Romans 10:1-4 "Submit to God's Righteousness"

0:58Brings to mind overbearing leaders, overbearing spouses, losing a fight in mixed martial arts. But in Scripture, submission does not have a negative connotation at all. It means voluntarily yielding to another, surrendering your will or desires to another, most often God. It requires humility, trust, and trust. And obedience. But by nature, we are prideful, we are faithless, and we are disobedient. We do not like to submit, especially to God. But if we are to be saved, we have to submit to God, and specifically, we have to submit to God's righteousness instead of seeking to establish our own.

2:00And so, that word righteousness, you know, it's a word we hear a lot in church. We're going to have a lot of churchy words today in this passage. But it's not necessarily one that we know what it means. What is righteousness? What does it mean to pursue righteousness? Well, righteousness, according to Scripture, is loving what God loves and doing what he commands. Loving what he loves and doing what he commands. So, according to the Bible, you are not righteous if you don't love what God loves, but you still attempt to do what he commands. That was true of many who outwardly seemed righteous in the Bible.

2:42And at the same time, you're not righteous if you say you love what God loves, but you don't do what he commands. Righteousness is loving what God loves and doing what God commands. And so, last week we saw that many of us. The Gentiles attained righteousness because they pursued it by faith. They weren't righteous in and of themselves, but they pursued righteousness by faith. However, many of the Israelites failed to attain righteousness because they pursued it as if it were based on works. Two very different ways of pursuing righteousness.

3:27And so, what Paul is going to do in our passage today, Romans 10, 1 through 4, is he's going to drill down on the truth that Israel pursued righteousness as if it were based on works. And the reason he does that, the reason he drills down on this truth about pursuing righteousness as if it were based on works, is because that was not just a problem for first-century Israelites. No, pursuing righteousness as if it were based on works is a problem in every generation, and it is a problem for us.

4:05And that's because people are prideful. We don't like to be told that we can't be righteous on our own. And so, what we do is we seek to establish our own righteousness. We come up with some standard, some set of rules, and we think that as long as we meet that standard, as long as we keep that set of rules, we will. Will be righteous, God will accept us. And so, one way or another, we have all done that. It's not just those who haven't professed faith in Christ who do it, even professing believers fall into the trap of seeking to establish their own righteousness.

4:52So, here's where we're going today. We're going to learn from Romans 10:1 through 4, we must submit to God's righteousness instead of seeking to establish our own. And the way we'll move through the passage is according to this outline: We need to be saved, we can be sincerely wrong. We will seek righteousness, and we need the righteousness of Christ. So, let's begin in Romans 10:1 with that first point. We need to be saved. Look at verse 1.

5:33Paul says, Brothers, my heart's desire and prayer to God for them, that is the Israelites, is that they may be saved. So, in this first verse, Paul reiterates his great concern for his fellow Israelites, many of whom had rejected Christ. He says he wants them to be saved. Now, there is another churchy word for you. Being saved is a biblical concept, but it's a very churchy word, especially in some circles. You hear people say stuff like, I got saved.

6:14This person got saved. These people need to be saved. So you may have questions like, saved by whom? Saved from what? Well, the Bible teaches we need to be saved by God from the wrath of God because of our sin. We need to be saved by God from the wrath of God because of our sin. We rebelled against him, so we need God to save us from his own wrath, which we have stored up against ourselves in our sin.

6:52Take a look at Romans chapter 2. We covered this last year. But because of your hard and impenitent heart, you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God's righteous judgment will be revealed. We were born with hard hearts, born dead in our sin, and because of that, we will spend our lives storing up wrath for ourselves unless God intervenes, unless God saves us. us unless he rescues us from our sin. And thankfully, God is merciful and gracious. He's abounding in steadfast love. So he sent his only begotten son, Jesus Christ, to save us. Look at what the angel of the Lord says to Joseph about his fiancé Mary in Matthew 1.

7:54She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. for he will save his people from their sins. Friends, we need to be saved. We need to be saved by God from the wrath of God. And God is so gracious and merciful that he sent Jesus to do that very thing to save us. But the only way to receive that salvation is by believing in Jesus, and many Israelites had rejected Jesus. And so Paul says at the outset of Romans chapter 9 that he has great sorrow and unceasing anguish in his heart because of the Israelites.

8:41And now a chapter later here in verse 1, he states, Brothers, my heart's desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved. So I want you to notice two things. First, I want you to notice how Paul felt. His heart's desire was for his fellow Israelites to be saved, to come to the knowledge of the truth of Jesus and believe in him. How bad did Paul want this? Remember what he wrote in Romans 9? Take a look at verse 3. He says, For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh. That is how badly Paul desired their salvation. He says, if it were possible, I could wish that I were accursed, that I were cut off from Christ and from his salvation, so that my fellow Israelites could know salvation in Jesus. How amazing is that? I confess to you when we preach that passage, I don't have that kind of love for the lost.

9:57I want that kind of love for the lost, but I don't have that kind of love for the lost. But Paul says that he did. He could wish that if it were possible, he were accursed and cut off. And by feeling that way, Paul mirrors God's own heart for the lost. Remember these verses? We've covered these a lot recently. Look at 1 Timothy 2, 4. It says that God, our Savior, desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. 2 Peter 3:9, the Lord is Not slow to fulfill his promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.

10:41Friends, God does not want anyone to perish. He wants everyone to be saved. And so did Paul. His heart's desire, what he felt in his heart, was this longing, this burning, this yearning for his fellow countrymen to be saved. So I want you to notice, first of all, how he felt. But second, I want you to notice what Paul did. He didn't just feel something for the Israelites. He didn't just desire their salvation. He prayed for it.

11:20It's one thing to want something. It's one thing to desire it, but it's another thing to do something about that. And Paul did. He prayed. Jesus said, ask and you will receive. His half-brother, James, said, you do not have because you do not ask God. Brothers and sisters, I don't have any doubt that we would all say that we want our lost friends and family members to be saved. We would say that we want that. We desire that. We feel sorrowful about their lost condition.

11:59But do we pray? Pray for it. Do we pray for it? It's one thing to desire the salvation of the lost, but if we don't pray for it, something is off. Either we don't really desire the salvation of the lost, or we don't really believe God's promises about prayer. And so maybe we have to take a look inside. You know, it could be true that we really do desire the salvation of the lost, but we don't pray. And if that's the case for you, then I would encourage you to study God's Word and what it says about prayer, all of the promises that God makes. Don Whitney once said that if we believed God's promises about prayer, there would be holes in the knees of every pair of pants.

12:53And if you find that you don't really desire the salvation of the lost all that much, then the antidote is still to pray. The answer is still to pray because it's through prayer that God changes our desires. Friends, don't wait until you desire the right thing to start doing it. Pray, and God will change your desires. So, friends, every person needs to be saved, but we can't save anybody. Only God can save. We have to believe. Jesus to be saved. So we need to pray for our lost friends and family members to believe in him. So that's the first truth. We need to be saved. Now let's consider that second truth. We can be sincerely wrong. Let's start over again in verse 1.

13:52Brothers, 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. Let's pause there. From first-hand experience, Paul knew all about zeal for God that was based on ignorance. All throughout his letters, he is so open and honest about where he came from. Look at Galatians chapter 1. He says, For you have heard of my former life in Judaism, how I persecuted the church of God violently and tried to destroy it. And I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people, so extremely zealous was I for the traditions of my fathers.

14:51And look what he tells Timothy, his disciple, about his past. He says, though formerly I I was a blasphemer, a persecutor, and insolent opponent. But I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief. From everything we know, Paul was the most zealous Jew of his day. He was a Pharisee, extremely zealous for the traditions of his fathers, and he persecuted the church, throwing Christians into prison and presiding over their deaths. But Paul says that he acted ignorantly in unbelief. And by doing that, he was perhaps just the most extreme example of the average Jew in his day. They had a zeal for God, but it was not according to knowledge. They were ignorant of the righteousness of God as seen in their rejection of Jesus, the righteous one. Look what Peter preached in Acts chapter 3. He says this of the Jews, but you denied the holy and righteous one and asked for a murderer to be granted to you. And you killed the author of life, whom God raised from the dead. To this, we are witnesses.

16:19Look what Stephen said to his fellow Jews in Acts chapter 7, right before his death. Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? And they killed those who announced. Beforehand, the coming of the righteous one, whom you have now betrayed and murdered, you who received the law as delivered by angels and did not keep it. You see, both Paul and the Jews had a zeal for God, but their zeal was not according to knowledge. In other words, they were sincere in their beliefs, but they were sincerely wrong.

17:07That's the second truth that we find in this passage. We can be sincerely wrong. We live in a culture that values zeal, that values sincerity above all else. That is our highest value. It's not truth, it's not the knowledge of truth, it is zeal, it is sincerity. Sincerity is the highest value. That's why so many people say absurd things, like, as long as you sincerely practice your religion, you will go to heaven when you die. To the modern person, truth and the knowledge of the truth don't matter. What matters is zeal. What matters is sincerity. But you can be sincerely wrong.

18:00You might believe with all of your heart that 2 plus 2 is 3, or that the world is flat, or that in 1992 Columbus sailed the Brazos River. But all that means is you are sincerely wrong. Everyone gets that when it comes to math and science and history. But we do not apply that same logic to religious belief. Either God exists or he doesn't. Either there is one true God or there are many gods. Either Christianity is true or some other religion is true or they are all false, but they cannot possibly all be right because they are making mutually exclusive claims about God and salvation.

19:02This is as plain as day to anyone who understands logic. Friends, beliefs should be held sincerely. But just because you believe something sincerely will not make it true. You can be sincerely wrong. We can have a zeal for God. We can be completely sincere in our beliefs, but if they are not according to knowledge, if we Are ignorant of the righteousness of God, then we are just sincerely wrong. So we need to be saved, and we can be sincerely wrong. Now, let's look at that third point. We will seek righteousness. Look at verse 3.

19:524. Being ignorant of the righteousness of God and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God's righteousness. You see, when you are ignorant of the righteousness of God, you are going to seek to establish your own. It is guaranteed. And chances are, you'll be pretty zealous about the standards that you set. You'll be sincere about it. You'll be sincere about keeping your list of rules. And so, we've been talking about the Jews now for several weeks about their own lists of rules. They knew God's commands, and they knew that God said, if you keep my commands, you will be righteous.

20:43But they quickly came to realize that God's commands are perfect. The standard is too high. It cannot be met. So, what did the Jews do? They sought to establish their own righteousness. We saw Last week, how they came up with all of these rules about washing their hands and cups and dining couches, whatever that means. All these rules about what you could or couldn't do on the Sabbath day, all these rules about how you could financially support your parents. And the Jews believed that if they kept those rules, that they would be righteous. Not God's rules, but the rules that they came up with, they sought to establish their own righteousness.

21:32And friends, we are tempted to do the very same thing. It is so easy to read the Bible and to look at the Jews and think to yourself, I cannot believe these people actually thought that washing your hands and not doing certain things on the Sabbath and tithing out of your spice rack would make you righteous. Who would think such a thing? Oh, but friends, so many professing Christians think the same kinds of things. We think, as long as I attend church on Sundays, I will be righteous. It doesn't matter how I live the rest of the week.

22:24We think, as long as I read my Bible every day, I will be righteous. It doesn't matter if I don't do what it says. We think, as long as I give 10% of my money to the church, I will be righteous. It doesn't matter what I do with the other 90% of my income. We think, as long as I don't drink alcohol, I will be righteous. It doesn't matter that I overeat every single meal. What are we doing? We're doing the very same thing the Jews were doing. We are seeking to establish our own righteousness. But, friends, that's not how it works.

23:14And in Luke 18, Jesus tells a parable that is a perfect illustration of this. Take a look on the screen. Jesus also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and treated others with contempt. Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus, God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week. I give tithes of all that I get. But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even listen. Lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, God, be merciful to me, a sinner.

24:07I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted. In the parable, the Pharisee trusted in himself that he was righteous. Why? Because he had established his own. He came up with a list that he thought would make him righteous, and he kept it. He fasted twice a week. He gave 10% of his income. He avoided extortion and injustice and adultery.

24:54But friends, nowhere in the Bible does it say that you will be righteous as long as you fast twice a week, tithe, and avoid extortion, injustice, and adultery. God gave 613 commands. Where are the rest of them? The Pharisee cherry-picked his favorite commands and his pet peeves and made a list. He kept his list with zeal, with sincerity, and then declared himself righteous. He wrote the test. He took the test. He graded the test. And surprise, surprise, he gave himself a 100.

25:43But Jesus is clear. This Pharisee did not go home justified. That is declared righteous. No, the tax collector went home declared righteous. Because the Pharisee pursued righteousness as if it were by works, whereas the tax collector pursued it by faith. God be merciful to me, a sinner. Friends, here's the truth. If you are ignorant of the righteousness of God, you will seek to establish your own. You are going to cherry-pick your favorite commands, your pet peeves, your list of do's and don'ts, and you will think to yourself, I will be righteous as long as I keep my list.

26:37But that's not how it works. We don't get to decide what makes someone righteous. God decides what makes someone righteous, and he has not left it a mystery to us. Look at Deuteronomy 6. And it will be righteousness for us if we are careful. To do all this commandment before the Lord our God, as he has commanded us. So you can be declared righteous by keeping God's law, but you have to do all of it perfectly every single day of your life.

27:18And because of our sinful nature, no one can do that. So, friends, where does that leave us? If we don't seek to establish our own righteousness, then what do we do? Here's the fourth and final point: we need the righteousness of Christ. Look at verse 4: For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes. Paul says, Christ is the end of the law for righteousness. The end of the law? What does that mean? You ever wondered or you ever been asked by another Christian, how do we relate to the Old Testament law? Do we still have to keep that? Do we have to keep part of it? Did Jesus fulfill some of it, but we've got to still do some of it? Christ is the end of the law for righteousness. Look what Paul writes in Galatians chapter 3.

28:24He says, Now, before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned. Until the coming faith would be revealed. So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, for in Christ you are all sons of God through faith. You see, the point of the law was to point us to Jesus Christ. The law served as a guardian, our tutor, that led us to faith in Christ. It shows us that God's standard is so high, so holy, that we cannot possibly meet it. We need a Savior, a Messiah, to do and fulfill the law for us. And that's exactly what Jesus did. Look what he says in Matthew 5: Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them. For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot will pass from the law until all is accomplished.

29:50Friends, Jesus fulfilled the law on our behalf by obeying it fully and completely from the heart every single day of his life. Then he died in our place on the cross, in the place of those who failed to fulfill God's law, and he declared, it is finished. Think about that. Jesus did not hang on the cross and say, it has begun. He said, it is finished. Because he fulfilled the law for you and me. So Christ is the end of the law for righteousness in the sense that the law pointed to him and in the sense that Jesus fulfilled it on our behalf.

30:42But do not miss this. Verse 4. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes. If you want to be counted righteous in Christ, you have to believe. You have to put your faith in Jesus and in Jesus alone. So friends, if you have not done that, if you have not put your faith in Jesus, believing that he is the end of the law for righteousness, if you are still seeking to establish your own righteousness, you need to recognize that today. Because those two choices are mutually exclusive.

31:30You cannot rely on the righteousness of Christ and seek to establish your own righteousness. Those choices are mutually exclusive. There is no middle ground. God's standard is his holy law, and we cannot and do not meet that standard. But Jesus met it for us. Look what Paul writes in Romans 3. For by works of the law, no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin. But now, the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the law and the prophets bear witness to it. The righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.

32:34So, friends, if today you are recognizing that you have created your own standard, you have sought to establish your own righteousness, today is the day that you need to recognize that you must turn from that. Your standard is not high enough. You need to turn in faith to Jesus Christ, the one who fulfilled the law perfectly and completely on your behalf, died. In your place for your sin, and rose again from the dead, victorious over sin and death. Trust in him today.

33:10And if you're already a believer, meaning that you have already submitted to God's righteousness in Christ, you need to understand how easy it is for us to fall into the temptation to establish our own righteousness, even as believers. You see this over and over again in the scriptures. The Colossians fell into the temptation to establish their own righteousness. Look what Paul wrote to them in chapter 2. He says, if with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world, why, as if you were still alive in the world, do you submit to regulations? Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch. Referring to things that all perish as they are used according to human precepts and teachings.

34:08You see, this is what the Pharisees did. We look at them as though we're nothing like them. Friends, most of us are exactly like them. They sought to establish their own righteousness, and they thought they were raising the bar by adding additional commands to God's law. But here's the irony. By adding commands, To God's law, they weren't raising the bar, they were lowering it to a standard that they could clear. Loving the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength cannot be reduced to going to church, reading your Bible, and avoiding certain sins.

34:53You think you've raised the bar, but you've lowered it to a standard that you can clear. And so, understand that temptation that all of us have to establish our own righteousness. We need to turn from that. That standard that we're probably keeping with zeal, with complete sincerity. We need to turn from that, not seeking to establish our own righteousness, but looking to the righteous one, Jesus, who fulfilled the high and holy standard of God on our behalf. We must submit to God's righteousness instead of seeking to establish our own.

35:36Let's pray. Father, I pray for the men and the women and the children in the room who have sought to establish their own righteousness, who have come up with some set of rules, some standard. Maybe it comes from the Bible's teachings, maybe it doesn't. But they have thought to themselves, as long as I do these things and don't do those things, I will be righteous. Lord, I pray that they would see today that their sincere belief, their conviction about what will make them righteous, will not.

37:00I pray that they would turn away from their own efforts to make themselves righteous and turn to Jesus Christ in faith, the only one who can declare them righteous today and make them righteous when he returns. Father, I pray for every Christian in the room. Lord, you know how often we have fallen. Into the temptation to establish our own righteousness. You know our rules, our pet peeves, our lists of do's and don'ts, how we trust in ourselves that we are righteous and we look at others with contempt because they don't keep the same list we do.

37:58I pray we would turn from all of that because our standards are not high enough. I pray that we would humble ourselves and submit to your righteousness, seeing that in Christ and in Christ alone we are righteous. We ask, God, that you would help us to love what you love and do what you have commanded by your grace and the power of your Holy Spirit, that we might be not just a people who are declared righteous, but a people who are living righteously and more so every day for your glory and so that the lost will be drawn to faith in Christ as well.

38:46In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Thank you for listening to the sermon audio from New Life Baptist Church in College Station, Texas. For more information or to support our ministry, visit us. Online at newlifecs.net.