(# 345) Romans 10 - Are You Fixing Your Eyes on Everything But Jesus?

Class Outline:

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Welcome To

BARAH MINISTRIES

a Christian Church

Rory Clark

Pastor-Teacher

 

Good Morning!

 

Welcome to Barah Ministries…a Christian Church based in Mesa, AZ…my name is Pastor Rory Clark.  At Barah Ministries we worship the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  We call Him Lord because He is 100% God.  We call Him Jesus Christ because He is 100% true humanity just like you and me.

 

TODAY’S BIBLE LESSON

Are You Fixing Your Eyes on Everything But Jesus?

 

You’ve heard the jokes.  A person dies…goes to heaven…and St. Peter is supposedly there, manning the “Pearly Gates.”  Fortunately, that really is a joke.  The Lord Jesus Christ would never send a “boy” like Peter to do a “man’s” job.  When a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ closes his eyes in this life, it’s Second Corinthians, Chapter 5, Verse 8…

 

SECOND CORINTHIANS 5:8

…we believers in Christ are of good courage, I say, and prefer rather to be absent from the physical body and to be at home face-to-face with the Lord.

 

As a matter of fact, as a believer in Christ closes his eyes in this life he gets a personal escort from the Lord Jesus Christ to heaven…you’ve heard Psalm 23 a million times at funerals, but did you realize what it means?  Psalm 23, Verse 4…

 

PSALM 23:4

Even when I walk through my very own death shadowed valley, I cannot fear, for You (Lord) are with me…Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.

 

The Lord’s rod and staff are the items of protection a Shepherd uses for sheep.  The admission ticket to heaven isn’t a series of good deeds done as claimed by those who are self-righteous.  The admission ticket to heaven is God’s righteousness!  Welcome to a place where you find out how to get God’s righteousness as a free gift.

 

MUSIC AND REFLECTION

Be Occupied with the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ

Enjoy the Singing of His Praises

 

FLAWLESS

MercyMe

 

Let’s begin our lesson by opening our hearts and our ears to the truth, nestled deeply within the Word of our all-powerful Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, as we listen to a song that says if you want to get to heaven, you have to be FLAWLESS, a song sung by Mercy Me.

 

OPENING PRAYER

Let us pray...

 

We’re grateful, Heavenly Father, for the privilege of studying Your absolute truth...the Word of God…

 

Father, humorously with tongue in cheek we say thank you that we are not like the pagans who think they can work for salvation…we know this wisdom to count on You is through no fault of our own and through no merit in us…rather we simply allowed ourselves to be influenced by Your Son and our Lord, Jesus Christ…thank you for the free gift of absolute righteousness which is our admission ticket to heaven…

 

Help us to spread this good news to everyone we meet…

 

We ask this through the power of God the Holy Spirit…in Christ’s name...

Amen.

 

We begin with few announcements…

 

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We’re Looking for 20 Families

Help Us Build a Church

 

We created a poster and a brochure to begin our quest to find twenty families to join us here at Barah Ministries.  Here’s what they look like.  Let 2017 be the year when we grow our church…and we grow our church by inviting people to come.  The poster and the brochure can act as your invitations.

 

TODAY’S BIBLE LESSON

Are You Fixing Your Eyes on Everything But Jesus?

 

Today we continue our study of Romans, Chapter 10 beginning with the first passage, Verses 1 to 4…

 

PASSAGE 1

 

ROMANS 10:1

Brethren, my heart’s desire and my prayer to God the Father for Israel and for The Jewish Race is for their salvation.

 

ROMANS 10:2

For I (Paul…can easily) testify about Israel and The Jewish Race that they have a zeal for God, but not in accordance with knowledge (of Scripture).

 

ROMANS 10:3

For not knowing about God’s requirement of (absolute) righteousness and instead seeking to establish their own (self-)righteousness, Israel and The Jewish Race did not subject themselves to the righteousness of God.

 

ROMANS 10:4

For the Lord Jesus Christ is the end…(the termination) of the Mosaic Law for righteousness to everyone who believes (in the Lord Jesus Christ).

 

ROMANS 10:1

Brethren, my heart’s desire and my prayer to God the Father for Israel and for The Jewish Race is for their salvation.

 

If we have any compassion at all as Christians, we want everyone to be saved.  We would never wish the wrath of God, the Lake of Fire, on anyone, not even on our worst enemy.  Israel and The Jewish Race are lost, and Paul is asking that they be saved.  He uses PRAYER and EVANGELISM as his weapons.  In PRAYER, Paul asks that God the Father lead his unbelieving Jewish kinsmen into every circumstance by which they might choose to believe.  He uses EVANGELISM to spread the gospel message to all who might need it.  We do well to follow his example.  Verse 2…

 

ROMANS 10:2

For I (Paul…can easily) testify about Israel and The Jewish Race that they have a zeal for God, but not in accordance with knowledge (of Scripture).

 

As we learned last lesson , you can have a religious zeal for God and never get to know Him.   What does it mean to have ZEAL?  Literally, it means…

 

ZEAL

To boil over with heat…to be radical…to be fervent…to be fanatical…to be extreme…to be supremely enthusiastic…to be passionately devoted to a cause

 

The Lord Jesus Christ has a lot to say in Matthew, Chapter 23 about the zealous Pharisees…a good read which includes comments from the Lord Jesus Christ much like this one…Matthew, Chapter 23, Verse 27…

 

MATTHEW 23:27

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which on the outside appear beautiful, but inside they are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness.”

 

You cannot be righteous apart from a relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ.  Now the verses of focus today…the last two verses in the first passage of Romans, Chapter 10…here’s Verse 3…

 

 

ROMANS 10:3

For not knowing about God’s requirement of (absolute) righteousness and instead seeking to establish their own (self-)righteousness, Israel and The Jewish Race did not subject themselves to the righteousness of God.

 

The knowledge being mentioned in Verses 2 and 3 is not “accumulated” knowledge…the Jews certainly had plenty of that…it’s a reference to “I believe” knowledge…they know about the Messiah and they don’t believe in Him. What a pity!

 

Do you know that righteousness, the admission ticket to heaven, is a free gift?  Did you know that you cannot be righteous, that is, you cannot be saved, apart from the righteousness that comes as a result of having an “I believe” relationship with the Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ?  You have to be FLAWLESS!  Did you know that you couldn’t under any circumstances work to get credit for your own salvation?  Did you know that there is nothing in you that is worthy of being saved?  Yet the Lord Jesus Christ shed His blood to save you.  Leviticus, Chapter 17, Verse 11 says…

 

LEVITICUS 17:11

‘For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you on the altar to make atonement for your souls…for it is the blood by reason of the life that makes atonement.’

 

Blood is life, both in the human realm and in the spiritual realm.  The blood in the body sustains physical life.  If you lose the blood in your body…if you bleed out…you are dead.  In the spiritual realm your righteousness is paid for by blood as well…the blood of Christ.   First Peter, Chapter 1, Verses 18 and 19…

 

FIRST PETER 1:18

…you believers in Christ were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold from your futile way of life which you inherited from your forefathers…

 

FIRST PETER 1:19

…but you were redeemed with precious blood, as of the blood of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.

 

Let’s take a music break and we’ll learn more about where to fix our eyes.

 

MUSIC BREAK

EAST TO WEST

Casting Crowns

 

THE OFFERING

Deacon Denny Goodall

 

Let’s begin the next portion of our lesson by giving you a chance to make an offering…we need and we value your financial support to continue the work of this ministry…please welcome up Deacon Denny Goodall with the offering message.

 

OFFERING VERSE

 

ROMANS 10:10

…for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.

 

OFFERING

FLIGHT OF THE EAGLE

Dave McClure, Instrumental

 

TODAY’S BIBLE LESSON

Are You Fixing Your Eyes on Everything But Jesus?

 

Welcome back!  Romans, Chapter 10, Verse 3…

 

ROMANS 10:3

For not knowing about God’s requirement of (absolute) righteousness and instead seeking to establish their own (self-)righteousness, Israel and The Jewish Race did not subject themselves to the righteousness of God.

 

Only shed blood pays for sin.  It’s funny…I was involved for twenty-nine years in a discipline called Systematic Theology.  It is an intellectual approach to Christianity.  There are a lot of really smart people who are part of Systematic Theology to this day.  I am neither smart, nor involved in the discipline any longer.  Systematic Theology is a lie.  How do I know?  I know because the truth is ALWAYS the truth.  So if you ever find a lie in a discipline, a single lie, you now it is not the truth.  As Galatians, Chapter 5, Verse 9 says…

 

GALATIANS 5:9

A little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough.

 

In other words, false teaching is a dogma that distorts everything.

 

There were many false ideas in Systematic Theology, all of them a direct character assassination of the Lord Jesus Christ.  Among those lies… blackout of the soul…reversionism…triple compound discipline…and losing fellowship with God.  We were taught that when you are saved you are placed into fellowship with God.  Then when you commit personal sins, you are out of fellowship with God.  But when you admit the sins to God the Father, He places you back into fellowship.  The doctrine proposes that you lose and regain the filling of the Spirit.  All day long you are in fellowship then out of fellowship and then back in again.  It’s a complete lie.  You see, we were also taught that God is immutable…that He never changes…that once God odes a thing, it cannot be undone.  So how can an immutable God, a God who never changes, put you into fellowship, and then kick you out of fellowship when you sin?  God would never consider undoing what He has done.  Yet we believed this lie.  And I was one of the best teachers of this absolute heresy.

 

The Pastors I learned these lies from are “gods” in the eyes of their followers.  The followers are fixing their eyes on the Pastor.  If you dare challenge the Pastors, or the teaching, referred to as “The Doctrines,” you were castigated in ways very similar to how Messianic Jews today are castigated by unbelieving Jews.  If you reject Systematic Theology or its false teachers, you are looked at with pity.  The people who follow Systematic Theology fix their eyes on the Pastors, and fix their eyes on “The Doctrine,” and in so doing take their eyes off of Jesus.

 

Missing from the doctrines of Systematic Theology is the doctrine of love.  In fact, one of the most popular Pastors to spread the lies of Systematic Theology admitted in his final publication, assembled after his death, that he had underestimated the love of God.  Ya think?  God loves us unconditionally, and the “god” portrayed in Systematic Theology is no such loving God.  He’s a tyrant who is disappointed with you when you sin, and who begrudgingly restores you to fellowship when you admit how wrong you were.  It is legalism of the highest order…it is a magnet for the self-righteous intellectual…of which I WAS the foremost (except the intellect).

 

The Law and its legalism falls way short of the glory of God.  Galatians, Chapter 4, Verses 4 and 5…

 

GALATIANS 4:4

But when the fullness of the time came, God the Father sent forth His Son (the Lord), born of a woman (as Jesus Christ), born under the Mosaic Law…

 

GALATIANS 4:5

…so that He might redeem (purchase from the slave market) those who were (slaves) under the Mosaic Law, that we might instead receive the adoption as sons.

 

The Law brings despair to human beings because we can’t keep it.  Romans, Chapter 10, Verse 4…

 

ROMANS 10:4

For the Christ  (the Messiah) is the end (the termination) of the Mosaic Law for righteousness to everyone who believes (in the Lord Jesus Christ).

 

There is NO SALVATION by keeping the law.  Self-righteousness is the path that seems good to a man…it is not God’s righteousness path.  We are commanded to do things God’s Way.  Proverbs, Chapter 14, Verse 12…

 

PROVERBS 14:12

There is a way which seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death.

 

Sin is death.  Instead we are to follow the advice of Hebrews, Chapter 12, Verse 2…

 

HEBREWS 12:2

…keep on fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the Cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God the Father.

Are you one of those believers who has his eyes fixed on everything BUT Jesus?  If so, ask God to fix it for you…because God considers your problems to be His responsibility.

 

GOD WANTS YOU!

Make the Most Important Decision of Your Life

 

ACTS 16:30

“…the jailer asked (Paul and Silas), “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?”

 

ACTS 16:31

“Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and everyone in your household who also believes.”

 

ROMANS 10:10

…for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.

 

SECOND PETER 3:9

The Lord is not slow about His promise of salvation, as some accuse Him of, but instead He is patient toward you unbelievers, not wishing for any to perish (in the Lake of Fire) but for all to come to repentance (a change of mind about having a relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ).

 

LUKE 19:10

“For the Son of Man (the Lord Jesus Christ) has come to seek and to save that which was lost.”

 

CLOSING SONG

HOW GREAT THOU ART

June Murphy

 

CLOSING PRAYER

Let us pray...

 

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