Pursuit of Righteousness – Pt 4

to Romans chapter nine. Once again we’ll take that very
rapid flyover over the territory that we’ve already covered just
in order to set the context of what direction we’re heading.
We find ourselves at the end of Romans chapter nine essentially
transitioning to a new element of Paul’s discussion on the sovereignty
of God. Here he begins to take up the
pursuit of righteousness and he points out the fact that the
Jews, the nation of Israel, did not pursue that righteousness
by proper means and the Gentiles surprisingly did. That’s what
he essentially dwells on in verse 30 through verse 33. And then
Paul begins to zero in on that very argument that no wonder
he is passionate for the nation of Israel they are in legitimate
peril real peril they stand to face hell and judgment itself
and yet Paul prays for them which says that they are not hopeless
and Paul in four different ways tells them why he is so passionate
in his prayer for the nation of Israel if you would pick it
up. with me in verse one of chapter 10 and we’ll go all the way through
verse 13 which will be the least the intended target this morning. All right. Brethren my heart’s
desire and my prayer to God for them is for their salvation.
For I dare to witness that they have a zeal for God but not in
accordance with knowledge. For not knowing about God’s righteousness
and seeking to establish their own, they did not subject themselves
to the righteousness of God. For Christ is the end of the
law for righteousness to everyone who believes. For Moses writes
that the man who practices the righteousness, which is based
on law, shall live by that righteousness. But the righteousness based on
faith speaks thus. 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 which we are preaching that if you confess with your
mouth Jesus as Lord and believe in your heart that God raised
him from the dead. You shall be saved for with the
heart man believes resulting in righteousness and with the
mouth he confesses resulting in salvation for the scripture
says whoever believes in him will not be disappointed for
there is no distinction between Jew and Greek for the same Lord
is Lord over all abounding in the riches for all who call upon
him. For whoever will call upon the
name of the Lord he will be saved. We spent several weeks really
looking at these preceding verses where Paul points out his appeal. He had already told people that
he was passionate about the nation of Israel that his heart was
broken to the point of wishing if he could to change places
with them the place of judgment to the place of blessing and
Paul says that he is in passionate prayer for them and he essentially
points to four reasons for that. Number one, they had an uneducated
passion. They had zeal, but it was really
an unguided zeal. They had an insubordinate effort.
They were doing what they wanted to do. They were doing it their
way. Paul says they lack knowledge. They lack knowledge of God’s
way. They didn’t know about God’s righteousness. They didn’t want
to know that way, and they sought to establish their own, says
verse 3. It was an obsolete approach,
Paul goes on to say. The third reason for his prayer,
why not pursue the law’s righteousness? Paul said that whole approach
of pursuing righteousness based on the law, living perfectly
according to the law, was an obsolete approach. Christ had
come. Christ had fulfilled that role,
and all we must do for salvation now is to place our faith in
Christ, and all of our sin goes on to Christ, and all of his
righteousness is bestowed upon us. Also, there’s a fourth reason,
and this is where we find ourselves. Why pray for this nation that
was so wayward, so blind, so dull, So set on their own approach
to the pursuit of righteousness, why pray for them? Not only because
of their uneducated passion, their insubordinate effort, their
obsolete approach, but their historic failure. It did not
work. Their approach didn’t work. Their
approach was foolishness, and to continue to pursue that course
would be more foolishness. Paul points it out when he says
in verse five Moses writes that the man who practices the righteousness
which is based on law shall live by that righteousness. It must
be a perfect life. And it must be perfect every
day all day for the rest of your life. Paul would say elsewhere that
if you transgress in one part of the law you’ve transgressed
the entirety of the law. Many points back. On the face
of it it was obtuse we didn’t know what to make of it but the
righteousness based on faith speaks thus the approach to God
by faith the fact that we receive Christ’s righteousness by faith
is already forecasted in the writings of Moses. The righteousness
based on faith speaks thus, quoting from Deuteronomy 30, do not say
in your heart who will ascend into heaven. Don’t think in your
minds that you’ve got to go up to heaven and secure a savior.
Don’t think that you’ve got to go latch on to him and seize
hold of a savior. Inform God that we’re lacking
because God’s already done it. Or who will descend into the
abyss. That is to bring Christ up from
the dead. Don’t think that you’ve got to go awaken the Savior who’s
been put to death on the cross. Don’t think that way. What Moses
was already pointing to is that righteousness was by faith. That salvation would be by faith. And it is salvation that is the
focus of this great passage. And as we began to consider last
week We have this tendency to almost think of salvation, even
in an academic setting. Instead of drawing back and closing
our mouths and bowing in worship, we treat this whole subject as
if it’s some kind of academic pursuit. That little word at the end of
verse nine should give every person who’s ever been born pause,
lengthy, humble, Wordless pause. Saved. You shall be saved. And the fact that we gloss over
that and read over that betrays the sentiments about our own
condition. Do we really believe that in
our natural state We are utterly lost, that we have utterly offended
God, that the sin of Adam and Eve resides on us and in us,
and the penalty as well. I think so often we carry ourselves
as if we don’t believe that. We carry ourselves as if we deserve
this salvation, as if it’s not that big a deal. These are some of the most profound
words in all of scripture. that you should be saved. And
that should draw in every person who’s ever been born. Every person
should want to know what is this salvation? What is the means
of this salvation? How do I come to know and own
and enjoy this salvation? Paul will tell us we don’t have
to go to heaven to look for a savior. We don’t have to go into the
realm of the dead To revive Christ God has already done it all. That’s where we picked up in
verse 8. What does it say. Paul quoting again from Deuteronomy
says the word is near you in your mouth and in your heart.
In other words it is a word that could be proclaimed and testified
and that all there was to do was to take it in faith. Moses
perhaps didn’t know the depth of what he was alluding to, but
he’s alluding here to righteousness by faith, justification by faith,
that all anyone had to do is place their faith in God for
salvation. You shall be saved. And with that, we begin to ponder
that With that salvation every blessing that God could ever
pour out. We talked about it several weeks ago. The nature
of mercy is that God takes us from the lowest of low and puts
us in the highest of high heaven with God with Christ forever
in complete purity in absence of any tears or any difficulties. It includes every blessing. that
God could ever bestow, a state of happiness that we can’t even
begin to describe. But the most happy of all is,
as one pastor said, we are no longer the objects of God’s displeasure. We no longer stand to face judgment. As a result of reconciliation,
we have a conscious peace with God. God is at peace with us
in his wrath. is removed. That’s the blessing
that we have peace. We are saved from the wrath of
God. We are saved from his judgment.
And every person that’s ever been born must should have a
longing in their heart. How then can I lay hold of this
salvation? How then can I be saved? And
Paul tells us, look, if you would, at verse eight, What does it
say? The word is near you in your
mouth and in your heart. That is the word of faith which
we are preaching. Paul says this is the same gospel. This is the same news. Moses
was merely alluding to it, but we’re telling you in full. This
is the gospel justification by faith that no longer do you have
to try to earn your way into heaven. But now a sinner is justified. By his faith in the Lord Jesus
Christ, Paul says, that’s the gospel. Sola Fide, what the Reformation
rediscovered, faith alone. In this day and age, and really
in every day and age, including Moses’ day, including Paul’s
day, including Christ’s day, Sola Fide, justification by faith
alone. was not welcomed as a doctrine
was not embraced as a doctrine. It was ignored and just like
in our own day and age it was ultimately denied and pushed
to the side that we must work. We’re not happy with the gospel
as God designed it. We want our own approach just
like Israel. We want to come to God on our
terms. But the Reformation rediscovered
the great testimony not only of Paul the great testimony of
Moses. But the just shall live by faith
justification before God is by faith alone and in Christ alone
and Paul says that’s the word of faith that we’re preaching.
That’s the gospel. We looked at a variety of those
explanations and I’m not going to double back. What I do want
to do is take you to verse 9 where Paul says he’s going to tell
us what is this word of faith. He’s going to zero in and tell
you explicitly what it is. That is the word of faith which
we are preaching. What is it that if you confess
with your mouth Jesus as Lord. Now let’s not. Let’s not play
games. There have been those, there
were even those commentators that I read that a mere expression
of these words is what saves. But we know that not to be true.
And I’ll go on to point that out in numerous, a number of
different ways as we go on. If a reporter came to you and
you happened to hand them a a passage of scripture and said would you
read these words to me really reading these words does not
make one a Christian. If the reporter began to interview
and said to you what do you mean when you say Jesus is Lord that
doesn’t make the reporter a Christian. And if a person whose conscience
is a little bit pierced who hears these words and merely utters
them coldly and callously. That doesn’t make them a Christian.
What Paul ultimately points to here is the very content of this
word of faith. The content is the gospel. The
content of what the apostles were preaching was this message
of faith in Christ. And we’ll consider it more deeply
in a moment. This idea of confessing. What does it mean. Does it really
mean to read the words on a page. Many throughout the centuries
have believed that that it was almost formulaic that all you
had to do is utter these words and magically you would be saved.
Let’s pause though because he almost reverses the order. He
reverses the order from what we would expect because he says
if you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe. And
some have separated those to the point of almost absurdity.
As if either you confess Jesus and then maybe at a later date
you come to believe it. That’s not what Paul was saying
at all. Paul is talking about a verbal confession, an intense,
a passionate articulation of Christ. As one said, it was a test of
intelligence and the reality of faith of which it is the fruit.
In other words, confession would grow out of faith. Faith would
well up in the soul and ultimately it would issue forth in a confession
that could not be contained. That’s the kind of confession
that he’s talking about. Jesus said it this way in Matthew
chapter 10 whoever confesses me before men I will confess
him before the father. It is an agreement with God that
Jesus is Lord. It is a confession of Christ
as being God himself as being the very Lord as being everything
that God designed him and described him to be. It was a solemn act. And oftentimes it was tied. This
confession was tied to the moment of baptism where believers would
come new young believers would come and their very active baptism
was a public active confession. But during which in the waters
of baptism a lot of times they would they would articulate they
would be asked to give their testimony. They would be asked
questions and ultimately they would be given the privilege
to proclaim Christ. as being God, to proclaim Christ
as being their Savior. And that’s why he points here
explicitly to confession by the mouth. It’s not just a written
confession. There’s nothing wrong with written
testimonies. There’s nothing wrong with writing
a friend a letter and proclaiming Christ in that regard. But to
stand before other believers, to stand before the church and
to say, I believe, I believe I confess Christ with my mouth. I articulate as best I’m able
that the Lord Jesus Christ is my Savior. The reason that he
says this confession as opposed to, or prior to the faith that
he’ll talk about momentarily, it doesn’t mean that you’ve got
one is over against another. Confession and faith go hand
in hand. Confession is the outgrowth,
as I said a moment ago, of faith. So many times you hear people in this day and
age talk about being a man of faith. Or, you know, the faith
community. And that whole thing has come
to be so broad and so vague that all you have to do is believe
in some kind of higher being higher power. And it embraces
anybody who is even remotely religious. Anybody who believes
in some kind of a deity no matter how undefined it is and that
we are all in that same pool. Boy I’ll tell you what I don’t
want anything to do with it. I’m not part of a community of
faith. I’m part of the community of the Lord Jesus Christ. and
him alone. I don’t want to be a man of faith.
I want to be a man of the Lord Jesus Christ. I want to be a
man of faith in the Lord Jesus and the content that Paul is
alluding here is crucial. It’s not just that we confess
our faith but that we confess our faith in the Lord Jesus. One pastor said it this way.
Christian faith has content. Whatever else the content of
Christian faith may be, it is objective truth. It is about
Jesus Christ, a person who belongs to history. And that’s what Paul
points to here, that he confesses Jesus as Lord does the believer. What is it? What does it mean
to confess Jesus as Lord? It’s never right undertaking
that Paul points to here. It points explicitly to the deity
of Christ. Approximately six thousand times
in the Old Testament. When the writers of the translators
of the Septuagint those who translated the Hebrew Old Testament into
Greek to accommodate the Greek-speaking world in which they found themselves.
It used this little device 6,000 times to point to the deity. The device was just four letters,
Y-H-W-H. Now, depending on the vowels
that you supply, you come up with either Jehovah or Yahweh. And the reason that the translators
use this device is that it become almost superstitious to even
name the name of God. And so, of even naming the name
of God, they would just put these inscriptions, these letters. But the name, the name which
any self-respecting Jew wouldn’t even name, the name pointed to
the deity, the name pointed to Almighty God, the name pointed
to the Lord. And when the writers, when the
translators rather of the Septuagint came up with this device, Paul
essentially uses the same device here and he points to the Lord
Jesus with it. He’s referring to the deity of
Christ. Whoever looks at Christ and says, behold, he is the Lord,
he is God. It does matter what you believe.
It does matter the content of the gospel that is preached.
It does matter what you lay hold of. Because whoever confesses Jesus
as Lord that that’s no accident. That’s not just merely somebody
talking you into a orthodox doctrine of Christianity. That’s God ultimately
opening your eyes to the reality of the Savior who came. He’s
God. He’s God in the flesh. He’s God
incarnate. He is God the Savior. He is Jehovah. He is Yahweh. And for Paul, Paul
could not have made this mistake. Paul refers to him as the Lord.
He is the Lord God Almighty. One pastor said this refers to
the Lordship which Jesus exercised in virtue of his exaltation. This Lordship presupposes the
incarnation death and resurrection of Christ and consists of him
being endowed with universal dominion. This was no accident
for Paul to say that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord
if you don’t believe that Jesus is God that is no confession
of. As I said, 6,000 times that device
has been used. Philippians 2.9 Paul describes the Lord there
as the name above all names. Repeatedly, this word was used
to appeal to the Lord in prayer that Jesus Christ had come. He
had taken on human flesh but he was deity in bodily form. Colossians 2 9 all the fullness
of the deity dwells in him in bodily form. Yet Jesus took on
this human flesh the word in John 14 became flesh and dwelt
among us and we beheld his glory glory as the only begotten from
the father full of grace and truth. But just as it was prophesied,
Jesus took on human flesh. And just as it was prophesied,
Jesus was born of a virgin. And he became fully God and fully
man. This very being who had helped
to form the world on which he would come. He took on human
flesh and he came and he dwelt in our midst. This is what bothered
the Jews so much, wasn’t it? This is what bothered them, was
that he made himself out to be God. Matthew 28, 18, Jesus came and
said to them, all authority has been given to me in heaven and
on earth. Either that is the most ridiculous
ghost in heaven, or Jesus Christ is the Lord Jesus God himself. And he is. At the opening of
Paul’s epistle to the Romans, as we’ve already seen, Jesus
was declared the Son of God, repowered by resurrection from
the dead. All of this had meaning. Paul
was essentially declaring right there at the opening pages of
his epistle to the Romans that Jesus Christ was God, pointing to the same truth of
the resurrection which will take up momentarily. Paul said to
the Ephesians that God’s power was exercised when he brought
about in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated
him as his right hand in the heavenly places. far above all
rule and authority and power and dominion, in every name that
is named, not only in this age, but also in the one to come.
And he put all things in subjection under his feet, and he gave him
his head over all things to the church, which is his body. The fullness of him who fills
all in all Jesus Christ is God. Jesus Christ is the Lord. And
if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, you shall
be saved. If God imparts that truth to
you, that he himself had come and taken on human flesh and
ultimately paid for our sins, it opens our eyes to the truth
that God has already stepped in as our great Redeemer. He
has already, more than planned it, He has brought it to fruition.
He has finished the work of redemption. It’s Christ. Then said it this way, Jesus
is Lord. This is the confession, which
as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 12, 3, no one can make except
the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the one that
imparts that news to you, imparts that understanding. Only those
who have been taught of the Holy Spirit can fully express that
thought. The confession Jesus Christ is
Lord is man’s acknowledgement of the supreme honor to which
God has exalted him. You see, anybody can say the
words. reporter people in the pew. Anybody can say the words.
But what Paul is saying is to really come to an understanding
of the depth of the meaning of those words that the Lord Jesus
Christ is God himself God incarnate who took on human flesh paid
the penalty on the cross was raised from the dead. You can’t
come to an understanding not in human terms. You can’t come
to embrace that in human terms, and you won’t. That is a work
of God’s grace. It is a work, as Paul said, of
the Holy Spirit in the life of a believer. One said it this way, confession
of Christ as Lord with the mouth, if sincere, will infallibly be
accompanied by other required forms of confession. And so this
specific form of confession stands here as an appropriate representative
of the of the outward practical confession of Christ in general. What does he mean he points to
the fact that our life from that point forward says Jesus is Lord. It doesn’t mean it’s going to
be perfect doesn’t mean that you’re going to but it does mean
that constantly from that point forward you have a new master. It’s the Lord Jesus Christ. You
have a new Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. But Paul says that there’s another
element that goes with this. It’s not different. It’s not
a different way of salvation. They’re not in competition. It’s
another element of the same thing, and the two must be hand in hand.
Look at verse nine. If you confess with your mouth,
pardon me, Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God
raised him from the dead. You say, well, why is this so
important? You know, every Easter we come back around to these
passages and we talk about the resurrection. Okay, pastor, I
get it, but why is this so crucial? Why is it so important? You know,
it isn’t just pastors. It’s not me that puts the emphasis
on the resurrection, certainly not just at Easter. It’s It’s
God that puts the emphasis on the resurrection and God says
it’s important what you believe. It’s important what you confess.
It’s important what you believe in your heart. This belief talks
about it’s the tense here talks about the initial act. You believe
then and it carries forth in faith. You believe that God raised
him from the dead. You come to that understanding.
You come to that ascent. And from that point forward,
your life is changed because you do believe that he’s not
just a crucified Savior. He’s a risen Savior. Right? When commensators said, we are
not to regard confession and faith as having the same efficacy
as unto salvation. We must not tone down the importance
of confession. Confession without faith would
be vain. Likewise, faith without confession
would be shown to be spurious. Worthless. Confession with the
mouth is the evidence of genuine faith. Did you get that? That’s
the whole point of this couplet. That confession and faith go
hand in hand. You can’t have one genuinely. without the other. You can’t
make a verbal confession of Christ without believing it in the heart,
and you can’t believe it in the heart without it leaking out,
bursting forward on the tongue. You have to have faith. Faith
has to reside in the heart. Without that, confession is empty. But if there is faith, there
will be confession. Paul says that you have to believe
it in your heart. I remember one of my seminary professors
referred to the heart as, you can tell when it grew up too,
the mission control center, right? I’ve referred to it in times
past as the mother board, a little more contemporary. It’s the very
core and seat of everything that we are. And Paul says that at the very
core of our being, at the very seat of all religious considerations, the deep inner part of mankind, where all of our thoughts orient,
where all of our affections reside. Deep down there, Paul says, you
must believe. And that’s where God works faith. God works into the very core
of our being, the hub of the wheel of human existence, as
one referred to it. I love that. It’s where everything
spins. Everything spins off of that
hub. And Paul says that’s where faith starts. And the faith is
the faith with content. It has There’s really means something
we really believe something that is faith in faith, not just an
undefined faith and a higher being, but a content filled faith. As one said, the reference to
the heart points to the inwardness of the faith. Paul is not talking
about a superficial confession accompanied by no more than a
token faith. Oh, yeah, I don’t. And we confess
and on we go. That’s not what he’s talking
about. He is referring to a faith that takes hold of the whole
of the inner man, a faith that has content. Paul is not advocating
a belief system in which all that it matters is to believe. To Paul, it matters that we believe,
but it also matters what we believe. And Paul says at the very core
of our being, It wells up within us that Jesus Christ is Lord,
and we believe it in our heart, and ultimately it issues forth
in confession. It can’t help it. It can’t help
not. It is important to believe in
the resurrection. The resurrection is a crucial
doctrine. It is God’s final proof, the
full and final proof. that God had accepted the work
of Christ on the cross, that what Jesus did was good and right
and acceptable. Otherwise, he was just a sinner
dying on the cross like the rest of us, but when God raised him
from the dead, that was God’s stamp of approval, that this
one sacrifice is good and good for all. and good for all time,
it needs to never be repeated. For Paul, this belief that God
had raised Jesus from the dead, this was decisive. This was the
proof. This was God’s attestation that
what Jesus Christ had done was accepted by God himself. It was
a seal. There was finality to it. One said it this way, a hearty
belief of the resurrection of Christ is suitably put for all
that it implies. His atoning death, his divine
friendship, in all the truth of his teachings, his works,
his claims, his resurrection. His resurrection is the divine
seal, an attestation of all of these things. You see, if you believe in the
resurrection, you have to believe in the death. If you believe
in the death, you have to believe in his life that was lived on
earth. If you believe in his life, you
have to believe that he came to earth. And he came in such incredible
fashion in the virgin birth. It’s a faith in all of those
things. The resurrection is absolutely
crucial. A faith in the resurrection is an affirmation of what God’s
plan of redemption has styled the salvation to be. God planned
it. And for us to ignore or to make
light of the resurrection is foolishness. This miraculous resurrection
presumes all of those things. The horrible death that Jesus
underwent. The glorious life that Jesus
lived on the earth. Philippians 2.5.8 says it this
way, have this attitude in yourselves, which was also in Christ Jesus,
who, although he existed in the form of God, did not regard equality
with God a thing to be grasped, but he emptied himself, taking
the form of a bondservant and being made in the likeness of
men. Being found in appearance as a man he humbled himself by
becoming obedient to the point of death even death on a cross.
That’s where it all started. That’s the content. The content
is that Jesus is Lord and the content is that God raised him
from the dead. And Paul says I mean it couldn’t
be any simpler could it. What are we out doing? What are
we about? What are we preaching? What is
the word of faith that we, the apostles, are preaching? That
if you confess with your mouth, Jesus as Lord, and believe in
your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved. We’ll take it up there next Lord’s
Day. the merciful God. We were careful
to begin this consideration, focusing upon those four words. You shall be saved. Lord, we
are focused upon salvation. We thank you and praise you that
your word has focused us upon that great subject. The subject
that every person ever born into the world desperately needs.
They need to know about salvation. They need to be saved. For unless
they’re in Christ, they stand in judgment. Even the judgment
we read about from Revelation. Lord God, we thank you and praise
you that you have brought so many to faith. That you are the
one that has schooled us. You are the one that has seized
hold of us. You are the one that has shown
to us and brought us to faith that Jesus Christ is Lord. He
is God himself, God incarnate. That he was crucified, dead and
was buried and you raised him. Lord, that is our hope. And Lord,
if we can say that with our hearts, and ultimately with our mouth,
we know that you are at work in our lives. Oh God, we rejoice
in that. We rejoice in the salvation that
we’ve come to know purely because of what you have done. Lord,
we thank you and we pray that if there are any in our midst
who do not know the Lord Jesus Christ, may they be drawn to
faith and to a confession by their mouth, that Jesus Christ
is Lord, to the glory of God. It’s in Jesus name that we pray. Amen.