Well, this morning we're studying in Romans chapter 10. Romans chapter 10, looking at verses one through four. And we'll read again in verse one. Brothers, my heart's desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved. For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. For being ignorant of the righteousness of God and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God's righteousness. For Christ is the end of the law, for righteousness to everyone who believes. Let us pray together. Oh God, we thank you. Lord, for this privilege of coming together to share the word of God, and to share and study together with your people. Oh God, we pray that you will give us encouragement, instructions from your word, and may your will be done in every life we ask in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, today it seems like the eyes of the nation are on Georgia. I'm not talking about the football team, the Bulldogs. I'm talking about what seems to be a massive evidence of voter fraud in the presidential election. No doubt you heard about that. Also, there are two Senate races there. Senate seats are available and people are looking to vote in January, I believe it's January the 6th, and whatever happens in Georgia will probably determine the direction of the politics in the whole country. Well, our eyes this morning is here in Romans and Paul writes this wonderful letter to some Christians in Rome. Now Rome was the hub of civilization in that day. Over a million people lived in Rome when Paul wrote this letter. 50,000 Jews lived there. In fact, when we get to chapter 16, we'll find out that the church met in a married couple's house named Aquila and Priscilla. The Jews made up the church and the Gentiles, but here's what happened. More Gentiles were coming to faith than Jews. For the most part, the Jews rejected the gospel. They rejected the Lord Jesus. And this pained the heart of Paul, and he writes, Romans chapter 9, chapter 10, and chapter 11, dealing with the Jews. And when we were back in chapter 9, you remember he starts off by saying, I'm speaking the truth in Christ. I'm not lying to you. My conscience bears me witness in the Holy Spirit. I have great sorrow. in my heart, unceasing anguish in my heart for the Israelites, the Jews. And Paul, he prayed for them. And that's what we see here in chapter 10, the prayer. He says, brothers, my heart's desire and prayer to God is that they will be saved. They will be saved. And I believe here as we look at this prayer request, we have a lesson about prayer. The most important concern that should be upon our hearts as Christians this morning is the conversion of those who are lost. Those that we know in our family, our friends, our co-workers, praying for their conversion. And Paul prays, he says, brothers, my heart's desire and prayer to God is that they, talk about the Jews, may be saved. May be saved. Now you can pray for other things and I'm sure it's okay and we do pray. Paul could have said, I'm praying for their safety. I'm praying for their protection. and how we know the Jews have been persecuted down through the ages. And you could pray for their peace and their safety and their well-being, but that's not what Paul is saying here. You know, we might be praying for each other, we pray for our well-being, we pray for our safety, we pray that things would go well with each other, and we pray that we might be happy. But what good is happiness if you die and go to hell? And what good if you have things that's going real good for you and everything's comfortable. I like to be comfortable. I don't know about you. I like to have a comfortable pillow. And if you don't have one, mypillow.com. They can get you one. I like to have a nice place comfortable, and I always look for comfort in when I'm out of town, you know, whenever that happens, you know, I like to be comfortable. So we can pray for comfort, but what good would it be if we died without Jesus? Here's what Jesus said about that. He says, if you gained a whole world, and lose your own soul, what have you profited? So here we learn something about prayer. First thing I want us to think about is, as God's people, we must be praying people. Paul says, my heart's desire and prayer to God is that they may be saved. And so the question is, do you pray? Now, I'm not trying to put a guilt complex on you. I don't want to do that because I'm talking about myself too here now. I mean, do we pray? And if you do pray, how much do you pray? And what do you pray about? Who's on your heart? Do you have that heart's desire that Paul's talking about here? And he says, my heart's desire, my prayer to God is that they might be saved. Is there somebody on your heart that burdens you? And you are burdened until they come to know Christ as Lord and Savior. And maybe you might be praying for someone who may with their mouth say to you, they are a Christian, but their life tells another story. And so you pray that there might be the evidence of genuine conversion in their life. And so that's the prayer. We got to pray. Church must pray. The early church prayed. In Acts chapter 2, you read about the church meeting together and 3,000 of them were saved. And the Bible says that they received the word and they were baptized and they stayed together and they stayed with the apostles' teaching and fellowship and the breaking of bread and the prayers. There was prayers offered up by the church. Why do we need to pray? Because what we need We need what only God can do. A preacher can't talk you into being saved. You're not saved by going through the mass, or going through baptism, or signing a card. You're saved by the grace of God. If God does not save you, you're not saved. Only God can turn a sinner's heart. Only God can change their will. Only God can bring them to repentance and faith in Jesus. Therefore, we must pray that God would do that. We must even pray together. And James talks about prayer when he says, you have not because what? Because you ask not. And Jesus said something about prayer in Matthew 7. He says, ask and you shall receive. Seek and you shall find. Knock and it shall be open unto you. And so we're invited to pray. Pray as God's people. I was thinking about if you ever visit Huntsville, Alabama, especially if you're on I-65 and you get into Alabama, There's a welcome center and there's a huge rocket. You ever seen it? A huge rocket up there like it's ready to launch off, you know? And you get down in Huntsville, there's a space rocket center. They got some more rockets there. They love rockets down there in Huntsville. And I got to think about that. You know, we've been there. I think about that launch pad. Before that rocket can be launched and send somebody into outer space, there's got to be a lot of power there on that launch pad there, on that rocket before anything happens. You know, I have the same thing about prayer. You and me, we will never pray until there is a heart's desire. Until there is that thrust, and we come to the launch pad of prayer, and there's that burden, and there's that sorrow, there's that heart's desire, and unless it's there, our prayers, it's not gonna move much, it's not gonna go up. You know, we need to pray and get some prayers up. Well, prayers don't go up unless there's that heart's desire. As God's people, that's what we need to work on. So if you might be thinking this morning, I just don't have it. I just don't have that desire. That's the first thing on your prayer list. God, give me the desire to pray. God, give me the burden to pray. For what? For what Jesus came and died for. He died for lost souls. He didn't die for our comfort. He didn't die to make us have a better life here in this world. He died for souls to save us. So that's what we need to pray. And so I want you to think something else about Paul's prayer here. He said, brothers, my heart's desire and prayer to God is that they may be saved. This is specific. We must pray with being specific about specific people, particular people in mind that we're praying for. And that's what Paul tells us to do here. Pray for those that are lost. And you see how much he was concerned about that in chapter 9. Let me draw your attention to chapter 9 and verse 2. It says, I have a great sorrow, unceasing anguish, In my heart, he has this burden for these people. He's constantly upon his heart to pray for them. Oswald Chambers said this, and I'm gonna quote what he said. He said this, so long as there is a human being who does not know Jesus Christ, I am his debtor to serve him until he does. And I want the Lord to help me to do this and maybe you might pray this way as I think about people I come in contact. I think of people I work with. They are either in Christ or they're outside of Christ. I can have a conversation with somebody at work and I'm thinking in my mind as I'm looking at them. Sometimes I know them real well. Sometimes I know they're not saved and they need Jesus. And then sometimes I think about, well, I don't know if they're saved or not. I would like to know. And I'd like to find out. I'd like to have that opportunity to maybe ask them if they are. Charles Spurgeon said this about that. Very penetrating what he says. Had you no wish for others to be saved, then you are not saved yourself. Be sure of that. That's what Charles Spurgeon said. He goes on and says this, The saving of souls, if a man has once gained love to perishing sinners and his blessed master, the saving of souls will be an all-absorbing passion to him. It will so carry him away that he will almost forget himself in the saving of others. He'll be like the brave fireman. who cares not for the scorch or the heat, so that he may rescue the poor creature on whom true humanity has set its heart. If sinners will be damned, at least let them leap to hell over our bodies. And if they will perish, let them perish with our arms about their knees, imploring them to stay. If hell must be filled, At least let it be filled in the teeth of our exertions, and let not one go there unwarned and unprayed for." You know what? When a church loses the burden to pray for lost people, they might as well shut down. They're out of business. And maybe our burden is not like it ought to be. But let's pray that God would give us what Paul had, a heart's desire and prayer to God is that they might be saved. And then pray for their conversion. Number two, look at verse two. Not only should we have that burden, but also here's what we need to pray for those who are not Christians. We must pray that they have a precise, correct knowledge. Knowledge. Look at verse two. For I bear them witness. They have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. Let's stop right there. They have a zeal. What's that mean? They are absolutely sincere. The cults that knock on your doors on Saturdays, they have zeal, but it's not according to knowledge. I know people like that. I work with some like that. They're very religious. I've seen them get a rug and put a rug and they put their all their shawl on and they pray like they're praying toward Mecca. They are sincere, zeal, but not according to knowledge. That's the way these Jews were. They were so ambitious about their religion. They have a zeal for God. And Paul said, I bear them witness. In other words, what Paul's saying is, I can give witness to this because I'm one of them. And I used to be right where they are. Let me give you some of the things that Paul said about his zeal. Because it takes more than Denzil to be saved. Paul said something about that in Galatians 1 14. He says I was exceedingly zealous. I profited in the Jews religion he says. He says that in Galatians 1, 14. In Philippians 3, verse 4, he says, though I might have confidence in the flesh, if any other man thinks that he has whereof he might trust in the flesh, I am more. I was circumcised the eighth day. I was of the stock of Israel. I was of the tribe of Benjamin. I was the Hebrew of Hebrews. In other words, my parents were both Hebrews. As touching the law of Pharisee concerning zeal, persecuting the church. Paul was very zealous. And he goes on and gives his testimony in the book of Acts. In Acts chapter 22, he stands before kings and governors, and he says, I am verily a man which am a Jew. I was born in Tarsus, and I was brought up in the city at the feet of Gamaliel, and I was taught according to the perfect manner of the law of the fathers, and I was zealous toward God. And I persecuted this way. I persecuted Christians unto the death. That's how zealous he was. No one was more serious and sincere than the Apostle Paul until he met Jesus on the road to Damascus. On the road to Damascus, as he's journeyed there, a bright light shone. He was blinded by that light. He fell to the ground and he heard a voice saying, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? And Saul, before he became, we know his name is Paul, who are you, Lord? He said, I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. And right there, Paul was converted, and his zeal was changed in the other direction for the right purpose. So sometimes people think, well, I'm okay. I may not know all the doctrines and all the truth, But you know, I am kind of excited about what I believe in. Here's what we must pray for. We must pray, and this is so important, we must pray for sinners to hear, here it is, it's what they don't like. It's what a lot of people don't like. You know what it is? The truth. The correct truth, the exact truth. Because man in his unconverted state does not want to hear the truth. He wants to hear things that make him feel good about himself. He doesn't want to hear the truth. They say, well, tell us something that's appealing. Tell us something that makes us feel good about ourselves. Because listen, we don't need to be feeling guilty. We need to have something that makes us feel entertained and pamper us a little bit with something that's really humorous. A preacher once said this, I've been preaching for 11 years at the same congregation and all the 11 years I've never once brought up the word sin. I just don't want to put that on nobody's delicate, psyche complex. Somebody might become suicidal. So we dare not, dare not tell the truth. But the Bible says, men shall be lovers of their own selves in the last days, 2 Timothy 3. Men should be lovers of their own selves. They'll be boasters, coveters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy. They'll be lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God. They'll have a form of godliness, but denying the power. Ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. Today, people don't want the knowledge of the truth. They don't want to be taught God's Word. There's a lot of places where they preach the Word of God. No, they can't be preaching the Word of God. The Bible is not seen. The speaker just parades up down the stage and quotes a lot of lofty ideas. People need to hear the Word of God. Why? Because this is the only truth that will save. Well, that kind of runs people off. Well, as Charles Spurgeon says, at least I'd rather be grabbing them by the feet. Let them come over. If they're going over to hell, let them go that direction. Let's don't face God one day. Why didn't you tell them the truth? Jesus said this, you shall know the truth and the truth will set you free. And here's somebody's conversion. Here's how they describe it. I saw a talk show many years ago and somebody was talking about their conversion. Well, what I was doing, one day I was outside and I was looking and I saw this beautiful sunset. Oh, it was so beautiful. Oh, I had goosebumps and I felt so good. I just knew that I was saved. What's that? A time will come, Charles Spurgeon said, And he died in 1892, but he said this before he died, though. He says, the time will come when instead of shepherds feeding the sheep, the church will have clowns entertaining the goats. He was describing our day. 2 Timothy 4 verse 3, time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers having itching ears and they shall turn away their ears from the truth and turn to fables. So we must pray for the lost to hear the truth. Pray that they'll hear the gospel because that's the only truth there is. And it takes more than just being religious. People show great zeal in their religion. They need to hear the gospel. Next thing I want to look at is this. We must pray that sinners would receive the truth of the gospel. Because a lot of the things people call Christianity is not Christianity. Knowing the truth is the requirement of being saved. Now listen, you don't have to know everything in the Bible. The only thing I knew when I became a Christian was one verse that was put in front of my face. It was John 3 16. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. And I knew that Jesus died on the cross. That whoever believes in him should not perish, that means die and go to hell, but have everlasting life. I grabbed that verse, I held so tight to it, and I said, yes, I believe that, yes, I believe in Jesus. And I just told God, oh God, I know I'm a sinner, I'm so sorry. I've been hanging on that verse ever since. But there's some more verses in the Bible. They gotta hear the truth. Well, that's the requirement. And then the third thing we'll look at in verse three, we need to pray that lost people will receive God's righteousness. Look at verse three. For being ignorant of the righteousness of God, that's their ignorance there, and they're seeking to establish their own. They did not submit to God's righteousness. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes. Now, there's two kinds of righteousness. Number one, the righteousness of God. And then you see the second one there in verse three, they were seeking to establish their own, their own what? Their own righteousness. So you got God's righteousness and then you got man's self-righteousness. So what we're talking about when we say the righteousness of God? Well, here it is. God is righteous. I mean, his nature, his being, that which is perfectly right, there's no flaws in his character, nothing wrong with God, there's no sin with God. He is perfectly righteous. Now, here's the thing about the Jews. They were ignorant of the righteousness of God in this respect. They believe in order to obtain this righteousness of God, they had to put themselves under the work of learning the law, following the law, obeying the law, keeping the law. And as time goes by, they would acquire this righteousness, this acceptance with God. God would look down and says, oh man, there's a righteous person. They're keeping all the Ten Commandments and all the rules and all the regulations and all the laws. That's what they ignorantly believe. They believe they had right, but what they were having was a righteousness of man. This is what the Jews were guilty of. And as he says here in the verse here, in verse three, they did not submit to God's righteousness, that's what they were guilty of. They didn't submit to that. Well, you may have heard this expression, I'm sure you have, you may have said it, I don't know. But I saw in an email, we have emails, that's how we communicate a lot in the workplace, and someone sent a global email that went to all the departments, And usually down there below their name, some people say some expression. But this lady had this expression. Believe in yourself. And some other words that went with it. Have you heard that? Believe in yourself. Man, you gotta believe in yourself. Now I know, I know, I know we need to have a sort of a healthy self image and you don't need to put yourself down and beat yourself on the ground and become suicidal and all that, I know that. But, when it comes to righteousness and acceptance with God, you've got to believe more than yourself. You've got to believe in the righteousness of God. Jesus says, accept your righteousness exceeds that of the Pharisees. You've got to go beyond that. The Bible says in Isaiah 64 and 6, all our righteousness are as filthy rags. The truth is, in and of ourselves, we are bankrupt when it comes to righteousness. We've got to get it somewhere else because it's not in here. I just got to believe in yourself. And that's what the problem is. And so many people's Christianity, quote Christianity, what they call it, has become man-centered. And when you start being God-centered, and God is holy, and we're not holy, God is righteous, and no, not righteous, well, that kind of puts man down. Ooh, that makes me, ooh, that hurts. I remember years ago, some people would tell the preacher, man, you'll be preaching. I'll tell you what, old time preachers preach about two hours. They'll preach a long time. Man, they'll snot and snort and preach, you know. And Patty and I know a preacher preaching the old country church, and he would just stomp his head. Boy, he'd stomp. And they had the windows going up. You had to have the windows, you know. You had no air conditioning, you know. Oh, we didn't have padded pews. Had them old slatted pews. And he'd march around. One day, man, he was preaching hard, and a window came crashing down. I don't know why I brought that up. There's a reason why I brought that up. Can y'all remember? I don't know. I just got to think about old time preaching, you know, I guess. Well, but now we've got to be careful. I guess that's what I'm talking about. We've got to be delicate, you know, because everybody's psyche is so delicate, you know. You know, people got a little chip on their shoulder and they come to church with a little chip. I'll tell you what, that preacher better not say something that turns me off. I'll never come back here again, you know. We're so sensitive, you know. And the world tells you that, and we live in a world like that. Burger King, Wendy's, McDonald's, have it your way. You know, when you go to the store, you don't have just bunny bread. Man, you gotta look through hundreds of brands of bread. I mean, we want you to be happy. Rick Warren, pastor of a church called Saddleback something back here in California. And on the big campus that he's got right there, he's got different styles of church service you can go to. You can go to the old southern gospel music. They've got that service. Then they've got the more reformed kind of service. And then they've got some of the contemporary. And they've got different flavors, I guess. Kind of like that ice cream place with 31 flavors. Here's the problem. People want it their way. There's only one way to be saved. You've got to go God's way. Jesus said, I am the truth. I am the way, the truth, and the life. And no one can come to the Father except through me. Now, a lot of people think they're following Jesus, but what they've done, they have created Jesus in their own image. And the Jesus they're following is not the Jesus of the Bible. So Christ, in verse four, is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes. So what, you know, we're going to get in this as we go on through here, but we've been talking about already the truth, truth about sin, the truth about hell, the truth about God's holiness and God's righteousness. People must hear the truth and hear what he says here. And this is what the Jews were guilty of in verse four. Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes. We must come to Christ. Because in Christ we find the only righteousness that God accepts, it's in Christ. And here's what Jesus did. Jesus fulfilled, he fulfilled the law and all of its demands. If you wanna find it righteous, you gotta look to Jesus. Jesus. That's why God spoke in an audible voice. When Jesus was baptized, John the Baptist had a little problem with that. Oh, wait a minute, wait a minute. I don't need to baptize you. You probably need to be baptizing me. And Jesus says, well, let's submit to this because to fulfill all righteousness, Jesus came and he submitted to the Father's will. It was God who spoke in an audible voice at his baptism. He says, this is my beloved son, in him I'm well pleased. And you want to be pleased to God? You want God to be pleased with you? Get in Jesus. Get in Christ. Get in Christ, he's fulfilled the law. Jesus said in Matthew 5, 17, think not that I've come to destroy the law of the prophets, I have not come to destroy, but to fulfill the law. And by the way, when Jesus came, he fulfilled the law on our behalf, because we couldn't do it on our behalf. He was our substitute. And so as he died on the cross, his death, He took our sins, He took our sins, and He gave us His righteousness. Paul said in 1 Corinthians 1.30 about that, he says, of Him are you in Christ Jesus, who of God has made to us wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption. The righteousness that we have in Jesus is what the Jews were ignorant about. Look at Romans 9 verse 31. He says something about that in verse 31 of chapter 9. Why? Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as if it were based on works, they were trying to work their way to become righteous. It was not by faith. So the righteousness that's needed to be accepted with God, where do you find it? Well, it's not in us. It's in Jesus. It's in Jesus Christ. That's what it says in verse 4. Christ is the end of the law. What does it mean by the end of the law? It means he fulfilled it. He fulfilled it. He fulfilled its demands. And so now God's righteousness, that is his salvation, it's for all who believe. See that verse 4? To everyone who Believes. Believe in what? Well, we're going to get into that. Because this morning we're looking at the prayer of salvation, but the next time we're going to look at the message of salvation, the next part. But I can't leave you guessing. I want to tell you what the answer is. Believe in what? Because you, someone here may need to know that. Well, skip on down to verse 9. We'll get to it. I just want to look at verse 9. Because if you confess with your mouth, here it is, that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be what? You'll be saved. We believe that Jesus came and died. He was resurrected. And we believe in that. you will be saved. Look at verse 11. For the scripture says, everyone who believes, believes in what? Believe in yourself. Is that what he says? You say everyone who believes in himself. No, everyone who believes in him, believe in Jesus, will not be put to shame. Verse 13, for everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. Calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. Everyone who believes in Jesus, that's it. And I tell you, Jesus Christ, he is the end of the law. That means he is the end of trying to get on that treadmill of law keeping. I'm gonna dot every I, I'm gonna cross every T, I'm gonna be a good boy, you know, and I'm gonna be nice, I'm gonna be kind, I'm gonna be sweet, I'm gonna be nice to the cat, you know, and everything, and I'm gonna be good, and I'm, you know. No, Jesus is the end He's the end of all that. Stop that. That doesn't mean you take the law and throw it out the window. You still are supposed to kill and steal and do all those things, you know. But you don't get on this thing of law keeping to try to obtain righteousness. When Jesus died on the cross, do you remember one of the words he said before he bowed his head and died? He said this, it is Finished. The payment for your sins is finished. So quit trying to pay for them. The acquiring, getting your salvation, it's finished. So quit trying to obtain salvation on your own. You can't do it. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for Jesus who came and he is the end of the law. And Lord, we trust him and him alone to save us. And we thank you, Father, that we come to a God who accepts us because of what Christ has done for us. And I pray maybe one here who has yet to put faith in Jesus and call upon him as Lord and Savior. Maybe today, Lord, they will turn from their sins and trust Jesus. I pray that will happen now. and lord help us lord to have that prayer burden like paul have that heart's desire and lord that we'll pray for those who are not saved and we pray father to you'll use us as your instruments to be the means of those coming to know christ that they might hear the truth and come to christ as lord and savior we pray this in