Romans chapter 10 verses 1 through 13, 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 commandment 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 the 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 the Jew and the Greek. 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. May the Lord add a blessing to the reading and the hearing of his word. One of the misfortunes of people is that we like to make things complicated. You know just this week I found myself trying to explain to our church staff my strange morning routine in the high school. Now I'm not going to explain it for you this morning, but let's just say it was complicated, okay? Sadly, sadly few people buy into what is known as Occam's Razor. If you've heard of Occam's Razor, Occam's Razor is the theory that if there are two hypotheses about a problem then the simpler one is probably the answer. It has been my experience that Occam's Razor tends to generally be true, but even still we insist on the more complicated explanation or solution. Never wonder why that is. Why is that? Why do we make things more complicated than than they need to be? Why do we insist on the more complicated explanation? Perhaps it's because we like to think we are intelligent than we really are. And so the complex solution or answer makes us feel good about our ability to reason or think. Or maybe it's because we assume that the simpler answer is just that. Too simple. Too obvious for that to be the solution. Like what is the shortest distance between two points? The answer? A straight line. That just seems too simple. That can't be the answer. Whatever our reason for making things more complicated, the fact of the matter is we like to do it. We like to make things more complicated than they really are. Last week Pastor Tony laid the foundation for our new series entitled Keep It Simple Saints. And in doing so he was admonishing us to resist complicating our walks with Jesus and to really embrace the simplicity that is the life of the Christian. Like Jesus did with Martha. He encouraged us to consider with all that we have going on in our busy lives what is absolutely necessary. And so to spur us on in that direction we are spending the next several weeks returning to those core principles that get us back to Jesus. Get us back to Jesus. And this morning if you haven't noticed already from the songs that we sung, we are talking about simple. Simple faith. Am I going to now? I just just want to make sure. Simple faith. That's what we're talking about this morning. As I said we are people that like to make things complicated. And that is no truer than when it comes to the issue of faith. What is interesting about that is that faith is not a complicated word or concept. It's meaning in fact is very simple. At its core faith simply means to trust. To believe in something or someone. Faith has a simple meaning. But it is also a word that people have come to throw around. And so people they have no problem using that word faith. They throw it around all the time. It's not uncommon to hear people talking about faith or about their faith athletes and politicians and entertainers talk about faith all the time. And yet and yet despite its simple meaning and the myriad of people who talk about it we still complicate it. And by we I don't just mean society at large. I mean we Christians complicate faith. We not only complicate it. I think we get it wrong. We add to faith. Take away from it. Thinking we are simplifying it. One in reality we are just making it more complicated. So this morning I want to explore answers to two questions. Here are the two questions that we are going to explore this morning. What makes faith complicated and what makes faith simple? What makes faith complicated and what makes it simple or makes it complicated? Now remember brothers and sisters my desire is to get you to see that faith is complicated. We are talking about simple faith at the title of the message, simple faith. But the truth is you make it so. And I believe Romans 10 is going to help us see why we do that. Why what makes faith complicated simply put self righteousness. Self righteousness is what makes faith complicated. In elementary school during science we would often play with magnets. You ever do this magnets. It was fun using the magnets to pick up metal objects and it was fun putting these two magnets together and trying to pull them apart and it being difficult. But for me I like the feeling of trying to put together two magnets that did not attract. You remember doing this? When you try to put a North Pole magnet together with another North Pole magnet what would they do? They would repel. No matter how much you try to put them together they would resist going together. They would push against each other. Brothers and sisters that is the relationship between faith and self righteousness. They repel each other. Here's the deal. We complicate faith when we try to pair it together with self righteousness and those two things brothers and sisters do not attract. They don't attract because self righteousness it kills faith. It kills faith. I don't know if we realize just how dangerous self righteousness is. I like to call self righteousness the silent killer. I call it the silent killer because self righteousness gives the appearance of faith. It gives the appearance of faith. The self righteous person thinks they are saved and others look at them and think they are saved too. You see this was the scribes and the Pharisees. Matthew 23, 27 and 28. Jesus says, whoa, to use scribes and Pharisees. Hippocrates, for you are like white wash tombs which outly appear beautiful within our fullness. Also outwardly appear righteous to others but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness. This was the scribes and the Pharisees. Listen, self righteousness complicates faith because self righteous folks look like they have faith and therefore give the impression that self righteousness is faith. Self righteousness complicates faith. Listen, because self righteous folks look like they have faith and therefore give the impression that self righteousness is faith. Listen, everyone wanted to be like the Pharisees and the scribes. They did. They were the ones tithing and praying in the street and going over and above the particulars of the law. They were the ones memorizing large portions of scriptures and they did all this to demonstrate to themselves and others that they were the ones that were really serious. To prove they were worthy of going to heaven. And people looked at the scribes and the Pharisees and they said, man, if anyone has faith certainly these religious leaders do, they must have faith. Look at all that they are doing. But what people were doing when they looked at the scribes and Pharisees and made much of their works, they were equating the scribes and the Pharisees self righteousness with faith, believing that if they followed them, if they followed the Christian life just like the scribes and the Pharisees, that they themselves would get to heaven too. Doing what the Pharisees and the scribes do. Sadly, this is not simply a first century problem for the Pharisees. We too look at the good works of individuals and we have good work with faith because they do this because they don't do that then they must have faith in Jesus. And if I follow what they do, then I will be saved too. It's awful when we do it, when we make this assessment of people's lives in their faith, when we do that to others, but it is deadly when we do it in our own lives. When we equate our works, with faith. Meaning, meaning that we believe that our righteousness before a holy God is wrapped up in what we do or don't do. We say like those in Matthew 7. Lord, did we not do this in your name and do that in your name? Aren't you pleased with my scripture reading and memorization, Lord? Aren't you impressed with my ability to resist lust, Lord? Lord, in your name I served at VBS. Lord, in your name I sat in the dump tank at the false festival. Lord, that's gotta count for something that water was gold. Now, of course, of course, we are too religious enough to say that out loud. We would never say that out loud, but if we are honest, we let it affect our joy, we let it affect how we think the Lord sees us or treats us using these works to justify the good or the bad things that happen in our lives. Something bad happens in our lives and we say, well, that's because I didn't sign up to help at VBS. I'm a sister, this is the behavior. This type of thinking is what complicates faith. We clutter it up by adding to it what was never intended to be added and that is what Paul is seeking to communicate in Romans 10. He is saying to his readers that his kin folk have complicated what it means to belong to God and their self-righteousness has expressed itself in two ways. They have misguided passions and a misunderstanding of the law. They have misguided passions. Romans 10 and 2 for for I bear witness for I bear the witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. Now notice Paul begins by commending his fellow brothers and sisters according to the flesh. He says they are full of passion and enthusiasm for the things of God. Paul knows this because this was Paul. He understands what they are doing. They have a zeal for God in Philippians 3, 4 and 6. He says, though I myself have reason for confidence in the flesh also. If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more circumcised on the eighth day. Tribes of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews, asked to the law of Pharisee, asked to zeal a persecutor of the church, asked to righteousness under the law, blameless. Paul was zealously chasing after these things. He is commending his fellow brothers and sisters in the flesh for their zeal for the Lord. Paul did these things with sincerity. He had a love for God and was fully convinced that these things were gaining him favor with God.
We are doing the same. Zealous for God. Zeal and passion for God is not a bad thing. Perhaps many of us could use a spark as it relates to our zeal for God. That zeal can easily be misguided or that zeal can cause us to clutter our faith. Here is the deal, brothers and sisters. When we clutter our faith with activity, it can and often does feed our self-justification. We feel like we have to be doing something. We have to be zealous for the things of God because in our minds it is gaining us favor with God. So like Pastor Tony mentioned last week, we clutter our faith like we clutter our closets, passionately and zealous with chasing after the latest evangelical flashpoints, craving after popular podcasts and conferences and books, busy our lives with ministry activity after ministry activity. Thinking that it is those things that God is most pleased with us doing. I have to show God and others that I really love Jesus.
And here is the thing. We see others doing these things, busying themselves with these various things, zealous after the things of God and we say, well that's what faith must look like. So I have to do the same thing. It's a revolving circle, brothers and sisters. Again, hear me, please hear me. I am not saying don't pursue these things. A zeal for God is a good thing. Remember Paul is commending his fellow brothers and sisters. Our pursuit of good works. The desire for various podcasts and articles and YouTube videos for growth is to be commended. But here was Paul's issue. Their issue, their zeal for those things wasn't according to knowledge. For they were pursuing these works zealously to the wrong ends, verse three of chapter 10. For being ignorant of the righteousness of God and seeking to establish their own righteousness, they did not submit to God's righteousness. Paul saw their activity for what it really was. They were seeking to establish their own self righteousness. Think about that for a moment. Their own self righteousness they were seeking in doing these zealous things for the Lord. Here's the question. To what end is your zealous pursuit of activity concerned with? Why do you clutter your life with these good things? What if for some reason you weren't able to do these things anymore? How do you think that would affect the way you think God sees you? That was easy to have misguided passions when it comes to the things God. And Paul says that the reason for that is there is a misunderstanding of the law of God. There is a misunderstanding of the law of God. Remember we are talking about what makes faith complicated. And what makes faith complicated is often a misunderstanding of the purpose of the law. Paul says issue that face the Jews and I am convinced it is the issue that gets us, gets us. Romans 10 and 5. For Moses writes about the righteousness that is based on the law that the person who does the commandments shall live by them. Now people believed and rightly so I might add that the righteousness required for acceptance before God could be attained by following the law. This was right thinking. This is right thinking the person who was and is able to keep the law and the commandments perfectly that person is welcomed into heaven based upon that righteousness. But what's the problem with that good theologians? What's the problem with that? There is none righteous, no, not one. That's the Psalmist says if the Lord should mark a niquity then who could stand or who has clean hands and a pure heart or therefore who can ascend the holy hill? Oh strict adherence and full perfect obedience to the law of God would produce the righteousness required but no one is able to do that even though many godly people try. They try. They try to live by the law to obtain their righteousness. But what they fail to understand is that perfection is required. Perfection to seek to keep one of the commandments means you're on the hook for them all. For them all you see you can't just say well I'm not going to murder anyone but then say that that one about obeying my parents and I think I'm good with that one right? I don't need to do that. I don't need to follow that. That's not how they are a package deal and that Paul's point here when you try to establish your own righteousness it reveals that you have an ignorance of how the law works. Now the Bible has lot to say about the law and we just don't have time morning to explore it in depth. We could talk about it for a minute but of purposes this morning we need to understand this important truth about the law. The law, listen to me the law was not given with the expectation that we would be able to keep it but to show us that we could not keep it. We said that again because it's important that you get this. The law was given not with the expectation that we would be able to keep it but to show us that we could not keep it. And that's why if you tie your faith to keeping the law it will never work. It will never work. The law was not designed for that purpose and we all know how it goes if you try to use something contrary to what it was designed for. Scissors were designed to cut paper. They were not designed to cut grass. Hello now you can try and cut the grass with scissors but what's going to happen? It's going to make it complicated right? It's going to complicate it. It's not going to be easy. It's going to frustrate you. You're going to make it complicated. It's the same with the law. It was not designed so that you could keep it. You will wear yourself out and make following Jesus more complicated than it is. Christianity will become a set of dues and don'ts rather than a life of freedom and joy. And the Bible will become a rule book rather than a lamp unto your feet and a light unto your path.
Brothers and sisters, self-righteousness complicate faith because it fuels misguided passions and it leads to a misunderstanding of the law but praise be to God that faith is not complicated. It's not complicated but the sister's faith is simple which leads us to our next question. What makes faith simple? What makes it simple? Simply put, Jesus's righteousness makes faith simple. Jesus's righteousness. Paul wants his readers and he would have us to understand this morning that faith is not complicated. That is simple and the reason it is simple is because of Jesus. Because of Jesus, listen, we often make fun of the Sunday school answer. Don't we? The Sunday school answer. You know when the Sunday school teacher asks a question and if you don't know the answer, you answer Jesus. The answer is probably Jesus. Well, brothers and sisters, when it comes to questions about the Christian faith and the simplicity of it, Jesus is always the answer. It's someone who tries to talk to you about the Christian faith or define for you what it means to be a Christian and Jesus is not within the first sentence they utter, they have made it too complicated. They have made it too complicated. If they start adding things to Jesus, telling you what you have to do and can't do, then they are trying to put new wine into old line skins. Those are things that belong to the old covenant which brothers and sisters was complicated. It was complicated. In the old covenant, faith was complicated for it, concerned itself with sacrifices of bulls and goats and there were priests and blood and festivals and offerings and year after year, century after century, these things were required for those who said they had faith. That was until Jesus came and when Jesus came, he made the complicated simple. Simple. We learned that in Hebrews 9 is 11 through 12. But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent not made with hands, that is not his creation, he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of blood of the blood of goats and calves, but by means of his own blood thus securing any eternal redemption. What's the writer to the Hebrews saying? Jesus made what was complicated, simple. Made it simple. That is Paul's point in Romans 10. The righteousness of Christ did what we could not do. Did what we could not do, Romans 10 and 4, for Christ, Romans 10 and 4, for Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes. Oh, this is a glorious verse. Highlight it, underline it, star it, commit it to memory. For wrapped up in this verse, present sisters, is the only reason why anyone gets into heaven. Now you say, oh, but this verse doesn't mention anything about the cross. I thought it was the cross that got me my ticket into heaven. Well, the cross is necessary. Jesus's death on the cross satisfied God's wrath against your sin, and therefore you are forgiven. Your sin is no longer an offense toward God. The animosity and the strife that existed between God and man is no longer there. Your slate is wiped clean because of the cross. You and I are half-piece with God. Sin's forgiven, gone as far as the east is from the west, forgiven, but forgiveness of sin alone doesn't get us into heaven. Righteousness does. Righteousness does. Without holiness, no one will see, we'll see God the righty to Hebrew says. You need credit in your account brothers and sisters. You need pluses in your account in order to get into heaven. You need, can I put it simply, you need good works to get you into heaven. Good works to get you into heaven. You need them. You need them. God has not done away with the righteous requirements of the law, for entrance into heaven. They're still required. They're still required. So then, who gets us into heaven? Who fulfills the law? Who does God the Father accept? Who is good enough or better yet perfect? Who has clean hands and a clean heart? Who can't ascend the Holy Hill? Who loves God 24, 7, 365? Who has your motives? Who is without sin? Who is completely holy? Is the Sunday school answer brothers and sisters? Is Jesus, Jesus, Jesus is righteousness. His good works are the only works that get us into heaven. Not your works. You hear good works and you say I thought it wasn't about good works. Yes, not your good works. It's about Jesus' good works. Only Jesus, only his life. That's the life. Those are the works that get credited to our account. That's what gets us in because only Jesus' righteousness is accepted by God and it is applied to us by faith. That's what makes faith simple. It's accepted by God. He accepts the righteousness of Jesus because this is the righteousness that he supplied. That is what Paul says in verse three. People seek their own righteousness rather than submitting to God's righteousness. Here's the question what or or rather who was God's righteousness. Jesus, Paul says in 1 Corinthians 1 30 and because of him, you are in Christ Jesus who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption. And Jesus came and fulfilled that righteousness. Matthew 5 17 through 18. Do not think that I have come to abolish the law of the prophets. I have not come to abolish them, but you fulfilled them. For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away not in Ayoda, not a dot will pass from the law until all is accomplished. The law still needs to be fulfilled brothers and sisters, but Jesus is fulfilled it. The righteousness God required was provided in Jesus. So here's the question. If God in Jesus has already supplied and accepted the righteousness required, why do you try and offer him yours?
It doesn't make sense. We tie how God feels about us or entrance into heaven to the works that we do or don't do. We essentially say Jesus' righteousness isn't enough. God, the righteousness that you supplied to satisfy your requirements is not enough. We complicate that which Jesus has made simple. We try to attain the impossible, namely attaining our own righteousness when Jesus obtained it and obtained it for you. Remember the Father has accepted it. He has accepted it. That which he required, he provided, he's accepted it and you know what? This work is then applied to you by faith, by faith. What makes Christianity simple is how it is applied. Salvation is not about what you have to do. It's about what Christ has already done and what Christ has done gets applied to us. We make it difficult when we think it's something we do. That is Paul's point in verses 6 and 7. But the righteousness based on faith says, do not, do not say in your heart who will ascend heaven that is to bring Christ down or who will descend into the abyss that is to bring Christ up from the dead that the faith we are talking about here Paul says doesn't require any work on your behalf. You don't have to do anything. You don't have to go into heaven and bring Christ down. You don't have to go into the grave and raise Christ up from the dead. He's done all that. He has come down. He has been raised from the dead. The work has been accomplished. So the natural question, it's a natural question for us legalistic folks. I get it. It's a natural question. The question to ask is, well then what do I do? Christ has done it all. Then what do I do? It's the question the Philippian Jailer asked in Acts 16 as Paul and Silas are miraculously released from prison. He asked Paul, Paul, Paul, Paul, Paul, what must I do to be saved? What, what do I have to do? There's a question of a heart that has come to the end of themselves, the heart that has tried, that has tired themselves out trying, trying to live right. That was Martin Luther. He took seriously his faith. He was zealous for the things that got so he was working. He was tiring himself trying to work his way into heaven. That's what we do. When we rely on self, we try to work ourselves into heaven and then we find out it is an impossible task. And the answer to that question, what do I do? What do I do? The answer reveals the simplicity of faith, believe in Jesus. Trust in Jesus alone. That's faith. Paul puts it this way in verse 9 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. You will be saved. Faith and trust in Jesus. I'm not just talking, I'm not just saying faith. Faith just doesn't get you into heaven. Faith in Jesus and his righteousness and his work gets you into heaven. Believe on Jesus. That's all. That's all. Believe and trust in the finished work of Jesus. No special code to break. So my tries to tell you there's a special code to deciphering the Bible and it's going to help you get into heaven. Nope. That's not it. Nothing. No culture. No culture that you have to convert to. Paul says in verse 13, for everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. Nothing more. Nothing less. Simple faith is simple because of Jesus. Because of Jesus. All you need to do is trust Jesus. Trust in his righteousness alone. That's the one. That's the only closing that's going to get you into the presence of the Holy One. There's a dress code to get into heaven. Clothe in the righteousness of Jesus. That's what gets you into heaven. You need to be clothed in Jesus. So here's the question why clutter your lives and your closet with other garments. Most of you are familiar with the late Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple. If you know anything about Steve Jobs, he wore the same outfit every day.
He felt like he had a lot of decisions to make each day. And you don't want to have to make another one in the morning. So he had one outfit that he wore every day. Black mock turtleneck, blue jeans, and new bounce. That was his outfit. Every morning, one in the closet picked out that outfit. For the sisters, there is one outfit that we need to get into heaven. In the morning, when you wake up and go into your closet, don't clutter it with all other outfits. Pull out Jesus and put on Jesus. Put on Jesus.