Essentials Of The Faith / Sunday Morning Sermon Series / Romans

Romans 10:1-5

INTRO:  Did you ever try to correct someone when they were wrong, and they kept insisting they were right? I had a neighbor who was always right, even when he was wrong, he said he was right. You couldn't tell him anything. You know people like this. You know they are wrong and they need to be corrected but they just won't give up what they are holding onto.

EXP: Well, Paul was there. Ethnic Israel has an idea of how one became righteous and they didn't want to hear anything different.  This week and next in Romans 10, we shall see Paul in the place I think he enjoyed the most, preaching the Good News of Jesus Christ. Romans 10 is not a theologically heavy document. Not much confusing grammar or difficult to understand Greek words. Paul was not writing as a theologian, a scholar or a teacher. He wrote here as a pastor, a preacher and I love what he has to say.

TRANS: So open your Bibles to Romans 10 and lets see how Paul deals with ethnic Israel who believed they were right when it came to righteousness.

I. Israel's Error Identified (Rom. 10:1-5)
Read: Rom. 10:1
    A. Paul begins with his heart.

     Paul begins chapter 10 as he had in chapter 9 expressing his heartfelt love and desire that his countrymen would be saved. What a beautiful picture in Paul of the meekness and gentleness of the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul desired, longed for  ethnic Israel to be saved, so he prayed for the salvation of the very people who sought to have him killed. He prayed for them, he made room for their prejudices, as much as his obedience to God would permit. He labored, by all means, so that some of his fellow Jews might be saved.

APP: What an example Paul set for us. Do you love your enemies like that? Are you praying for the salvation of that boss who demeans you in front of your co-workers? Are you praying for the salvation of your neighbor who talks badly about you to your friends? Are you praying for the salvation of your spouse or child who calls you a fanatic or worse?  We should never cease to pray for the salvation of  the lost around us even those who treat us badly and those who we think will never accept Christ.

     And don't use the excuse they just aren't one of God's elect. Secret things belong to God and no one knows who is God's elect and who isn't. Our job, our responsibility is to share Christ with them and pray for their salvation. No one is hopeless. God saved Paul, the chief of sinners, the destroyer of the church. God can save your spouse, your child or your boss.
TRANS: Paul expressed his compassion for the Jews in his deep desire for their salvation. Now in his attempt to correct their thinking, he finds common ground. He says that ethnic Israel has great zeal for God.

    B. Zeal w/o understanding
Read: Rom. 10:2-3

ILL: Before the opening day of pheasant season, two city-dwellers who aspired to be hunters bought a bird dog, having heard that such a dog would make for a much more enjoyable and profitable hunting. When the big day came, they were up bright and early. They hunted all day, but as dusk began to overtake them, they hadn't fired a single shot. The hunters were exhausted and frustrated over the poor performance of their bird dog. Finally one of the men said, 'Okay, Joe, throw him up once more and if he doesn't fly this time, I'm gonna shoot him.'

     These two city slickers, probably engineers, were all psyched up to go bird hunting.. They had enthusiasm, they had desire, they had guns and they even had a bird dog. They had all the equipment necessary to bag some pheasant.  What they didn't have was a full and correct understanding of how to use what they had...especially when it came to the dog.

     Ethnic Israel  had a similar problem. They were given all they needed to obtain righteousness and eternal life but they didn't know what to do with it. Paul says ethnic Israel had great zeal for God. Zeal is defined as an intense effort and emotional energy that is focused toward a goal.  God was their goal.  Even after Antiochus Epiphanes conquered Jerusalem and desecrated the Temple with idols and pig blood, Israel did not give up on God and it was shown later in the Maccabean revolt. Israel had heroic zeal for God.

     However, zeal is not enough to become righteous before God. A zealous, highly motivated person can be all packed and making great time traveling down the road, but if he is on the wrong road, he will never reach his destination, no matter how motivated or zealous he may be.  This was the story of ethnic Israel. Their zeal, although admirable, was not enough because it was not based on knowledge.

     They had knowledge of God, a great deal. But it was not a correct or complete knowledge. It's like the two engineers, city slickers, who had the bird dog and thought he could fly to get the pheasants for them. They were close.... but incorrect. What exactly were they mistaken about?

1. They failed to correctly understand justification
    -God's true nature is holiness and perfection andnothing less than perfection can come into God's presence.
    -Man's true nature is sinful and can never be acceptable to God. No matter what he does.
    -God's provision in sending His Son Jesus to be perfect for us.

2. Israel tried to establish their own way of  righteousness.
    -They worked hard to make themselves acceptable to God by strictly following  rituals, ceremonies and laws.
     They sought  to save themselves by being as 'religious' as they could. They  felt God would never reject them if they
     were as good as they could be.  Sound familiar?

3. Ethnic Israel refused to submit themselves to the  righteousness of God.
    -Remember way back we learned that the righteousness of God Paul is taking about here in Romans is not a status or
     position? The righteousness of God is the person, Jesus Christ.
    -Well, Paul said that ethnic Israel refused to submit to the righteousness of God, so they refused to submit to whom?
      Right, Jesus Christ. They wanted the form of  righteousness w/o the relationship with Jesus.

TRANS: Paul said that you've got it all wrong. It's not what you do that saves you . It's not in following a strict code of ethics, salvation is not in the Law, it is in Christ. Let me explain.

    C. Two ways to righteousness
Read: Rom. 10:4-5

     Paul was saying that the Law was never intended to save you and uses the OT to prove this. Lev. 18:5 'So you shall keep my statutes and my judgments by which a man may live IF he does them; I am the Lord your God. Ethnic Israel missed a small but extremely important word...if. God was saying if you desire to live...forever in my presence, you must keep my laws...perfectly and always, never slipping even once.  I demand perfection because I am holy, I am the Lord, your God.

     Paul told them that Jesus was the end or the goal of the Law because He completely kept the law and satisfied the just demands of God's holiness. Jesus is life and can give life because He kept the Law perfectly. So you no longer need to try to follow the Law to obtain righteousness.

     There are two ways to righteousness. It was true in Paul's day and it is still true now.
          1) You can follow the way of works, keeping all the Laws and commands of God, perfectly everyday, in your thoughts,
              words and actions for as long as you live.

 OR
          2) You can believe in Jesus Christ who did what you are not able to do...be perfect.  By believing in Jesus Christ we
              then submit to the righteousness of God and are made holy and are given the privilege of standing before Almighty
              God Himself, forever in His presence.  The choice is yours.

Conclusion
     You may be here this morning with great zeal for God. A desire to know Him and do good things for Him. But there have been many these past years with great zeal for God, remember Jonestown, Wako and Heavens Gate. They all  had a zeal to know God and be righteous in His sight. But they had zeal w/o knowledge.

     In a letter a rabbi recently wrote to a young man in his synagogue, he expresses according to Judaism how righteousness or right standing before God is obtained. This letter represents not only Jewish thought today but the thought of many 'religious' people in  churches as well.

  'The basic question about religion is how to elevate man and bring him into a closer relationship with God. We believe that God revealed to us in the Torah how He wants us to live, so that we can be in harmony with the divine purpose.  Our role and religious purpose is to obey God's Law, to love Him and to obey Him. We exercise our free will by proper intention and through having done the good deeds are elevated so that it becomes progressively easier and more natural to continue to do good and to resist evil.'

     Amazing isn't it? All you have to do, according to the rabbi is keep working at being good until you get better and better at it. Then you have elevated yourself through your good deeds to a place of righteousness before God. More 'you's there than God'  That is zeal, w/o knowledge.

     Perhaps some of you have similar thoughts about getting into heaven. That if you are good enough, that will elevate yourself to a place where God has to let you in when you die. Just like Paul told ethnic Israel, I must tell you this morning, I applaud your zeal, but you are wrong....dead wrong. And heaven is not at the end of the road you are traveling. If you have not submitted to the righteousness of God, if you have not accepted and truly believe Jesus is your Savior, I want to challenge you to think this week about what you must do to be saved. To be right with God, to go to heaven when you die.

     Read back through Romans...look ahead if you like too. I will be praying that God will reveal Himself to you  through His Word and His Son. that you might be saved. And come back next week because Paul gives us the simplest explanation of how you can be saved. And I's like you to hear it.

     For those of you who already know Jesus as your Savior and Lord, I want to challenge you to renew your efforts at sharing the Gospel with the lost around you. Challenge their life presuppositions, challenge their beliefs on how they will get to heaven. ....and pray for them. When they say nasty things or treat you badly, pray for them again.  There is no one God can't reach down and save.  And He may be using your prayers to soften the heart of someone who is lost.

    Let your desire be as Paul's that they may be saved.