Well, I invite you to turn tonight to Romans chapter 9, and we continue our study in Romans, and we are in verses 30 all the way through moving into chapter 10, verse 4 tonight. It's found on page 1124 in the Bibles that are in front of you. Again, Romans chapter 9, page 1124, we pick up at verse 30. This is the word of the Lord. What shall we say then that Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness have attained it, that is a righteousness that is by faith? But 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've stumbled over the stumbling stone. As it is written, Behold, I am laying in Zion, a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense. 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. And there will end tonight the reading of God's word. Well, one of the great questions that is often asked about national Israel, especially as they became a nation again in 1948, is whether God is going to do something in that nation and before the second coming of his son in glory, he is going to bring them in and there will be a mass conversion of national Israel to the Lord. It's amazing how much that question is asked. It's amazing how much we are fixated on that particular question. And I don't see the Apostle Paul as fixated on that question. I see the Apostle Paul, as we'll see in Romans 11, amazed that even now there is a remnant according to the election of grace coming in. But I think what we see captured tonight as we've been looking at this grand subject, which is so important to all of the Bible and our faith, is to understand what happened to national Israel. We can't understand Christianity and appreciate what Christianity is until we've really had some kind of understanding of what happened to them. The question before the apostle and what he wanted to help us with is to have us consider the great reasoning and the reasons for why Israel failed in this regard. You think of this long section in election, this doesn't throw out and it does not remove the very real culpability of national Israel and where the blame lies. And that's where the Apostle Paul is helping tonight. And this is why it's so important as we get into Romans 10, we'll see the importance of preaching, the importance of God sending preachers, how faith is created, why it's all set up this way. But this is his concern tonight. His concern in this particular section of Romans is to have us think about where Israel went wrong. What happened to them? You saw at the beginning, my heart's desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved. They need to be saved. This was the issue that they would not submit to. So Paul is really driving home the ultimate reason that Israel as a nation was cut off and rejected by the Lord. If you have any history of dispensationalism, you know that they have essentially taught that Israel rejected the Lord and the Lord went to plan B, and that's not what we have seen. Plan B being the bringing in of the Gentiles. That's not what we have seen, what we saw last time was it was always God's plan to include the Gentiles. This was not plan B. This was the promise to Abraham, right? And we saw glimpses of that, and we saw foreshadowings of that in the Old Testament that we looked at last time with Hosea. But it all comes down to something you know very well when it comes to Israel's failure. It was that they rejected a fundamental truth in the Bible, a fundamental truth in the Bible, something they should have understood, something that God took great care to make clear to them. It is something that you know very well. It is that anyone is saved in this life, if they're going to be saved, it is by faith alone in Christ alone. It's that truth. It is that truth that permeates the entire Bible. Don't ever take it for granted. By grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. These are beautiful gospel truths. These did not just originate at the Reformation. They were recovered at the Reformation. These are truths that the Bible taught all from the beginning. And this was very important. So Israel failed, and Paul will summarize this tonight. You could say, well, if that's the central thesis of the central reasoning why Israel failed, he breaks it down for us to show us this in three sort of ways when he says Israel failed because it pursued righteousness on their own terms, essentially. And then they failed because they stumbled at their Messiah. And then they failed, number three, because they refused their Messiah's righteousness. All coming back to that central thing that I'm developing here tonight, that they rejected salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, and Christ alone. So those three sort of emphases that you see arise out of this text, which I plan to walk you through for a minute, illustrate this and demonstrate this in national Israel. So this is really the gospel applied in the sense of Paul now taking everything that he's built from the first part of Romans, 1 through 8 in explaining the gospel to us and now applying that failure of Israel to receive this gospel. That's what we have here. So it's almost a lesson now in application to show us the results of what happened with Israel. And that leads us to verse 30 with the very important question that the apostle presents after showing from Hosea that it was always God's plan to bring together Jew and Gentile as one nation, one holy nation, and one people. You read in verse 30, what shall we say then? That Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness have attained it, that is, a righteousness that is by faith. What shall we say then? Well, Paul had said at the end of 24, God has called Jews and Gentiles together. And now he summarizes how the Gentiles were brought in, and he summarizes Israel's failure. That's his goal tonight. His goal is to explain Israel's failure. What do we say then? That the Gentiles who did not, notice this, who did not pursue righteousness have obtained to it. They obtained to that righteousness that is by faith. But that Israel, who pursued a law that would lead to righteousness, did not succeed in reaching that law. So it didn't succeed in trying to establish her own righteousness by the law. That's essentially what he just said. It's very simple. This is what he's been developing. What he just said is very important for understanding all scripture, of course, was that everything that we ever learned in the Bible about any figure, just pick your figure, Noah, Jacob, David, Joseph, Abraham, you could go through. If you could take Romans 4 and implant this right here, then you would see exactly what he's saying to us, that they all, when especially speaking of Abraham and David, believed God, and it was accounted to them for righteousness. The Bible showed, and Romans has showed, that we have to have the same faith as Father Abraham. Faith. And he said that. Listen to this in this context now. Knowing then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham. And the scripture foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith preached the gospel to Abraham beforehand saying, in you all the nations of the earth will be blessed. All the Gentiles of the earth will be blessed. So then those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith. That's not new. Attaining the righteousness that comes by faith, that's not new in the new covenant. That's as old as the old covenant and well before that. This is what was announced in the garden of Eden. Now, this is important because if you can boil all of life down, you have the Scripture showing us two kinds of righteousness, human righteousness and God's righteousness. The law promised by way of perfection, righteousness. Paul said there's a standard. It's not just the hearers of the law who are justified, but the doers. So if you want to be justified, there was one way. Do the law. And that was not a nice suggestion. The demand of that was perfection. We've looked at all this. This is why Leviticus 18.5, that principle, is in some way sprinkled throughout the New Testament to teach us this. that even down in verse 10 verse 5 for Moses look at this look at verse 5 of chapter 10 for Moses writes about the righteousness that is based on the law that the person who does the commandment shall live by them there it is there's Leviticus 18 do this and live well what went wrong with the jews paul said in chapter 3 we should look at them under the law and remember what he said it should have an effect on the gentiles on the whole world they were handed the law of god they were handed the oracles that's a special people who were given the oracles of god they were given directly the oracles of god and Paul says that should stop up the mouth of the whole world in its own righteousness. Why? Because Israel did not attain. Paul's building on this. They did not seek to have the righteousness that God demands by faith in Christ, but by the works of the law. That's the simple truth of this tonight. They looked at the law and they thought, this is God's holy standard. Of course we'll do it. Of course we should do it. How do you see the challenge there? Of course you should. Of course you should. But what was the very first and primary intention God added the law at Sinai? For transgressions. to show transgressions, to explain and show what's really going on in the human heart. And that's why you look at Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount, look what he did. He took adultery and he went way down into the heart or theft. You can go through the 10 words and he exposed everyone in the depths of the breaking of the law. So we're not really even here talking about, we're not talking about what we're used to talking about as Christians of what we call the third use of the law, which the third use of the law is a gratitude way of the law. And even in the gratitude way of the law, we're not pursuing the law to try to establish our own righteousness. We're saying thank you, and we want because we love the law. We love God's law. The law is good. The law is right. We want to do the law. But that's because we've already been delivered. Now Paul's explaining then what happened to Israel. See how important this section is right here tonight? It really is crucial to the whole book. They did not, now think of this morning, this is my beloved son, listen to him. They did not listen carefully to what God said about them. God was constantly sending prophets. He was constantly sending preachers. He gave a whole sacrificial system. Think of the Levitical sacrificial system. Was that fun? That was not fun. It was bloody. It taught them things. It taught them about the scrupulous kind of satonement and sacrifice that needed to be made for them because of sin. And the blood of bulls and goats didn't cover it. The Lord taught them constantly. Think of these things we take for granted. Think of what happens in worship on Sundays. We read the law and we confess our sins. that is so important. God taught them constantly to do that. Confess your sins to me. It's all over the Old Testament. I will abundantly pardon. Come now, let's reason together, says the Lord. Though your skins are like scarlet, they shall be white as snow. What did Israel do to the prophets? You have summary statements from our Lord. They killed the prophets. They rejected the message. They didn't understand the purpose of the law. And God gave the law for what end? Primarily, so that they would look to the righteousness of their God, which would be supplied for them. God was giving this message throughout the Old Testament. You know, it wouldn't have been fun to be David and have your story plastered all over the scripture for all of time, would it? But I think David says, I submit to that because this is the core message of scripture. Have mercy upon me, O God, according to your loving kindness, according to the multitude of your mercies. Blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity. Cleanse me from my sin, for I acknowledge my transgressions and my sin is always before me, always against you and you only have I sinned and done this evil in your sight. And the Lord forgave him. Two kinds of religion. Israel directly had the oracles of God. And what it should have done was produce in them a great awakening so that they would look at God's righteous standard. They would recognize the sin that was always in them, that they were constantly provoking the Lord, a stiff-necked people. They were always transgressing the law. They needed a righteousness. They needed a righteousness wholly outside of themselves. And this is why the Lord said, listen, I will circumcise your hearts. I want truth in the inward parts. Now, maybe just to apply this for a minute, this is my concern in Christianity today. the Christian community. The understanding of Christianity has become so elementary today. The depth of God's Word and these basic concepts are almost so foreign, and they're not touched upon in people's lives and Christians' lives, so that we're so surface. We are so on the surface that we don't understand even the basic distinctions between law and grace. Take our children. Imagine a teacher who doesn't understand any of this, teaching our children. Christianity. He has all the students in front of her, him. The command is, let's take the command. Go and love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength, and your neighbor as yourself. Imagine this as an Israelite teacher. What would be fundamentally different for us if we have two kinds of righteousness here? The Israelite teacher, and this is what I worry about in Christianity today, would tell the little children, go out and do this. Well, of course. Of course. That's, of course, our default position. Go do this. Go be better. It's like there's no conception in the way it's taught that of the purpose the law was given to begin with. And so this alone facilitates, now think of the consequence of this, the greatest amount of deadness in our communities. Because it's as if this truth cannot be comprehended. There's no understanding that our children need a righteousness they don't have. Well, if that's true, you're framing things a little bit differently. It's like this concept is lacking. It's as if the solution of Christianity is just being a better Christian. That's the depth of our Christianity today. Don't do this. Don't do that. Our children are pretty smart. They're often much smarter than we think. You know many children grow up hating this environment because they just think it's a bunch of rules that no one can keep? This is what we've done in evangelicalism. And it's definitely seeped into the Reformed world. So they look at our environment and say, I just need out of this, this constrictive environment. It's just always about being better, being better, being better. That's burnout. Now take someone who does not understand this great distinction, the law which we are trying to pursue or establish our own righteousness, which maybe not even realizing we're doing it just to try to be better Christians, that is portrayed as the be-all and end-all of Christianity. That's so problematic, isn't it? What is that? It's not Christianity. Versus the righteousness that comes by faith. What does it say to our students? Children, Children, you need a lot of help today. You need a lot of grace today. Do you know that you have broken God's law? Do you know you need to be saved? Do you know that you are sinners? I have really good news for you. Do you know why Jesus came? because he loved you, and he came to forgive you. And I know you're struggling too. I know you're carrying burdens too. I know you have guilt too. And you need Jesus too, and he came for you. They're radically different approaches. A.J. Jacobs the agnostic Jewish journalist did you hear this story he's written a book called the year of living biblically I guess it's just a year in it he describes one year of his life where he tried to observe every law in the bible as literally as possible he said the hardest laws were those from Leviticus yes look at the blindness here on his website he sums up his findings in the beginning of the year I wrote down every rule, every guideline, every suggestion, every nugget of advice I could find in the Bible. It's a very long list, yeah? I think so. It runs 72 pages. 700 rules. Some rules were wise, some were completely baffling. Some were baffling at first, then wise. Some were wise first, then baffling. Here's some of the highlights broken down by category. His summary was this. That since he was pretending to be a better person, here's what he said happened to me. I became a little bit better of a person. I laughed out loud when I read the story. That is just hilarious. You became a little bit better after all that effort? He says, by the end of it, I learned, really, what it came down to was this, with all these laws in front of me. Thou shall pick and choose. you can't write this stuff up I tried to follow it all and he says I failed miserably anyone who follows the Bible has to be picking and choosing so we have to pick the right parts things that change you that's what he came up with well I have bad news for him that standard is whole and complete and demands perfect and complete obedience and by his own admission he thinks he got a little bit better when he gave his whole year to trying to do this. Israel sought to establish their righteousness by the works of the law. Here's the point of the Christian gospel. You have sought a righteousness outside of yourselves by faith. That's how you entered the kingdom of God. Israel didn't obtain it because they sought it by works. And so he says here, they failed stumbling at their Messiah. You look at verse 32, for they stumbled at the stumbling stone as it is written, behold, I lay in Zion a stumbling stone and rock of offense, and whoever believes on him will not be put to shame. That's a fascinating verse. It comes from Isaiah. Let's just listen to it. Therefore, thus says the Lord God, behold, I lay in Zion a stone for a foundation, a tried stone, a precious cornerstone, a sure foundation. Whoever believes will not act hastily. Who was the stone? Well, then we have answered Isaiah 8, 13. The Lord of hosts, him you shall hallow. Let him be your fear. Let him be your dread. He will be as a sanctuary, but a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense to both houses of Israel as a trap and a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem. And many among them shall stumble. They shall fall and be broken, to be snared and taken. Who's the stone? Well, you'll notice verse 32. Whoever believes on him shall not be put to shame. What we believe about Jesus matters. We've been looking at that in Matthew. But if we deny him, we have nothing. We have nothing. Jesus told a parable of the wicked vinedressers. It's important to quote here. Landowner planted a vineyard, leased it to vinedressers, and went off to a far country. When the vintage time drew near, he sent to his servants, to the vinedressers, to receive the fruit. The vinedressers beat one, killed another, stoned another. He sent more servants, and they did the same. Last of all, the owner sent his son to them saying, they'll respect my son. But when the vine dressers saw the son, they said among themselves, this is the heir. Come, let us kill him and seize the inheritance. So they took him and cast him out of the vineyard and killed him. Jesus asked, who do you think the owner, what do you think the owner of the vineyard will do when he returns? They responded, he'll destroy those men and give it to other vine dressers. How does Jesus apply this? Listen, Matthew 21, we're getting there. Have you never read the Scriptures? The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone. This was the Lord's doing. And it's marvelous in our eyes. Therefore, I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken from you and given to a nation bearing the fruits of it. And whoever falls on this stone will be broken. But whomever on it falls, it will grind him to powder. Now, when the chief priests and Pharisees heard his parables, they perceived that he was speaking of them. But when they sought to lay hands on him, they feared because of the multitudes, because they took him for a prophet. You see what he just did? I'm it. I'm the stone. Peter says, Behold, I lay in Zion a chief cornerstone, elect and precious. He who believes on him will by no means be put to shame. Therefore, to you who believe, he is precious. But to those who are disobedient, the stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone and a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense. It's right here in Romans. This is what they did. They rejected their Messiah because he was a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense because of the righteousness that he preached. He was always exposing and showing us who he came for. the sick. I want to close with this thought tonight. So Paul says Israel failed ultimately because they refused his righteousness. That's verses 1 through 4 of chapter 10. Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel so they may be saved. For I bear them witness they have a zeal for God and not according to knowledge. For they being ignorant of God's righteousness and seeking to establish their own righteousness have not submitted to the righteousness of God for Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes. Here's the summary of the matter tonight. Why is Israel culpable? Why are they guilty? Isn't it interesting? They had a zeal for God but not according to knowledge. You can have a great zeal for God. You can try to do many things for God, but none of that is according to knowledge. The knowledge of what? The gospel. Israel tried to establish their own righteousness by the law. Now you can understand verse 4 is so beautiful in this context. For Christ, hear it, is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes. He's the whole goal of everything. He's the whole goal of the law. What does that mean? What it means is everyone who looks in faith to him and has come to him has understood what the law's intention was in exposing our sin and misery to drive us to our knees. And the intention was that we would come to him. Christ is the goal of the law. It was a tutor to lead us to him. What a wonderful verse. You never have to fear that God's acceptance of you is based upon how well you've done in this life or how obedient you have been. You want to try it? Maybe you'll get a little bit better than A.J. Jacobs, but I don't suggest it. If you know what you've done, you know you've by far missed the mark. And if you were to have all your sins accumulated and set before God Almighty and stand before him tonight and he set his law in front of you, that would be one scary proposition. But the good news of the Christian gospel is God has outside of you given you a righteousness that you receive by faith that covers your whole life. he clothes you in rich robes of righteousness. He's cast your sin as far as the east is from the west. And positively, he has reckoned to you a righteousness that now he sees you in, just as if you had been obedient and kept the law because Christ was for you. Peter says, this stone is precious to us. Is he precious to you? He wasn't to Israel. Is he precious to you? Then I've got really good news for you. Your sins are forgiven. And you have entered into the kingdom. And you are saved. And nothing can take that from you. What a God we have. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we give you our praise tonight and thanks for supplying a righteousness that we could not obtain to. And as Paul was so grieved for Israel, we do pray that all of your people would hear this message and respond with great joy that you've done this thing for us. We give you praise tonight, this chief cornerstone, elect and precious. Precious, O Lord, to us. We receive by faith. Thank you for giving us all we need. Help us to rest in these promises and trust you. May our communities be filled with the knowledge of the gospel, not just having a zeal for God, but like Israel, being dead. But, O Lord, may we be alive, and may our children know the steadfast love of God in Christ for them. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.