The sermon, 'Christ Is the End of the Law,' delivered by Mike Davenport, explores the theme of righteousness through faith as presented in Romans 9:30-10:4. Davenport examines the contrast between the Jews, who pursued righteousness through the law, and the Gentiles, who attained righteousness through faith. The sermon underscores the point that righteousness cannot be achieved through works of the law, but only through faith in Christ, who fulfilled the law. Davenport uses John Bunyan's 'Pilgrim's Progress' to illustrate how reliance on legalistic righteousness can lead to spiritual failure. The sermon warns against the dangers of self-righteousness and emphasizes the necessity of faith and trust in Christ's finished work for salvation. The speaker urges listeners to not let Christ be a stumbling block, but rather the foundation of their faith, and highlights the importance of understanding the true purpose of the law as a revelation of God's righteousness.

Romans chapter 9 beginning with verse 30. What shall we say then that Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness have attained to righteousness even the righteousness of faith, but Israel pursuing the law of righteousness has not attained to the law of righteousness. Why? Because they did not seek it by faith, but as it were by the works of the law. For they stumbled at that stumbling stone.

As it is written, Behold, I lay in Zion a stumbling stone and a rock of offense, and whoever believes on him will not be put to shame. Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they may be saved. For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. For they, being ignorant of God's righteousness and seeking to establish their own righteousness have not submitted to the righteousness of God. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.

Let's pray. Oh gracious God, we ask that in the middle of the competing voices in this world, that every mouth would be stopped, and that everyone would become as it were a liar before you, for you alone are the one that we should listen to, to speak to us from the Word. Come this morning. Oh God, may my words be your words. Come and feed us, we pray.

Make Christ to be precious to us. Lord, help us not as the Jews of whom Paul was writing. May it not be said to us that we have not attained to the righteousness that is spoken of in your law. But oh, may Christ be the end of the law for righteousness to each and everyone today listening to my voice. Come and save, We pray in Christ's name.

Amen. Please be seated. We have begun a series on the Ten Commandments, And in these messages leading up to the actual exposition of Exodus chapter 20, we are seeking to get a firm grasp on the law of God, both in its nature and in its relevance. In the introductory message, we considered the reality that moral law has always existed and always will exist. Secondly, we saw that God's being and attributes are the source of the moral law, thus establishing the fact that the moral law must be unchanging just as God Himself is unchanging.

And thirdly, we saw that God's Word draws attention to specific distinctions in the law, specifically moral laws, ceremonial laws, and civil laws. The title of today's message is Christ is the end of the law for righteousness. Christ is the end of the law for righteousness. The title is lifted right out of the last verse in our text, verse four. You see, the Jewish nation, Old Covenant Israel, the recipients of the law of God on Mount Sinai, If you could have asked them the purpose of that law, their answer would have sounded much like John Bunyan's character in Pilgrim's Progress, Mr.

Worldly Wiseman. Do you recall Christian's encounter with this character, Mr. Worldly Wiseman? You see, Christian had just been rescued from the slough of Despond and put back on the road that leads to life by the wise words of this one called help. Bunyan then describes the encounter with Mr.

Worldly Wiseman who dwelt in a city by the name of Carnal Policy. Mr. Worldly Wise Man encourages Christian to visit a gentleman, and in so doing get off of the pathway that evangelists had put him on, to visit a gentleman by the name of Legality who lives in the village named Morality. There at Legality's house, Christian is assured his burden, that burden of sin that was bearing him down, that it could be removed by legality or by his handsome son civility. He encourages Christian to not go back to the city of destruction.

That would sound too wicked. Don't go back there. But don't press on to the celestial city either on this path that you've been set on by evangelist. But rather he told him to sin for his wife and children and find happiness, find contentment in spending their remaining days there in the village of morality. Bunyan then writes, so Christian turned out of his way to go to Mr.

Legality's house for help, but behold when he was got now hard by the hill, it seemed so high. And also that side of it that was next the wayside did hang so much over that Christian was afraid to venture further, lest the hill should fall on his head. Wherefore, there he stood still and knew not what to do. Also, his burden now seemed heavier to him than while he was in his way. There came also flashes of fire out of the hill that made Christian afraid that he should be burned.

Here therefore he sweat and did quake for fear, And now he began to be sorry that he had taken Mr. Worldly Wise Man's counsel. And with that, he saw evangelists coming to meet him, at the first sight also of whom he began to blush for shame. And evangelist Bunyan says, comes to him and says, He to whom thou was sent for ease, being by name legality, is the son of the bondwoman, which now is and is in bondage with her children, and is in a mystery this mount Sinai which thou hast feared will fall on thy head. Now if she with her children are in bondage, How canst thou expect by them to be made free?

This legality therefore is not able to set thee free from thy burden. No man was as yet ever rid of his burden, by him no nor ever is like to be. Ye cannot be justified by the works of the law, for by the deeds of the law no man living can be rid of his burden. Therefore, Mr. Worldly Wise Man is an alien, and Mr.

Legality is a cheat, and for his son's civility, notwithstanding his simpering looks, he is but a hypocrite and cannot help thee. Believe me, there is nothing in all this noise that thou hast heard of these wicked men, but a design to beguile thee of thy salvation by turning thee from the way in which I had set thee." Many a soul who has felt that burden of sin upon their back weighing them down has sought out for the help of Mr. Legality and Mr. Civility. Many have taken up residence there in that town of carnal policy, in that village of morality.

Brothers and sisters, as a church that holds to the Reformed tradition, we must guard against any such inclination. We must remember those words of evangelists, this legality therefore is not able to set thee free from thy burden. No man was as yet ever rid of his burden by him. No not ever is like to be. Ye cannot be justified by the works of the law, for by the deeds of the law No man living can be rid of his burden." Well these wise words from Bunyan will form the framework.

It'll be what we use today to look at this text before us this morning. And we're going to examine this text with a focus on the what, the why, and the how. The what, the why, and the how. First, the what, The what. After all that Paul has been declaring up to this point, after all the immense doctrine that he has set before us in the first eight and a half chapters, he provides us with a question to unpack his thoughts and see if we are tracking with him.

Because he gets here to chapter 9 and talking about this great salvation that he has been opening up and he talks about it in such a sense and he's giving them the idea that God's behind this. It's not of him who wills or him who runs but of God who shows mercy. And he gets to our text today and he's checking with the people, what shall we say then? What shall we say then? And then he gives the answer, that Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness have attained to righteousness, even the righteousness of faith.

But Israel, pursuing the law of righteousness, has not attained to the law of righteousness. We must first note that the law given at Mount Sinai is a law of righteousness. That law given on Mount Sinai is a law of righteousness. It declares loud and clear the righteous standards of a thrice holy God. And Romans 8, 4 declares to us that God is concerned with the keeping of the righteous requirement of the law.

He doesn't look past it. He doesn't give any a pass. Justice demands righteousness, perfect righteousness. Nothing less will suffice. In Habakkuk 1 13, the Prophet states, you are of purer eyes than to behold evil and cannot look on wickedness.

Do you grasp the fact that Everyone in this world has some standard of righteousness. Everyone has some standard of righteousness. For some, the measuring stick is God's written moral law that they hold in their hands. They look to this as the measuring stick of righteousness. Others use the measuring stick of their own accomplishments or of the common grace that may be apparent in their lives.

They join with the Pharisee who proclaimed his standard to be the man standing next to him. God, I thank you that I am not like other men, even like this tax collector." He was his own standard of measurement of righteousness, and he compared and said, I thank you that I'm not like other men, like this tax collector. Even in the prison cell, self-righteousness raises its ugly head among violent lawbreakers when a newcomer arrives with charges of abuse towards a woman or a child. Self-righteousness rises, the measuring stick that they take out. Well, what about those who hate God and His law, who seem to drink down iniquity like water.

What of them? Can they be said to have a measuring stick? Absolutely. You see, they just set their righteousness measuring stick up not as a goal for achievement, but as a target for their sin. That's righteousness.

I'm going against that." And they set it up in that sense, as if they have no desire to achieve to any of that. But it's a standard. But the law of God is the only perfect standard. Paul, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, declares in Romans 7-12, therefore the law is holy and the commandment holy and just and good. It is the law of righteousness.

The second thing we must note is the contrast between two groups of people, contrasts that are clear from our text. You have the Jews on one side and the Gentiles on the other. The first contrast is the Jews had the law. The Jews had the law. The Gentiles didn't.

They didn't have the law. You see, there is no mention of law in connection with the Gentiles, but it is mentioned when he speaks of the Jews. Now, Paul had already told us back in chapter 2 of Romans, verse 14, that the Gentiles, these Gentiles who do not have the law, And he declared that back in chapter 2, and he also declared in chapter 2 that the Jews, on the other hand, are those who rest on the law and make their boast in God and know His will and approve the things that are excellent, being instructed out of the law and are confident that they themselves are a guide to the blind, a light to those who are in darkness, instructors of the foolish, teachers of babes, having the form of knowledge and truth in the law. See, these things that Paul described of the Jews distinguished them from the Gentiles, who did not have this written law. The second contrast that we see, the Jews were pursuing righteousness, the Gentiles weren't.

The Jews were pursuing it, the Gentiles were not. The Jews having a law of righteousness sought righteousness by the means of that very law. The Gentiles, having no such written law, though their conscience declared them to be lawbreakers, yet they weren't pursuing righteousness at all. The third and greatest contrast is the Jews did not attain to righteousness. The Gentiles did.

The Jews did not attain to righteousness, but the Gentiles did. This should not shock us if we have been following Paul's argument throughout this entire chapter of chapter 9. It is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy, Verse 16 of chapter 9. In other words, it is not of him who desires righteousness. It's not even of him who pursues righteousness, running in order to attain it.

But it is of God who shows mercy. So that is the what in the passage that the Jews, having the righteous law of God, have not attained to the righteousness of that law. We want to consider second from our text the why. The why. Why is it that the Jews did not attain the righteousness demonstrated in the very law they held in their hands?

Well Paul anticipated such a question. Look at verse 32. Why? He asks the question for us. Why?

Because they, the Jews, did not seek it, that is, that righteousness, by faith, but as it were by the works of the law. That is, they sought righteousness as if it were possible to achieve through the keeping of the law. For they stumbled at that stumbling stone. As it is written, Behold, I lay in Zion a stumbling stone and a rock of offense, and whoever believes on him will not be put to shame. Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they may be saved.

For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. For they, being ignorant of God's righteousness and seeking to establish their own righteousness have not submitted to the righteousness of God. Why? The bottom line at the end of it all is that these privileged Jews were ignorant of the purpose of the law, and therefore they were ignorant of God's own righteousness. They thought the law was about them.

They thought the law was achievable. They considered it wrongly a covenant of works. Oh, they were zealous. They were zealous, but it was a zeal without knowledge. They thought the purpose of the law was for their pursuit of righteousness.

Remember we heard last week Jesus said, I am the way, I am the truth, I am the life." They thought that the way to God was obedience to this law, a pursuit of it. They were ignorant of the fact that God, through the giving of the law, was actually establishing His righteousness, His unattainable, otherworldly righteousness, a standard which, if understood, would result in the abandonment of any pursuit of our own righteousness, it would rather lead us to seeking of that very righteousness by faith. That's Paul's point. It's what he's trying to tell us. The Jews sought by means of works to attain something that only comes by way of faith.

My friend, are you like these Jews, guilty of seeking to establish a righteousness of your own? Have you come to the conclusion that you can achieve a righteousness that will pass the test on Judgment Day? A righteousness that will gain you entrance into the eternal kingdom? A righteousness that will satisfy the standard of a God who can search the thoughts and intents of your heart, are the Ten commandments, a covenant of works you have placed yourself under. If so, Paul says of you, like these Jews, You are ignorant of God's righteousness.

You're ignorant of God's righteousness, my friend. Not only that, but by pursuing your own righteousness, you have refused to submit to the righteousness of God. It's not my words. It's here in the text. Last week we considered the scandalous nature of the gospel of God.

We see that very idea in this text and in the two texts that Paul draws his quote from, Isaiah 8 and Isaiah chapter 28. God Himself, get this, God Himself is laying the very stumbling stone. God's laying the stone, this stone of stumbling. Yes, it is a foundation stone. Yes, it's a tried stone, a precious cornerstone, a sure foundation, but Paul makes it clear, and we have to understand his inspired interpretation of Isaiah in light of the surrounding context of this chapter, chapter 9, that God is setting up Christ to be a stumbling stone just as much as He is setting Him up to be a foundation stone.

I want to bring this as close to home as possible. You see, even though most, if not all, of us gathered here are Gentiles by birth, As the Bible would define that, we are actually more like these Old Testament Jews in this text than the New Testament Gentiles that Paul is comparing them with. You see, we, though Gentiles, because of the mercies of God, have been the recipients of the law of God. We hold in our hands what the Gentiles that Paul was writing to did not have. That was the comparison.

So we are more like the Jews. We have the law of God. More than this, more than even the Jews mentioned here, we also have been the recipients of the completed New Testament. Even the Jews he's comparing with the Gentiles, they don't have what we have. We have greater light.

We have greater witness. Added to this, we have such a rich heritage in the Reformed faith and tradition. And herein lies my fear. Please listen to what I am about to say, that in the midst of these manifold blessings of God, and these are blessings and these are advantages, yet in the midst of these, it is possible for us to pursue the law of righteousness and in that very pursuit to stumble over Christ himself. Dear ones, Dear ones, take Paul's admonition to the Galatians to heart.

Oh, foolish Galatians, Who has bewitched you that you should not obey the truth before whose eyes Jesus Christ was clearly betrayed among you as crucified? That's how he was portrayed, crucified. This only I want to learn from you. Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law or by the hearing of faith? Are you so foolish?

Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh? My brothers and sisters, it is possible for one to begin in the Spirit and yet to end with a pursuit of perfection by means of the flesh. You, dear ones who sit here week after week, you are those before whose eyes Jesus Christ is clearly portrayed as crucified. If you are no If you are no longer clinging only to Him, pray tell, who has bewitched you? Who?

Are you so foolish as to think that you can achieve the righteousness of the law by performing the works of the law? Dear sheep of this flock, I compare witness like Paul. You have a zeal for God. You have a zeal. But the question is, is it according to knowledge?

Is it according to knowledge? These Jews were ignorant, ignorant. You know, Jehu cried out, come with me, see my zeal for the Lord. God's narrative of Jehu's life as recorded in 2 Kings 10-31, but Jehu took no heed to walk in the law of the Lord God of Israel with all his heart, for he did not depart from the sins of Jeroboam who had made Israel sin." Don't talk about zeal. Not apart from knowledge.

There are still others here this morning, some of you children, some of you young people, sit here week after week who hear the gospel clearly as we did just last week and yet are compelled by maybe the standards of home life to strive to keep the law apart from Christ, rather than see the righteousness of a holy God and cry out for a Savior to save you. Unlike the Galatians, you have not even begun in the Spirit, yet you like them though well instructed may find yourselves pursuing perfection in the strength of your own law keeping. Oh foolish young person who has bewitched you that you should not obey the truth before whose eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed among you as crucified." Look to Christ. Look to Christ. He cries out in Isaiah 45 22, look to me and be saved, all you ends of the earth.

Then Isaiah says that the one who is truly saved acknowledges this. This is his or her testimony. Surely in the Lord I have righteousness and strength. In the Lord all the descendants of Israel shall be justified and shall glory in the Lord go to Christ." Robert Haldane in his commentary on the Book of Romans says this about this righteousness of God that these Jews were ignorant of and would not submit to. He says, this righteousness is the righteousness provided by God and revealed in the gospel, which is received by faith, by which men are saved.

And he who does not submit to this righteousness and humbly receive it, but supposes that he can do something to give him a right to obtain it or to merit it, or who attempts to add to it anything of his own or to substitute in its place his own obedience, more or less, is equally ignorant of the corruption of his own heart, is ignorant of the holiness of God, and is ignorant of the perfection of the obedience which the law requires. And because the purpose of the law was the revelation of the righteousness of God and not a revelation of a means whereby this people might establish their own righteousness, we must reject the argument that the moral law was ever given as a covenant of works? Is not Paul's argument here that the Jews' treatment of this moral law as a covenant of works was due to their ignorance and misguided zeal, this text should by itself steer us away from any type of thinking that would embrace that idea that the Ten Commandments was given to this people as a covenant of works. You see, that's what they made it to be in their ignorance.

Well, having seen the what that the Gentiles have attained by faith or righteousness, that the Jews by works have failed to attain, and having seen the why, why that is the spiritual condition of each of these groups, the only thing left is the how. The how. How is it that the Gentiles attained it? And even beyond that, how is it that you sitting here this morning may attain this righteousness that's required by the law. How can we be sure that we do not become like these Jews?

Romans 10 for, for Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes. Now it's important to understand the word end. What does it mean that Christ is the end of the law? Well, the root of the Greek word for end is telos, telos. This same original Greek word has been translated finished in such passages as John 17 for where Christ states in his prayer to his father, I have finished telos, the work which you have given me to do." It is also found in his final cry from the cross, it is finished.

It's our same word, end. In Hebrews 10, 14, there's a Scripture that was up on the screen before the service. That same original word, telos, is translated as perfection, perfection, and pointing out how the shadow of the Old Testament sacrifice could never make those who approached with the sacrifice perfect. That's our word. The writer to the Hebrews declares that by one offering, Christ has perfected, He has brought to an end, forever those who are being sanctified.

So what Paul is here declaring in the phrase Christ is the end of the law is simply that Christ is the accomplishment of the law, he is the consummation of the law, He is the perfection of the law. And all of this, to what end? To what end? He is the accomplishment, the perfection of this, the consummation of this law for righteousness. That's the purpose.

That's the purpose. To attain as the second Adam, as our substitute, as our representative, a righteousness that he might impute to another. Well, to whom is the righteousness imputed? If that's it, that Christ is that perfection of the law, that accomplishment of it, for righteousness, for whose? For whose righteousness?

Who's the beneficiary? To all who obey the law of God like Jesus did? Is that what our text says? No. It's imputed to all who believe on Him.

It's what the text says, to all who believe on Him. Not to bring it to completion ourselves, he completed it. Not to accomplish it ourselves, he accomplished it. Him. This righteousness is ours simply by faith, by means of Christ's keeping of this very law on our behalf and dying in our stead, not by any of our own keeping of the law.

The Jews did not attain to the righteousness of this law because they did not seek it by faith. By faith. 2nd Corinthians 521 declares, 2 Corinthians 521 declares for God, the Father made Him Christ who knew no sin to be sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. The very act of Christ becoming sin is the very act of which all His people receive His righteousness. It doesn't come after.

Christ becomes sin, we become the righteousness of God in Him. Not in ourselves, not in time, in Him. It doesn't say because of Him. It's not because of Him. My dear friend, do you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ?

Do you? Are you resting in His righteousness? Do you believe that He obeyed every jot and every tittle of the entire law? Do you believe that this obedience is imputed to all who trust in Him? And do you believe this righteousness is yours only through faith in Him.

Nothing else. Samuel Bolton, in his book, The True Bounds of Christian Freedom, writes, "'Alas, there are multitudes in the world who make a Christ of their own works, and this is their undoing. They look for righteousness and acceptance more in the precept than in the promise, in the law rather than in the gospel, more in working than in believing. And so they miscarry." He goes on to say, there is something of this Spirit. Now listen to this.

Mr. Bolton says, there is something of this Spirit in us all. Otherwise, we should not be up and down so much in respect of our comforts and our faith, as is still so often the case. We become cast down with every weakness in ourselves, but We should be all in Christ in weak performance and nothing in ourselves in strong performances. What is the hope of your future being built upon?

Will you build and hope and hope and build only to find out, as another character found out in Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, Ignorance, who thought that like these Jews, there was something of his working of the law, but ignorance found out that there was a door to hell right beside the gate of heaven. That this pursuit that seemingly took him to the celestial city because he had not come by way of the cross. He was bound, the door was open, and he was cast out for all eternity. There is a door to hell right outside the gate of heaven. Can you with assurance and affirmation sing the words of the well-known hymn, My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness.

I dare not trust the sweetest frame, but wholly lean on Jesus' name. And not just while you're here on earth. When I shall launch in worlds unseen, oh may I then be found in Him, dressed in His righteousness alone, faultless, faultless to stand before the throne on Christ, the solid rock I stand, all other ground, all. What about this? All other ground is sinking sand.

My dear friend, are you standing on that rock Or are you stumbling over it? That same rock on which many of us in this place stand can be a stumbling block to you, stumbling over the same rock that we stand on. Are you pursuing the law of righteousness, or are you pursuing the Christ who is the end of the law for righteousness to all who believe. My friend, your answer to those questions is nothing short of the difference between heaven and hell. Run to Christ today.

Put the weight of your soul, the weight of your eternity upon Christ, His perfect obedience, His substitutionary death, and then rest comfortably in the promise of Isaiah found here in our text. Whoever believes on him will not be put to shame. Amen. Oh Father, as Mr. Bolton says, we have something working in each of us that wants to have a part in this work of salvation, that wants to take some credit, that wants to feel good about what we've done, Strip it all.

Strip it all, O God. For our dear children, as we as parents hold the law before them because every creature under heaven and earth is to obey that law, O God, may we set Jesus before them. Jesus, Jesus, precious Jesus, oh, for grace to trust him more. Lord, write your word upon our hearts. Make Christ precious to us.

May he be not a stumbling block to any here, but may he be that rock of salvation. We pray in Christ's name, amen.