Everyone Who Believes

Romans 9:30-10:13

Intro:

Back in 2015 in the IAAF World Championships, there was a race and a woman named Molly Huddle was one of the runners. She was so close to taking third place and taking the bronze medal, as soon as she was crossing the finished line and raised her hands to celebrate, she lost. Here’s what an article entitled Greatest Finish Fails in World History said: A bronze medal was in reach for Molly Huddle in the final seconds… As she raised her arms to celebrate, fellow American Emily Infeld snuck past her, stealing third place and teaching Huddle a valuable lesson: Thou shalt not prematurely raise the roof.

We have a similar situation here in our text. The Jews chose to pursue something but didn’t achieve it. They thought they did, and even celebrated their supposed victory, but really they missed the finished line completely.

Today we’re discussing true saving faith. The Jews missed this whole idea and therefore missed Salvation. Paul is explaining again why the vast majority of Jews are not believing. He shows two ways of salvation- works and faith and how the Jews pursued the first way and failed to be saved.

Main Point: Faith alone in the risen and reigning Christ is the sole source of our unfading righteousness and constant hope.

Main Points: The roadblocks to true faith which leads to true righteousness:

1.Roadblock 1: A trust in one’s own works Vs. 30-32a

Begins with a classic phrase: “What shall we say then?” We should stop and ask why (read vs 30)

Paul is now drawing some conclusions to the previous portion we looked at. He’s not starting a brand new section in chapter 10 but rather continuing his flow of thought from ch. 9

If you remember, Paul is answering the assumption that can be in the minds of the readers that God’s word has failed in light of the widespread unbelief of ethnic Israel. He continues his flow of thought and responds with more reasons Israel is unbelieving besides the sovereignty of God. As you may remember, Paul expounds on the fact that man will not and cannot believe in Christ without Him first choosing them before the foundation of the world and without His sovereign act of grace in their hearts in time. Both the positive response to the gospel and peoples rejection of the gospel are both determined by sovereign plan of God not based on anything they could have done. But now He emphasizes human responsibility and that it’s their fault that they are to blame for their unbelief. He fleshes our why by pointing out these various roadblocks to true saving faith.

Read Vs 30b-31- Paul points out two paths here with imagery that looks like a race.

You have 2 pursuits, one that explains why some are being saved (namely the Gentiles) and why others aren’t. Namely, why the gentiles are being saved and not the jews.

The same finish line, one crosses the other doesnt.

The gentiles are crossing the finish line because the way that they attained righteousness, a right standing before God, is through faith. And Israel is falling short because they pursued a law that would lead to righteousness but never made it.

The law’s intent was meant to show the glory of God’s righteousness and the law was always revealing the standard that cannot be moved because of God’s holiness. More on this later but for now paul is showing the law, if could be kept perfectly would read to righteousness.

Paul is saying that the people of Israel pursued this righteousness based upon their own works alone.

The object of their faith here was themselves. And we’ll see more how distorted this is.

We saw this in great detail back in Romans ch. 2- Paul confronted the jewish reader who thought their own works can saved them and how it was a self deception. Paul points out something similar here.

So Paul is in essence breaking down the 2 main ways of salvation that you can have in the world. This is still true and relevant today. As many have said before, there are really only 2 religions. 1 that says “Salvation is achieved by works” or another that says “Salvation is received from God by faith alone”. Only Christianity gives the second option. Every other system of thought, including atheism, every other spiritual practice outside of Christianity is a deep worship of self and a trusting in ones own works. Let’s see what this looks like more...

2.Roadblock 2: A lack of true knowledge Vs. 32b-10:11

(Read vs 32b-33)- There is a true knowledge lacking here that prevents saving faith. Even though in a moment we’ll see it’s not just intellectual knowledge that matters, but there is a base level knowledge that must be present for faith to be justifying and what this verse points out and what he’ll point out more soon is the Jews have stumbled over a stone here that prevented this…

This quote from Isaiah 28:16 shows us that this stumbling stone is metaphorical of a Person.

This stumbling stone is the person of Jesus Christ.

Paul Makes a similar point in 1 Corinthians 1:22-24:

So what we conclude is the knowledge that they lacked was not a bunch of facts about a historical event but a true knowledge of the authentic Jesus and a failure to trust Him.

(Read 10:1-2)- Paul expresses once again a deep concern.

He did the same thing at the beginning of chapter 9- like I pointed out last week, this section of the letter is a very personal, and pastoral portion for Paul. He has a broken heart for those who are lost. But he points out once again what he’s been trying to drive home, they have a passion but not according to knowledge.

What you would conclude visiting 1 century Israel is that these people are over the top religious. They are very overt about their holiness, obey all the rules of the temple, pay the tithes, pray in public. Their passion was there. But I love how Dr. Micheal Kruger points out that a fundamental principle of the bible is that zeal or sincerity alone does not save.

You could say that the object of their faith was not the true Jesus but themselves. They were sincere, but sincerely wrong and therefore crafted a God in their own image. Kind of like people do today right?

Illustration: Charlie Chaplan lookalike competition- If Jesus entered a Jesus lookalike competition today I’m not sure if he’d make the top 10

So many people today are open to spiritual things, more than you may realize. There’s even a passion there! But they have the wrong Jesus- it’s a Jesus who serves their felt needs but not the authentic Jesus.

Their lack of knowledge really came down to not just facts but a person. The person of Jesus. So what does their lack of knowledge related to the person of Christ look like? Well there are 3 things to note about their lack of knowledge...

1) Christ and His righteousness (Read Vs 3)

It says they were ignorant first of all of God’s righteousness- It wasn’t an ignorance which means that they didn’t have proper information available to them, one commentary so aptly pointed out that their ignorance was a vincible ignorance. In other words, it was comfortable to them to stay ignorant. they did not bend the knee to what God said, they resisted Him and His way of righteousness.

These Jews who rejected Christ had this mindset- God is not really that holy, and I’m really not that bad. Both of them are untrue.

They tried so hard to establish their own righteousness. It really is this deep distortion of the character of God that leads a person to present their own works then present their resume to God and say “you owe salvation and blessing”. The Jews here and especially the Pharisees during Jesus’ ministry were puffed up with pride. You know how they tried to establish their own righteousness? They did what we do today, they lowered God’s standard making the law look somehow attainable.

You see, the law always required something of humans. Catechisms of old described it as requiring, Personal, perfect, and perpetual obedience. It was never just a mere willingness to obey that made us right with God, it was not just saying “well i’m better than most”. This is what they did and what people still do today.

A great illustration of this is the rich young ruler. Remember him? (Mark 10) This rich and religious young man comes to Jesus and says “what do I need to do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus points him to the law- you know the commandments and he lists the 10 commandments. The man says “Check! i’ve done all this.” Then Jesus looks at him and some people might think at this point he gives him the gospel but personally i don’t believe he does. Instead he raises the bar of the law “oh okay if you have no problem with the law then you would have no problem selling all that you have and give it to the poor and come follow me.” And the man walks away in sorrow. Why? He loved His possessions more than God; Jesus pointing him to the fact that he broke the very first commandment. Jesus raises the bar to crush the man with the law and he walks away. The disciples even catch on and see how impossible it is for any man to be right with God if that is the standard.

2) Christ and the law (Read vs 4-5)

See this is an ignorance of the holiness and righteousness of God but also ignorance of how Jesus relates to the law. (read vs 4)

Paul is not saying that Christ brings the law to an end meaning to abolish the law. Jesus Himself said that he did not come to abolish the law. The word “End” here is a familiar greek word “Telos”. Christ is the goal of the law, in other words He is the very fulfillment of the law.

they used the law to establish their own righteousness. He observes that those who trust in Christ cease using the law to establish their own righteousness.” Schreiner

Christ obeyed the law perfectly for us and the Jews failed to recognize this. Righteousness cannot be brought about through obedience to the law and for those who believe the law doesn’t bind them in that way any longer.

You see the law wasn’t just a standard, written in our hearts, it was also a covenant back in the old testament and I would argue back in the garden with Adam. It’s what bound all mankind after his fall.

(Read vs 5) Paul is referencing Leviticus 18:5 here. And some people wrongly conclude something about the nature of God’s law. Some may wrongly think that the law actually brought life under the old covenant. That righteousness was some how attained by people in the OT if they obeyed the law. That has never been the case. The law under the mosiac covenant was always meant to crush sinners to drive them to the savior. Righteousness has always been received by grace alone through faith alone.

This reference in Lev. 18:5 is really this reminder that one cannot perform the whole of the law successfully. It could be a pointer back to Adam in the garden.

You remember God told Adam if he ate of the tree he would die. Adam in the garden represented man and was suppose to achieve righteousness by obedience to the moral law which was written in his heart. It’s implied in the narrative that if he wouldve obeyed He would’ve achieved full righteousness and glory. But he failed. All man now are cursed under the law as a covenant- meaning that this relationship with God being stipulated and maintained by obedience.

3) Christ’s glorious person and finished work Vs 6-11 (Read Vs 6-7)

Paul is now pointing to the crux of saving Faith and beginning to define it (Read Vs 6-7) What’s actually going on here?

Put simply, Paul is showing from the OT, specifically Deuteronomy, that saving faith doesn’t mean one needs to soar up to the heavens to attain salvation. One doesn’t need to work their way up toward God. Instead, Christ already came down FOR us. He came down since we are unable to work our way up

Also, one doesn’t need to descend to the depths or go down to the grave to attain it. Christ already came and was buried and rose again once and for all!

Paul says it’s more simple than that! (Read vs 8)

It’s not complicated and doesn’t need to be muddied with a bunch of works. True faith is as close to you as the heart in your chest and as the mouth on your face! This implies on the one hand like Jeremiah Says that God’s truth will be written in our hearts so this word of faith is a gift of God that He grants to us by His sovereign work alone. But he also expounds on that and demonstrates what the expression of true faith looks like.

(Read vs 9-10)

Here is our classic passage that we give when we’re walking someone through the gospel and call them to believe. And rightfully so because this is one of the clearest expressions of what it means to embrace Christ in the whole new testament.

Paul is not establishing an order that must be followed (outward expression with the mouth first then belief in the heart) because in vs 10 he flips that exact order.

He’s saying it’s a belief in Christ with the heart and this outward affirmation of who Jesus go hand in hand.

It’s important to note that for the original hearers living in the greco-roman world, they heard the word “Lord” a ton of times. There was only one Lord spoken of in the Roman empire and his name was not Jesus it was Ceasar. This no doubt would have made their ears perk up. This is a very political thing to say- Jesus is King- Jesus is Lord. That kind of language would get you killed.

It’s an acknowledgment of all that Jesus is, and a trusting in Him. It is receiving Him and resting on Him alone for salvation. It’s in recognizing His sufficiency and not our own that we are saved. The jews went around bragging about their own sufficiency. Their own righteousness. Saving faith actually says- “Wow look how sufficient the risen Christ is! Look at His righteousness on my behalf! I’m done trusting in myself and I simply bring my dirty empty hands to receive Him” “Nothing in my hand I bring, simply to thy cross I cling” Think of it with two R’s- Receiving and Resting. This is what saving faith looks like— This isn’t something that is meritorious. Infact, None of this is a work of our selves but of God.

John 1:12-13

But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.

Look at how He places an emphasis on the object of our faith rather than the quality of our faith. Sometimes we go on emphasizing BIG faith or STRONG faith. But that’s not what Paul does.

Kevin Deyoung once gave this Illustration about the frozen lake and the two people going out there (Expound)- What holds the person up in not he confidence they have but the frozen lake they stand on.

Faith is only as good as its object. Trusting in the risen and reigning Christ is the sole source of our unfading righteousness and constant hope. He wants to emphasize the face that the authentic Jesus is the reigning Lord of all and He is risen from the dead. This is who we trust. This is who we embrace. Faith isn’t some abstract reality or some good feeling that is empowering on the inside. This is what the world around us constantly teaches its all over movies and shows “Keep the faith”

We embrace the one who is sovereign over all AND provides everlasting hope even in the face of death.

Notice again Paul’s emphasis on the object of Faith (Read vs 11)

Everyone who believes on Him, everyone who rests on Him, everyone who receives the risen Jesus will never be put to shame.

Ultimately, when we believed, we’ve been given a person. His name is Jesus and He is who we offer when we present the gospel to others. That’s why when during the great awakening when men evangelized they would end the day and say “We gave people Christ!”

He carries on this idea of “everyone who believes” to lead to the next road block the jews had...

3.Roadblock 3: A mindset of exclusivism Vs. 12-13

(Read Vs 12) The Jews in the OT as well as the NT had this mindset that because they were the ones who were chosen by God so many thousands of years ago, that they are the only ones welcome at the table. They had this exclusive mindset.

We know this because later Paul is going to say that God is use the inclusion of the gentiles into the plan of God to make the Jews jealous and cause them to see the savior and come to Him for salvation.

This was called a Mystery in the New Testament! That God would allow the gentiles to have a seat at the table.

Look how inclusive salvation is! There is no distinction between Jew and gentiles because the same Lord who is Lord over the Jews is Lord of even the gentiles if they come to Him. He bestows His riches on who? ALL who call on Him.

He wraps all that he said up in a bow right here and drives everything home by saying (Read vs 13)

Not just jews. But EVERYONE who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.

Remember Jesus’ conversation with Niccodemus in John 3? At first Nick is confused at what Jesus says about being born again and i’m sure when Niccodemus is hear about the way of salvation and the Spirit’s work, he probably has the knowledge that this covenant promise is only to the jews. But lets Him in on the mystery here and this probably blew His mind. He says that as the serpent was lifted up in the wilderness (which was only for the healing of Jews in the Old Testament) so anyone who looks to Christ lifted up on the cross will be saved! “Incase you’re wondering if this is only for the Jews, I’ll let you in on God’s plan: For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son that WHOEVER (Jew, Gentile, White black, male female, america, africa india- No matter who you are) believes on Him will NOT Perish but have everlasting life!”

Conclusion

So we saw today that this message of righteousness by faith alone in Christ alone which is offered to ALL, not just the Jews, was rejected and instead, the jews trusted in themselves as the source of hope and righteousness.

Salvation is by faith alone in the risen and reigning Christ is the sole source of our unfading righteousness and constant hope.

A few reflections from this text to encourage you with...

This message of Justification by faith is needed more than ever before

A cultural observation, with everything going on in the world, people are drowning in guilt. They cannot figure out way to be absolved of it. We have the one answer. When you boil down all the activism you see today and the way the world responds to one another is this idea of trying to earn righteousness.

This is how your neighbor who is not aa christian thinks and what they feel each day. We have the answer. This answer is a person. His name is Jesus Christ. He’s the only one that can Justify and absolve sinners of the guilt they feel.

Your daily rest in Jesus flows from a continual trust in the finished work of Jesus Christ.

Do you trust Christ daily as a Christian? Or are you constantly looking to yourself?

This is what we do sometimes as Christians. We are saved by grace through faith and then we immediately take up the legal way of living and live every day based on merit. I think that by my performance I can make God love me and I can maintain his love toward me. The Christian life is one of constant reliance upon Christ and His finished work alone and not your works even now.

You live in Christ. You’re united to Him. Now you can obey and have a whole new motivation to obey Him and submit to Him as your Lord each day.

Jesus Christ the second Adam fulfilled what Adam could not and what Israel could not. He is the true Adam and the true Israel and now imputes His very righteousness to us and gives us new life with the ability to now love and obey God’s law. If the law as a covenant said “Do this and you will live” Now the gospel says “You live, now do this” It’s a whole new reason and power to obey. Only Christ obey the law in every sense and gained for us the life that we need.

I ask, do you wake up each day with the hope that when Christ said on the cross “it is finished” he actually meant it? Who are you seeking approval from? what are you seeking your righteousness in? Do you rest only in Christ for your righteousness which is unfading and not dependent upon your performance?

If you are not a Christian here today, the message is simple. Believe. Trust Christ. Stop looking to your self and today Christ offers Himself to you as savior. If you entrust yourself Him and run to His mercy, he will not cast you out. Instead He’ll keep you to Himself for eternity and you’ll be safe and he’ll enable you to repent and turn from all sin. Believe in who He said He was. Trust Him as the Lord of all who was crucified and risen again!