As you look at the 10th chapter of Romans there are four major points:
I. The Israelites were pursuing righteousness the wrong way (1-5)
II. Righteousness can only be achieved through faith from the heart (6-13)
III. Accepting Jesus is a four-step common sense procedure (14-17)
IV. God used the Gentiles to bring the Israelites to jealousy (18-21)
I. The Israelites were pursuing righteousness the wrong way (1-5)
I preached an entire sermon on this last week…just because you’re zealous or passionate for or about something doesn’t mean your motives are commendable.
Countless wars have been fought because someone had a passion or zeal about something…I picked two biblical examples to show how this works…one is inside the church, the other outside the church.
The first area is in the church…progressive churches caving into societal pressure and Political Correctness.
Churches that have long held doctrinal beliefs but are now changing those to make God into what they want Him to be or what they think He should be… thinking God changes to agree with the times.
Two major Christian denominations, the Methodist Church and the Presbyterian Church, have recently split due to disagreements within their churches regarding Biblical guidelines for worship and Christian conduct.
These denominations have splintered from their long held traditional beliefs because they have allowed misinformation to dictate Biblical exegesis in an attempt to revise what the Bible teaches…as a result:
They are zealous for God, but their zeal is not based on knowledge. [2]
The second area is those who are outside the church.
Cults lack a doctrinal understanding of the Bible…they lack Biblical truths… they lack the true biblical knowledge of knowing who Jesus is.
It is that lack of knowledge that keeps them outside of what is known as mainline Christianity…they are the product of eisegesis instead of exegesis.
Exegesis is the legitimate interpretation of the Bible which conveys what the author originally meant to convey.
Eisegesis is interpreting Scripture based on what someone thinks…expressing the reader’s own subjective ideas, not the meaning in the text.
That’s what cults do…they interpret Scripture to meet their own interpretation …as a result…worship is misguided and meaningless because it’s not based on the truth of God’s word and Jesus’ claim as His Son.
They have a zeal for God but zeal not based on knowledge.
Paul’s second bullet point in chapter 10 is:
II. Righteousness can only be achieved through faith from the heart (6-13)
10 For it is with your heart (not your head) that you believe and
are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved.
There are two major fallacies contained in this verse.
ONE… There are many who believe based on this verse that there are two distinct steps to salvation…that to be saved you must 1st) believe the gospel in your heart and 2nd) with your mouth confess Jesus as Lord… “Otherwise,” they argue, “you are not properly saved.”
SECOND…that salvation is simply saying ‘Jesus is Lord.’
This verse should not be understood to mean that salvation is achieved by simply saying the words ‘Jesus is Lord’ …or that the phrase is intended to be a condition or a prerequisite for salvation.
This verse should be studied alongside all other passages that teach about salvation if we are to understand precisely what Paul means.
Paul points out that it is with the heart that a person believes unto righteousness …Salvation is not merely based on a whim…an intellectual assessment…or the acquisition of some factual head-knowledge.
To confess Jesus as Lord includes a heart belief in His deity…His incarnation… His atonement and bodily resurrection…that’s what you’re owning up to when you confess ‘Jesus is Lord.’
Salvation must rest on a genuine, bona fide heart-faith in God and His Son.
That’s why Paul introduces the process by which we are saved…in verses 14-17 Paul defines how the Gospel is presented and the means by which it is made available to us through being preached…understood…and received.
III. Accepting Jesus is a four-step procedure (14-17)
In verses [14-15] Paul gives four rhetorical questions…actually a commonsense approach at what is encompassed in bringing someone to the point of calling on Jesus to be saved …in some ways it is a snapshot of the entire Bible
14 How can they call on the one they have not believed in?
how can they believe in the one whom they have not heard? how can they hear without someone preaching to them?
15 how can anyone preach unless they are sent?
Paul is saying this is the basis for how men come to the realization of who Jesus is and what He has done…he’s laying out the process of how people are saved.
In these four steps Paul describes the means that brings people to the saving knowledge of the Gospel…it is through this process people are exposed to God’s plan:
1) A preacher must be sent
2) He preaches the good news
3) The good news must be heard
4) The good news must be believed
These verses are a little confusing because Paul starts at the end and works backwards to the front…[15] should be the first step…so…to make sense of what Paul is suggesting I’ll approach this beginning from the logical starting point and work backward.
how can anyone preach unless they are sent? [15]
This is the single most important statement regarding anyone who is in the ministry …Preachers are called and preachers are sent.
Preaching is not a sideline done to entertain…a preacher is God’s ambassador… God’s primary means to get the Word out is by the preaching of His Word.
Regarding the importance of being sent…if you’ve never heard then how can you believe unless someone tells you…how are people going to hear about God’s love…about Jesus’ life, death and resurrection if no one goes and preaches to them?
Here’s another fallacy…the idea that Jesus commands that every believer is to be a missionary is not found in the Bible…ever hear of people who just up and quit their jobs because they believe God is calling them into mission?
God doesn’t expect that or command that…ever see the sign in churches as you’re leaving that say… ‘you are now entering your mission field’? …not me.
Here’s what’s important…the phrase is about “sending” preachers…it’s not addressing pastors who lead congregations like what I do here…nor is it encouraging people to immediately go into missions.
God calls people into different ministries…and in different ways…I can tell you my calling is not in the mission field…however, having said that, God does expect every believer to be involved in missions.
The emphasis is on the Church’s obligation to reach those who have no access to the Gospel by sending people to proclaim the gospel through evangelism.
So, God does call us into the mission field: TWO WAYS:
FIRST…God has sovereignly orchestrated your life to put you in a position to witness to a select handful of unsaved people…it might be family…friends …whoever…they are your primary responsibility…you may be the only Gospel they may ever hear.
Your job is to continue to love and pray for them until they understand who Christ really is.
SECOND…with respect to being a missionary Paul gives an illustration that shows that not all are called into the mission field…in Romans 15 Paul is NOT recruiting people to go with him to Spain…he knows that the Christians he’s writing to in Rome have jobs.
So, he’s not saying, “Hey…all you Christians quit your job…get on a boat and go with me to Spain”, instead he’s saying “stay and support me as I go to Spain”.
This is why we have a missions director…that is why we send thousands of dollars each year to support our missionaries…because we have an obligation to help support those who are in the mission field…those who are without the full time financial support of an established church.
That’s why we stress Lottie Moon and Annie Armstrong offerings in addition to the individual missions we support, because although we might not ever be a missionary we do have an obligation to support those who are.
Paul continues by revealing the second step in how people are saved
how can they hear without someone preaching to them? [14]
Hopefully you come to church to listen to preaching…whether it’s me or someone else doing the preaching…and hopefully by someone who is faithfully preaching the Word of God…not ideas…or concepts…or theory…or concerns.
Preaching is not reading a newspaper to get ideas for your Sunday message…or reading about the latest world conflicts to tie them in with end time prophecy.
Preaching is not voicing your opinion on political matters…nor is it to make people feel happy and positive about their lives.
A preacher’s business is to present truth and through that presentation of truth, to change lives.
Just being honest in assessing my own preaching skills…I don’t have a dynamic …charismatic…entertaining…captivating…delivery style…I don’t…I’m not apologizing…I’m just making an honest assessment about myself…but hopefully my messages are informative and are able to hold your attention.
Here’s the importance in preaching…there is an energy level and a depth of conviction that comes when the Word of God is preached.
Talked with some guys who say when they do attend church they sit further back than row five because the Holy Spirit doesn’t convict further back than that.
That’s why the gospel is to be preached…it’s the working of the Holy Spirit in your life that does the convicting…and…the importance of preaching is…“How will they believe in Him whom they have not heard?”
The answer again is …no one can believe the facts about the gospel until they have heard the facts about the gospel.
It’s the knowledge of who Jesus is that leads someone to call on Him for salvation.
That’s why the next step is closely related to the previous one:
How will they believe in Him whom they have not heard? [14]
The answer is…they can’t…again…before you can believe the facts of the gospel you must first hear the facts of the gospel.
It’s interesting Paul says…“whom you have not heard.” …the emphasis is that the gospel would primarily be heard through being preached…not so much by being read but preached in order to be heard.
The gospel is designed to be proclaimed…when you come to church it is not to have someone read something to you…you don’t need to have the Bible read to you…you can do that yourself.
Hearing the Word preached is paramount because without hearing the word the next sequential step which is to answer God’s call can’t be achieved.
How will they call on Him in whom they have not believed? [14]
The answer again is obvious. No one can call on the name of the Lord until they have believed in the Lord…well kind of…two thoughts:
This begs the repetitive question people throw at you… ‘how can people who have never heard of Jesus be saved?’
The theory of “universal opportunity” …which is Scriptural…maintains that at some time during every person’s lifetime they will have an opportunity to respond by virtue of their exposure to general revelation.
But because of man’s individual freewill choice they reject that revelation and God’s call…as a result…they stand guilty before God “without an excuse.”
For the past couple weeks, I have shared with you the importance of the word ‘call’ …especially with respect to God calling us to Himself:
Those who were not my people I will call —and—
of him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.
Both these verses use the Greek word καλέω (2564) which means to summon or invite…referring to “an invitation” …God inviting every person to join Him in eternity…then you have the responsibility to answer that call.
That is exactly what Paul is referring to in [14] …when God calls us…you have to answer the call…John Calvin is wrong…you have to do something…by answering God’s call and call Him…the word Paul uses in the Greek reflects just that.
God calls to invite us to join Him in Eternal life καλέω… that’s God’s invitation …I must then respond…to ‘call’ out to God in faith…ἐπικαλέω (1941) meaning I accept that call.
Salvation means calling out to God by accepting the provision He made by the death and resurrection of His Son…this is what [13] means…Paul quotes from the prophet Joel:
Whoever will call (1941) on the Name of the Lord will be saved. [13]
1) It’s a response…it’s answering God’s call to join Him in eternal life
2) It’s an Old Testament verse that affirms Jesus is the only acceptable means to be saved from sin and become a child of God.
This ties in with Romans 10:9 that all one needs to do is:
Confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.
Something I talked about earlier…both Romans 10:9 and 10:13 imply a salvation without constraints…that’s misleading…and because they have been oversimplified and taken out of context the meaning has lost the original punch which Paul intended.
It implies a casual recognition of who Jesus is without any commitment. One who is zealous for God recognizes the personal cost of following Jesus…of surrendering their life to His will…even when it means that I won’t be popular or accepted by my non-believing friends or family…it might even mean death.
Becoming a Christian is not a half-hearted or partial commitment…it’s not a sometimes on sometimes off kind of faith that could be classified as ‘lukewarm.’
It’s being fully dedicated to God as evident in your attitudes and actions… embracing all that Christ wants to do in your life…being determined to remain fully committed to following Him regardless of the situation.
When we acknowledge Jesus is Lord we’re willing to accept that Jesus is Lord over the world…but that that somehow excludes my individual life…thinking they can say that Jesus is Lord yet live their lives how they want.
Paul’s fourth bullet point is in regard to God’s response to Israel’s failure to accept Jesus as their promised Messiah.
IV. The Israelites rejected the gospel so God used the Gentiles to bring them to jealousy (18-21)
Ever done that…use someone you’re really not interested in to make someone you are interested in jealous?…this is how God is using the Church today.
Paul is saying…I knew this was going to happen…quoting from Moses [Deut. 32:21] Paul shows that thousands of years before Jesus was even born God devised a plan to not only provide a way to proclaim salvation to the Gentiles but at the same time a plan to cause the Jews to become angry and jealous.
Verse 21 is rather humorous…God tells Moses that the people had made Him (God) jealous with their idols…so (God) says I will make them jealous.
He’s done that…God has chosen a non-Hebrew nation (Gentiles, those who are not Jews) to anger them and make them jealous, thereby leading the Jewish people to desire the gospel. [19]
I will make you jealous by that which is not a nation, by a nation without understanding will I anger you.”
Everybody…that’s us…we are that nation.
We are warned not to be unbelieving outsiders. God wants us to look at the example of Israel and understand the dangers of unbelief.
We, who were outsiders, have been invited to be children by faith.
Faith secures your place at the table while unbelief drives you away…the moral of the story when read alongside Romans 10:17-21, is to be on guard against unbelief.
In Chapter 10 Paul reveals God’s simplistic and purposeful four step plan of proclaiming the Gospel in a manner that should be obvious to anyone… it is through this process people are exposed to God’s plan:
The emphasis has been and always will be that salvation is initiated by God…He makes the call…then you need to respond to His call…His invitation must be answered by our call…we must accept that call…in order to be saved.