITH FAITH.

This may seem confusing and impossible to reach, for who can have this much faith. It is not to hard to do, the Lord has made it so it is not an impossible task for us to reach.

Romans 10:6–8 (CSB)6 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 7 or, “Who will go down into the abyss?”, that is, to bring Christ up from the dead. 8 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:

This is a passage with text taken from Deuteronomy 9. The idea is that this righteousness from faith the one that Jesus taught is not to hard a thing for us to grasp.

Doing God’s will is not something that is to difficult a task for us to grasp. There is no need to try and get to heaven to gain spiritual knowledge. Jesus has already came from heaven to do that for us.

There is no need to try and descend into the abyss to try and receive spiritual enlightenment or forgiveness from Sins, Jesus already died for us.

We have no part in being declared as having a right standing before God as if it is something we could strive to reach on our own. Our part alone is to believe in Jesus. If we are living a life for God this goal of being declared as having a right standing before God is as close as your mouth and your heart. It is an easy task to accomplish.

10:9-13 – True Righteousness

This is where true righteousness comes in. Romans 10:9 (CSB)9 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.

True righteousness, truly knowing God and being declared as having a right standing before the Lord is as easy as Believing in faith that Jesus is who He says He is.

This is not a word of faith type thing where upon saying something we are saved, but confession being mentioned here is speaking of an outward response to an inner heart matter. Belief in the heart by faith is what Paul is talking about here.

Confession from the mouth that Jesus is Lord of the earth, not good enough on its own. Even the demons believe in God and tremble.

I can shout from the mountain tops and really believe that I am Santa Claus or Elvis incarnate but it does not mean that I am. The only thing that makes me is delusional.

We need to truly believe, through faith, in our hearts that Jesus is who He said He is and that He died for our sin and imparted His righteousness onto us

Romans 10:10–13 (CSB)10 One believes with the heart, resulting in righteousness, and one confesses with the mouth, resulting in salvation. 11 For the Scripture says, Everyone who believes on him will not be put to shame,, 12 since there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, because the same Lord of all richly blesses all who call on him. 13 For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.,

You believe with your heart first which results in an outward confession of faith with our lips that Jesus is who He says He is.

So, What

Knowing Jesus results in us being declared as having a right standing before God, that is if you truly Know Jesus.

Righteousness is not from anything we have done or have said but rather comes through faith alone. What we call this is justification by faith.

It is a legal term that means that we are declared as no longer guilty. And the beautiful thing is this is not through anything that we may have done but rather based on our faith in Jesus and His changing our hearts.

God declares us as having a right standing before Him due to our hearts, having faith trusting in the one who died for our sin.,

He declares us as being right in His sight This starts with us being declared as not having to pay the penalty for our sin. But there needs to be more then that, being forgiven for our sins would only put us on neutral standing before the Lord.

not guilty before the Lord but not having the righteousness needed to have a right standing before Him either.

So not only are our sins declared as forgiven through our faith in Jesus, through giving our hearts to Him but Christs righteousness is imputed onto us. It is by nothing we have done but through what Christ has done for us.

So, faith in Jesus believing in our hearts that results in an outward confession of faith in what we believe. Jesus is Lord and has given us His right standing before God so that we can be with Him some day.

So, the question remains then have you given your heart to Jesus in faith that He will save you from you r sin and put His righteousness on to you?

Or are you trying to live a good enough life that you can earn your way to heaven? That will not work, only faith in Jesus that He will change your heart.

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