If you can turn your Bibles with me to Romans chapter 10. And I'm going to start reading from verse 1 all the way to verse 8 today. Romans chapter 10, verse 1 through 8. "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 commandments 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 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. This is the word of faith that we proclaim." Let's pray. Gracious and loving Father, we thank you so much for today. We thank you for your living word. We thank you for constantly guiding and leading us. You truly are beyond comprehension, worthy of our praise.

We want to come and thank you. We pray that your word would speak to us and give us the energy and the strength that we need to live day to day. So we entrust this time to you, Lord. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. We've been talking about in Romans chapter 9, 10, and 11, Paul is specifically addressing how the gospel relates to the nation of Israel.

Because Paul has been expositing why all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and his need of the grace of God in order to be saved. And so the obvious reaction of the Jews is, then what about us? If we've been trying to keep the law, and we thought that if we just did the right things and kept the Sabbath and went to the temple and gave sacrifices, and we followed what we thought the scripture said, that we would be saved, and then Paul says, "No, that is not it at all.

Those who live by the law will be condemned by the law, and those who don't live by the law will be condemned without the law." And so he's been trying to address that issue in chapter 9 about the sovereignty of God. Chapter 10, the text that we've been at, basically Paul begins by saying, "Brothers, my heart's desire is that I desire that they would be saved." And then he says, "Their problem was not that they lacked zeal.

Nobody gave as much effort as the Jews did to pray, to read the Bible, to even proselytize, even giving sacrificially." Everything that you and I would superficially look at and say, "Well, that's a great Christian. That's a committed, on-fire Christian." They had all the external things to signify that they were close to God, and yet Jesus, and in the Gospels, it says they are just as far as the Gentiles.

I remember years ago, there was a young lady that I met, and she told me that she was a Sunday school teacher at a large church that I know of, and she was a Sunday school teacher at the youth group for over five years. And so immediately I thought, "Wow, that's great," because I had friends that went to that church, and I actually had pastor friends who ministered at that church, not at the time that she was there.

But as we were talking, I was interested in about her faith and how she came to Christ, and immediately it caught my attention because she couldn't explain how she came to Christ. So I was kind of curious. You know, you were a Sunday school teacher teaching kids for over five years, and so I just, out of curiosity, I asked her, "Do you know what the Gospel is?" She couldn't explain the Gospel.

She couldn't explain. If somebody wanted to be saved, and they came to church and asked you, "How can I be saved? What would you tell them?" And she started to just kind of, "Well, you need to come to church faithfully. You've got to listen to your parents." And she was telling me all of this stuff, and I was just dumbfounded that this person was teaching Sunday school for five years and did not understand the Gospel.

And she herself, if based upon what we know of Scripture says, can't explain how she came to faith, or even if she came to faith. As strange as that may sound to some of you, I've run into so many people who've been in the church for a certain period of time who just assumed that they knew, who just assumed that when they died, that they're going to go to heaven.

They just assumed it. They heard something when they were young, or they grew up in the church, or that's just what you're supposed to do. And just culturally, they identified with Christianity. And so obviously, whether the Gospel was taught, and again, I believe that the Gospel was being taught at that church, but for whatever the reason, she just tuned it out.

See, the Jews lived all their lives. They knew the Old Testament than any of us, any modern day scholar today, compared to an average Jew at that time, because they memorized the whole thing. They knew the law. I mean, they fasted twice a week, every single week, Tuesday and Thursday.

You know anybody who does that on a regular basis? They gave a tenth. In fact, if you were a faithful Jew, according to the commandments of the Old Testament, you would be giving somewhere around 30% of your income. Today we talk about 10%, and people have a fit. 10%.

You know, and I remember somebody telling me, "10% of my income is a Mercedes Benz every five years." If you were a faithful Jew, you probably gave somewhere around 30, 35% of your income, and that was just mandatory. And then on top of that, they gave what's called a freewill offering, when they were thankful and they wanted to give out of the spontaneity, because God did something great, and they would give on top of that.

So a good Jew would have minimum given 30, 35%. So if you were looking superficially on the surface who these Jews were, they were excellent. And yet, when Paul preaches the same gospel, he says, "It wasn't because they lacked zeal. It wasn't because they weren't giving enough. It wasn't because they didn't give enough sacrifices at the temple." He says, "They had zeal without knowledge." So in the previous weeks, we talked about how the knowledge that he's talking about is epinosis.

And epinosis, whenever you see the word "epi" in front of the word, it's for the purpose of emphasis. So he's not simply talking about, "Oh, they didn't have the right theology about God." Though that could be a part of it, it's definitely a big part of it. If you don't have the right view of God, definitely you're not going to be able to worship God properly.

But the word "epi" in front of it is for the purpose of intensity. That they knew something about God, but it wasn't in depth. They knew about God, but they didn't know Him. I think a couple weeks ago, when we were in the previous passage, we talked about how Jesus says, or in the passage, Paul concludes that the reason why they missed the gospel is because they missed Christ.

They were dedicated to the law of God, but he says all of it, the end of the law is Christ. So again, we talked about that last week. You can come to church, serve, give, even evangelize, but if it doesn't lead you to Christ, if it doesn't cause other people to be led to Christ, if your love for Christ isn't increasing with the knowledge that you have of the word of God, if your fellowship or your gathering of the people doesn't inspire one another to love Christ more, then you missed the whole point because he says the end of the law is Christ.

The goal of the law is Christ. The fulfillment of the law is Christ. And then because of that, the termination of the law was because of Christ. So again, that's the context that we have to make sure that we're reading chapter 10 verse 5 within the context of Paul making this argument that if you miss Christ, you missed not something, you know, you don't get a B or a C, you fail.

If you miss Christ, it isn't something important in the church, it is the essence of the church. The head of the body of the church is Christ. So if the head of the church is Christ and you're not growing in affection for Christ, you may grow in affection for the lost.

You may grow in affection for the poor. You may grow in affection for your brothers and sisters in the church. You may grow in affection for Berean Community Church. But if it is not a growing affection for Christ, you missed the whole point of Christianity. You missed the whole point of the law.

So again, within that context, after he says the end of the law is Christ, in verse 5, for Moses writes about the righteousness that is based on the law, that the person who does them, does the commandment, shall live by them. So let's examine what that means. So there's three things that I want to look at this morning in this text.

A, salvation by works requires absolute perfection. The only reason why anybody even attempts salvation by works is because they have no idea the requirement of salvation by works. Typically, when you talk to somebody who confesses that if I do good enough, if I did enough right things, that if my good balances and it's heavier than the bad that I did, then they feel safe.

That's typically what people think. I've never heard anybody that says, "You know, I've never sinned." Even the most arrogant and proud person will never say, "I've never sinned." They just typically think that I'm not that bad. Of course, I'm not perfect. I'm only human. I'm not that bad. My good outweighs the bad, which may be the case.

And I've met plenty of moral people, more moral than me, more upright, more generous, more giving, more compassionate. But they completely missed the whole point. So the point that Paul makes in verse five, when he says Christ is the end of the law, he reminds us, yeah, there is a system where Moses introduced that righteousness that's based on the law, if the person obeys the commandment, he shall live by them.

Again, the only reason why you have confidence in that is because you have no idea what the law requires. James chapter 2, 9 and 10, it says, "But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it.

For he who said, 'Do not commit adultery,' also said, 'Do not murder.' If you do not commit adultery but do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law." Now he gave two very extreme examples of adultery and murder. But the point that Paul was making, or James was making in the book of James, was not about murder, because he's not talking to murderers.

He wasn't pointing out the sin of adultery because he doesn't mention adultery as a primary sin in the book of James. Some of you guys who may have studied through the book of James know that the primary issue that Paul was dealing with was partiality toward rich people instead of the poor.

That the rich people were receiving honor in the church and the poor people were not. And so the poor people were envying the rich and the rich people were proud. And so he was telling the Christians, if you show partiality, you're breaking the law of God. If you who are rich are arrogant because of your riches and you don't give to a brother who is poor, you are also arrogant before God.

So the sin he's referring to is not adultery, is not murder. He's talking about a sin that dwells in probably every single one of us. Somebody's better looking, somebody has better grades, somebody has a better personality, they dress better, they smell better. And we try not to, but the partiality, the prejudice that we have in our hearts, that indwells in every single person.

You know, say, "Oh, you know, there's a certain this type of people are racist or those people over there are racist." I think racism is in each one of us. Anybody who's different. Racism doesn't have to be about color. You can be a racist about people, the way they look.

Or certain type of personalities. Or certain culture or family background. See, the sin that he's referring to, he says if you break that law, you become a lawbreaker and you are just as guilty as somebody who did something else. If you try to gain life through righteousness, if you break even one of it, you're guilty.

That's what he's saying. That's why, again, in Galatians 3.10 it says, "For all who rely on the works of the law are under a curse. For it is written, 'Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law and do them.'" People who are relying on the law typically have two wrong applications.

If you're relying on the law, there's two wrong applications. One is, you're living with unwarranted, unmerited confidence. Because you've evangelized. You've done some work. You've sacrificed. You're serving in the church. And there's a sense of pride that comes in if you are, again, you may not confess it, you may not believe it.

But this righteousness of the law, the way that it is applied falsely is it gives you false sense of pride. I've achieved something. I've done something. I've sacrificed. I've studied the Bible. I know my theology. I read a lot of books. Suddenly, just like remember we talked about the health and wealth gospel?

We don't believe it. I don't think anybody here believes that. But we practice it. If God blesses us and gives us a good job or our stocks go up or we get a promotion, like God blessed me. Isn't that health and wealth gospel? Isn't that what health and gospel teaches?

That if God blesses you, you're going to have a health, wealth, and long life? So we don't believe that, but every single one of us practices it. See this salvation by works, this righteousness that comes from doing good, we don't believe that. We don't believe that, but it gives us a false sense of pride.

The other extreme, those who live by salvation or righteousness by works, is you get a false sense of despair. I can never do it. I'm always struggling. I'm not like that person. Those people always seem to be doing right, and I just can't do it. You just kind of separate yourself from the church, and I can't fellowship, and I can't serve, and I can't lead, and I don't have a testimony, and it's a false sense of humility, but at the core of that false sense of humility is works-based righteousness.

See, what Paul is saying is if you are seeking righteousness by your works, if you want to live by them, you have to keep it perfectly. Remember the rich young ruler? In Mark chapter 10, he comes to Jesus, like, "How can I inherit eternal life?" And Jesus says, "Obey all the commandments." And the arrogance of this young man, he says, "I did." We know for a fact that he didn't do all of it.

There's nobody who is sinless, and yet this man, he probably worked very, very hard in obeying the law, and he says, "I did." And then Jesus says, knowing that he is rich, knowing that he, this is one thing that is precious to him that he cannot and will not give up, Jesus says, "Then sell all your possessions, give it to the poor, and follow me." Jesus tells him that, not as a way of instruction that if you did this, you will be saved.

He says he knew he couldn't do it. Knowing that he was rich and knowing that he couldn't do it, Jesus puts that obstacle in front of him for what purpose? To tell him, "If you think the way of righteousness is by obeying the law, then do all of it.

He looked at all of it, and he couldn't do it. Even if he did do it, was Jesus saying, "Okay, if you did do it, you're going to get saved." Of course, that's not what he was saying. That's why the disciples are disturbed. If this man who obeyed all of the commandments, simply because he couldn't give up all of his possessions, if he can't be saved, what about us fishermen who have foul mouths?

We lived all our lives breaking the law. What about us? Remember what Jesus says? "What is impossible for man, God will do." Was Jesus saying that God's going to make every single one of them perfectly moral? Was Jesus saying that God was going to make every single person who followed him hate money and that you were just going to automatically, if you just follow him, going to be a perfect obedience to the law?

Is that what he was saying when he says, "What is impossible for man, God will do"? No. What is impossible for man to do by his own work, what he cannot achieve, what was he saying? He said he would do. He would do. And then he was going to, by his works, going to offer up himself as a replacement.

See the Jews already knew. The Jews already knew that they would never be able to keep the law perfectly. In Deuteronomy 27, 26, after giving the law of God the second time, it says, "Cursed be anyone who does not confirm the words of the law by doing them, and all the people shall say, 'Amen.'" And so the whole congregation of Israel, after saying, "If you do not obey this, curse be upon all of us," and they all said, "Amen." Not knowing that that "Amen" was inviting condemnation and curse upon them.

In fact, they were not delusional. Psalm 133, the psalmist says, "If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? If Lord, if you were to judge us based upon our righteousness, who would be able to stand before you and claim righteousness?" Psalm 143, verse 2, "Enter not into the judgment with your servants, for no one living is righteous before you." We may be righteous in our eyes compared to other people, but who among us can be measured by your righteousness?

So they weren't naive. They knew. They knew that they wouldn't be able to keep the law. But their problem was, they were comparing, not before God. They weren't standing before God. They were standing among each other. They were comparing themselves with the idol worshippers or the Gentiles, with the tax collectors.

Instead of looking up, they were looking at each other. I mean, think about, think about us. What causes us to be complacent when we stand before this holy, holy, holy God? What causes you to sit here this morning feeling somewhat decent about yourselves? Or maybe you're beating yourselves up.

What measure of standard caused you to feel that way? Typically it's because we measure ourselves with ourselves. No one standing before God would have the audacity to say, "I am holy before God." No one would say that. But we feel safe because we measure ourselves with ourselves, with the people sitting next to us.

And there's always people around us who are worse off than we are. Or we feel really guilty and really down, not because we've broken God's commandment, but because compared to what other people are doing, I'm not living up. See the Jews, they were measuring themselves with themselves, with others.

And the Pharisees were absolutely confident that they were better. See when he says, "Moses introduced this commandment, and by them you shall live." The only person that ever fulfilled that commandment completely and is able to say, "Amen," was Christ and Christ alone. He says in 1 Peter 3, 18, "For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the Spirit." Christ and Christ alone can claim that before God.

I remember years ago when I first got married, I wasn't a good driver. And I debated whether I should share this with you or not. Those who have known me for a long time, you already know that I don't have a good driving record. I haven't gotten a ticket probably in the last, well, not, I got one.

I got maybe one ticket in the last 15 years. But until I was about 30, you know, 33 to 34, I lived in fear because I was getting targeted. None of it was my fault, of course. But there was a point when I got married, I got three tickets in three weeks.

Yeah, so it wasn't my fault. None of it my fault. None of it was speeding. It was just kind of carelessness. I didn't completely stop on the stop sign or made a left turn too fast or, you know, something. I don't even remember what it was. But after getting pulled over three times, you know, like, "What is going on?" You know, "Is there like a, you know, target in the back?

Are they trying to deliberately find a, 'Hey, hey, he left this house. Go follow him.'" You know? So I was kind of doing my best to drive carefully. And then for our honeymoon, we drove off to San Francisco to Lake Tahoe, and I was driving back from Lake Tahoe to back home.

And those of you who've ever made that drive, basically, it's mostly downhill. So it's very hard to drive speed limit. Okay? So I was coming down, and I got a ticket. And so because I got the ticket, this is right when we got married, that I lost my driver's license for a year.

Okay? I'm not proud of it, but that's what happened. I lost my driver's license. So I was a youth pastor at Irvine Baptist, and I couldn't drive. So I remember, you know, Joe, he was just starting to drive at that time. So we taught him how to drive, so he would come and pick me up.

You know, he was a youth student, and he was picking me up. Or there was a bus that would go down Juana, and I would get in, test it, and drop me off right in front of church. And so I couldn't drive for a whole year. Right? Well, this one day, Esther was at work, and I was at home, and it was raining like cats and dogs.

And there was nothing to eat at home. So I tried scrounging everything, and it was raining so hard. And I said, "Well, you know what? Maybe I'll just drive across the street to get something to eat." Right? All right, you guys are already losing respect already. All right. So I decided to get in the car, just drive across the street.

So I said, "What's going to happen?" You know, literally, it's just from here to there. But it was raining so hard, I said, "Okay, I'm just going to drive across the street." So I got in my car, and those guys who, like Red Hill, on near, not Red Hill, Newport and Juana, it was raining so hard, and I was about to make a left turn, and it was raining so hard I couldn't see the road.

And there was nobody on the road. And I turned into the parking lot. As soon as I turned into the parking lot, I see the red light going off. I said, "Oh, my gosh." I was literally in the car for like three minutes. And I got pulled over, and I said, "What did I do wrong?

I just, I literally just crossed the street." And he said, "You crossed the double yellow line." I'm like, "Oh, my gosh." I said, "It's raining." You know? And so he asked me to give my license, and I gave it to him, and then he did the background check, and he said, "Yeah, you crossed the double yellow line." So I remember thinking, "Wow.

Like you're going to give me a ticket for crossing a double yellow line in this rain? Like I, can you see the road?" I said, "I can't see the road." And I thought, I was like, "How, you know, this is unfair." And then he looked at me, he said, "Son, your license is suspended.

I should take your car into the garage." It's like, "I'm being gracious to you. I'm going to let you go, and you're going to get this ticket." And it was an $800 ticket. He said, "I'm going to give you this ticket, but I'm not going to tow your car." And I remember as soon as he said that, I went from, "How can you give me a ticket to, thank you, Jesus." As soon as he pointed out, "How can you possibly argue with me about me giving you a ticket?

Your license is suspended." How much of our righteousness that we feel, righteous indignation, or righteous pride, or even self-condemnation, whatever it may be, even the thought of thinking that somehow we're going to argue our righteousness before God. Simply forgetting. All who break the law are under a curse. Because we forget that.

And when we forget that, we don't realize just how desperately we need Christ. That it is only by the grace that you are here, that you're able to understand, that you're able to sing songs, that you even have fellowship with your brothers and sisters. Why you even have a copy of the Bible is simply by the grace of God.

How can we dare come before God and say, "Why? Why are you doing this to me?" See, salvation by works requires absolute submission. Letter B, salvation by faith, on the other hand, must first acknowledge our inability to come to Christ. He says in verse 6, "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. What does he mean by that? Paul basically is presenting a ridiculous argument because he just said, "If Christ is the end of the law, if Christ is the end of the law, then where do I go?

How do I get him?" He says the first thing that he says is what he should not say. And he should not say, "If salvation is by grace, that I must ascend to heaven to bring him down to me." Imagine the ridiculousness of that argument. By nature of grace, you cannot and you do not deserve it.

How many people fall away from the grace of God because they don't think they deserve the grace of God? I don't know how many times I sit in council and talk to people, this church or other churches that I'm at, I'm sitting down talking and saying, "I don't deserve the grace of God.

I don't deserve it." Well the very nature of grace means you don't deserve it. That's what grace is. So if you say you don't deserve the love of God, you're absolutely correct. Because the very beginning of our walk with God begins with you and I recognizing that you and I do not deserve the love of God.

You and I do not deserve the grace of God. And yet he loved us anyway. You and I don't deserve the grace of God and yet he gave us grace anyway. That's what he means that let's do not say that I will have to climb up to God and somehow bring him down.

Imagine that, the ridiculousness of that argument. You cannot earn your grace. You can't give enough. You can't pray enough. You can't work enough. You can't sacrifice enough. You can't memorize enough scripture. You cannot. You can't climb this ladder and bring him down. Imagine the ridiculousness of that argument. That somehow something that we did or something that we need to do to somehow bring Christ down to us.

He says, "The first thing is to recognize that we cannot." I remember as a young Christian and somebody gave me the worst, in my opinion, one of the worst theologies. And I lived with that for years. And the illustration that he gave was the grace of God threw the rope down.

God opened up heaven and he threw the rope down and by his grace he said, "Climb that." And that's what grace is. But before you didn't have a rope and now you have a rope. And so now you have to climb this rope. You got to pray hard. You have to give.

You have to sacrifice. And so I did. Prayer meetings, evangelism. And I said, "Yeah, I got to pray hard." And again, I had zeal. I had passion. After what, 33, almost going on 34 years as a Christian, I'm nowhere near climbing up this ladder than I did when I first started.

The only difference now and then was this rope was much further away than I thought it was. And I was a lot weaker than I thought I was when I first started. When I first started, I thought, "Yes, Lord, I'm going to change the world for you. I'm going to change the world for you.

I'm going to tell all the people, everybody who doesn't know you, I'm going to tell them, I'm going to travel to strange places." And then I remember when early on I used to think to myself, "I'm going to die early. I'm going to live hard and I'm going to do hard things and I'm going to preach the gospel and I'm going to go to difficult places.

And I'm going to die in glory. I don't need to live here a long period of time. Just do my work and be in heaven." But after all these years, I realized, if there's anything that I realized, just how far God was and just how weak I am. He said, "Salvation by grace," first says, "do not say, 'Who's going to go up to heaven and bring him down or is going to go to the abyss and raise him up?'" How can you possibly?

What is it that you have to offer to God that God will look down upon us and say, "You know what? That person's worth saving. So now I'm going to get off the throne and humiliate myself and allow them to stone and kill me." And he's looking for somebody precious enough to do that for.

Imagine the ridiculousness of that argument that he saw something in you, he saw something in me. The only reason that scripture gives us of why he did what he did was because you and I needed it and he loved us. And that's the mystery. That's the mystery. It's not because you had potential.

It's not because you're more disciplined or there's something more precious about you than the other person down the street. It simply says you needed it and he loved us. And that's the mystery. Hell to me is not a mystery. Hell is not a mystery. I mean, you see something ugly, you know, I personally hate rats.

I think rats were a creation of the fall. I don't know if that existed in the Garden of Eden. I hate rats. You know what I mean? If I even think a rat is in my neighborhood, it makes me uncomfortable. There's a place, you know, I understand hell. I've been angry enough and I think there are certain people in the world that the terrorists and the Nazis did.

I mean, I could think of people. I could think of situations where like, good, there's hell. I can understand why a holy God would create hell. Hell I understand. Heaven I don't get. Like why? There is no rational reason that justifies in my mind why the Son of God would go through what he did for me.

Why he who knew no sin became sin so that you and I might have the righteousness of God. Explain that to me. To the best of your ability, explain that to me. Why he would do that? Other than he loved me. But why did he love you? Why did he love me?

That's a mystery that I'm going to carry. You know, I remember when I was younger, I used to think, oh, when you get to heaven, you know, what question are you going to ask God? I have a lot of questions. You know, one of the questions I have is about creation and the other question that I always have is about Andrew.

What happened to Andrew? He introduces everybody to Jesus and then he's not part of the inner three. What did you do, Andrew? I'm curious. He talked too much. I don't know what he did, but he wasn't invited into the inner circle. No matter how much I try to dig the scriptures and find out, there's nothing there.

It just says he introduced them and then he's just on the side the whole time. That's one of the questions I'm going to ask. But really the biggest mystery when I get to heaven is why? He knows every single one of my sins. And it's not even before I met Christ.

It's after I met Christ. And it wasn't before I became a pastor. It was after I became a pastor. He knows every one of my sins better than I do. Why would you save me? Why would you get off your throne and humiliate yourself and go through that and persevere not just with me, but a billion times over?

It's a mystery that I will never understand. That's why he says. He says if salvation is by grace, he says, then what becomes of boasting in Romans 3 27? And he simply says it is excluded. It is excluded. Boasting and Christianity is a contradiction. Like pride and the gospel, it's a contradiction.

You know what causes church breakups? Pride. People get into argument. They don't want to lose. They think they're right and other people are wrong. That's what breaks up the church. What breaks up relationships? Pride. What breaks up marriages? Pride. Why is it so difficult to maintain relationship with people?

It's because of pride. Because I think I'm right and I think you're wrong. I'm not saying that there isn't room for discussion and argument, but the core why it would lead to destruction ultimately is pride. It's pride is at the core of all of man. Wanting to have what God has and trying to lift ourselves up.

When Christ says it is that very thing that you're trying to do in life which is causing the curse to come. Trying to be somebody when he said no. He wants to live must first die. He who loses his life for my sake, he shall live. That's exactly what Christ did.

He lived the perfect life and he gave it up so that you and I could live. He calls us to follow him and do the same so that we may continue to live. I'm going to wrap up for us this morning. See Paul, he never had confidence. Even as an apostle who planted all of these churches in Acts 20, 24, he says, "But I do not account my life of any value nor of precious to myself if only I may finish the course." Does that sound like an arrogant person?

He says, "I count my life as nothing but I may finish the course." Paul, he's like, "I'm going to finish the course because you know how many churches I planted? I'm an apostle of Jesus Christ." He says, "It counts to me as nothing that I may hold on to the grace of God." Philippians 1.20, "As it is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed." He says he knows that death is coming.

Maybe not this time, but maybe next time. But he's eager expectation, he said, "Pray for me so that I would have courage to magnify Christ even when death comes." Paul's not arrogant. He knows his own flesh. That's why Paul says 1 Corinthians 9.27 through that passage, "I buff in my body, making my slave." That's possibly after I have preached others that I may be disqualified.

"That he may hold on to the grace of God for dear life because it is not him, it is by his grace and by his grace alone." Third and finally, salvation by faith requires belief and confession of the complete work of Christ. What does it say? If you can't go up to bring him down, if you can't go down to bring him up, 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." As simple and as foolish as that may sound, well, what do we need to do then? What do we need to do? He says, "No, God did not require you to climb up.

God did not require you to go down." He says, "The word of faith is near you. It's in your mouth." And then, we're not going to talk about it today, but next week, he says, "If you confess with your mouth that Christ is Lord," he was raised from the dead, he said, "you shall be saved." Really?

That's it? That all these years that we've been trying to keep the law and keep the Sabbath and giving and proselytizing, he said, "All of that is nullified and all that we need to do is to confess." Yes, that's what Jesus says. In the book of John, chapter 6, 27-30, there's a bunch of people coming to Jesus, and Jesus said, "You're not coming to me because you saw signs.

You're coming to me because you ate and you want more." And he gives them this instruction, "Do not labor for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you, for on him God the Father has set his seal." Then they said to him, "What must we do to be doing the works of God?" Jesus answered them, "This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent." If we want to labor for things that are eternal, not temporary things, what should we do?

Our immediate thinking is, "Well, get organized. Plant churches. Let's go do these things. Feed the poor." Now, all of these things are things, these are imperatives in Scripture that tell us what to do, but he says, "But what do we do?" He said, "First, the most important thing," he says, "is to believe." Now, superficially, we may sit here and think, "Well, that's it.

I've already done it. I already believe it. I already confessed it, so it's done." But do you know how often Jesus pointed out the lack of faith in his disciples? When they couldn't cast out demons, he didn't say, "Hey, you lack technique. Instead of putting hands on the head, put it on the back." Instead of speaking Greek, speak Aramaic, because God loves Aramaic better.

He doesn't give them instruction. He says, "You," what? "Lack of faith. It's because you don't have enough faith." He said, before he fed the 5,000, he said, "All these people here, and they have nothing to eat." He said, "You didn't think this through? We're so far away. You didn't think this?

You didn't plan all these thousands of people here?" He didn't say that. He says, "You lack of faith. How long have I been with you?" When they were on the boat, and the storm was coming, and they were afraid that they were going to sink, Jesus wakes up. He said, "Jesus, wake up.

Do you not care that we're going to die?" He wakes up, but he doesn't. He said, "Hey, hey, hey, wait a second. You guys are professional fishermen. You know we're going to be over there in a minute." He doesn't say any of that. He says, "You lack of faith.

How much of our complacency is directly linked to unbelief? How much of our concerns for the future is because we don't believe? How much of our lack of desire to read the Word of God is because of unbelief?" If you really sit down and think about it, isn't it unbelief that we don't pray?

Isn't it unbelief that we don't evangelize? Isn't it unbelief that we are complacent? He said the first and the most important thing that God calls us to do is to believe. It is not up in heaven. It is not down low. He's already come. He's already been crucified. He's already been raised from the dead.

But do you believe? And I want to leave you with that and for you to really meditate and think about throughout this week. Superficially, I meet people all the time who reject Christ and they say, "I don't believe." But when I sit down and talk to them, I say, "Oh, I'm an atheist." And then when you sit down and talk to them about the different arguments and why atheism doesn't make sense, and at the end of the argument, they say, "They really haven't thought it through." So they realize that their belief of atheism or anti-belief of Christianity was a prejudice.

And so I found that through all these years of talking to atheists, it's not really that hard to have conversations with an atheist because the majority of the people haven't really thought it through. They haven't really read through and know what the argument is and decided. It's just, you know, I met a bunch of Christians who are jerks.

And they're all judgmental, therefore, they're all this way. But if they're willing to have an honest, intelligent conversation, I found that so much of rejection of Christ is not based on anything. It's just prejudice. But then I also meet a bunch of Christians or confessing Christians who also say that they believe.

So unbelief is superficial, but then I meet people all the time who say that they believe when you sit down and ask them, "What do you believe and why you believe it?" They can't argue it either. So just as people reject Christ out of prejudice, a lot of people say they believe superficially without really believing either.

So the most important work of salvation by grace alone is to test and see if you are really of the faith. Do you believe? The question is not, "Did you read the Bible? Are you willing to serve the church? Did you give?" If you have no heart to meet with God, the Word of God just sounds like words.

Prayer just sounds like empty meditation. Evangelism is just burdensome. To tell people that if they don't believe in Jesus that there's judgment waiting for them is just inconvenient. Could that be faith? How much of what you and I experience in life really is unbelief? So my encouragement and challenge to us before we make plans to do more things is to think carefully and seriously.

Do you believe? It is not far. He is near. But do you believe? Let's take some time to pray. As we come before the Lord, again in prayer I want to encourage you. You can live the rest of your life just kind of filing away certain things that you hear.

But I guarantee at some point it will resurface. When life gets hard and your heart becomes so numb that you don't care and you're okay with that. But it will resurface. At some point in your life, if you don't believe, it will resurface. So my encouragement to all of us as we come to the Lord in prayer, that whatever it is that you have before God, whatever it is that you are doing or not doing, to be sincere about it.

You're not just running this race and one day you're going to wake up and say, "How did I get here?" To ask meaningful, serious, life-changing questions. Do I really believe? And if I do, what does that mean? take some time to pray as our worship.