00:00
00:00
00:01
Transcript
1/0
Take your Bibles please and turn
to Romans chapter 10. Romans chapter 10. Let's just go ahead and read
this passage this morning. We're going to read the first
13 verses of Romans 10. 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. Verse 5, 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. Let's pray. Father, this morning, as we think
about these two ways of righteousness, Give us more understanding. Lord,
there's a lot of things we know in our heads. Help us to sort
some of that out and know it in practical ways that influences
the way we live day by day. In Jesus' name, amen. So in Romans
10, after Paul in verse 1 says that his heart's desire and prayer
to God is that they may be saved, Then he tells us why they're
not saved. They have a great zeal, but it's
not a zeal according to knowledge. They did not submit to God's
righteousness because they were ignorant of that righteousness
and they sought to establish a righteousness of their own.
All of that because Christ is the end of the law for righteousness
to everyone who believes. He is the end of that idea that
righteousness, that the law can bring righteousness. And then
of course, we've also talked about how he is the end and that
the goal of the law points to Christ. Now today, we're gonna
move into verse five. There's a close connection with
verse 4. You can tell because verse 5
begins with the word for. You could translate it just as
well, but because. Let me start in 4 again. For
Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone
who believes, because Moses writes about the righteousness that
is based on the law. What we're going to find in verses
5 through 8 supports what he said in verses 2 through 4. Now,
so let's take a look at verse five. Notice how he starts, for
Moses writes. Now, it's deeper than that. Moses
writes, but this comes from God himself. If you were to turn
back to Leviticus 18.1, that's where Paul is getting
some of this. And the Lord spoke to Moses saying,
speak to the people of Israel and say to them, And then the
rest of the chapter is the Lord speaking. So Moses writes, but
he didn't get it from himself, it is from the Lord. It's the
same if you go back to Romans 9, 17, for the scripture says
to Pharaoh, but then when you check out the quote, it's the
Lord who says it, Moses is just recording it. And this is really
important because in this section, all one through 13, We're still
talking about justification, how a person is saved. If you
want to find out how a person is justified, who should you
ask? You ask the Lord, because he's
the only one that can provide that justification. So what does
the Lord tell us about this righteousness that is based on the law. Verse
5 again. For Moses writes about the righteousness
that is based on the law, that the person who does the commandments
shall live by them. Now, just let that sink in. I don't want to rush this. Let's explore it. The person
who does the commandments shall live by them. This is the law
kind of righteousness that Moses is writing about. Now, what are
the commandments? Well, the law is full of commandments. We know that. So what we often
do, and I think it's very legitimate, is we take the Ten Commandments
as being representative of the law. And that's convenient because
most of us know, in general, what the Ten Commandments are.
So if we take that and put it in those terms, the one who does
the Ten Commandments shall live by them. Let's pause a moment. what about live shall live by
them what does he mean by live he means more than physically
live because the person whether he does the commandments or not
he still physically lives he's talking about more than that
get the context remember go back to verse 1 what's he talking
about he's talking about being saved my prayer to God for them
is that they may be saved. So when he talks about live in
verse 5, it parallels being saved. He's talking about eternal life.
Now I recognize that the people who were reading this back in
the Old Testament, they may not have understood that, but as
we look back, we understand that's what he's talking about when
he talks about live. How many commandments must we
keep? Well, he doesn't say some of the commandments, so I'm assuming
he's talking about all the commandments, and we have confirmation of that
in the New Testament. Let me read you just out of Galatians
3.10. For all who rely on works of
the law are under a curse, for it is written, Cursed be everyone
who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law,
and do them. Now Paul is quoting that from
the Old Testament. And he emphasizes all things
written. Or James 2, 10 and 11. For whoever
keeps the whole law, but fails in one point, has become guilty
of all of it. For he who said, do not commit
adultery, also said, do not murder. If you do not commit adultery,
but do murder, you'll become a transgressor of the law. Now a good Jew might say, But
I've never committed murder. I've never committed adultery.
I've never stolen anything. But he says, keeps the commandments. If we're talking about all the
commandments, and even the ten commandments, what about the
first commandments? You shall have no other gods before me. Can anybody say I have never
valued anything more than God? No. And what about the 10th commandment?
You shall not covet. You remember that's the one that
tripped Paul up. Paul says back in chapter 7,
what then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means.
Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin.
For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had
not said, you shall not covet. But sin, seizing an opportunity
through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. Surely no one can believe that
he has kept all the commandments of the law perfectly. I don't
think anyone here would say, I've kept all those commandments
without fail. We know that isn't true. But
many of the Jews believe that they had attained or were attaining
righteousness by keeping the law. How can that be? How could they think that? Surely
they didn't think that they had perfectly kept every commandment. Well, I think there's a lot of
confusion between having and doing. If you want to turn back
to chapter 3, Romans 3, and we talked about this when
we were there, but I want to read it again. Romans 3, verse
1. Then what advantage has the Jew, or what is the value of
circumcision? Much in every way. To begin with,
the Jews were entrusted with the oracles of God. Now we know
that God gave his law to the Jews in a special way. We know
the story of how Moses received the Ten Commandments and then
he wrote them down on the stones and so forth. We know all of
that, how God gave the law. So the Jews were privileged greatly
that God had given them the law. Now, blessed they were, but there's
confusion between having and doing. Now if you're still in
Romans back there, chapter 2, Romans 2, if you just go back
a chapter, I should have this marked, sorry, Romans 2, and
I want to read verses 12 and 13. For all who have sinned without
the law will also perish without the law, and all who have sinned
under the law will be judged by the law. For it is not the
hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of
the law who will be justified. Do you catch that? The contrast
between hearers and doers. The Jewish people as a whole,
they were hearers of the law, but they were not doers of the
law. It's the doers, he says, who
will be justified. Just hearing the law does not
justify. They thought because they heard
the law, They studied the law. They memorized the law. They
focused on the law. They thought that they could
attain righteousness that way. Somehow they overlooked the fact
that you have to actually do the law in order to attain that
justification. Now, that's not something unique
to the Jews of that day. It's a huge problem today. So
let's say we take a woman who is 75 years old, and she was
brought up going to church, reading the Bible. Her parents taught
her right from wrong. In the terms of her generation,
she would be called a good woman. She comes to believe that because
of her upbringing and the great knowledge that she has of the
scriptures that she has eternal life. She thinks God is going
to usher her into heaven because of all of her knowledge and morals. And what's the problem with that?
The problem is she hasn't actually done the commandment. She may know them all, know much
about them, can discuss them, but she hasn't actually done
them. Any person who thinks he is going
to be accepted by God because of the law, it will never ever
happen. And see, you can put that, this
woman also thinks, well, I'm certainly done a better job than
most everyone around me. It counts for absolutely nothing. That woman's not alone. Millions
are in the same basic place. And maybe even someone here this
morning might be in that very place. Listen to what the Lord
actually says. The person who does the commandments
will live by them. The person who does them Have
you actually perfectly obeyed the commandments of God? Even
Paul, with all his knowledge, realized that he was guilty of
breaking God's law. Now, if we stop there, that would
be bad news, terrible news. Why? Because no one lives up
to the standard. Back to Romans 3.20. By the works
of the law, no human being will be justified, since through the
law comes knowledge of sin." God didn't give us the law as
a way of salvation. The law actually exposes our
sin and shows us our need for a Savior. This is the kind of
righteousness that is based on law. For Moses writes about the
righteousness that is based on the law, that the person who
does the commandments shall live by them. This idea of the righteousness
based on the law, inherent in that always, is works. Works. Doing. what the law commands
and we know the problem is no one can do it now let's move
to verses six through eight verse six but the righteousness based
on faith says so we've had the righteousness based on the law
now he contrasts with that the righteousness based on faith
two kinds of righteousness We can never achieve righteousness
by doing the commandments of the law, but that's not the end
of the story. There is another kind of righteousness,
and it is based on faith. Now I want to read all of 5 through
8. for moses writes about the righteousness is based on the
law that the person who does a commandment 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 now this in this text Paul you'll see the quotation
marks Paul is quoting or you might say he is alluding to an
Old Testament passage he doesn't quote it exactly and we've seen
this many times before But there's no question that he has in mind
that passage that we read earlier this morning from Deuteronomy
30. I'm going to read it again. Deuteronomy
30 verses 11 through 14. I'd encourage you to turn to
Deuteronomy 30 and just keep your place there along with Romans
10. I want to read again 30, 11 through
14. for this commandment that I command
you today is not too hard for you neither is it far off it
is not in heaven that you should say who will ascend to heaven
for us and bring it to us that we may hear it and do it neither
is it beyond the sea that you should say who will go over the
sea for us and bring it to us that we may hear it and do it
but the word is very near you it is in your mouth and in your
heart so that you can do it now when you compare that with Romans
where we're reading, there is no doubt that this is a passage
of scripture that Paul has in mind. It's not an exact quote. For instance, In the Deuteronomy
30 passage, it doesn't say, as Paul does, who will descend into
the abyss, but he says, who will go over the sea for us? Now some people would try to
make a connection. Well, the sea, there's depths, like the
abyss, there's depths in the sea. I don't think that's what
Paul is doing. I think all Paul is doing is
he's giving the general sense you don't have to go way out
looking for it because it is near you in your heart and in
your mouth now before we tackle that I want to read again this
may be a bit repetitious but I'm gonna read it again I'm gonna
read those first 10 verses again to get the context Deuteronomy
30 verse 1 I'll read it kinda quickly and when all these things
come upon you the blessing and the curse which I've set before
you you call them to mind among all the nations where the Lord
your God has driven you and return to the Lord your God you and
your children and obey his voice and all that I commend you today
with all your heart and with all your soul then the Lord your
God will restore your fortunes and have mercy on you and he
will gather you again from all the peoples where the Lord your
God has scattered you verse 4 if you're outcast or in the uttermost
parts of heaven from there the Lord your God will gather you
and from there he will take you And the Lord your God will bring
you into the land that your fathers possessed, that you may possess
it. And He will make you more prosperous and numerous than
your fathers." Verse 6. And the Lord your God will circumcise
your heart and the heart of your offspring, so that you will love
the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul
that you may live. And the Lord your God will put
all these curses on your foes and enemies who persecuted you,
and you shall again obey the voice of the Lord and keep all
his commandments that I command you today. The Lord your God
will make you abundantly prosperous in all the work of your hand,
in the fruit of your womb, and in the fruit of your cattle,
and in the fruit of your ground. For the Lord will again take
delight in prospering you, as he took delight in your fathers,
when you obey the voice of the Lord your God, to keep his commandments
and his statutes that are written in this book of the law, when
you turn to the Lord your God with all your heart and with
all your soul." Notice especially verse 6, and the Lord your God
will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring.
So that you will love the Lord your God with all your heart
and with all your soul that you maybe may live and then again
in verse 8 and you shall again obey the voice of the Lord and
keep all his commandments that I command you today. the connection
between six and eight. It is the work of the Lord that
will accomplish that. The only way you can do this
is because the Lord circumcises the heart. When you come to verse
11, he is still talking about God's commandment that he's been
talking about in the verses before. That's what he's still talking
about. And the emphasis in 11 through 14 comes in 14, but the
word is very near you. It is in your mouth and in your
heart. Now, just think about that. That's the emphasis. It's not
far off out there, this commandment, but it is near you. You don't
have to go up to heaven, you don't have to cross the sea to
find it. It is near you. Now, I'm gonna
read again verses 12 through 14, and I want you to watch for
the word do, okay? verse 12 it is not in heaven
that you should say who will ascend to heaven for us and bring
it to us that we may hear it and do it verse 13 neither is
it beyond the sea that you should say we will go over the sea who
will go over the sea for us and bring it to us that we may hear
it and do it but the word is very near you is in your mouth
in your in your heart so that you can do it notice the emphasis
that you may do it because the commandment is near you can hear
it and do it now come back to romans and let's look at paul's
usage of the passage i'm gonna read again verses six through
eight 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. Paul is talking about righteousness
based on faith. Now notice what he adds at the
end of verse 8. This is not in the Deuteronomy
passage. Notice what he adds in the parenthesis.
That is the word of faith that we proclaim. Paul is using Deuteronomy
30 to talk about the gospel. No, I don't think Moses had an
understanding of this when he wrote this. when he put down
the words of God but Paul is using this passage to talk about
the gospel notice he talks about the righteousness based on faith
and then he ends it that is the word of faith that we proclaim
now hang with me pay attention in verses six and seven to the
parentheses notice in verse six That is, to bring Christ down. And then verse 7, that is, to
bring Christ up from the dead. Now, this is what is interesting. Paul is inserting his own interpretation
of these words from Deuteronomy 30. Instead of the words that
we may hear it and do it, from Deuteronomy 30 to 12, he inserts
in the parenthesis in verse 6, that is, to bring Christ down. Instead of the words that we
may hear and do it, from Deuteronomy 30, 13, he substitutes, that
is, to bring Christ up from the dead. So what do we make of it? Paul eliminates the doing concept
and replaces it with the gospel. In place of hearing and doing,
he inserts the Lord Jesus Christ and if what he's doing is not
clear he explains what he means by when he says the word is near
you in your mouth and in your heart he explains it at the end
of verse eight that is the word of faith we proclaim the key
is faith it's not the doing it's the faith here's what Paul is
basically saying for Christ is the end of the law for righteousness
to everyone who believes and Paul says I can illustrate it
from your own scriptures you read in Deuteronomy 30 that the
commandment is not far from you you don't have to go looking
for it because I've given it to you so that you may hear it
and do it but you have not been able to do it to achieve righteousness
through keeping the commandment but that scripture was really
pointing to the word of faith which we proclaim you don't have
to ascend into heaven to find righteousness that is you don't
have to bring the messiah down to you and you don't have to
descend into the abyss to find righteousness that is you don't
have to bring the messiah up from the dead the word of faith
the gospel of your messiah is near you it is in your mouth
and in your heart yes that is the message of faith we proclaim In Paul's words, we can hear
the gospel clearly. When he says, that is, to bring
Christ down, he's speaking of the incarnation. Jesus, the Messiah,
the Christ, he did come down and he became a man right here
on this earth. The word was made flesh and we
beheld him. that word the the christ the
eternal son of god who was with god in the beginning and was
god he became flash on our behalf the incarnation when paul says
that is to bring christ up from the dead he's talking about the
resurrection yes jesus died but he did not remain in the great
heroes from the great and he is alive He came, He died, He
rose again that you might have His righteousness. That's the
message of faith that Paul proclaimed. Now, we talk about the commandments,
but when you go back to the Deuteronomy 30 passage, Perhaps the commandment
he had in mind above all others is in verse 6 When he talks about
loving the Lord your God with all your heart with all your
soul But even that they and we cannot do it We may know that
the greatest commandment is love the Lord your God with all your
heart soul mind and strength But can we do it perfectly? No,
no one can do it perfectly but the good news is we don't have
to do it we put our faith in the Messiah the Christ who did
it perfectly on our behalf this is the faith kind of righteousness
the works kind of righteousness we have to do what the commandment
says the faith kind of righteousness we put our faith in this Jesus
this Messiah who came and gave us life and rose from the grave
now that's a lot I understand and you may want to this week
go back through Deuteronomy 30 and Romans 10 and how they relate
Now, we're not gonna plunge into verse nine this morning. The
next two or three weeks, we're gonna be looking at verses nine
through 13, but I don't wanna rush by introducing it this morning. But I do wanna emphasize one
thing this morning. We do not have to measure up
to God's standard in the law to have God's righteousness. Jesus met that standard and as
a result we can have the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus
Christ. Now I want to be really really
clear again about how one can be declared right with God. There are two methods of justification
of being declared right with God that dominate scripture and
dominate human experience, and that is the way of righteousness
through the law, through keeping the law, and the way of righteousness
through faith. I think we can think of it like
this. Paul envisions two preachers. One is preaching the law kind
of righteousness, in verse 5. and the other is preaching the
faith kind of righteousness in verses six through eight. And
I think our tendency is to think kind of like this, well, Pastor
Ron, I know this. We've been over this and over
this again and again. We can't be put right by obeying
the law, but because Jesus rendered perfect obedience, we put our
faith in him and that's why we're justified. Now, I'm not knocking
that. Because that is absolutely, absolutely
true. By the way, this is the last
time that Paul will go over this in the book of Romans. But for
ten chapters, either directly or indirectly, he has been talking
about this justification by faith. But I want us to think practically
about this truth. We know it in our heads. How
does it play out in our life? in our lives and the lives of
people around us. What we must understand from
these verses five through eight is that there is nothing we have
to do to be declared right with God. We don't have to go way
up to get it. We don't have to go way down
to find it. But the word is near to us, the
word of faith that has been proclaimed. Now, I should mention, back up
in verse 6, when he says, but the righteousness based on faith
says, do not say in your heart. Paul had in mind, Deuteronomy
9, 4, you can look it up later, do not say in your heart after
the lord your god has thrust them out before you talking about
the people the promised land it is because of my righteousness
that the lord has brought me into possess this land whereas
it is because of the wickedness of these nations that the lord
is driving them out before you the israelites had a tendency
to think that god was blessing them because they were so righteous
And the Lord makes it clear in Deuteronomy 9, it was not because
of their righteousness. We still have the tendency today
to think that the reason I'm being blessed so much is because
I'm obeying God so well. Don't ever think that. We're
blessed because God chooses to bless us. Sometimes I've run
across this seeking mentality that goes something like this.
As we are seeking, We must realize that the greatest joy and satisfaction
is in the journey. Don't focus so much on the pot
of gold at the end of the rainbow, glory in this case. Yes, the
joy is in the seeking. And out of that, some people
get the idea, if I just seek the Lord enough, if I study the
scriptures, if I pray, if I listen to sermons, not just at La Luz,
but everywhere I can, if I do all that, the Lord is going to
accept me. Never. There's a danger in thinking
that. I like the way Martin Lloyd-Jones
puts this. He says about the Jews, about
Israel, they rejected the gospel because they thought they could
justify themselves by keeping the law and attain righteousness
in that way, and they were wrong altogether. They had misunderstood
the purpose and function of the law. They had never realized
what it demanded. They had substituted their own
standards and their own interpretations, which, as we have seen, were
altogether wrong. But the tragedy is that they
preferred to try that and fail rather than to accept this offer
which told them that all had been done in the Lord Jesus Christ
and they could have righteousness as a free gift. Their pride was
such that they preferred to rely on their own efforts and fail,
rather than admit that they were paupers and receive salvation
as the free gift of God's grace. That was the trouble with the
Jews. Too often, a man or woman's pride can get in the way of receiving
God's righteousness as a free gift. God doesn't call us to
be heroes, to figure out all the complexities that face us,
even answering all the questions in the scripture. But this faith-based
righteousness is simply coming to the gospel. Repent and believe
the gospel. Now, someone is probably going
to say, well, Ron, you're talking about all we have to do is believe. We don't have to do anything.
That is exactly what I'm saying. Someone will say, well, people
get the idea that you just say a prayer and believe and it's
all over. I'm very aware that that's not true. We know what
the scripture says in Ephesians 2, 8 and 9. After it says that
we're saved by grace through faith, then it says, but God
works in us to do the good works that he's laid out for us to
do. I know that. We emphasize that a lot, but
this morning I'm emphasizing We don't have to do anything
to be declared righteous with God. And in our daily lives,
we are not doing good works so that God will be better toward
us, so he will bless us more. The good works that do, they
flow out of the life because we have received the righteousness
of Christ within and he's given us his Holy Spirit. The good
news of the faith kind of righteousness is that Jesus did it. Let's rejoice in that this morning. Jesus did what we could never
do, and then he laid down his life on the cross that we might
have his righteousness. Let's pray. Father, thank you
this morning for this righteousness that is based on faith. We could have never dreamed this
up. Our default tendency has always
been to do in order to please you, God. Thank you that you have made the way through
your son, Jesus Christ, that he did it all. He paid it all,
and we don't have to do anything. May we rejoice in this faith-based righteousness
that you've given. Now I'll give you a little time
to think and meditate this morning. Father, we simply thank you for
the good news in Jesus Christ. We rejoice in you. Thank you
that you're a loving Father. In Jesus' name, amen.
Two Ways of Righteousness
Series Romans
| Sermon ID | 97251555546151 |
| Duration | 37:56 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday - AM |
| Bible Text | Romans 10:5-8 |
| Language | English |
Documents
Add a Comment
Comments
No Comments
© Copyright
2026 SermonAudio.