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.