Roman Roads - 2024

Romans 9 verse 30. What then shall we say? That the gentiles who did not pursue righteousness have obtained it. A righteousness that is by faith, but the people of Israel who pursued the law as a way of righteousness have not attained their goal.

Why not? Because they pursued it not by faith but as if it were by works, they stumbled over the stumbling stone as it is written See, I lay in Zion a stone that causes people to stumble and a rock that makes them fall. And the 1 who believes in him will never be put to shame. Brothers and sisters My heart's desire and prayer to god for the Israelites is that they may be saved. But I can testify about them that they are Zealous before god, but their zeal is not based on knowledge since they did not know the righteousness of god and sought to establish their own.

They did not submit to god's righteousness. Christ is the culmination of the law. So that's every so so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes. Moses writes this about the righteousness that is by the law. The person who does these things will live by them, but the righteousness that is by 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 deep that is to bring Christ up from the dead.

But what does it say? The word is near you. It is in your mouth and in your heart. That is the message concerning faith that we proclaim. If you declare with your mouth, Jesus' lord, and believe in your heart that god raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

Foreices with your hearts that you believe and are justified and this is with your mouth as you profess your faith and are saved. As scripture says, anyone who believes in him will never be put to shame. For there is no difference between you and gentile, The same lord is lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him. For everyone who calls on the name of the lord will be saved. How then can they call on the 1 they have not believed in?

And how can they believe in the 1 of whom they have not heard? How can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can anyone preach unless they are sent? As it is written, How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news? Thanks, Abray.

Good evening from me, may I add my welcome. My name's Rory Kanard. I'm 1 of the the members of staff here at Cornerstone. And this is the last of a series that we've been doing in Romans. We've been looking at these just wonderful, gospel sentences, really.

And it's just really exciting to to close it off with this this passage here. We're gonna pray for our time, and then we'll get stuck in. Let's pray. Father, we thank you, for the things that we've just sung. We thank you for the reminder that we need to turn our eyes upon Jesus.

And so let us do so, tonight. Let us, look at his face. And as we look at his face, we pray father that the things of this world will grow dim, that the distractions of this world will be taken away from us as we revel in your glory and your grace. Give us a greater vision of Christ we pray and we pray this in his name, our men. Now many of you will be familiar that this Friday, there was a a finale of a show which millions, tuned into.

I I looked the the viewing figures up, I don't understand viewing figures, so someone can might be able to help me. On average, 5500000.0 people tuned into this show, but at peak, 6900000.0 people tuned in. Does anyone understand that? Deepgram was the whole show. Oh, thank you.

I knew there was a reason that god put you in the front row today, brother. Okay. Does anyone know what show it was? It was trait it was the traitors finale. Now, traitors If you don't know what traitors is, it's like a huge game of the game mafia.

And if you don't know what the great game of mafia, it's not great. I hate But if you don't know mafia, well, I can't help you. Okay? No. Essentially, what traitors is is there are people that are killing people off and there are people who are faithful.

We have the faithful, and we have traitors. And the traitors have to work out. No. The traitors have to kill the faithful and the faithful have to try and work out who the traitors are. And what happens during the show is that they always seem to think that I can trust people.

It's a classic phrase. I have never heard in 1 show the phrase 100 percent as many times as traitors. It's always, I, a hundred percent trust you. You're a hundred percent a faithful, and it is a wonderful thing. When they say you're a hundred percent faithful, and they turn out to be a traitor who's killed them.

Has it did I has I ever seen the fire can I spoil it? Oh, I knew that would happen. My brother once did that in a in a show called Game of Thrones. He's told everyone online. Who died?

Should I do it? Look at everybody, like, I will walk out. No. So I won't do that. But essentially, If you misplace your trust in someone, you'll either end up dead, or you might even lose all the money at the end.

And that is our world. You have to work out, can I trust or can I not trust? We live in a world that is full of information. Is it fake news, or is it true? I did a I did a opener with their soul the other day, and I put some pictures up, and they had to work out, is it a real picture or not.

And half of them didn't have a clue. And we have to work out, can I trust that that is real, or can I trust if it's fake? And I think this is that these these shows, and and and the the world of information reveal to us that we have to trust in something but so often we get it wrong. And here's the question. What is it that you're trusting in?

Who is it that you're believing in? And what do your words say about what you trust? Is it misplaced? I think these shows show that it's so often misplaced. So often, our trust is put in something.

So often, our trust is put in someone, whether it's, the object of money and and having a, a great amount of wealth that can get us out of all the problems that face us. Maybe it is in a a friendship or a family that we think, oh, that will be the thing that can sort all my problems out. Maybe it's a a government or the authorities that are above us that we think they may be able to to sort us out. But so often those things that we put our trust in turns out to be shaky ground. So often, it goes wrong.

Sometimes we put our trust in ourselves. We believe that terrible lie that's preached at schools. You can do it. If you believe it, achieve it. What I'm naff saying?

Just because it rhymes. Believe and achieve? Conceive? No. The whole school system says if you just trust in yourself, you can do it.

If you can if you if you do it, you can do it. You can save the world. You can save the world. We can save the world, but the results of putting our trust in anything in this world is disastrous and pretty dangerous. You know, this message that kids can save the world and they get the the pressure that they've gotta save the world that somehow a 5 year old by putting his rapper in the bin, and, as long as he does some sort of activism, he can save this world from burning up.

So of pressure is that to put on a child. They just wanna play toy soldiers. It's disastrous, and there's a a great mental health, depression result. We cannot save the world. We cannot save other people.

We cannot save ourselves. When you put your trust in these things, it's a disaster. And I think we've seen this in our series in Romans Our first sermon looked at Romans chapter 3, and verse 10, and 23 to 24. You can look at it with me. It says this in to 3 verse 10.

There is no 1 righteous, not even 1. And then later on, it says for all have sinned verse 20 and fall short of the glory of god. And we feel a deeply stressing predicament. All have fallen short. In other words, we failed the exam.

We've missed the mark. See, ever since Adam and Eve fell, we all have not been able to do it. The the school system says you can do it, the Bible says you can't do it. Ever since Adam, they they stopped doing what they were meant. They were made to do in that they were made to serve god, the living god, The purpose was to live for him, to live to glorify him.

But ever since they rejected him, they walked out on him They were not able to please him no longer. They were no longer fit for purpose, and every single 1 of us since then have not been fit for purpose. We have replaced god as our authority, and we've made ourselves the authority, and the results are stress. And so ever since that, we fail the exam. We walk into the exam.

We realize we can't pass it. We come to our performance review every year, and we fail again. We fail again. You failed your your performance review. You cannot get to god.

You've replaced god as master, and you've made yourself the authority you've now brought yourself onto the master of Satan. And you know what? It got worse from there, really. So, hopefully, you're feeling quite low because it got worse because in Romans 6 23, we see that the wages from our master, the wages of sin is death. See, all that walking out on guards The consequences of that is that we face both death physically, but also spiritual death.

And it is a dark, dark picture. But when things are dark, the light shines brightly. And you may have been in 1 of those really dark tunnels and and you think it's tunnel ever ending, and then suddenly you just see a pinprick of light, a little glimmer. And that glimmer is called butt. Because in chapter 6 verse 23, it says, but the gift of god is eternal life.

The gift of god is eternal life. You have earned yourself death yet god has a gift of eternal life. And then you may ask the question, how is this possible? How how how can I how can I have this gift? I can't earn it.

It's a gift. We know that gifts aren't earned. If I had to earn it, it wouldn't be a gift. It would be a wage. So how do I get How do I get this gift?

How how is it that god has given this gift? And we got the wonderful breathtaking demonstration of god's love in chapter 5 verse 8, which said, and we should read it again and we could I could sing again if you really want, but I doubt you do. But god demonstrates his own love for his for us in this while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Hallelujah. The greatest demonstration of love, none greater than this.

No greater way to give the gift of eternal life than for Christ to pour out his precious blood to win us, to be sons of the living gods. And so you might ask the question. So what now? How is it that I may receive? This gift of eternal life, this amazing love gift.

How do I get it? How do I enjoy the benefits of it? Now what we tend to do as humans to answer that question is we think we should do something Because at heart, we all think that we can get ourselves right with god. Even though we've been presented with this amazing demonstration of love, we still come back and we say, what can I do to attain this? What can I do?

Can I say some prayers? Can I do some sacraments that may somehow get me right and may somehow give me this gift of eternal life? I think that's what's going on in verse 6 to 7 of chapter 10. But the righteousness that is by faith says do not say in your heart who will who will ascend into heaven, that is to bring Christ down, or who will descend into the deep, that is to bring Christ up from the dead. There's something in us that says, maybe I can do something and reach Christ and reach him and get up there.

And and maybe I'll say a few prayers and I can get Christ to come back down or maybe I can dig, dig, dig, dig, really deep, and I'll find Christ, and I'll bring him back up. I can do something surely to get myself right and give me this gift of eternal life. That is the language of unbelief and self righteousness. That is the language of someone who tries to justify themselves. And the and Paul is saying, no.

That's not how it works. We don't need to say that. Crisis come near us. Crisis come near us. Crisis on the work.

And so how is it that we get this gift of eternal life Well, I've got 2 points. You'll be relieved to know. 2 points. First point, the mouth declares Jesus is lord. The mouth declares that Jesus is lord.

Do you see that? The first verse, if you declare with your mouth, Jesus is lord. It is with your mouth. You profess your faith in verse 10. It's the mouth that declares.

The word declares means agreement or approval or or a scent. I think Abri said before that he gives us a sense that Northumberland is a beautiful place. Is that the way do you use something like that. Oh, a test. I've got it wrong.

Okay. But it's to say, look, I I I agree. I I voice what I believe. The word actually means to confess something that you are convinced of and hold to be true. That's the word declares.

That's what that's what declares means. You confess something that you are convinced of and hold to be true. In other words, you're gonna stand up and you're gonna speak out. You're gonna stand up in public and you're gonna speak out in the presence of others, and you're gonna say, I am certain. But what is it that we are to say?

What are we to say? Jesus is lord Now what does that mean? What does it mean for you to stand up and to say Jesus is lord What are you in essence saying when you say those 3 words that are so important? Jesus is lord. You are saying.

By saying he is lord, the word, I think Curios, it is, he is master, he is the ruler, he is the sovereign king, he is the sovereign 1 of all the universe. Here's the 1 that we saw in colossians, by what by who all things are made and in him and for him and through him. All things that you see, all things that you do not see. Jesus is in control of. And if he is king, if he is master, and if he is lord of your life, that means you owe him your allegiance.

That means that every single inch of my life belongs to him. That means that if he is my lord, I listen to his word. I obey his word. His word is my deepest priority. And he is the 1 that I serve.

Remember we talked about Adam and Eve? That's what their purpose was. If I'm seeing that Jesus is lord, my purpose is to serve him. He's the 1 I listened to. I was saying to the to the rooted lot.

If he is lord, our youth group, sorry, if you don't know what rooted is, 15 to 18. So if he is lord, he is the 1 I listen to about my sex life. If he is lord, he is the 1 I listen to about who I'm gonna marry. If he is lord, he is the 1 who I listen to about what university I may go to. If he is lord, he is the 1 who I whom I listen to to where I work.

He directs everything in my life. He is the 1 who is in sovereign control. He is the 1 who rules us. And so with the mouth we Claire Jesus is Lord, but it's not just mere words this. This isn't just like I'm if I just say it, I'm okay.

I can't just say, oh, Jesus. It's Lord. It's not like, you know, when you, in trouble growing up, and you had to say, sorry. Sorry. Yeah.

It's not when you when you you used to say, oh, no. I won't I won't do it again. And then you, you know, the next moment you were, you were definitely doing it again. It's not when you say I'm a hundred percent faithful and you're clearly not a faithful. Now it's more than just words.

It's my second point. The heart, the leaves that Jesus is Savior. The heart believes that Jesus' is savior. See, it's not just empty words here, and it's not just an intellectual understanding of who Jesus is. Like, we go to school and have an intellectual understanding of algebra if you're any good at maths.

This is this is actually speaking out what you hold to be true in your heart. That's why I think that word Claire is a quite a helpful word, isn't it? That we confess something that we are convinced of and hold it to be true. Is that we've accept god's demonstration of love as his gift of a out of life. And so in verse 9, it says to us, if you read with me, if you declare with your mouth Jesus' lord, and believe in your heart that god raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

It's with your heart that you are justified. Now why does he say rose from the dead? Why why would you go with that on. What? Does not the other things matter that Jesus did?

Why? That Jesus rose from the dead, that god rose from the dead? Well, I think the reason he does that is because wrapped up in everything that the resurrection is is all that Jesus did. The resurrection really announces that Christ lived the perfect life. The resurrection reminds us that Jesus Christ was hung on a cross for the sins of the world.

The resurrection of the lord Jesus Christ says that that crucifixion and that life that he lived was met with approval from the father that that the the sacrifice that paid my penalty. Remember the wages of sin. He paid off my wages of sin in his death. God says, that's been paid for by your death. The resurrection of the lord Jesus Christ reminds us that not only did he rise from the dead, but that he sender to the father and he sits at the right hand of the father right now.

And so his words, it is finished. Hold to be true because the work of Jesus is done, that's why he sits down. And that's what we are to believe in our hearts. That is what we are trusting. Leaning upon relying upon.

That is what we have to love in our hearts. And if we love that, if we love the fact that Jesus did all of that, his death. Is my death. His life is my life. His resurrection is my resurrection.

His glory is my glory. And so it means verse 9, you will be saved. It means verse 10. You will be justified seen as innocent. Seen us right before god.

1 of the incredible mercy and grace of god that if we just trust in the blood of the lord, Jesus Christ trust that he did indeed die for me that I can be seen as right before god almighty, god the holy, holy, holy 1 the ever pure 1 that me, a sinner can look at god in the face, and he can say you are right. And so Jesus is savior. That's what the heart believes. The heart believes that Jesus is savior. And Jesus has saved us to call him lord.

That's the saving lordship of Jesus He doesn't save you to go and make keep yourself as lord. He saves you to bring you back to live as you were meant to live. With Jesus as the sovereign king of your life right before god again. To live out your purpose, your fit for purpose again. You've been fixed.

And so with your heart, believe that Jesus is Savior, with your mouth confess that he is lord. That's why it's great to hear just to have time come up here and tell us how it's converted. That's why conversion and baptisms are just so important. Why? Because you can look back to the point where you believed in your heart and you declared with your mouth that Jesus Lord It's 1 of my favorite parts of, the baptism, ceremony.

I fuck look at this. It's in so when we dunk people, we can use it again, laminated. And I love it because we say these questions. Do you believe and trust in his only son, Jesus Christ? He was crucified for our sins, rose from the dead, and is the only way of salvation to which those who are getting baptized says I do.

And at the end, we say, do you submit to Christ as lord, and this warms my heart every time? You did it last time, Scarlet. Jesus Christ is Lord Amen. Jesus Christ is Lord. And then as Christians, we can look back to that point where we made promises that we would commit to living for Christ as lords.

Where we remember that he saved me, and there is great assurance for us that the sovereign guards the sovereign lord Jesus will hold you. We've sung about it before. He'll hold you fast. And we can look back if we've If we erred, if we've gone away, and we said, actually, we said that Jesus Christ will be lord. Let me recommit to him.

He's my savior. He loved me so much that he died in the cross whilst I was a sinner. Let me recommit to him. That's why our baptisms. If we're often when we are grown up in Christian families, our bacterisms remind us.

That's why if we can remember our conversion, it reminds us. That's the moment as helpful. And so if we confess with our heart and mouth that Christ is both Savior and Christ is lord. Look at our results in verse 11 to 13. As scripture says, Anyone who believes in him will never be put to shame.

For there is no difference between you and gentile the same lord is lord of all and Richly blesses all who call on him for everyone who calls in the name of the lord will be saved. Do you see the great gospel promises? You'll be saved. The great predicament that we saw at start of this sermon is dealt with when Christ dies in the cross for you and you trust in him. You'll be richly blessed in verse 12, and you'll never be put to shame.

Isn't that a lovely promise? In a world where we so often feel guilt and we so often feel shame. And even as Christians, we feel that we get it wrong and we mess up yet with Christ, we will never be put to shame. Christ doesn't drag us through the ringer. He loves us.

And if we trust in him, we will never be put to shame. It's amazing promises. So what about you? What about you? Maybe you're here, and you've come to an end of yourself.

You've realized that this world is a death desperate world, and you've realized there is nothing that anyone or anything or yourself can do to save yourself. Maybe you've realized that you've been searching and you think, oh, I really wish there was someone who could give me purpose and meaning maybe you're here and you felt shame and you felt guilt. Well then, maybe for the first time. Maybe for the first time ever, and maybe you've heard these things over and over again and you've never done this. But maybe for the first time ever, you'll believe in your heart.

You will accept in your heart. You will trust. That Jesus has paid my sin. He is my savior. And with your mouth, maybe you'll declare that Jesus is law tonight.

You won't regret it. But if you do, if you don't do this, let me warn you that there is a day coming and Philipppheus promises us this. It says, therefore, god exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name. That at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus crisis law to the glory of God, the father. See, whether you like it or not Jesus is lord.

Whether you want him to be your savior or not, Jesus is lord. He is king. He is sovereign. He is ruler overall. And so you can either confess Jesus to be savior in law today.

Or you can confess that he is lord when he returns and face him as judge. I urge you to know the loving gift of eternal life that Jesus has to offer you now. Know him as savior and know him as lord. Believe in your heart and declare him to be lord with your mouth. And then Christian.

Christian. Keep on declaring. Keep on declaring. Every day, thank you Jesus that you are both Savior and you are lord. Keep on trusting him.

He's the sovereign 1. He's the sovereign king. He's the 1 who knows best for you. He's the 1 who you need to listen to. And and and so often we can be tempted, can't we to trust other things?

I can easily just put my foot. I I've got my feet on a rock that is crisis. So, steadfast and firm. And yet sometimes I I look at other things and think maybe that can give me a bit of salvation. Maybe that can give me a bit of satisfaction, and I put my foot on it, and it's like 1 of those those ice, icicles that you see that's so unstable and shaken, will break up and will drown me.

Don't be tempted to put your your foot on 1 of them Don't be tempted to start resting on your education or your money or your family or your friends. Don't be tempted to trust in them. Keep your eyes fixed on the lord Jesus Christ. And put every area of your life under his control. That's hard.

Actually, I quite like having some stuff on my own. Yeah. But if he is the sovereign lord of all, he demands that all is put under him. And now Christians, now we've been reminded of these things. We have seen the great depth of our despair.

We have seen the great gift of god in his amazing demonstration of love. And we have seen that if we have trusted in him, we are saved. So let us do verse 14 to 15 together. How then can they call on the 1 they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the 1 of whom they have not heard?

And how can they hear without someone preaching to them, and how can anyone preach unless they are sent as it is written, how beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news. We are benefactors of this incredible gospel. And it should be our heart's desire that other people hear this great message that they believe it in their heart and they declare with their mouth that Jesus is lord. Do you want beautiful feet? My feet are incredibly ugly.

Yet when I take the gospel out to people, there's no better looking feet in the world. Let us have beautiful feet cornerstone. Let us have a desire as we heard this morning to seize the opportunities that present themselves and tell people about the wonderful grace our lord Jesus Christ so that they may confess that he is lord with their mouth and that they may believe in the heart and they will be saved. Let's pray together. Father, we thank you so much for these this incredible book.

And we thank you for these great gospel sentences that we have looked at. We thank you so much for the lord Jesus Christ. We thank you that he did indeed live the perfect life, that he died the death that we so deserved, but that he was risen again in triumphant victory he ascended to sit at the right hand of you. And we pray father that it will be that that we put our hope and our trust in. Let us not misplace our trust.

Let us keep hold of him. Let us respond to him as both savior and lord. And we pray father that as we gaze upon him, as we see what a glorious savior and lord we have, we pray that we will live our lives and allegiance to him, and that we will go, and we will proclaim to this world, this lost world that Jesus is both savior and lord. We pray this in his name, amen.