Saved [Part 2]

Pastor, author, and Bible teacher, Alan Wright.

What you end up being as a Christian, therefore, is not a person who grovels before God Almighty, but a child in a co-heir who more cuddles up to your father, who loves you infinitely and has completely forgiven you so that your confession becomes, I thank you, God, I'm forgiven. I thank you, God, I've been redeemed. That's Pastor Alan Wright. Welcome to another message of good news that will help you see your life in a whole new light. I'm Daniel Britt, excited for you to hear the teaching today in the series Beloved, a study of Romans chapters nine through 11. It's presented at Rennola Church in North Carolina. If you're not able to stay with us throughout the entire program, I want to make sure you know how to get our special resource right now. It can be yours for your donation this month to Alan Wright Ministries.

So as you listen to today's message, go deeper as we send you today's special offer. Just contact us at PastorAlan.org. That's PastorAlan.org or call 877-544-4860.

That's 877-544-4860. More on this later in the program. But now let's get started with today's teaching.

Here is Alan Wright. Hypothetically, if someone could keep all the law, then they would be righteous. They would remain in right standing with God and they would be saved and they would live forever. But no one's done that except Jesus. And so Paul, having taught us that no one is righteous, he moves on here to verse six. Romans 10, six, but the righteousness based on faith is contrasted to the righteousness based on the law. He says, do not say in your heart who will ascend into heaven, that is, 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. Now what's surprising is that in order to explain salvation and the righteousness that comes by faith, which Paul has been teaching us about in all of Romans, he here makes it first what seems puzzling, a reference to Deuteronomy and the giving of the law. And he's quoting or adapting verses from Deuteronomy chapter 30.

And anyone that was a first century Jew familiar with the Torah would have immediately known he was referencing Deuteronomy. So look at it through this eyes and look at it asking as I did of this text, why in order to explain salvation by grace, is he here quoting from the law? And this is what he says, this is what is referenced, Deuteronomy 30 verse 11 and following. This commandment that I command you today is not too hard for you, neither is it far off. Okay, so this is Moses speaking the word of the Lord, telling the people about all of the giving of the law and saying the commandment I command you today is not too hard for you, neither is it far off.

Well, that's an interesting thing given the fact that it's so hard that nobody except Jesus has ever kept all the law. Verse 12 in Deuteronomy 30, it's not in heaven that you should say who will ascend to heaven for us and bring it to us that we may hear and do it. So you can see that's what Paul was referencing there. Neither is beyond the sea that you should say who will go over the sea for us and bring it to us that we may hear and do it. And Paul reinterprets that and says into the abyss because sometimes the sea was thought of as the abyss. But Deuteronomy 30 verse 14, the word is very near you.

It is in your mouth and in your heart so you can do it. Was a little puzzling because again, no one was able to do the law and yet here's the Lord saying it's very near you and you can do it and you don't have to ascend to heaven to bring it down. You don't have to descend into the abyss. And Paul knows the problem with the law is that no one can keep it. And yet he's quoting that section. And in order to understand it, it really, we won't read all of it, but you really should look at all of Deuteronomy 30.

But look at this a little bit more closely. Verse 11 of Deuteronomy 30, the commandment I command you today is not too hard for you. Though it sounds like that that's the very thing that would be hard is to keep the law as Paul has taught us, but or make sense of this. And Romans 10, six, when Paul says, do not say in your heart there, he's quoting a different passage in Deuteronomy.

I know this is a little confusing, but stay with me for a second. He's quoting Deuteronomy nine, four and five, do not say in your heart after the Lord, your God has thrust them out before you. It is because of my righteousness that the Lord has brought me in to possess the land. Now this is so important because in Deuteronomy nine, the gospel is being proclaimed to the people of God long before Jesus and Moses is speaking the word of the Lord to the people and saying to them, when you go into the promised land, whatever you do, do not say Israel that we got this because of our own righteousness. It's going to be because I drove the enemy out of the land and gave it to you. And it's absolutely imperative that you remember that the promised land was a gift though you fight battle after battle.

And though you go and you take it and you stand in the courage, it still comes to you by my word and my promise and my power. There never has been two ways that God was going to bless his people. One because his people were righteous and the other because of grace.

They never been righteous. And so it's always been by grace. So what Paul's doing here is he's taken two familiar passages. They'd be familiar to his Jewish readers from Deuteronomy nine and from Deuteronomy 30.

And he's putting this together. Do not say in your heart, he's quoting this and he's reminding them of Deuteronomy 30. And there's another section in Deuteronomy 30 that you'd need to see in order to make sense of this. And that's verses five and six, Deuteronomy 35 and six, the Lord, your God will bring you into the land that your fathers possess, that you may possess it.

And he will make you more prosperous and numerous than your fathers. And the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring so that you will love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul that you may live. This is a prophetic promise that is only fulfilled in the giving of Jesus Christ. This is God saying that what I really desire is not external laws like circumcision.

What I really desire and my pledge to you is it's going to be a day in which the law is going to be internalized, in which you will have within you a capacity to do what is right, not because you are trying to keep a law outside of yourself, but because you have been filled up with my grace on the inside and he's promising this blessedness. So this is what Paul is referencing from Deuteronomy 30. Now look at this, an insight that I gained from a beautiful sermon of John Piper's I read this week, in which you look at the contrast between what Paul says and what Deuteronomy says. And I'm going to put this up for Deuteronomy 30 11, who will ascend to heaven and bring it to us that we may hear it and do it.

Okay. So that phrase that we may hear it and do it. Well, Paul at verse six of Romans 10, he changes the language here, who will ascend into heaven, but he doesn't say that we may hear and do it, but now he says that is bring Christ down. And then the same thing in Deuteronomy 30 verse 13, who will go over the sea for us and bring it to us that we may hear and do it. But when Paul quotes it, Romans 10 seven, who will descend into the abyss, he changed his language and says to bring Christ up from the dead. So where Moses speaks of obedience to the commandments, Paul puts in Christ. It can only means this, that when God says the commandments are not too hard for you, and that this is very near, he's pointing to Jesus, the Messiah, he's pointing to the fulfillment of this great promise of when the Holy Spirit will have come.

And it's a radical and beautiful and powerful thing to think that 1500 years before Jesus, that Moses is saying, this is doable and it is near, but the only way that is doable and it is near is by the gift of Jesus Christ. And that when Moses says, you don't have to ascend to the heaven and try to bring it down so you can do it. And you don't have to descend into hell and bring it up.

So you have to do it. That Paul comes back and reclaims the text. And he says, you do not have to, by your righteousness, climb up to heaven as if you need to bring Christ down to bless you.

And you don't need to wallow in your shame and go into the abyss of hell and try to bring blessing back up out of your own remorse. But instead it is very near you. Salvation itself and every blessing of God, he's saying it is not off in some distant off in some distant heaven and it has not been lost in hell, but it is here now in Christ Jesus. Wow.

That's Alan Wright. And we'll have more teaching in a moment from today's important series. It has been called the most influential letter ever written. Every word written by the apostle Paul and his epistle to the Romans is dripping with the astounding news of what God has done for you in Jesus. Answering the two biggest questions of life, what went wrong and how has God made it right? Discover the richness of those answers and enhance your Bible journey today. Make a donation to Alan Wright Ministries this month and unlock our Romans reading guide paired with the ESV scripture journal. Immerse yourself in the word and capture personal insights, prayers, and reflections directly alongside the powerful text.

These sleek portable journals amplify your study, enrich group sessions, and deepen personal reflections. Elevate your spiritual odyssey and forge a stronger connection with the scriptures. Help Alan Wright Ministries reach the world with the good news of the gospel with your gift today and receive these essential tools that will elevate your study, enrich your prayer life, and deepen your understanding of the book of Romans. The gospel is shared when you give to Alan Wright Ministries. This broadcast is only possible because of listener financial support. When you give today, we will send you today's special offer. We are happy to send this to you as our thanks from Alan Wright Ministries. Call us at 877-544-4860. That's 877-544-4860 or come to our website, PastorAlan.org.

Today's teaching now continues. Here once again is Alan Wright. So near. It's as near as your own breath and your own heart. Every blessing, oh God, and salvation is so near.

Oh, I wish everybody could know that. It's not, they're not hurdles and obstacles and puzzles and great odysseys and journeys that must be made. They're not enormous sacrifices and weeping and gnashing of teeth and wallowing in shame. These are the things of religion, but the salvation of God is at hand. A second surprise that might be a surprise to some of you, and I think would have been a surprise to his readers, is really twofold, and that is when he says, confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, that in the first place he calls Jesus Lord, and that salvation is received through the acknowledgment of the lordship of Jesus, and this is so powerful and scandalous to the Jewish reader because when Moses was called by God and said, who shall I tell them sent me? God said, tell them Yahweh sent you.

Yahweh sent you. He gave a personal and covenantal name that was considered thereafter by the Jews too holy to even utter, and it means I am. It is signified just by four Hebrew letters that come across translatory YHWH, Yahweh we would say, and in your English Bibles when you see the Lord and it's in capital letters, that's our English translation way of designating, that is where those four letters Yahweh are used in the Hebrew Old Testament, and when this very important translation of the Old Testament came into the Greek, it's called the Septuagint.

We learn a lot because whatever words in Greek were used to translate Hebrew are very instructive to us about how everyone thought about those words, and so in the Greek Septuagint where it is Yahweh that becomes kurios, the Lord, Lord. So when Paul says if you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord, this is what's so scandalous and powerful. He's saying if you confess that Jesus is Yahweh, that Jesus is the same God who spoke to Moses from a burning bush, that he's the same God who created everything that exists and flung the stars into their places and put planets in their orbit and made human DNA. Jesus is that God, and this is the mark of what it is to be a Christian. Christians are people that believe Jesus Christ is God in the flesh, and anything less than that is not Christianity. By the way if you ever want to know what distinguishes Christianity from every other form or pseudo-Christianity or a cult or whatever it might be, just look and see what they say about the divinity of Jesus Christ. Is he God in their eyes? Is he Son of God who has been raised from the dead and God in the flesh? And so that's beautiful, and when he says everyone who calls on the name of the Lord, he is referencing directly Joel 2 verse 32, a prophecy that says it shall come to pass that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. Not just the chosen Jewish people, everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved, and Paul takes that and says this is about Jesus.

Wow. So to say Jesus is Lord is to say Jesus is God. So Anne and I were talking about how do we tell this with little kids, and finally we just said why don't you just tell them if you want to accept Jesus, if you want to really be a Christian, then you say God you're the real king, and I want you to be in charge of my life. You're Lord. You're everything.

You're everything. And what is also beautiful, beloved, and maybe surprising to you here is that when Paul says what we are to confess, we are to confess that Jesus is Lord. That salvation is rooted in confessing the lordship of Jesus, but there is not here in this definitive passage anything about confession of sin. There is of course plenty in the Bible about confession of sin and repentance, but when Jesus said when he preached and he told his disciples preach repent for the kingdom of God is at hand, he did not mean go tell the people to come up and list all of their sins. He meant tell the people to turn, to change their way of thinking. They always thought the kingdom was off in the future somewhere, but I want them to know it's at hand. The Messiah they've been anticipating is now, so what you're preaching is it's time to change all your thinking.

The Messiah has come. And there is a text in 1st John. It says if we confess our sins, he's faithful to forgive us. Some of this has led people to believe that the confession of all your sin is a prerequisite for salvation, but let me put you at ease about this. It can't be if for no other logical reason, you don't even know all your sins. In fact of the matter, the more I walk through this matter, the more I walk with God, I have to admit I probably don't know 1% of my sin. And I'm not exaggerating.

I'm really not exaggerating. And if we were to spend all our time trying to figure out, ferret out and confess all our sins to God, we wouldn't do anything else. And God would be up in his heavens going my, my, my, I have some important mission for you. And here you are groveling before me again. To confess is a wonderful Greek word, homo logeo, and you recognize that prefix homo that means same, homogeneous and logeo to say with. So to speak rather, logeo to speak or to say.

So homo logeo is to say the same thing, or it is to speak in the same way. So to confess in our minds has taken on the meaning of the litany of our sins, but that is not what the primary emphasis of the New Testament concept of confession is. Confession is to agree and say with God. It is to agree with what God has said and to say the same thing. When you are saved and you confess that Jesus is Lord, what you're doing is you're saying, God, you've said that Jesus is Lord. And now I say, Jesus is Lord. And we're saying the same thing.

And that's my confession. Alan Wright, today's good news message is the end of the law. It's in our series, Beloved Study of Romans. And Pastor Alan is back with us in the studio, sharing his parting good news thought for the day in just a moment. It has been called the most influential letter ever written. Every word written by the apostle Paul and his epistle to the Romans is dripping with the astounding news of what God has done for you in Jesus.

Answering the two biggest questions of life. Today's good news message titled in our series, Beloved Study of Romans. And I encourage you to stay with us today. Make a donation to Alan Wright Ministries this month and unlock our Romans reading guide paired with the ESV scripture journal. Immerse yourself in the word and capture personal insights, prayers, and reflections directly alongside the powerful text.

These sleek portable journals amplify your study, enrich group sessions, and deepen personal reflections. Elevate your spiritual odyssey and forge a stronger connection with the scriptures. Help Alan Wright Ministries reach the world with the good news of the gospel with your gift today and receive these essential tools that will elevate your study, enrich your prayer life, and deepen your understanding of the book of Romans. The gospel is shared when you give to Alan Wright Ministries. This broadcast is only possible because of listener financial support. When you give today, we will send you today's special offer. We are happy to send this to you as our thanks from Alan Wright Ministries. Call us at 877-544-4860.

That's 877-544-4860. Or come to our website, PastorAlan.org. Back here now with Pastor Alan in the studio sharing his parting good news thought for the day and the teaching is saved. And that, if you're not careful, that could be an inside baseball kind of word for Christians. So it's good to unpack this word and the glorious meaning that it is.

What's your good news thought for the day here? To be saved means there's something we need to be saved from. And we are saved, I think, more holistically than a lot of us ever realize. We're not just saved from hell so that we get to go to heaven, though there is that. And that is worth praising God now and forever. But we are also saved from all the pathways to destruction that comes through condemnation and shame that follows after us when we're in our sin. And so it means, therefore, that anyone who calls upon the name of the Lord is offered a kind of holistic salvation.

Something that is full and fruitful and shalom producing and healing and wholeness is offered to you. So call upon the name of the Lord. If you don't know Him, call upon the name of the Lord. And if you do know Him, call upon Him again today. Today's good news message is a listener supported production of Allen Wright Ministries.