If you would turn to the confessional reading in the Smaller Forms and Prayers book, that's page 208. We're looking at Lord's Day 7. We looked at question answer 22 and we said together, question answer 23, which is basically the Apostles' Creed. And so we'll work back now and look at 20 and 21. I'll read the questions. We can together say the answers. Those are on, again, page 208, Lord's Day 7. Question answers 20 and 21. Question 20, are all people then saved through Christ just as they were lost through Adam? No, only those are saved who through true faith are grafted into Christ and accept all his benefits. What is true faith? True faith is not only a sure knowledge by which I hold as true all that God has revealed to us in His Word, it is also a wholehearted trust, which the Holy Spirit works in me by the Gospel, that God has freely granted not only to others, but to me also, forgiveness of sins, eternal righteousness, and salvation. These gifts are purely of grace, only because of Christ's merit. And then we looked at 22 and 23 already. Let us turn then to Romans chapter 10. And we might say question answer 20 still reminds us of Romans 5, which we looked at as we were going through Lord's Day 5 and Lord's Day 6 a couple of weeks ago. If we are focusing on one question answer more than the others, it's question answer 21 then tonight. And our reading is from Romans 10, verses 5 to 13. John, Acts, Romans, 1 Corinthians, page 1,200, around there in the pew Bibles. Romans chapter 10, beginning at verse five. For Moses writes about the righteousness that is based on the law, that the person who does the commandments shall live by them. But the righteousness based on faith says, do not say in your heart, Who will ascend into heaven? That is, to bring Christ down. Or who will descend into the abyss? That is, to bring Christ up from the dead. But what does it say? The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart. That is, the word of faith that we proclaim. Because if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart, one believes and is justified. And with the mouth, one confesses and is saved. For the Scripture says, everyone who believes in Him will not be put to shame. For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek. For the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing His riches on all who call on Him. for everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. So far the reading, the grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our Lord endures forever. Dear congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Belgic confession begins with these words. We all believe in our hearts and confess with our mouths. that there is a single and simple spiritual being whom we call God, our hearts and our mouths. And certainly we see the heart and the mouth in harmony with one another in Romans chapter 10, especially in verses nine and 10. And in Lord's Day 7, we see that there is this knowledge and there is this trust. We are to have a heart, we are to have an informed heart. And that moves to what we say, the emphasis is kept on the language of believing. But certainly when we come to something like question answer 23 and work through the articles of the Apostles Creed, we're reminded of something which We stay together often as a congregation, which God's people have been saying together basically in this form for 1,500 years and in some shorter forms for 2,000 years. This is what we say together because it is first what we believe together. It is to be believed. That is essential, but then it does move to our speech and our mouth. And so that's our theme this evening. True faith moves from an informed heart to an open mouth. And we'll look at true faith, knowledge, true faith, trust, true faith, confession. So let's look first at that true faith and knowledge, our first point. true faith has knowledge. There are things which a believer must know, there are essential points of knowledge, and then there are things which believers should grow in continuing to learn and know The informed heart of a believer essentially, especially knows something about Christ. And we see in our text even some basic things that we would know about Christ, that we would know that Jesus is Lord. And that we would, we see that in verse nine, that we would know that Jesus was raised from the dead by God the Father. And looking back, Going back more towards verses 1 through 7 and looking at the context, we read the first four verses and we see where a lack of knowledge can bring one into trouble. And so in verses 1 to 4, we read this, brothers, my heart's desire and prayer to God for them, that is the Jews, 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. There's this lack of knowledge. There's this false knowledge. There's this depending on oneself knowledge which gets the Jews into trouble. And we are to have an informed heart. We are to know basic truths about Christ and we are to know that Christ is the one who provides a different righteousness, his own righteousness. These are essential things that the believer should know. Now, the informed heart of the Christian desires to grow in the knowledge of all of the scriptures. And so in question answer 21, in speaking about true faith, it says it's a sure knowledge by which I hold as true all that God has revealed to me in his word. This is where true faith starts. We are to be people of the Word. We are to start by knowing those essential truths about Christ Himself, but then we go from there by seeking to be shaped by, matured in, nurtured of the very Word of God. All of it. All of the Word of God. And certainly the authors of scriptures themselves teach us something about being informed by what God has already revealed. We might look at this very passage, these eight verses, where The Apostle Paul quotes from four different books of the Old Testament in just a space of four verses. He sprinkles in the words of Moses from Leviticus and then Deuteronomy. And then he continues to bring in the word into what he's saying. And he quotes also from Isaiah and then from Joel, just these eight verses. Four quotations from the scriptures, from the word of God that has been given. And that's the general pattern of scripture as we move out of the books of Moses. and into the historical books. They're always making reference back to the law and to what God has said and to what God has laid down. And then as we come into the Psalms, they're always making reference to both the law and the history of the people of God that has been revealed and recorded. And then as we move into the prophets, the prophets are constantly looking back to and quoting directly from, and we might even say preaching sermons on the older books of the Old Testament. And then we get to the New Testament and we have passages like this, where the scriptures of old are brought to bear to inform the heart of the believer. All of the scriptures are in harmony with one another and the believer is to seek to be informed by all the scriptures. We can just pause there and say something like this. Have you read through the Bible? Have you read through it once? Do you seek to read through it again? It is It is the divine word of God. There is nothing like this book. This is where we go. This This is how we are to be informed. I've said this before, but I'll say it again. When I would tell someone who doesn't go to church that I'm a pastor, that I preach, I'll say things like, why would a congregation sit and listen to some young man preach, speak for 30 minutes at a time or whatever? Why would we do that? I'm seeking to speak faithfully from this word. This is what we do as the people of God. We are the people of the book. If we did just gather together to hear the opinion of some man, well, that would be crazy. That would be insane. Who would listen to just some young man? But when we are gathered together, seeking to dig into the truths of this word, And when we are personally coming to this Word and letting it shape our life and seeking to read through it and read through it again, there is nothing like Scripture. The heart of a believer is informed, especially about Christ and who Christ is and what Christ has done. And then we seek to be informed further by the entire Word of God, by the whole counsel of God, to use the language of Acts 20. Now, one of the things that the apostle wants us to see from the Old Testament is that there is such a thing as the demand to keep the law and live. So he quotes in verse five from Leviticus chapter 18, that Moses speaks about a righteousness that is based on the law and that the person who does the command shall live by them. And then this is contrasted with the righteousness that is based on the law is contrasted with, verse six, the righteousness that is based on faith. And that's this central movement through verses five and through seven, that we must not be those who would depend upon the righteousness of the law, looking back at verses one to four, who would seek to establish our own righteousness. No, we cannot do this. We must be those who have the righteousness based on faith and looking to Christ who is himself the end of the law as it says in verse four. And so that takes us to our second point because this transition is all about moving off of dependence from ourselves and into dependence or trust on Jesus Christ. So true faith, trust. Now, what's going on in verses six and seven? They are not the easiest verses, indeed, to really know the context of how the apostles using Deuteronomy would really require a sermon on Deuteronomy chapter 30. But we can boil it down, we can simplify it. I'm gonna give a kind of lengthy paraphrase of verses six and seven for us. When you have the righteousness of faith, instead of trying to earn your own righteousness based on the law, then you will not try to go into heaven on your own. You won't try to ascend up on your own and to find righteousness, to earn righteousness by yourself. No, we say Christ has already come down himself. God incarnate, God with us. We serve the one who came down and did it himself. Christ who came, born of the Virgin Mary, conceived by the Holy Spirit, and accomplished all that the law desires. Why would we try to go up into heaven to find the law or to find an earning of salvation. No, no, no. Christ has already come down to do it. Now, what about trying to dig down to the depths of the grave to deliver ourselves, to find some key to stopping death? Can we try to do that? Well, no, we don't try to do that either. We don't try to go up and we don't try to go down because Christ has already come down in the incarnation and Christ has already come up and shown us how to conquer death in his own resurrection, power, and life. Verses six and seven then come down to this. Don't depend upon yourself. Look to Christ who has already done it, who's already come down, who's already risen up, who is accessible. Christ who we can come to. It's not something we can do on our own or we should try to do on our own and it's not complicated. The good news is not complicated. The good news is look to the one who's already done it, he's accessible. He has the very name Jesus, we know his personal name, we know his titles, we have the word which tells us what he has done. He is the one who saves us. It is in Him that we can be saved, to take the language of verse nine. It is His righteousness, the righteousness based on faith, looking to Christ and His righteousness that saves us. Now, let's think a little bit about righteousness and salvation, to be righteous, to be saved. Have you ever considered the difference between righteousness and salvation? We can say it simply this way. Salvation emphasizes what Christians are brought out of, and righteousness emphasizes what Christians are brought into. Now, Romans 9 and 10, in these two chapters, the apostle's very concerned with praying for unbelievers, and detailing how the message of salvation is for all Jew and Greek, all who will call upon God and be saved. In other words, these are evangelism chapters. And so it's appropriate to have an application here in light of evangelism. And John MacArthur, he speaks about this difference between salvation, to be saved, and righteousness, to be righteous, And he speaks about this in terms of evangelism in this way. When we think about those we know who are unbelievers, do we think both in terms of asking, are you saved? And are you righteous in Christ? See, they are two different questions. They are both important because we need both salvation and righteousness, but they have a different emphasis. And I might say that we might think that are you saved might be the more basic question, but are you righteous in Christ may actually be the more important question in our current day and age. I think we can say the apostle is focusing on that question here. Why? Because there are so many rabbis and false teachers in Judaism that we're teaching that you could earn your own righteousness, that you could earn your own salvation, that if you just followed these laws, you could do it. Well, now we have the same kind of thought patterns in our day and age. Now they take this form. It is the modern person who says, well, I did my good deed today. Have you ever heard someone say that? I heard it again just a week ago. I did my good deed today. My good deeds outweigh my bad deeds. I'm good compared to other people. I'm not really that bad. You see, all of these phrases can be exposed by the question, are you righteous in Christ? By focusing upon righteousness, the apostle was exposing the workspace, trusting on my own salvation, my own righteousness for salvation. He was exposing that thought pattern. And by asking that question, perhaps God could use that question to expose really the same kinds of thoughts today. Certainly, we need to know this ourselves. We need to know this ourselves, that we cannot work our own righteousness. And it's also a useful thing to keep in mind as we engage with the world around us, with this, I'm not really so bad, as they say world but James 2 verse 10 if we would need maybe one verse to have at the ready reminds us that whoever keeps the whole law James 2 verse 10 but fails in one point has become guilty of all we can't just say well I my good outweighs my bad or or any of that kind of thing we are all lost on her own. None of us can go up. None of us can go down. None of us can find salvation in any way. Only Jesus Christ. Only His righteousness. Only His coming down in His incarnation. Only His coming up in His resurrection. He is the only Savior. We must trust in Him. We must have the righteousness of faith that is the righteousness of Christ. Now knowledge and trust, these are the essentials of faith, but true faith almost necessarily moves to a spoken word that takes us to our third point. Now all of the times that the apostle says you in verses five to 13, it's in the singular. There's a very personal aspect to this passage. We all must believe upon God, trust upon God on ourselves. But when the apostle moves to the language of saying things, In other words, out of the language of the heart that believes and into the language of the mouth that confesses, we see especially in verses nine and 10, the apostle uses a word that emphasizes that we don't speak alone. The English word confess, in nine and 10, it's translating the Greek homologueto, which emphasizes that we are to speak the same word as others. children, we begin to learn at a young age that certain words combine together. A toy box is a box with toys in it. Sunshine is light that comes from the sun. Well, we call those compound words. This is another compound word in the Greek. The Greek has a lot of those. And confess is from homo logeo. It's a compound word. Homo, same, logeo, word. We are to speak the same word as others. We are to confess together. The idea is in the English as well. We don't speak alone. We come to the essentials of the Christian faith, we believe them in our own heart, and then we say them the same word together. It's what scripture calls us to do. It is, in other words, very appropriate that we say the Apostles' Creed together. We're saying the same word together. And the word itself is meaningless without faith. So again, the essential of faith, and the focus of question answer 21 is, is the informed heart, the believing heart. It not only has a sure knowledge, but a wholehearted trust. That's the essential. But we move from that to the believing hearts speaking together. And the Apostles' Creed is especially appropriate for that. This has been the same word that Christians have been saying together for so many centuries. And if you want a good one-paragraph summary, page 140 gives a little one-paragraph summary of the history of the Apostles' Creed and speaks about how it's based off of various scripture passages. It could have listed Romans 10, 9 and other passages as well. And we're taking these basic articles, these basic points of the Christian faith, and we're saying that same word together. And the Christians have been doing this really in basic form since these very days. That's what the apostle is saying. He's only giving a couple of articles here in Romans 10. But we slowly added a few things, putting passages together, and the Apostles' Creed, as we say it now, has been this way for 1,500 years. And so it's good to say the Apostles' Creed together. And since we do that so often, let's pause for a moment and ask ourselves, what are we thinking when we say the Apostles' Creed week after week? What are we thinking? Do we sometimes think of some of the scripture passages that are basically being quoted? Are we thinking of how it's a creed, it's a confession that essentially comes straight from the word of God? Are we thinking about how this is a confession with our mouth that is flowing from our heart? Do we ever think in those terms when we're saying the Apostle's Creed? Or is it something that just becomes a habit? Is it something that we would ever say but not believe? Those are the great dangers. But the beauty is when we would truly be speaking it from the heart and be rejoicing in that. to say it together, the same word, with our fellow believers. True faith does not work backwards. It does not go from the mouth to the heart, but it should work from the informed heart to the open mouth. Now let's look at one more phrase, look at verses 12 and 13. And think about this language of call on him. Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. Now in both the Greek and in the English, call on, call upon, can carry this idea of calling on, asking for help. Asking for help. And that's basically what's going on here. Go to God for assistance. Ask Him to help you. Ask Him to deliver you. That's both what it is in the Greek and in the English, and since call-on works that way in both languages, they can translate it straightforward. You know, I think I've mentioned before that I'm terrible at directions. I don't think I've used this illustration before though. I'm terrible with directions. I'm very glad for this thing called maps on smartphones. But I remember when I had a phone that was not a smartphone and my directionally challenged self got into trouble with this. Now, I did have a phone. So what would I do when I got really lost and I needed to get somewhere? Well, I'd call for help. And I knew who to call. I'd call my mother who seems to have like the entire West Michigan area mapped in her mind. And so that was helpful. I knew who to call. I knew who to call for help. I remember one time This was kind of important because this was a standardized test, and I was trying to take my friend with me, and we both paid to take the test, and we've got to be there at a certain time. And I'm going down the road, and I'm thinking, this is not quite right. Something's wrong here. I need to call for help. And I called my mother, and sure enough, I was on the right road, but I was going the wrong direction. And we turned around and made it just in time. I think we were the last two people there. But this idea of call upon is calling for help. Well, that's what the language means in both English and in Greek. And we are to call upon, go to the Lord for help, for assistance. It brings it all together, right? Because it's a passage which is about Going to Christ, not leaning on our own righteousness. Well, this is the perfect end to this passage. Don't lean on your own righteousness. We are all going the wrong way. We're also not even on the right road. We're going the wrong way on the wrong road. But call upon the name of the Lord. There is righteousness there. There is salvation there. Christ has done it. He has come down. He has also come up from the grave. By faith in Him, we are saved. Amen. Let us pray. Lord God Almighty, we pray that you would show us the righteousness based on faith. We pray that it would be in our heart and then move through our lips as well.