ROMANS: Jesus Defines the Terms

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Well, I said it at the uh beginning, but I'll say it again.

My name is Lance Williams, and I'm the spiritual formation pastor here at Grand Parkway.

I haven't preached this uh uh I haven't preached here or anywhere since this summer, so uh I'm I'm excited to be here, excited to be before you and uh be able to put uh the gifts that God's given me into use.

Having said all that enough about me and more about God, uh we're gonna be continuing on in our uh our series on the book of Romans.

We are in Romans chapter nine.

This is the third week that we are in Romans chapter nine, and we're gonna pick up on verse thirty.

If you don't have your Bible, we are at the very top, the very beginning of page nine hundred and forty-six of the Bible at the end of your row.

Uh and so again, continuing on in the book of Romans, in pretty much the meediest uh uh passages of the entire Bible.

At least some would say that.

Romans 9, 10, and 11 is the deep end, okay?

Make no mistake about it, that we're in the deep end of God's word.

And so my job is to hopefully just give and lay out for everybody a little bit of scuba gear, and it's your job to come up here and make sure that you get the scuba gear necessary to get into the deep end, okay?

Alright, so we're we're in it.

There's nothing we can do about it.

We're just in it, all right?

So we're gonna continue on here in Romans chapter 9, verse 30, and going on to 10, verse 4.

Romans 9:30

Now, as I do that, let me just give us uh a sermon title, because what would the world be if we didn't have one?

But it's basically this Jesus defines the terms.

Okay?

Jesus defines the terms.

That's what we're gonna be talking about today.

And the reason why it's really helpful and really important for us to understand who defines the terms, because last week, if you remember, we just got done learning and listening about God's sovereignty and his plan of election, right?

And you heard about all that, and you're like, okay, wow, God, either you're really smart or you're injust, one or the other.

Uh and so you read chapter 9, and we all read and listened about chapter 9, and and and my goodness, it's it's God's purpose and election will stand.

There is no injustice in him.

He is the the the potter and we are the clay.

Who are we to talk back to him?

And so if his plan is being made known throughout all the world for all people, then we we have to either accept it or we define the terms.

And so it's really helpful and really important for us to understand that Jesus defines the terms.

We don't get to do a bait and switch and go, well, I don't really like that, and so I'm gonna define the terms and live according to what I like in the Bible.

And that's basically what you see happening in this passage that we're talking about today.

The nation of Israel, the Jewish people, saw Jesus, the offer of free grace, righteousness, acceptance, and they said, No thanks.

I'm offended by that.

They misunderstood how they were to attain righteousness, and so it's very helpful in understanding to realize Jesus defines the terms.

Enough about talking about it.

Let's just read it.

Verse 30, chapter 9 of Romans.

What shall we say then?

What shall we say then?

Based on all the things that we learned about last week, that God, in his plan, not only is it based on his will, not only is it based on his sovereignty, but also only a few Jews are gonna make it, and a whole lot of Gentiles are gonna make it.

Now that's good news for most people in this room.

Most of us in this room are not of Jewish descent.

We're Gentiles, we're the nations, we're everyone else in the Bible.

And so that's unbelievably good news for you and me.

What shall we say then?

Oh yeah, he keeps on going.

The Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness have attained it.

Have attained what?

Oh, they've attained a righteousness that is by faith.

But that Israel, who pursued a law that would lead to righteousness, did not succeed in reaching that law.

Why?

Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as if it were based on works.

They have stumbled over the stumbling stone, as it is written, Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense, and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.

Brothers, my heart's desire and prayer to God for them, for the Jewish people, 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 and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God's righteousness.

For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.

Now we read a passage like that, and if we're not re uh accustomed to reading the Bible on a on a regular basis, we can get lost real quick.

And so let me just maybe just frame this passage with an image that I kept finding over and over and over again as I studied for today.

And that image is basically this that God has set up basically the image of a race.

Okay, now this is different than the race we might think of.

This isn't the race of faith.

The race of faith is for people that are believers, they've trusted in Christ, and now they're gonna run the race of faith so as to attain the goal.

That's what Paul talks about in Philippians 3 and 1 Corinthians, all kinds of other places in the Bible that he talks about the race of faith.

The image that we're talking about today is the race to faith, the race to righteousness, the race to Jesus, finding salvation.

This race is set up, and there's two runners in the race: Jews and Gentiles.

Okay?

Those that were in trust.

Remember all the things that Neil talked about two weeks ago?

Of course you don't, because you've slept 14 times since then.

Me too.

I had to go look them up.

Remember all the things in verse 5, chapter 9, where he says that he gave them Jews the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the law, the worship, the promises, all those blessings and all the things that God gave the Jews.

They have now an inherent idea that they're in a race and they know the rules of the race.

Okay?

This is the image that we're talking about.

And the Gentiles, on the other hand, the Bible just told us they're not pursuing righteousness.

They're in the race, but they don't even know it.

Okay?

They're at the start line picking their nose, they don't even know what's going on, the gun's gone off, and the Jews are plowing ahead according to all the rules, and they're in their lane because why wouldn't they be anywhere else?

They got all the rules and they're plowing ahead and they're going.

And the Gentiles, Romans 9 30, they didn't pursue righteousness.

They're just kind of like, hey, what is going on?

The great race.

I don't know what they're doing, but I'm just enjoying the weather.

That's the image that we'll start with today, and it'll kind of come up as we go through the passages.

Now, I don't know about you, but in this story, in this image, I'm much more like the Jew, according to my nature.

Uh I like rules.

And so uh, if you and I like do a game night, uh, I will call you on some rules, okay?

Uh I will memorize the rules.

You better believe that I will have the rules right next to me so that the next the first time that you have an infraction upon those rules, I will call you on the carpet.

And if there's a buzzer, I will buzz it in your face.

It's very unpleasant.

You can ask my wife.

We have to be on the same team from here on out.

I like some rules.

They keep me safe.

There's some certainty there.

When you start breaking the rules and you start acting out of freedom, it kind of threatens me a little bit.

And that's kind of the race, that's the image that we're that Jesus is defining and setting up for all of us.

And so we just read Romans 9, 30 to 10.4, it gives us basically th three points.

We could do a whole lot more, but oh Jesus, spare us.

And so we'll do three points.

The first one is this faith is only as good as its object.

Faith is only as good as its object.

What we'll find here is that if we believe in the wrong thing, we put our trust, our faith, our security in the wrong thing or the wrong person, we may as well just have no faith at all.

There's no point in faith.

There's no point in trust unless it is in the right person.

We see that being played out in the first two or so verses in Romans 9.

The first uh let me read it again.

What shall we say then?

That Gentiles, they did not pursue righteousness, have attained it.

That is a righteousness that is by faith, but that Israel, who pursued a law that would lead to righteousness, did not succeed in reaching that law.

Why?

Because they didn't pursue it on faith, but they did it because they thought it was based on works.

They loved rules.

They loved laws.

But notice what we see in this image is the Jews, yes, they're in the race.

They know they're in the race.

And guess what?

They're not winning, they're not, they're not trying to find righteousness.

They're not pursuing righteousness, they're not pursuing salvation, they're pursuing law, they're pursuing rules.

They're me at catchphrase.

Because I'd rather sometimes just catch people in the rules rather than win.

That's winning, apparently, to me.

And that's what it was for the Jewish people.

They would rather just have the rules than have the author of the rules.

And so to bring that back down to probably where we live, some of us where we live, we study the Bible just for studying the Bible.

Get a lot of facts and not just to sit in the presence of God.

We go to a Bible study just to see if we agree, not to understand the character and the nature of God so that it would change us from the inside out and we would change.

That's that's that's the difference, the equ one of the equivalents here today.

But but the Gentiles, they didn't pursue righteousness, but that they were given it.

They attained it.

How?

And further, what is this righteousness?

Really, quite simply, it's moral perfection.

Moral perfection.

So if that's the end goal, moral perfection, righteousness, acceptance by God, salvation, the Gentiles didn't pursue that, and it was given to them.

So they're in this race and they're still at the starting line, kind of wandering around, seeing if there's lanes or what they're up to.

And Jesus puts them on the number one block.

They've won the Olympics and they're standing there with their medal, and the Jews are still in their lane going, I got all these rules.

And they look up, and the Gentiles, those of people of faith, those that weren't bogged down by the rules, but yet still had to accept Christ for what he had done for them, and they've won.

Now, again, I don't know about you, but if I was in the in that race, uh, I might have an objection to that.

I've worked hard, I've played by the rules, I mean, come on.

But the problem is it's all about me and what I've done.

And the whole point of this image and the whole point of this race to faith is that God is saying, you'll never be able to finish this race on your own.

Your works, they're not getting you along the path, and you're still at the starting line, too.

You hadn't started.

I gotta do it for you.

And oh, by the way, I was pleased to do it for you.

I've won the race.

Now I just want to give you the medal, the reward, the righteousness, the moral perfection.

And the only way that we will attain that perfection, that righteousness, that purity, isn't by all the things that the Jews were given, by the law, it was just by faith.

Faith.

Trusting in someone else other than yourself, relying on someone else's work and not on your own work.

It's what Hebrews 11 talks about.

It is assurance, it is a conviction of things unseen.

We can't yet see it with our eyes, but we believe it with our heart and with our mind, with our soul.

Now, faith is only as good as its object.

It can't be in the law like the Jews.

It's got to be in something greater than that.

It's got to be not even in the righteousness, but in the author of righteousness.

And so they have attained it.

And the reason why verse 4 is laid right in here, I want to put that right up at the front, is because it helps us understand how it is that the Gentiles, the people of no tradition, of no heritage, were all of a sudden included into God's plan.

It says right here in verse 4 of chapter 10, for Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.

He's the end of the law.

He is the goal of the law, he's the fulfillment of the law for everyone who would believe.

Now we got to get that in our mind and understand how much of a big deal that really is.

If we miss that, we're gonna miss one of the entire purposes that Jesus came to live and die.

If we don't get that he fulfilled the law, we're gonna miss it.

And so, at the risk of overwhelming you with Scripture, is that possible, by the way?

Maybe overwhelmed with the Bible?

Maybe we can.

But I want to just read three passages right in a row.

One from the Old Testament and then two from the New Testament, that tells this story of God's plan of redemption.

Okay?

It starts in Deuteronomy 28, great passage of the law where God sets up, hey, I want to bless you, but if you don't obey me, there will be some bad things that come upon you.

Blessings and curses are basically that.

I think that's gonna be the heading over Deuteronomy 28.

Deuteronomy 28, 1 and 2 basically say this.

This is the first passage that I think just tells the story of why we must have faith in Christ's accomplishments on our behalf.

It says this up on the screen.

And if you faithfully obey the voice of the Lord your God, now take note of the language.

Faithfully obey, consistently obey, always obey the voice of the Lord your God, being careful, not occasionally, being careful to do all, every one of them, of his commandments.

That'd be 613.

How many do you even know?

Much less be able to be obedient towards them.

That I command, you gotta do all of his commandments that I command you today.

The Lord your God will set you high above the nations of the earth.

Look what God wants to give.

Verse 2.

And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you if you obey the voice of the Lord your God.

Look at what God's heart is for humanity.

He wants to overtake you with blessing.

Like an like an army, just wants to overtake your area and your region with blessing until you just surrender to a life of blessing.

I mean, that's that's God's heart for you and me.

Problem.

We can't do the first part.

James 2, verse 10, the second piece of scripture that needs to go up on the screen, or else I won't be able to read it, is forever who keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it.

James 2:10

Whoever keeps the whole law, so if you keep all 613, but you miss 613b.49c, you're guilty of all of it.

And so it doesn't take murder, it doesn't take adultery, it doesn't take coveting your wife, it doesn't take any of that.

It takes uh mold being in your house and you not taking care of it properly according to the Old Testament law, for you to be guilty of all of it.

For you to be guilty of murder, for you to be guilty of of adultery, for you to be guilty of all the things that I just talked about, those Ten Commandments.

So, a little mold in your house, you don't take care of that according to the law.

Guilty.

Bad news.

God wants to bless us.

The problem is if we miss a little bit of it, we miss all of it.

Problem solution.

In comes the hero.

His name is Jesus.

And he starts to tell a story even from the very beginning of his ministry and the Sermon on the Mount when he says crazy things like this.

Do not think verse uh uh 17 to 20 of Matthew 5, let me just set this the stage a little bit.

He's got prostitutes with him, he's got the humble with him, he's got tax collectors with him, he's got the poor with him, and they're all following him, and there's a big crowd, and he's telling them one of the greatest sermon, the greatest sermon probably to ever to be preached.

The sermon on the mount, he's telling them all about life and what to believe and how to live and all these different things.

And oh, by the way, just to make sure all the fact checkers in the room have a place in the story, the Pharisees and the scribes are there too.

And they're making sure that Jesus and all the things that he has to say goes according to what they think he should say.

And so he's got all these different people around him, and he's gonna say this awesome thing.

He says, Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets.

Mm-mm.

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.

Therefore, whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven.

Whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and the Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

Now I read that because you've got God's heart for humanity, He wants to bless us.

The problem is that we can't obey fully, we can't do that first part of Deuteronomy twenty-eight.

We're just by nature objects of wrath.

We all go our own way, all subject to unrighteousness.

Beautiful solution.

Jesus comes in and says, Hey, uh, everyone in the room, we all need to know that even though you look towards the Pharisees and the scribes as your standard of perfection, as the standard for quote unquote, the religious guys in the room, Jesus says, Your righteousness, your moral perfection, it's got to be better than them.

Uh-oh.

So you're telling me the people that we've looked up to our whole life, that our dads looked up to their whole life, and their dads and their dads looked up to their whole life, these Pharisees and their scribes, you gotta be better than that?

Impossible.

And Jesus says, No, no, it's possible.

I'm gonna fulfill all the law.

I'm gonna be the end of the law for righteousness for all who would believe.

It's exactly what Paul talks about in verse 4 of Romans 10, where we started that little journey.

But it's for whoever would believe.

Believe what?

Believe that God, Jesus, is perfect so we can be imperfect.

Believe that he's good so we don't have to be.

Believe that he's sufficient so that we don't have to be.

For all who would believe, who would put their faith that Jesus was perfect.

The problem is that we are on that race and we like the law, we like the things that keep us safe, we like the things that our dads have told us, our dad's dads have told them, and on and on and on we go, and we start relying on other things to get us into a right relationship with God, or worse yet, to keep us in that relationship.

That would be called not just adhering to the law, but making up your own law and adhering to that.

It's what we call legalism.

And we all are legalists at heart.

But God has come to rescue us, not just following our own law, but following the desire to even do our own law so that we would get God's attention.

If only we would believe, if only we would believe that God's accomplished these things for us, uh, because many of us prefer rules over relationship.

I'll be that guy.

Many of us prefer religion over freedom.

We prefer legalism over grace, that we could do certain things so that God would get our attention, and we'll spiritualize it.

We'll do things like, well, I mean, I might somebody stopped by our house unexpectedly last night.

Great example of this.

Um, I think God just gave me an illustration just by this person stopping by our house.

Uh we were on our way, but but but nonetheless, it's it's true.

Uh and so he stops by, he plops down on the couch, and he and he couldn't have been there for more than three minutes.

Uh and he just said, Hey, y'all ever wonder why your blessings are being blocked?

And I looked at Melissa and it was her turn to talk.

And she looked at me and she goes, Well, no, no, we don't think that at all.

Uh, and the reason for that is because uh our lives are not reoriented around if we do this, then God's gonna do this.

Okay, that's the old way.

That's the old written code out of Romans 7 that if we do this, then God will do this.

If you obey, I got a whole lot of blessing over here.

No, that's the old written code.

Instead, Jesus says, you can't do any of this much, you can try all you want.

You're gonna exhaust yourself.

Get off the treadmill.

And instead, I'll do it all for you if you would just believe.

If you would just have faith, if you would just trust that I've done it all for you.

That's the gospel.

And it's not just the fuel for what gets us in to faith, but that which keeps us on this race of faith.

The question, I guess, at the end of that, very long first point.

What are you pursuing these days?

Are you pursuing what what is your faith really in?

Is it in your own idea of righteousness?

Is it in your own idea of things that you need to do in order to get accepted by God?

Or is it in oh man, I just I trust in Jesus because He's done everything on my behalf.

And what that does, when you cross over from the old to the new, from the death to life, you want To live out of gratitude because you realize, oh, I was so far.

No matter how close I thought I was, I was so far.

Thank you.

And you live in such a way as to give thanks.

The object of our faith is so vitally important.

And when we come to that, when we realize that it is the object of our faith in Christ alone, then we realize that no one has a valid excuse.

That's our second point for today.

No one has a valid excuse.

Paul will break it down and say, well, I mean, the Jews, man, I mean, they're zealous.

They got all these different things.

Boy, if they could have done it, you'd have thought that they could have done it, but if they can't do it, well, nobody can do it.

Except for Christ.

And so it's time for faith and not of works.

Let me just read to you one through three of chapter 10 to help illustrate for us, no one has a valid excuse.

Brothers, my heart's desire and prayer to God for them, the Jews, is that they may be saved.

Neil asked a similar question, I think it was last week of the week before, but who are you praying for for salvation?

You have a list of people, or maybe one person that you're praying for.

If God saves that person, whoo, man, a whole nation might be changed.

If God saves that person, my family might be changed.

Hmm, maybe that would be me.

Who are you praying for that they might be saved?

Verse 2, 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 and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God's righteousness.

Four excuses that we can hear or that we can use to kind of say, hey, whoa, I don't know about that.

I don't know about your your your judgment here, God.

I mean, after all, first excuse, I got a lot of zeal here.

I'm pretty passionate about my cause here.

I'm pretty sincere.

Okay?

I mean, that that should count for something, Jesus, right?

He says, no.

Because the Jews, I bear them witness, they have a lot of zeal for God.

I mean, Paul would know.

He was the guy that said, I got zeal upon zeal.

I mean, I'm a Hebrew of a Hebrew, tribe of Benjamin, circumcised on the eighth day.

You name the requirement of the law, I'm on it.

I was zealous.

That's what he says.

I mean, the Jews were not slackers.

They were radical.

They were zealous.

They were jealous for God's law, but the problem was they weren't jealous for God.

But if zeal and enthusiasm and sincerity, if that were the means by which God accepted you and I, then there'd be a whole lot of Muslims and Buddhists and Hindus and Jews, and there'll be a whole lot of Mormons that were in heaven.

Now, I say that last one on purpose.

Because some of us maybe see our friends in white and they drive around, or they don't drive, but they ride their bike around and we can go, man, silly guys.

They believe a whole lot more than what we believe.

And let me illustrate it by this.

Their zeal is way over it way overtakes our zeal.

I remember when I've, some of you heard me say this story before, but I'll say it again.

I was maybe two or three years old in Christ as a believer.

I was in college, we went down to Peru.

We were going door to door on evangelism.

We're knocking on doors, we're we're laboring for the gospel, okay?

And we go and we see no fruit.

My group sees no fruit.

Everybody else is like, oh man, 30 people came to know the Lord today.

40 people came to know the Lord today.

I'm like, okay, I got some sin or something, Lord.

What is going on here?

I got, I mean, where's the fruit?

So we go day after day, about four, five, six days into this thing, and we're at the end of a very long week with very little fruit, so to speak.

And we're kind of going along these houses and we're tired and we're a little grumpy, knowing me, I'm definitely grumpy.

And so we're knocking on these doors and we're talking to people, knocking on these doors, and we're sharing the gospel.

We get to the end of quote unquote civilization, which if you've been to Peru, not a lot of that, at least in this area.

And so we get to the end of civilization.

We look, and there's, oh man, there's farms.

Well, all right, we are we came to Peru.

We might as well go keep going.

I mean, we already came this far, so we knock on the next door, knock on the next door, look a little bit further, about, I don't know, I probably about a half mile out.

There's one house way out there.

And I'm thinking to myself, all right, we have done the labor of Jesus.

He's clearly satisfied with our work.

We will wrap it up and go home.

And we did not.

We went.

We walked the extra half mile or whatever it was.

We sat and we talked to a great couple.

They were outside working on his truck, offered us fruit, offered us fresh water.

They knew that we were clearly at the end of a long week and a long day.

And we started talking to them a little bit.

And uh they were believers.

We had no need to share the gospel, and all of a sudden we were encouraging one another with the gospel.

And they said to us, you know, when we saw you coming, we saw you coming, it's hard to miss you, but when we saw you coming, we thought you were Mormons.

I said, Okay, why is that?

Like, why would you think that that's a weird thing to think that we're what is that?

What is that about?

Like, why would you think we're Mormons and not somebody else?

They said, number one, you had backpacks.

I don't know why that's a I we had literature, apparently we were ready to hand out.

We had backpacks.

And number two, only Mormons come this far.

Christians quit.

According to zeal, the Mormons would be in.

Christian would quit back at the farm or back at civilization because we're too lazy, or maybe we just don't value what God might do in the person at the end.

Mormons do.

Their zeal overtakes ours.

That's the first excuse that Paul just says, no, not according to zeal.

That doesn't do it.

Not sincerity.

Second excuse, not ignorance.

I mean, he says, I bear them witness, they have a zeal, but it's not according to knowledge.

Being ignorant of righteousness, of the righteousness of God.

This is the excuse that says, Well, I didn't know.

I mean, I didn't know what the rules were.

I didn't know what was going on.

There's no excuse of ignorance.

They were ignorant of a righteousness that was given to them.

They weren't ignorant of the whole idea of righteousness.

They pursued, excuse me, they pursued the law, but they had never tasted it.

They had never sat down with Jesus, and when they did, they instead accused him of sin.

Instead of the people that knew where their righteousness came from, knew that they could never earn it on their own.

They just bathed his feet with tears and perfume.

And all the rest, the people that say, Well, I don't really know about all that.

I'm not really sure about the whole righteousness by faith thing.

Instead, you just do you even know that kind of woman?

I mean, she's clearly a sinner, which makes you impure.

Excuse of ignorance is gone, the excuse of accomplishment.

This is the excuse that says, I am significant.

Right there in the middle of verse 3.

What was wrong with the Jews?

Well, they were ignorant of righteousness of God and they sought to establish their own righteousness.

They sought to establish their own.

They thought, hey, by all these rules, by all these laws, and by all the things that I'll make up just to make myself feel better, I can feel pretty good about myself.

You know those two questions that Neil makes fun of every once in a while?

Like if you go around to, like he doesn't do this, but I do this.

But I don't have a problem with that.

But he did, like, if you were to die tonight, where would you go?

And then the second question, why?

I don't have a problem uh talking about that or asking those questions.

They're still valid questions.

Uh uh, but but he doesn't, you know, he doesn't use them.

That's fine.

Uh I do.

And the reason why I do it is because it's a great litmus test for what comes out.

And what a lot of times what comes out is the excuse of accomplishment.

I'm not that bad.

I'm not that bad of a person.

I'm significant.

Uh but when we you and I, when we use that that excuse, what we're really saying is not that I'm just better than my sister, I'm better than my brother, I'm better than whoever else.

What you really are saying is I'm better than Jesus.

I'm significant, and Jesus isn't.

I mean, I'm really not that bad.

If you're really not that bad, then Jesus didn't really have to go to the cross.

If there's an ounce of goodness in either any of us, then Jesus didn't have to die.

The fourth excuse that Paul just writes about and completely obliterates is the excuse of independence.

The excuse that says, I got this, right there at the end of verse 3.

They did not submit to God's righteousness.

They did not submit to God's righteousness.

They tried to establish their own, they pursued the law, and they did not submit to the righteousness of God.

And let me just say this about submission.

We think it's a bad word.

Right?

If I haven't lost you by now, you're lost now.

I just talked about submission.

Uh we think it's a bad word in the church, but let me just say re read the Bible a little bit about submission, and what you'll find out is submission is a word that begins to define godliness.

Submission is a word that begins to define leadership.

Submission is a word that begins to define Jesus.

Because Jesus came to the earth and he says, Hey, uh, I didn't come to do my own will.

I came to do the will of he who sent me.

That's a submitted man.

Very, very submitted, holy, submitted man in the flesh.

And so I think women get this.

Like you go to women's conferences, I think.

I don't know, I've never been, but maybe you go to these women's conferences and you you hear about submission.

You wouldn't go to a men's conference and hear about submission.

I just came back from one, a men's retreat, and I don't think submission was ever mentioned, except for my wife needs to submit.

By the way, that wasn't me saying that, okay?

My wife's in the room.

Clearly, it wasn't me.

Yeah.

But let me just say this to the men.

Wife's off the hook.

Women off the hook.

Men.

What would it look like for you to submit to the Lord?

What how would your how would your family change if you submitted to the Lord?

How would you, how is your your work relationships, how would they change if you submitted to the Lord?

What about your your your influence in your communities?

How would that change if you were submitted and followed and journeyed underneath the Lordship and the direction and the teaching of Jesus?

What would that do for your life?

It is very quiet in here.

And let me just say this.

For every submitted woman, there is a submitted man.

For every submitted woman, there is a submitted man underneath the lordship of Christ.

And if you ask a woman that values Jesus, that values the Bible, that values what God says that he wants from believer, what you'll find is that there is nothing sexier and nothing more attractive than a man submitted to Jesus.

Now we're talking.

Just have to come underneath the authority of Jesus.

She'll follow you into the dark if she knows you're following the author and perfecter of her faith.

Not just yours, but hers as well.

She'll follow you into the dark.

She'll follow you beyond her security or insecurity.

She'll follow you beyond her will.

She'll follow you beyond her desires.

Don't take advantage of that.

Because she knows that you're following the king.

I mean, there's nothing better than hearing your wife say to you, if you haven't ever heard this, your wife needs to say it if it's true and if it's not, live in such a way that she can say this.

There's nothing better than your wife telling you, hey, you know what, there's nothing.

I don't have to, I may be worried about this or that or how we do this or whatever, but I'm never worried about your relationship with the Lord.

And to that, I'll follow you wherever you go and wherever we go.

There's nothing better than to have your wife say that to you.

So we've seen these excuses.

This, I got this, unsubmitted, independent, which is the very fabric of our country.

I understand that.

But we were founded upon rebellion like a long time ago.

Okay, so it's in our DNA, okay?

But but Jesus just says, hey, there's something worth submitting to here, and it's not tyranny, it's not all the other things that we broke away from, righteously so.

It's a God who has our best interest in mind.

The third thing that this text really brings to light for all of us is this is not just that faith is uh only as good as its object, and not just that no one has a valid excuse, whether it be zeal or ignorance or accomplishment or independence, but also this, and this is I I skipped over a big chunk of scripture here because I wanted to end here.

Jesus is either a stepping stone or a stumbling stone.

He's either a stepping stone or a stumbling stone.

What do you mean by that?

Let me read the last part of verse 32 and then 33.

They have stumbled over the stumbling stone, the Jews.

Who's this stumbling stone?

Jesus.

As it is written, Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense, and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.

What was so uh what caused them to stumble?

What was so offensive, so to speak?

Because the word here for stumble literally means that they saw Jesus, they took offense at him, and they rejected him.

What was so offensive about gentle Jesus who decided to come to the world to save us from ourselves?

What was so offensive about that?

Well, because they thought they could do it on their own.

You see, for someone who thinks they can do it on their own, apart from Christ, this message isn't just foolishness to those who are perishing.

It's offensive.

The message of the gospel is offensive to the pride of humanity.

And so if you're offended by everything that has gone on, especially in the last two weeks, about Romans 9, it's up to God.

It's all about his election, it's all about his sovereignty.

He chooses whom he wills, he has mercy on whom he has mercy.

We get to this.

If I was a Jew, I'd be pretty angry.

Hey, I've kept all the rules.

Uh no, you haven't.

Okay, I wish you had told me that earlier.

I did.

I showed up in the flesh, and I covered the roadway that you were walking on as a big stumbling stone, and you tried to go around it.

You kicked it to the side as if it was worthless, and you tried to go around me.

And those that have the prize, they just trusted me.

They used me to get to where they needed to go.

They came right through that stumbling stone.

The stone of offense.

The Jews, they wanted to earn righteousness.

And everybody else that that knows they can't, they're the ones that all of a sudden have the goal of salvation.

And let me just say this, and this is where we will stop and end.

And here's why I felt like this was where the Lord was leading us to just land.

And I don't mean it to land heavy, I mean it to land light.

But look at what happens to those who believe at the end of verse 33.

Not just are we brought into salvation, not just are we going to be overwhelmed and overtaken with God's blessing of his presence, but look at the beautiful benefit of being a child of God right here at the end of verse 33.

Whoever believes in him, whoever sees the stumbling stone and uses it as a stepping stone to get to the Father, whoever sees the stone and doesn't take offense and walk away, whoever does that, whoever believes in him, will not be put to shame.

Will not be put to shame.

The result of stumbling over the stone is shame.

Uh, shame uh can be defined as this, and this comes from uh uh a noted research professor right here in our city.

Her name is Brene Brown.

Brene Brown is a research professor at the University of Houston.

She's the nation's, if not the world's, expert in uh in vulnerability and in courage, and the thing that kind of ties all that together, shame.

She's done a lot of research on shame.

She says this about shame.

Shame is the gremlin that says you're not good enough.

Shame is the enemy in his voice and all the lies that he will spew at you to tell you that you're not good enough.

Remember how you started all those things and you never finished?

Remember how this happened to you?

Remember how you weren't good enough here?

Remember when your wife cheated on you?

Remember when your husband left you, remember that, remember this, remember this.

Come on, it's all got to play over a projector.

Remember, remember, remember.

God says, No, I'm gonna put all that over here.

You don't have to worry about that.

Because those who believe in him will not be put to shame.

And the inverse of that, those who don't believe in him will.

So it's not just a matter of righteousness here, it's a matter of the benefits and the beauty of being in a relationship with Jesus based on faith.

Shame is that gremlin that says you're not good enough, and God in his voice says, Yeah, okay, you're not good enough.

So what?

I am.

And I mean, our lives would be much more uh pleasing and much more uh beautiful, much more full as God come to give us that full life.

If we would just trust Him for all the things that we could never be.

We just lean into all the world's accusations against us.

Oh, the churches are full of hypocrites.

Yeah, and well, you should come.

I mean, if it that's if that if hypocrites are here, come on.

I mean, just lean into that and realize, yeah, all right, whatever, cool.

But Jesus makes it all right.

And somehow this is the beautiful thing that he calls his bribe.

You can call it a hypocrisy.

All right, I'll just call it living in freedom.

Because of what God's done for me.

That voice of shame no longer has power.

And the reason for that, the reason that we can see this stone not just as a stumbling stone, but as a stepping stone for righteousness, is found in Hebrews 12, which says this.

And I'll just read verse 2.

Hebrews 12, 2 says, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.

You remember that the difference between run a race to faith and a race of faith?

This is now the race of faith.

Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder, the perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross.

And what did he do there?

He despised the shame.

Now he sits at the right hand of the throne of God.

Now, in my curiosity, I think I know what despise means, but I had to look it up in the original language and just what it but it what it basically means is this that Jesus saw the shame of the cross, saw the shame of everything that we were supposed to do, and then didn't.

And he shamed it.

He shamed shame.

He put it in the corner forever in a timeout that would last for eternity and said, You have your voice is no longer powerful here.

My voice is powerful here.

And so those who would believe in him shall never be put to shame.

Why?

Because he defeated it.

He took care of that voice for us.

He shamed it forever, despised it forever.

What great news.

What unbelievably great news.

It's no wonder that we can live by faith and give thanks with our lives.

I mean, he has silenced that voice, rendered it powerless.

So the question at all of this, you see what's before you, you see God's heart for humanity, that he wants to overtake you with a blessing, that he's fulfilled all the requirements of the law on your behalf.

Do you believe him?

Or are you still trying to do it on your own?

It's impossible.

Give up that fight.

Put your trust in Christ and in Christ alone, not just for salvation, but for life afterwards.

That's the only way that the promises of the Bible are going to come to life in you and me.

If you guys can stand with me and let me speak a word of blessing over you.

Hold your hand out like this.

The God who came for you with rescue on his mind has shamed shame.

He's put it aside and silenced it forever for all who would believe.

And so there's no use in holding out anymore.

Put your faith in him and not in yourself.

And go live unashamed lives for the glory of God.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

Amen.