Saved [Part 1]

Pastor, author, and Bible teacher, Alan Wright.

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. 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 this series, The Loft, a study of Romans chapters 9 through 11. It's presented at Rinaldo 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. Are you ready for some good news? Yes. Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. Wow. Everyone, young, old, rich, pure, poor, uneducated, educated.

Those on the mountaintops, those in the valleys, those that have grown up hearing his name, those who just heard his name for the first time, everybody who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. Wow. We had a great Vacation Bible School this week.

And again, thank you everybody that made it possible. My wife this year was the large group teacher. The setting of Vacation Bible School was the church is the castle. The teaching this week is all about the armor of God. And so the fellowship hall that was decorated was what my wife said, this is the keep, which is the safest place in the castle. So the teachers were dressed in medieval attire and found a medieval dress, you know, and she had some kind of really tall crown.

It was interesting. She got herself a crown. It was very tall. So she was in her element being sort of a medieval Disney princess in the midst of all these kids. And one night in the middle of it, one little girl just came up to her and said, and I called herself Queen Annabelle. And she just came and she said, Queen Annabelle? I said, yes.

She said, you're just beautiful. So that made the whole thing worth it for him right now. This is why you need to volunteer for Vacation Bible School. You never know.

You just never, you never know. You know, we talk throughout the week because there's nothing greater or more challenging than to teach a child. The armor of God has some challenges to it because in the first place, you got to talk about why do you need armor?

Well, because there's a battle going on. It's hard for a concrete thinker of a little child to understand that, and that there are two kingdoms. And so we had some conversations throughout the week, but on the closing night, she planned to offer an opportunity for people to say yes to the saving love of Jesus Christ. Because we believe that little children can accept Jesus, right?

I'm pretty sure that our kids accepted Jesus authentically, as best that they knew how, at a very tender age, maybe as early as age four. So it was interesting. She said, well, I'm going to give this invitation. She said, how shall I give it? I'm like, honey, you've been leading people to Jesus for decades and decades.

She said, yeah, but this is, this is important. So we sat down to talk about what must one do to be saved? And there's nothing better than to talk about it in the context of how do you share the gospel with a four year old or a five year old or a fourth grader? How do you do so such that you're not in any way being manipulative? And you're not overly reducing the gospel to something that is too simplistic or too moralistic.

And yet what is the essence of what one must do to accept the greatest gift that's ever been given? And it was really fun because it made us go back, well, let's just talk about this. She said, do I need to lead them through a whole thing about how sorry they are for their sins? And that sometimes we do bad things. We need to be sorry about that.

Do we need to do that? And I said, well, interesting. You should bring this up because I'm preaching out of Romans 10. And I said, well, I'm going to do that. Out of Romans 10, which says that if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you'll be saved. And in fact, Paul says, all who call upon the name of the Lord will be saved. We began to talk about that.

And she was like, well, how much do that? How much do they have to understand what happened? You see where I'm going with this was it was like, it should be the simplest thing in all the world for a preacher and his wife who had been doing this for 40 years to just give a simple ministry invitation to kids. And yet it drew us back in to the essence of what does it mean to be saved?

And what must one do to receive such salvation? And here we are in this familiar passage in Romans 10, which I went back into this text and let myself have the freedom to read and study it as if I'd never read it before. And what I found was that as always, I was enthralled by the word of God and found here a couple of real surprises, especially if you were to read it from the perspective of a first century Jew.

And I hope to show it from that perspective. Two big things big surprises and two absolutely beautiful, pleasant implications of this. The first surprise is the very references that Paul makes here to texts that are from the law of Moses. The reason this is really surprising and the reason I'm going to take some time to try to explain this to you, even though it runs the risk of being a little complicated, and I sure don't want to lose your attention here early in this sermon. But the first part of this text is a little puzzling, but if you'll stay with me for this, I think you'll see something beautiful about the integration of the Bible as one big story about Jesus.

And Paul really understood this. So Paul in building towards this case of all who call upon the name of the Lord will be saved. He starts with two Old Testament references. Let's look at verse five, Romans 10 five. For Moses writes about the righteousness that's based on the law. Okay, that's Old Covenant, that the person who does the commandments shall live by them.

And there he is quoting pretty directly Leviticus 18 five. So what this says is hypothetically, if someone could keep all the law, then they would live. And this is essentially what God said at the beginning of the giving of the law itself. If you could keep all this law, then all these blessings that I'm speaking will be yours. The problem, of course, is nobody except Jesus could keep all of this law. But 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. 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 in 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. 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. And 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 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 passage. 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 this text. And he says, you do not have to buy 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 heaven, and it has not been lost in hell, but it is here now in Christ Jesus.

Wow. So near. It's as near as your own breath and your own heart. Every blessing of God. And salvation is so near.

Oh, I wish everybody could know that. 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.

Thought for the day in just a moment. 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 in rich 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 now here with Pastor Alan, sharing our parting good news thought for the day.

As we place a bookmark here in this teaching saved and we'll be back next time with more this teaching. Pastor Alan. Anyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved. It's the anyone that I want to leave you with that thought. Anyone. Anyone under the sound of my voice. Anyone who has lived a life that seems so contrary to the things of God. Anyone who's made horrible mistakes. Anyone who sinned terribly. Anyone who has never heard of or known anything of Jesus till now.

Anyone who seemingly has turned their back on all things spiritual and been walking too long in the other direction. Anyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved. Thanks for listening today. Visit us online at PastorAlan.org or call 877-544-4860.

That's 877-544-4860. If you only caught part of today's teaching, not only can you listen again online, but also get a daily email devotional that matches today's teaching delivered right to your email inbox free. Find out more about these and other resources at PastorAlan.org. That's PastorAlan.org. Today's good news message is a listener supported production of Alan Wright Ministries.