The Cornerstone & Rock of Offense

Introduction

You’ll be making your way to Romans chapter 9, Romans 9 and verse 30, and begin reading there in just a moment. Romans 9 and verse 30. We’re going to follow up some thoughts from the earlier part of the Book of Romans. I know some of you have been here all weekend, Friday, Saturday, multiple times, and now we are coming multiple times today. And so just be aware that I am aware of that. At the same time, we’ve got some work to do in the book of Romans, and so I want to cover this, I think at a pretty high level. I don’t I want to get into some of the depths of it, but mostly I just want to kind of get the basic idea from Romans 10.

There’s sort of three parts to this text. The first part of Romans 9, 1 through 29, which I’ll review here in just a moment. And then the second part, which we’re in this morning, which is 9 30 through the end of 10, and then there’ll be a third part later in Romans 11. And they all work together, so we can do some more with Romans 11 and how it connects to this passage a little bit later. And so I want to kind of hit this at a high level here this morning. Begin reading with me. I want to read the text first, and that’d be our focus, and then we’ll work from there to get some ideas and points from this that I think can be helpful to us.

Paul says, What shall we say then? That Gentiles who do 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 did not pursue it by faith, but as if it was 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 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. For Moses writes about the righteousness that is based on the law, that the person who does the commandments shall live by them. But the righteousness based on 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 abyss, that is to bring Christ up from the dead. But what does it say? The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart, that is the word of faith that we proclaim. Because if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. For the scripture says, Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame. For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him. For every one who calls in the name of the Lord will be saved. How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent, as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news?

But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us. So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ. But I ask you, have they not heard? Indeed they have. For their voice has gone out to all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world. But I ask, did Israel not understand? First Moses says, I will make you jealous of those who are not a nation. With a foolish nation, I will make you angry. Then Isaiah is so bold as to say, I have been found by those who do not seek me. I have shown myself to those who do not ask for me. But of Israel, he says, All day long, I have held out my hands to a disobedient and contrary people.

Think back about a time where you learned something new or something different. You’ve always done something a certain way, and now you realize or someone introduces a different way to do this thing. What is your initial reaction to that? I think if I’m honest, my reaction is almost always negative. Right? I question, and maybe some of this is personality. Some of you may be a little bit different about this. I tend to be skeptical. And so my first reaction is to not accept whatever this new thing is. I remember when I was younger, I worked at McDonald’s for quite some time. And some of you who are a little older, you may remember when they start this whole thing about made to order. When I first started, you prepared a certain amount of food, and it sat there in those warming bins, and people came and you had to kind of figure out how many burgers do we need and how many fries, and you just kind of have to guess.

Right? And it’s sort of based on times of day and when people would show up and all this. Well, then they introduced this new idea where they’re gonna you’re you’re only gonna make things when they’re ordered. And how do you think we felt about that? We did not like this idea. But I’ll tell you, McDonald’s, back then at least, they were experts in all of this sort of stuff. They studied it and they knew the best way to do everything, and I’m not kidding at all, they knew the best way to do everything. Everything was put through vetting and testing, even to how many burgers you should make at a time and how you go about that process. And they were extremely firm on how you did that because it was faster to make two at a time rather than three or four.

And so this whole process, though we resisted it and we did not like it at first, over time we realized it was actually better. We didn’t waste our time making a bunch of food that we then threw away because no one bought it, right? And it saved them money as well, which is what they were interested in. But there are all sorts of benefits to this. Even the book of Romans, as I studied the book of Romans, I remember years ago coming across, and kind of the name itself sets it up for failure in the minds of many. there is this idea called the new perspective on Paul. And so when people hear new, they immediately think bad. You know, and so you may hear, oh, there’s nothing new under the sun, right?

Kind of abusing this passage in the Old Testament, as if we can’t come to better understandings of things. And so my immediate reaction was, well, this can’t be right. You know, this is some new idea. And I’ll tell you what, every sermon that I have preached so far out of the book of the Romans is following this concept of the new perspective. You may not realize that. It took me a long time to realize that Paul is not fighting legalism. That’s not the issue. That’s not a first-century Jewish problem. They believe in the grace of God, they just believe it’s only available to Jews, and it wasn’t available to Gentiles. And that’s the issue that Paul’s dealing with, even in this passage. That’s the question he’s dealing with that the Jews are wrestling with.

How is God faithful to Israel as his elect people, and yet now Gentiles are being let in? How does this work in light of this new information, the gospel of Jesus Christ? And these are legitimate questions, and this is the question that Paul’s really trying to deal with both Jews and Gentiles, trying to kind of get them on the same page and understand what God’s purposes in the world are and what he’s trying to accomplish. And so, last time in chapter 9, I’ll just quickly work through at least part of what we covered there. He talked about the idea of election or choice and how God works in the world. That election, it’s always been through promise and not flesh. And so there were there were sons of Abraham.

There were sons of Isaac who were not part of the promise. God chose certain people to work his plan. And that choice was not about morality. It’s not because Jacob was more moral or he did more right things. And it’s not about eternal destiny. It didn’t mean that the people God worked through now were destined to be with him forever. That’s not the idea of election. It’s about how God chooses to work in the world through certain groups of people. And then ultimately, the end goal here of what God’s doing is to show that his plan is actually bringing mercy to the whole world. Through your seed, all nations of the earth will be blessed, he tells Abraham. Right? God works his plan. Despite the disobedience of men, despite the contrary nature sometimes of even those who are part of the elect, God is going to bring about his goal to bring mercy to the world.

And so his goal is not to find failure or find fault. That does happen when people resist his will, but actually, chapter 9 makes it pretty clear that what he’s trying to do here is offer this blessing of mercy to all nations, which then leaves us in this question here in verse 30. Well, what do we say? That the Gentiles have found a standing before God, that they have a good status, and they haven’t even been looking for it. And all these years, Israel has been trying to keep the law and yet they haven’t found righteousness? Is that what you’re saying, Paul? The short answer is yes. Because of the way they’ve they’ve done it. And because, at least at this point, as Paul’s dealing with the issue currently, most of the Jews have rejected it.

Right? And so that’s the problem he’s dealing with. I want to use sort of a key to help us understand this text. One that I think is really familiar. It’s like when you look at a map and you see northeast, southwest, and it kind of gives you an idea of what’s going on this map. I want you to think of the prodigal son, that story of Jesus as a little bit of a key, a way to understand what we’re talking about here in Romans 10. This story that Jesus tells, which is ultimately about the contrary older brother, we tend to focus more on the wasteful son, the prodigal. But it does feature both of these characters. And I think kind of having this in our mind as we think through chapter 10 would be really helpful.

He has perverted the things that his father has taught him, and he’s gone off to do his own thing, and then eventually realizes his desperate need for the father. While the older son has stayed by his father’s side and seemingly has followed him in all ways.

When his loving father receives back one of his children that he loves. Or I might translate this if we put it into God humanity terms, part of his creation that he loves. Part of humanity that he loves. Now, this seemingly faithful son is angry. These many years I have served you, he says. I have never been disobedient. All my life I’ve been faithful. I’ve been so good. And of course, the story is actually about how what we should be saying, like the song many of you have heard all my life, you have been faithful. You are so good. It’s not about the older son and what he’s done. It’s not really about the younger son, even what he’s done. It’s more about God and who he is.

And these are two stories. We track these two stories, and what we’re finding is that this son who is close to the Father, the son that stayed home, he’s actually not very faithful. In the story, both sons are very far from their father at a certain point. The prodigal is far in the beginning of the story, and then the older son is far from the father at the end of the story. And yet he feels like he’s so close. He feels like he’s done so much good and he has served for so long, and yet he’s actually at odds with the Father. And so, with this story in mind, let’s think about some of what Paul is doing here with the Jewish people, especially, and trying to get the Gentiles as well to understand.

1. Righteousness by Faith Is Different and New

Why is it that the Jews are struggling with this idea of God’s righteousness and how it’s being revealed? Why is it that this is so difficult for them? Well, first of all, because it’s different, it’s new, it’s a change, it’s something they don’t quite understand, although it had been talked about frequently in the Old Testament. And so Paul actually runs through the Old Testament in fullness, right? He uses the law and the prophets and the Psalms. He uses all parts of the Old Testament to make this argument in Romans chapter 10, and that’s part of the depths that we won’t go into this morning, but it’s there. Right? He uses everything in Scripture to back up what he’s saying. And so that’s present, and yet, even there, the Jews, it’s like this is a surprise.

This is something different. It’s not what they’ve always known. They’ve always pursued the law of Moses. Like this is the means by which they’re going to have a good standing before God. And Paul has spent almost the entire book saying that’s incorrect. That is not how you’re going to find a good standing before God. In fact, this goes back to the very first part of this story of the book. The just shall live not by the law, not by following Moses, but the just shall live by faith. So he’s really restating the thesis that goes all the way back to chapter one.

They’re the same term, they’re the same word. You’re not going to be righteous before God because you’ve kept the law of Moses so well. The law of Moses can’t do that. It’s incapable because you are not going to keep it in all parts. You’re going to fail. And for that to make you just and righteous, you have to keep it perfectly. Right? This is part of the argument that he’s making. And part of what Paul’s doing here in Romans 10 is actually sort of returning to earlier parts of the book, chapter 3 and verse 21 and following, that the righteousness of God is now revealed apart from the law through the faith of Jesus Christ for all who have faith, or all who believe. Faith and belief are the same concept here.

It’s the same Greek term, it’s just terms of how they’re being used in the sentence, the structure of the sentence. So what he’s saying is Jesus is faithful to God’s plan. He accomplishes God’s will, and you put your faith in that is where God’s righteousness is being revealed, and that’s what puts you in a good standing with God. This is hard. All my life I’ve been serving you, Lord, all my life. I’ve been following the law of Moses. And you’re gonna say these pagan Gentiles can come in here and they can now say they believe in Jesus and they’ll be saved. You know, it’s interesting, Paul has to deal with another aspect of this, though, and I think that’s part of why he writes the letter.

There’s the temptation, I think, of the prodigal. Jesus doesn’t continue the story, it’s just a metaphor, an example. But I think through human nature, if we continue the story, we could see the temptation as well of the prodigal looking at the older son and saying, you know, I’ve had my problems. But I realized how much I needed grace. And I’m glad I’m not a self-righteous hypocrite like my older brother. We’re heading there in chapter 11. How Paul’s going to deal with the arrogance of the Gentiles in this story as well, and that temptation to look at those, the ones who thought they were so good, and the ones who formed their own self-righteousness, and I’m not like them. I can’t believe those people. They think they can come up with their own rules, and I’m just so much better than that.

I understand how much I need God’s grace. Do you see the temptation on either side of this? The conflict that Paul’s having to deal with as he wrestles with some of this cultural background between Jew and Gentile. And what I’m trying to suggest to you this morning is though we live in very different times and we’re not dealing with Jew and Gentile, we still sometimes wrestle with the same kinds of problems. We still wrestle with the idea that the true marker of righteousness is how much I’ve done and how good I’ve been. And that my morality is better than somebody else’s. And of course, God does call us to be moral and to follow him and to do good things and all of that. But the marker of a standing before God is faith in Jesus Christ.

And he makes that very clear in this text and pretty much the entire book up to this point. That all the human ways that sometimes we come up with to demarcate and to identify, Paul’s not interested in that. And he says, if you’re trying to do that with the law, you’re going the wrong direction. That the way you identify with God as one of his, as part of his children, you are within the covenant. That you were righteous and you’re standing before God is now you put your faith in Jesus Christ. Now there’s a whole part of this, again, that I can’t get into the depths of this morning. This whole section where he’s using Deuteronomy 30 and the word being in your mouth and in your heart and confessing.

He’s already talked about in Romans 6 the means by which you do this and what it looks like to call upon the Lord. And so that’s very clear earlier in the letter. And so he’s not countering that point. He’s not saying something different. There is a way that you follow Jesus and you obey him faithfully and you do what he’s said to do. And Paul’s not denying that reality. The difference is that’s what Jesus says to do. That’s what God is said to do. That is God’s law for us. And it’s not something we’ve created for ourselves to come up with our own badges of acceptance among God’s people. The Jews are wrestling with this idea that faith in Christ is the mark of justification. Shouldn’t we have to also follow the law or keep the tradition of the elders, you know, wash our hands before we eat, and all the shouldn’t we have to do all that stuff too?

2. It's Attainable to Everyone

No. The only mark of our relationship with God is faith in Jesus Christ and what Christ calls us to. And this is a hard thing. It’s a difficult thing to accept given their background and all that they have done and what they have worked through. And then following with this is just the reality that it’s attainable and it’s attainable to everyone. This is where Deuteronomy 30 comes in. Sometimes I think we kind of misunderstand the old law. You know, it was so difficult, so hard, nobody could possibly do the things in the law. And what we mean is it’s so complicated and complex, nobody can even understand it. Deuteronomy 30 denies that. It says, no, it’s not too hard. Now, to actually carry it out in our lives and make the right choices sometimes is not going to happen.

And so people did do things that were contrary to the law because they wanted to. They follow their own self-will instead of God’s will. But Moses makes it very clear. It’s not too hard for you to keep this commandment I’m giving you today. It’s a choice of life or death. And this is why Paul’s using this text. He’s taking this and sort of reinterpreting Deuteronomy 30 in light of the gospel of Christ. And what he’s saying is this message is the same. It’s a choice of life or death. And it’s not too hard. It’s just whether or not you’ll do it. It’s not too hard to decide you’re going to put your faith in Jesus Christ. It’s not too hard to understand that all of this is part of God’s plan and that he’s worked through Israel.

They are his elect, and he has brought about the Messiah, and the Messiah now brings life. And what you need to do is put your faith in Jesus Christ the Messiah. That’s not too hard. It’s just whether or not you’ll actually do it. And it’s something that anyone can do, Jew or Gentile, prodigal or older son. It doesn’t matter too much this morning if you have been the one who’s been in the pig pen, who’s suffered with lowliness and weakness, with addiction, with immorality. There’s an answer. It doesn’t matter if you’ve been obstinate and contrary, if you’ve been the older son who’s looked down at that person who is lowly and weak and addicted and immoral, and thought, I can’t believe God would ever accept them.

There’s an answer for you too. It’s for all who will call on the name of the Lord. Everyone will be saved. The Jews are struggling with this concept because they’re so tied to the idea, and understandably so, because for so long the idea was you follow the law of Moses, so it’s a little bit different than even just creating our own ideas of righteousness, which they also did that around the law. We talked about that a little bit last week. They’re struggling with this concept that now this is something that everyone can do. That was the goal from the very beginning. The whole purpose of the law, it was a tutor to bring us to Christ, Paul says. The whole point of this was not to always have it remain as the law, and that’s the final answer.

It was to bring us to the real conclusion, which is what books like Isaiah are talking all about that we’ve been studying in our adult class.

How frequently it talks about this blessing to all the nations, that it’s not just the Jews. God’s plan is bigger than just Israel. But Israel’s struggling with reality. And so Paul does come back to this that this is attainable and it’s attainable for everyone. And it’s about the heart and about what we believe. And so he tells him here if you believe with your heart and you confess that Jesus is Lord, that he was raised from the dead, you will be saved. This is the message. It’s not if you keep the law of Moses. That’s not going to be the answer. It’s not going to do it for you. And in similar ways, it’s not going to be that the various things that sometimes we come up with and imagine are the marks of righteousness.

3. Faith Comes by Hearing

That’s not going to be what does it for us. It is God’s plan and only God’s plan that matters. And along with this reality is what you’ve known for so long, that is that faith comes by hearing. This is just kind of a logical sequence that Paul uses here. You know, everyone who calls on him will be saved, but you have to believe to call. And to believe in him, you have to hear. And to hear, someone has to preach. And to preach, someone has to be sent. There has to be a message to be preached. There’s got to be something to say, and you’ve got to be sent with this message. So Paul’s sort of just working through this idea that faith comes by hearing.

You have to hear this message, and they are hearing the message. That’s what Paul’s doing. He’s saying I’m giving you this information. And what’s going to save you is faith. And it’s going to save Jew, and it’s going to save Gentile. And so faith comes by hearing. But here’s the bigger question in the text. What about when hearing doesn’t result in faith? Then what? I mean, that’s a great thought. We use that line a lot, right? Faith comes by hearing and hearing through the word of Christ. And of course, that’s true. But Paul is also pointing out in this text the reality as he’s gonna work his way into chapter 11 and get into some other related matters with Jew and Gentile that sometimes when we hear, we don’t believe.

Then what? Is God no longer faithful because some are faithless? God forbid. This is chapter 3, restated. No, let God be true in every man a liar. See, now we’re returning back to what Paul’s already talked about in Romans chapter 3. God’s righteousness is being revealed apart from the law. And it’s a message that has to be accepted. It has to be received, and it’s gonna be received by those who are sons of Abraham, and Abraham is a father of faith to all, to Jew and Gentile, right? So now we’re working through Romans 3 and Romans 4. And he’s just restating this in a little bit different way here. But I want us to get this point from this reality. There has always been tension between divine sovereignty and human responsibility.

This goes back to our election discussion last time. There’s always tension. It has always existed, it still exists. There’s always tension between divine sovereignty and human responsibility. And so what I’m saying is God has always given his message, and he doesn’t force people to accept it. There’s always somewhere along the way that I have to decide I’m going to accept what God has said. Or maybe unfortunately, I decide I’m not going to accept what God has said. And that’s the problem with the Jews right now in Paul’s day. They’re rejecting the message. The problem is not that they haven’t heard. The problem is not that the message hasn’t been preached and someone hasn’t been sent. No, all of those things has happened. And that’s what he goes through here in this next series of quotations from Psalms and Deuteronomy and Isaiah.

No, it’s not that they haven’t heard. Indeed, they have heard. They just didn’t listen. And God has bigger plans on the horizon. In fact, God and his sovereignty, even through the disobedience and the contrary nature of some men is now going to bring even more people under his reign. That’s where we’re headed in chapter 11, because that’s how big God is. And that’s how powerful he is. That even when some people are disobedient and contrary, he still works his plan of mercy. And so I want to tell you three things. Three things that happen even when someone hears and doesn’t believe.

4. God Will Continue to Bless All Who Call

For the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him, for everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. So here’s the point. The gospel is there and the message is out. It’s being preached. God is who God is. And whether I or you receive what he says, whether we listen and that results in faith, God, being who he is, will continue to bless those who do believe. It’s present. I can choose to deny it. I can choose to reject it. But God is a God of mercy and compassion, and he will continue to bless all who call on his name. And it doesn’t matter if they’re the prodigal or they’re the older son. Anyone who comes to their senses and realizes who God is and how desperately they need him, God will bless them.

5. God Will Remain Persistent

Which then goes into the second item I want to bring up. The second reality of the fact that even when we hear, sometimes we don’t believe is that God will remain persistent. Some of this seems really negative. And when we get to the end of chapter 10, even the way it ends, all day long I have held up my hands to a disobedient and contrary people. You know, and our inclination there is, oh man, they’re so disobedient and contrary. Look at these Jews who won’t accept the message of God. Hear the other side of it. God doesn’t give up. All day long, he’s holding out his hands. He desperately wants you to come to him. And that will never change. As long as you have breath and as long as you have life, he’s there waiting with his arms open.

He wants to receive you. And so, yes, there is a reality here that some don’t believe and some don’t listen. They don’t take the message to heart and they won’t react to it. But there’s the other side of this as well, in which even when God knows that, even when God is realizing that you don’t want to heed his message, he’s still going to hold his arms open for you all day long. You see the Father. Every day he’s looking, waiting.

He can’t force him. But he’s there waiting when he sees him. He’s holding out his arms, he’s reaching out. Maybe you are the prodigal, lowly, weak, addicted, immoral, and you haven’t yet come to God for answers. Don’t stay in the pig pen and ask, where’s God? You left him. He didn’t leave you. But the gospel is that he’s there waiting with open arms. He wants you to come home. Or maybe you’re the older brother. You have a zeal for God, but it’s not according to knowledge. Maybe you’re among those who look to other markers other than faith in Christ as a sign of what is right standing before God. Those who God makes angry because his grace is so powerful to save the prodigals. Did you see that in the text?

I will make you jealous of those who are not a nation. This is verse 19. With a foolish nation, I will make you angry. God’s going to receive people and it’s going to make some people angry because they think they don’t deserve it. And maybe it is this morning, that’s where you are. You think some people don’t deserve it. Those immoral, addicted people, they just don’t deserve it. All my life I’ve been faithful. I’ve served you all my days, and you’re going to let this person who’s been addicted or immoral or lived away from you, and now they can say they have faith in Christ. But I want you to know that God’s still pursuing you too. It may be that you’re among those who hold up their own unattainable form of righteousness is the answer.

Or those who think righteousness is determined by being moral enough or perfect enough or right enough. But you need to know, even if you don’t think you need to know it right now, you need to know that God is still reaching out his arms for you in your lost condition.

That your contrary nature and your obstinants to God’s will, you’re looking down on others who you think don’t deserve God’s grace and mercy. That’s not going to do it. But even how negative and how ugly a picture that is, God all day long is holding out his hands, waiting for you to return. God loves you. Julian told me, just tell us God loves us and let us go home tomorrow.

Conclusion

There you go. We covered a lot on Friday and Saturday. There was a lot of information, a lot of great information. And those of you who are here, I know you benefited greatly from that. And it takes some time to digest all of that. And so I think that’s great. I think Julianne was dead on. Here’s what we need to know God loves us. He wants every single one of us. And he wants you and I to come to him, not with arms full of alms of personal accomplishments and thinking of all the things that we’ve done, but in faith that righteousness is found through our connection to Christ Jesus. That righteousness can be found even in our recognition of our own guilt, our own recognition that we’ve been immoral, that we’ve given other things in our life first place up to this point.

Even in the midst of all of that, God loves you. And he stands ready for us to come to him. And that’s what Paul wants us to understand. It doesn’t matter who you are. In his setting, it was Jew or Gentile. And the various baggage they carried with them because of those backgrounds. It doesn’t matter who you are, God wants you to come to him, and he will receive you with open arms. And the same message is true this morning. Doesn’t really matter what you’ve done in your past. God wants you to come to him and to change your life and to be recreated after the image of his son. And that is something that every single one of us can attain and can do. Can we help you with that this morning?

Why don’t you come as we stand and we sing together.