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Part 14 of 20
How To Get Right With God series
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As we approach the summer break in our study of Romans, I've been thinking about how much ground we've covered together—it's been a remarkable five-month journey. I want to capture everything we've discussed and place it on a single folder, front and back, two-sided, so you can see the scope of what we've been learning together as a church.
We've studied the stages of faith, the patriarchs, different principles and paradigms. We've gained a better understanding of God's wrath. We've learned that we are saved by faith—it's a gift, not a wage. Not only are we saved by faith, we're saints by faith; we've been credited the righteousness of Christ. We're moving into confidence in that. Grace is the vehicle; peace is the destination. We've tackled four fundamental questions facing our faith and the boundary lines that define them.
The overarching message of Romans addresses this core question: How do we get right with God?
Here's the foundation: There is a clearly a design, which hints at a designer. There is a Maker who created all things. And at some point, we come into contact and we face our Maker. What is that moment like? How do we make sure we are in right standing and made right with God?
Paul's answer is unequivocal: the only way is to believe in what Jesus did as sufficient. What He did on the cross was enough. That's how we get right with God.
There will always be those who push back on this truth. They approach it through different camps—some through their morality, others more superstitious and prideful, wanting control. They approach it through the tool of religion. Paul is separating the gospel from religion.
Here's what you need to understand: grace eradicates the law in terms of its requirement. We are not earning or achieving. This is not based on our effort. It is simply believing and receiving. This grace is sufficient and abundant.
Paul addresses what the culture is saying. He leans into philosophy, sociology, theology, and history. He's addressing all the accusations and things pushing against the gospel—you can see the scoff of culture coming from every direction. But ultimately, Paul is driving us into the depths of God's love. He wants us to know how great God's love is, how powerful this redemptive work can be in and through your life. The same power that conquered the grave now lives in you. And so you now ought to live with anticipation, with the wind at your back, excited to live a resurrected life for Christ.
What does that look like? Knowing that nothing can separate us from the love of God. God's love is great, and how we discover the greatness of God's love is by acknowledging the depths of our sin. The book of Romans brings us to the reality that we need a Savior. We place our faith in the cross. We are in Christ—dead to sin, dead to the grave, dead to the law. And we now get to live every single day in the joy of finding what God's going to do next in His mysterious work in our life.
Romans chapter 5 is the "running up the score" of the gospel. There's more. There's more. There's more. It makes that statement four times, putting wind in the sail of saying, "Hey, with peace, hope, love, and joy, the person who is anchored to Christ lives with momentum. We're victors, not victims." And we are so thankful and confident in anything our God tells us, because His track record proves He never lies. So we place a greater weight into God's promises than our preferences.
Now we come to Romans 10. Paul runs through chapter 8 spelling out the gospel. Chapters 9 through 11, he ties up loose ends and hammers home closing thoughts with the Jewish people specifically about their history and heritage as the nation of Israel. In chapter 10, Paul is making summary statements about everything he has said up until that point.
This is significant because Paul is going to market with this faith. He's saying, "I will sit at the table with anyone and everyone. What is your view on life? How do you answer some of the most fundamental questions facing all of us?" Paul is not intellectually embarrassed. He's not socially embarrassed. He's saying, "Let's just discuss it." And in his brilliance, he positions the gospel in the public marketplace in a way that can shine and set itself apart. You start to realize: There are things that Christianity and the gospel can claim that nothing else can. This one's different. You start to grow in confidence.
This chapter 10 would have been a turning point for many in the church at Rome—the moment when logical, rational, metaphysical thinkers arrived at a place where they said, "Okay, I have vetted this thoroughly. I've asked my questions. I've resolved most of my suspicion. I still have my doubts. I don't know everything, but I do know something. This Jesus has credibility. This Jesus deserves my devotion. I'm in."
When Paul wrote this letter, less than 5 to 10% of people could read and write. Someone would have gotten the one copy the church had and guarded it with their life. Paul would have sent it to someone trustworthy with the courageous task of standing in public and declaring this letter. In just 16 chapters, in a very condensed way, Paul is bringing everybody to the table and addressing all the accusations, all the questions, all the doubts, while keeping everybody engaged.
The group Paul is talking to is radically different. How the gospel applies to the Gentiles is radically different than how it applies to the Jews. How Paul explains the gospel to the indifferent person is very different than how he explains it to the superstitious person. People would gather, and others would attract to the gathering. Eventually someone would declare and read the text, and all these people from different walks of life would hear it. They couldn't read or write themselves, couldn't pick up a small group discussion guide. What they had was the declaration of the Word. Then they would walk it out in conversation.
Notice that in most Bible translations, each chapter is broken up into different sections. But chapter 10 has no sections dividing it up. It's taken as one big whole thought. We're going to read all 21 verses straight through. Essentially, Paul in one last attempt is trying to push people over the edge to just say, "God loves you. Would you just give your life to Him?" And he's saying it to those who belong to the same tribe as he does.
Brothers, my heart's desire and prayer to God for the Israelites is that they may be saved. For I can testify about them that they are zealous for God, but their zeal is not based on knowledge.
Much of Paul's argument is rooted in logic. He's saying, "You're passionate. You're zealous, but you're inaccurate. Your zeal is not based on knowledge."
Since they did not know the righteousness that comes from God and sought to establish their own, and they did not submit to God's righteousness.
They were trying to earn righteousness through their own efforts instead of receiving it from God.
Christ is the end of the law. That there may be righteousness for everyone who believes.
There may be righteousness for everyone who believes. You can be a child of God. You can be a daughter. You can be a son. Anyone who believes is credited the righteousness of Christ. Not because of something we've done to earn it, but because of the deposit of heaven and God's simple goodness. Everyone who believes receives this righteousness.
Paul shows how this was clear in things Moses said:
Moses describes in this way the righteousness that is by the law: The man who does these things will live by them. But the righteousness that is by 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 deep, that is to bring Christ from the dead."
He is exposing both sides of the spectrum when it comes to how people approach eternity and God. Some of you want to try to climb your way to heaven. "We're going to go to heaven and bring him down." And the gospel says, "Well, we all realize we can't get there. We couldn't get to God."
The beauty of the gospel is that He came to us. We don't have to ascend to heaven. Christ descended to earth.
But then there's the person overwhelmed with shame. "I'm not disillusioned by my own goodness. If anything, pastor, I'm convinced of my brokenness. How could a God love someone as fractured and as despicable as me? I deserve death. I deserve what He received on the cross. It grieves my heart that He died in my place."
And sure, that is gripping. But here's the thing: He died in your place and He rose in your place. You don't have to go down to hell to resurrect Him yourself. You don't have to make right the condemnation upon Christ. He did it for us.
But what does it say? The word is near you. It is in your mouth and in your heart. That is the word of faith we are proclaiming.
If you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
Gift received, not check earned. You will be saved.
For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved.
Now, if you're leading someone to Christ, if you're sharing your faith with someone, this is a verse you need to hold on to and be familiar with.
As the scripture says, anyone who trusts in him will never be put to shame.
Keep this in your back pocket for the day when trouble seems to be following you around and a dark cloud is hovering over you and you're fighting for your joy. You'll never get down the road and be embarrassed about choosing to follow Him. You discover He was faithful.
For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile. The same Lord is the Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him. For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.
The critic says Christianity is too exclusive. It's too narrowminded. "You're telling me Jesus is the only way, the only option." I'm saying yes. And in that sense it is exclusive. However, it is wildly inclusive in that it is available to everyone. All people around the globe, despite your demographic, despite your background or upbringing, everyone can come to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. Everyone who believes.
How then can they call on the one they have not believed? And how can they believe in the one whom they've not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can they preach unless they are sent?
He's basically saying this is an oral tradition. Right now, we're not reading, we're not writing. We are relaying a declaration from one mouth to the next heart. God is faithful. God is good. Jesus is the King. He ought to be the Lord of your life. It's an oral tradition. We share our faith audibly.
He ends quoting Isaiah:
How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news.
If you look at Isaiah's full statement, Isaiah says, "How beautiful are the feet upon the mountain who bring good news." Most people living in that time of history, in that region and era, would not have owned shoes. They would have been barefoot. How beautiful are the feet of those upon the mountain who bring good news?
Consider what your feet would look like if you had to hike a mountain barefoot. Those feet would be torn up. These would have been callous, dirty feet with the markings of someone who resolutely embarked on a journey that came at an expense.
How beautiful are the feet of people who stand amidst pressure and amidst people scoffing and amidst a world that resists and rejects and even rebels? How beautiful are those who still stand and say, "I am not intellectually embarrassed about what I believe. I am not socially embarrassed about what I believe, and I stand very willingly, ready to just share the good news of who my Jesus is."
Consider what your feet would look like if you had to hike a mountain barefoot. Those feet would be torn up, callused, and dirty—the markings of someone who resolutely embarked on a journey that came at an expense. How beautiful are the feet of people who stand amidst pressure and amidst people scoffing and amidst a world that resists and rejects and even rebels?
How beautiful are those who still stand and say, "I am not intellectually embarrassed about what I believe. I am not socially embarrassed about what I believe, and I stand very willingly, ready to just share the good news of who my Jesus is."
Paul had a heart for lost people. The person who has a genuine encounter with Christ lives with an outlook on life for those who have yet to encounter the same Jesus they have.
Yet not all the Israelites accepted the good news. The Jewish people, this camp of godly individuals, questioned how they could not see what was right in front of them. Of course they heard it. Their voice had gone out into all the earth, their words to the end of the world.
The Gentiles were being welcomed into the family of God, and Israel wondered how. Paul's answer was clear: "I told you this would happen. I would find people who weren't seeking me."
I was found by those who did not seek me. I revealed myself to those who did not ask for me.
God showed up in someone's life who didn't know they needed to ask for a savior. You were heading in the wrong direction with the wrong people for the wrong reasons, and somehow he still got it right. We are thankful that he found us, though we weren't seeking him.
All day long, I have held out my hands to a disobedient and obstinate people.
Think of Michelangelo's painting where God stretches out his arm with urgency, intensity, and purpose. God is reaching out. Yet some respond with a lackluster, borderline disrespectful posture—such little effort would be required to have an encounter with God.
Paul has arrived at a point where he is saying, "Let's just tie a bow on some of these things." Many in the room have been part of the conversation with all their questions. Now comes the decision point: to follow Christ.
Some people are nurtured into their salvation. You're born in a Christian context, raised in a Christian home, maybe attending a Christian school and good church. You were placed in proximity that made gospel-centered things accessible to you. There was no dramatic spillout, no crash in the ditch. You were simply positioned to be exposed to God's goodness early, and your confidence was nurtured into a resolute commitment to Christ.
Others have a conversion moment they can point to specifically. For some, there's a date—a day when they can vividly recall the entire moment they gave their life to Christ. Neither experience is better than the other. People have different experiences of coming to faith.
For some in the church, their story will be something like this: "It was during a study on the book of Romans in the month of May in 2025 that after all the discussion and vetting all the questions and going through all the explanations and all the history, I started to realize: yeah, this Jesus and this Christianity—this is different. I'm in."
This was the pastor's case. He was an antagonist, an agnostic who even questioned whether God existed. He was propped up in unnecessary and unwarranted arrogance, thinking he knew things beyond what he actually knew. But then came the realization: "This is hard to argue with. I'm in."
For others, there will be a more formal salvation moment. It will be clear: "It was on this weekend that I believed in my heart and I confessed with my mouth that Jesus Christ is Lord. The cross is enough. The grave is defeated, and he has resurrected in my place."
This is something you shouldn't feel pressured into doing or do impulsively. This is for the person who has been considering this moment—the person ready to say, "I'm going all in and I'm going to live a life for Christ."
If that's you, repeat these words that simply articulate the matters of your soul and the belief and faith you're placing in Christ and the receiving of his grace:
Dear heavenly father, thank you for sending your son to die on a cross in my place. Thank you for raising him from the grave also in my place. Today I acknowledge that I am a sinner and I repent of my wayward ways. I ask for your forgiveness. I receive your grace and I acknowledge you as the Lord of all and I am choosing today to live the rest of my life fully and faithfully devoted to you. In Jesus mighty and matchless name we pray. Amen.
