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June 29, 2022 6:00 am
Paul is made his case to God's righteousness is a gift not something you earn something you get it something you receive. But they're ignorant of that. They don't get they don't understand that righteousness is something like standing is something get this done for you, not why you don't get that possible begin preaching the gospel to everyone, but there was still a special place in his heart for his people choose today on connect with Skip Skip shares about the gift of righteousness that you and anyone can receive today. Did you know that Skip has important updates and biblical encouragement on social media. Just follow Facebook, Instagram, to get the latest from him in this ministry that's asking at Skip HITZIG Romans chapter 10 as we dive into today's teaching with Skip right. We believe that after Paul's third missionary journey in which the Bible tells us he spent three months in Greece that's in acts chapter 20 that from Greece. Somewhere in the late winter to early spring of A.D. 57 or A.D. 58.
That is, when, and from where Paul wrote the book of Romans. During those three months while he was in Greece he would leave Greece after collecting money from Macedonian churches to help the church in Jerusalem. He had taken up and offering for those believers in Jerusalem to help them, and no doubt while he was writing the book of Romans, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit he was thinking about Jerusalem. He was thinking about his people. He was thinking about what he was going to say to them, and what he was going to do in Jerusalem and probably out of that prayerful cogitation before the Lord in the spirit he wrote chapter 9, 10 and 11 of the book of Romans.
A great section of Scripture I told you before Romans is divided up into four parts, and this is the third part where he talks about the plan of God for Gentiles and Jews, but he has the Jewish nation in mind and if you recall, if you don't, you can look at it the very first verse in chapter 9 where he says, I tell the truth in Christ. I am not lying, my conscience also bearing me witness in the spirit that I have a great sorrow and continual grief in my heart and he says who it's for his kinsmen according to the flesh, that's the Jewish people. He begins chapter 10 with a similar kind of a sentiment where he says brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they may be saved. I am not Jewish. In fact, I am by birth the polar opposite. I am a German Gentile born and raised in America, but I did spend time in Israel I been there 41 times in the first couple of times I lived there on a kibbutz and I remember the feeling my first visit on a Passover evening when I was looking out from the kibbutz toward the Mediterranean Sea. Looking over that beautiful farmland of northern Israel up by the border with Lebanon and and that the contacts the people I had met on that kibbutz. The love I already had for them. Considering the blindness that I came up against.
When I try to share Yeshua, Jesus with them and I had a very similar kind of a sentiment that Paul had. Even though I certainly can't relate to it like Paul could or like a Jewish person can, but as close as a German born background Gentile American can feel. I felt the weight of this verse might my heart's cry. My deep anguish and prayer is that Israel might be saved. And he says for I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God. They have great instant enthusiasm, but it's not according to knowledge. It's not a zeal that is according to knowledge, zeal, characterized Paul the apostle when he was Saul of Tarsus. He was a very zealous Jewish man. He was so zealous he thought I was going to go find those people who call on the name of Jesus in synagogues up in Damascus I was going to arrest them and kill them. He was so zealous that when they stoned Stephen in Jerusalem.
Paul was Chickasaw was cheering them on.
Kill them kill him so zealous he was and when he writes his own testimony to the church at Philippi in Philippians chapter 3 he gives his background, his pedigree, he says I was circumcised on the eighth day of the stock of Israel of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews concerning zeal, I persecuted the church you want to talk about enthusiasm. Paul said you want to talk about zeal.
I was so enthusiastically zealous for Judaism that anybody who defected and called upon Jesus as the Messiah. I persecuted, I went after they were on my blacklist.
He had a zeal for God. So Paul says I can relate. I can relate because I was one of them zeal for God and enthusiasm for God, but was, not according to knowledge, that is, it wasn't based on a correct understanding of the Scriptures, the Old Testament, the Torah, the tongue off.
They read it. They read it. Paul said that they don't get it. They don't understand it, they don't understand the predictions it's making and the fulfillment in Christ you know zeal is good, but zeal is dangerous if it's not channeled by knowledge. If you're just enthusiasm. Only love people with passion. I don't I don't want somebody who's passionate for some dumb idea some stupid idea. Some errant idea. It has to be based on truth. Jesus said you are ignorant.
He said that to the religious Pharisees USAir not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God, you have a zeal, but it's not according to knowledge. So I bear them witness, they have a zeal for God, but it is not according to knowledge. I was reading about an incident that took place not long ago in Israel there is a town in northern Israel. If you been on our tours are. You have either been through it or you seen it that close to the Lebanese border called Kitty Ashmore now and it has received a selling bombing from Hezbollah over the years and if that isn't enough, there were some very orthodox, enthusiastic, zealous Orthodox Jews who broke in and beat up Jewish people in that town because they had given their lives to Yeshua as the Messiah. They believe in Jesus as the Messiah. So it's already hard town to live in, but then they went into the house of a Jewish believer in Jesus stole their stuff ruined their house vandalize her house and rough them up zeal for God, not according to knowledge, very, very dangerous. Verse three for they being ignorant of God's righteousness. Now Paul is made his case the God's righteousness is a gift.
It's not something you earn it something you get it something you receive. But there ignorant of that they don't get they don't understand that righteousness is something you receive a right standing is something you get.
It's done for you, not by you. They don't get that.
So he says they being ignorant of God's righteousness and seeking to establish their own righteousness.
So whenever you have a righteousness that you are producing by yourself. You're earning if you're working at it.
You're being religious. You're going here you're going there you're doing all the things right and thus you think it is owed you.
You are producing it by yourself. It is by definition self-righteousness. You are a self-righteous individual so it being ignorant of God's righteousness, and seeking to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted to the righteousness of God.
For Christ is the end of the law.
Please mark that please understand that verse. Jesus Christ is the end the termination of the fulfillment of the law to everyone who be leaves. Here is the difficulty that the Jewish person faced and faces. They have a whole system of works. The whole religious system. Like any religion has even people in the so-called Christian religions can have a system of works in Judaism.
They had sacrifices they brought an animal animal was sacrificed on an altar. The blood was shed, they would go to their ritualistic prayers. The pious Jew prayed three times a day. They would tie they would fast and they would brag about it or at least they would acknowledge that they have done something whereby they have earned a right standing before God. This is why they didn't like Jesus. So much because he would walk up to like a prostitute and say, your sins are forgiven and they thought she can't say that only God can say that or the man who was paralyzed and his friends let him down to that roof and he said man, be of good cheer, your sins are forgiven. That didn't make sense to you. You can't just confer right standing on somebody impulses.
Oh yes you can. Christ is the end of the fulfillment of the law for everyone who believes he's been up he's gonna flush that out in the book of Galatians chapter 3 of Galatians were he will say, though, the law of Moses was a tutor schoolmaster very different from the educational system of today, but it is the school my scanner leads you to Christ point you to Christ. But once you come to Christ.
You don't need the tutor any longer.
You don't need the schoolmaster any longer, the schoolmaster, the tutor, the law has fulfilled its purpose.
It's done. It's over. So you're not right before God by keeping a code, a system or a bunch of laws.
Christ is the end of the law.
But this didn't set well with the Jewish people, especially the Jewish leadership. They even had a saying among the Jews in the saying was if there are only two people who go to heaven out of anyone who's ever lived on the only two people go to heaven.
One will be a scribe and the other will be a Pharisee. I was there saying if only two people or save one will be a scribe.
The other will be a Pharisee.
Jesus comes along and says to the crowd unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and the Pharisees, you will by any means get into heaven and they went what what they couldn't figure that one out. That's because they're used to earning it.
Jesus came to produce it provided and give them a right standing with him.
Christ is the end of the law to everyone who believes.
Know what I didn't tell you is in Philippians chapter 3 when Paul does give his testimony with the Hebrews concerning zeal, persecuting the church concerning righteousness which comes by the law perfect and we go through all that he used to be, but he said but all those things. I count but down the dung a pile of poop in in the NSV. The new Skip version that I might find Christ and be found in him, not having my own righteousness which is from the law, but the righteousness which comes through faith in Jesus Christ. Very powerful words from this X rabbi convert to Christ for verse five Moses writes about the righteousness which is of the law of the man who does those things shall live by them.
That's Leviticus chapter 18 Paul is quoting Leviticus 18.
Basically the taxes saying that if you want to live you have to do all the things that the law prescribes you do all the things a law prescribes you live promise you can do the things the law prescribes we we made that point time and time again. Jesus made that point there was a lawyer in the gospel of Luke, who came to Jesus one time and said good mass what what must I do to inherit eternal life and Jesus said what you you read the Scriptures.
What is your take on the guys what you need to love the Lord your God with all your mind all your soul all your strength and love your neighbor as yourself. Jesus said you that's right, you read it rightly. Do that and you will live Jesus do those things and you will live. Promise.
No one ever had been able to do those things because right after that the man said them after he said love the Lord your God with all your mind. Hartsell strength and love your neighbor as yourself.
Jesus do that live then the man said and who is my neighbor. That's when Jesus gave the parable of the good Samaritan to show the man who thought I am earning my way that he really wasn't keeping the law anyway is a go and do likewise. Go find people like that Samaritan who is non-Jewish and have compassion on him, go out of your way to show the kind of love you're not doing that. So Moses writes about the righteousness which is of the law, the man who does those things shall live by them.
But the righteousness of faith speaks in this way, do not say in your heart who will ascend into heaven, that is, to bring Christ down from above or cool the sand into the best that is, to bring Christ up from the dead. But what is it say I was in the quote Deuteronomy 30 another saying of Moses.
What is it say the word is near you, even in your mouth and in your heart that is the word of faith which we preach, he is showing that even Moses taught salvation by faith. The word is near you, even in your mouth and in your heart a good question to ask is how close are you to righteousness. What is a person have to do does a person have to make a pilgrimage ascend somewhere or descend somewhere. You have to get on your knees and crawl up some crazy stairs in Rome until your knees are bloodied or you have to make a pilgrimage to a hill out by Santa Fe and get holy dirt because then you'll be closer to God's gift to make some kind of a long trip and save up your money and and and do some kind of a ritual in order to be right with the Lord. I remember the first time I went to Israel and the answer of course is no you don't.
First time I ever went Israel lived on that kibbutz and I went to Jerusalem while I was living there and I remember hearing stories of people say man when I was in Israel when I was in the garden of Gethsemane. The Lord was never more real to me was like you knows like I could touch him and it was like I got lift and that all these. I'd heard the stories, so remember going there having high expectations of all and that never really happened to me that I remember sitting in the garden of Gethsemane and going skates can happen any moment here it comes. That feeling that whole lots can happen and I was sorely disappointed that man. I saved up a lot of money to get that feeling I could just like Botta got the book and looked at the pictures but then I remember flying back home and being in my little salami apartment in Santa Ana, California with a high crime rate where I lived and one night with my Bible open feeling the presence of God in a very powerful palpable way after that. After I got home from Israel and and I just felt so lazy and then I thought I could just save a whole boatload of money if I do, just on that earlier. I'm not saying don't go to his rhymes and don't go to Israel for that reason is like if you think you know you can abide points with God or your your your gonna somehow get some kind of you, and you might get some better crazy experience but will see the word is near you, even if it's in your mouth. It's in your heart that is the word of faith which we preach that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes to righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made to salvation. Notice the key elements for salvation.
You believe you believe in your heart and it's not speaking of the cardiac muscle, but it's just in the core of your being. It has to be a real authentic belief not I just acknowledge God exists.
I acknowledge Jesus is right, I acknowledge all that it's in the very heart or core of your being the authentic you the real you.
It's more than just a knowledge it's a conviction you have the conviction that that that he is who he said he is that he is the Lord that that he is he is God in human flesh, and that he conquered death by resurrection the God raised him from the dead. This is the core of the gospel.
If you believe in your heart you confess with your mouth you believe in your heart you will be saved. For with the heart one believes to righteousness until righteousness comes by faith and with the mouth confession is made to salvation. For the Scripture says whoever believes on him will not be put to shame. For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek for the same Lord is rich to all who call upon him, for whoever calls on the name of the Lord, quoting Joel chapter 2 whoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Okay something is at play here. I just want you to see a relationship. The apostle Paul has been noting in the last few chapters that salvation is by faith, but it is a sovereign act of God.
God sovereignly chooses or elects he elected the nation of the Jews to be the receptacle of the law to be the receptacle of truth to be the receptacle of the Savior.
He chose them for very very specific special purpose he chooses you and I as the elect of God to be saved there's predestination we have covered touched on some of those things, but there is also human responsibility at work that Skip right message from the series expound. We want to share about a resource that will nourish your soul with God's amazing trip trials, temptation, and the tone those of the major themes of three booklets from when you were making available this month@connectwasgift.com here's one with more of this bundle and I handed the keys to unlock the thought stances and fears that can cause you to give into temptation and speak no evil. I encourage you to avoid setting fires with your word and instead use them to bring showers of blessing, linear height six booklets go to meet, speak no evil and happy trials provides help hope and encouragement in dealing with life's challenges. This bundle of three booklets or years for a gift of $20 or more to help keep this Bible teaching ministry on the year did yours when you give to the by calling 800-922-1888, or give online securely connect was.com/offer that's good. It was.com/offer. Thank you for tuning in today. We are passionate about helping you strengthen your walk with God, and you can be a part of connecting others to Jesus in the same way with the gift to help keep these teachings. You live on the air just call 892 1880 8F 892 1888 or visit connect with.com/donate.connect.com/donate. Thank you tuning tomorrow. Skip Heitzigs and brings you some clarity on how God's sovereign election in your free will play into your salvation.
So then faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. That's our faith is developed speaks truth. You and I hear the truth. We make a decision of faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word