This morning we come back to Paul’s train of thought that he began to work out in chapter 9. Remember, there is a big problem: if we can hope in suffering because God keeps his promises, what about the Jews and their failure to accept the Messiah? Paul’s first answer to that problem was to say that not everyone who is genetically a descendent of Abraham is a true Israelite, but only those who by faith trusted in the promises of God were considered true Israelites. And, this distinction wasn’t made by human will or exertion, but by God’s free purpose of grace.
Paul ended that thought in the last few verses of chapter 9 by saying that the Gentiles have received the righteousness of God while the Jews have, in large part, been rejected, because they did not receive it through faith. I cannot express just how revolutionary this concept was for Paul’s day, and the fact that we just assume that anyone from any race or country can be a Christian (or whatever religion they choose) is in itself evidence of the deep impact that Christianity has had on the world. You see, in Paul’s day, people didn’t “choose” their religion. They were born with it or they were brought into it through conquest or slavery. The Greeks had the Olympian Pantheon of gods. To be Greek was to believe in (or at least pay lip service to) Zeus, Athena, and all the rest. To be Egyptian was to honor Ra, Osiris, Horus, and so on. And, to be a Jew was to worship Yahweh. Religion was such an integral part of one’s cultural identity that it was assumed when one nation lost in battle to another, that the god of the victorious nation had defeated the gods of the loser. This is why the OT stories of God’s plagues on Egypt or Israel’s victories over the nations of Canaan are so significant. They reveal that the God of Israel isn’t limited to a time, place, or people. He is the God of the universe.
So, if that is the case, how do we know who the people of God are? If the people of God aren’t marked out by their skin color or dress or language, how do they stand out? To answer that question, let’s read Romans 10 together. From this passage I want you to see two points: The Mark of the Elect and the Means for Reaching Them.
First, let’s consider the mark of the elect from verses 1-13. Paul starts by turning back to a point that he’s made before: there are two ways of righteousness. One way of righteousness is to pursue moral purity through total obedience to the Law. There are some significant problems with this way. First, in verse 4, he points out that the one who would seek righteousness through the Law is obligated to keep every last dot of it. Failure in one part (even the smallest) is a failure in all of it. Second, in verses 6-8, he quotes a warning that Moses gave back in Deut 30:12-13. There, Moses warned the nation of Israel that they should not try to pull righteousness down from heaven or find it across the sea. This warning is set against two tendencies that humanity has in its pursuit of salvation. One tendency is to pursue salvation by becoming gods ourselves. This was the sin of Adam and Eve, the sin of the people before the flood, and the sin of the people of the tower of Babel. It is also a sin that many in our society practice today. Many pursue immortality through an obsession with health or power or wealth.
The second tendency is to pursue salvation through worldly wisdom. When Paul and Moses warn against “descending into the abyss”, the idea is crossing the sea to find wisdom in some foreign land. The Israelites did this by adopting the practices of the pagan nations around them. We do it today in our obsession with Eastern mystical religions, crystals, the horoscope, or manifesting.
Those ways of righteousness will ultimately fail us. We cannot be totally obedient to the Law, and no amount of help from a guru will change that. But, there is another way. It is a way, as Moses puts it, that is right on the tip the tongue and in the heart. That way is the way of faith. So, in verses 9 and 10, Paul gives us the true mark of the elect. We can know who the chosen people of God are, not by their skin or ethnicity, but by their faith. And that faith is evident in two ways. First, it is evident because those who have faith will confess it with their mouths. Now, I want you to hear me loud and clear on this: true saving faith is a faith that confesses to men. Jesus says, in Matt. 10:32, “If you acknowledge me before men, I will acknowledge you before my father, but if you deny me before men, I will deny you before my father.” It is not enough to think, “You know, me and Jesus we are OK”, and then never make that belief known. That is not a faith that will save you. Friend, let this be a warning, you cannot hold the pew with white knuckle grip, week after week, year after year, invitation after invitation, and assume that because you were among people who had faith and because you gave a head nod to Jesus, that you will somehow be accepted before God.
Second, those who are marked out by God are those who believe in their hearts. The word “believe” here means “to trust or to rest in”. It has the same root word as faith. Understand, this is not faith in the modern sense. Now, people think of faith as positive thinking – if I just believe hard enough, good things will happen. No, biblical faith rests in someone else. So, Paul says that God’s elect are marked out because they believe that Jesus was raised from the dead. True believers place all their chips on the fact that Jesus rose again and what that means for their own salvation. Saving faith isn’t liking some of the stories about Jesus. It’s not thinking that Jesus was a good teacher. It is believing the most scandalous claims of the Gospel: that Jesus rose again and you will too.
Notice what this saving faith means for those who have it. Twice, Paul says that those who confess and believe will be saved. But, he does something in the Greek that we miss in our English translations. He uses two different words for “saved”. First, in verse 9, he says that those who confess and believe will be “sozo”, which is a verb that means to protect or preserve or make well. So, one aspect of salvation for those who have faith is that God will preserve, restore, and redeem them. God is going to make us whole through faith, by the new life that he brings to our souls and the resurrection he will bring to our bodies.
But, in verse 10, when he says those who confess and believe will be saved, he uses the word “soteria”, which is a noun that means “the delivered ones”, or “the saved ones.” So, when we believe and confess, we are not only made whole through God’s Spirit and future resurrection, but God includes us in a great throng of all of those who are his. We are members of his elect, his church, his adopted sons and daughters.
So, in verses 11-13, we see how this mark plays out for the whole of humanity. Paul says that this mark of salvation is available to everyone, regardless of their background. When God saves, he doesn’t distinguish between Jew and Greek. He doesn’t make a distinction between black and white. He doesn’t show preference for men over women. No, everyone on this earth is saved through the same way – faith in Jesus Christ.
That brings me to my second point: the means of reaching the elect. Paul asks, in verse 14, “How will they call on him in whom they have not believed?” If God makes no distinction between Jew and Greek, between American and Chinese, and everyone can be saved through believing and confessing, regardless of their heritage, then there is only one barrier to their salvation – they need to hear the saving Gospel! They need someone to “preach” to them. Now, when you read the word preach, you might be thinking, “alright pastor, get to it!” But the word means “to proclaim or herald”. It’s not speaking of the position of pastor here, but of anyone who would announce the good news of the Gospel. So, the only way that people can be marked out as part of the people of God is if we take the message of the Gospel to them. And, Paul gives us a great promise in verse 17: “faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.” In other words, faith doesn’t come through your eloquence or your ability to make logical arguments for God’s existence. God uses the Gospel message that is simply and plainly taught to bring people to faith in Christ. Remember what Paul said in Rom. 1:16 – “For the Gospel is the power of God unto salvation.” The Gospel, through the power of the Holy Spirit, is what does the saving. We are not called to convert. We are called to proclaim.
So, brothers and sisters, we have a job to do. The way of salvation is open to all people. No one is outside of the reach of the Gospel. Yet, they will not believe unless they hear. And they will not hear unless we proclaim. So, let us commit ourselves today to that duty. Let us leave this place ready to proclaim the Gospel to those who need to hear.
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