Scott Brown's sermon on Romans 10:1-12 addresses the universal human tendency to seek self-righteousness, which is compared to chasing after dummies - a diversion from true righteousness found in Christ. Brown explains that this problem is evident in Israel's history, where zeal without knowledge led to ignorance and rebellion against God's righteousness. The solution, according to the sermon, is salvation through faith in Jesus Christ, which requires a genuine confession and belief in the heart. Brown emphasizes that righteousness by faith speaks into the soul, contrasting with the emptiness of self-made righteousness. The sermon also highlights the importance of heartfelt prayer for the lost and the need to communicate the dangers of relying on one's own righteousness. Ultimately, the sermon calls for believers to extol the riches of righteousness by faith, which truly satisfies the soul.

The scripture text that Scott will be preaching through today is Romans 10, 1-12. This is the living Word of God, the unchanging, relevant Word of God. I hope that's the understatement of the day that is relevant. Romans 10.1, Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they be saved. For I bear them witness that they have 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. For Moses writes about the righteousness which is of the law, the man who does these things shall live by them. But the righteousness of faith speaks this way, do not say in your heart who will ascend into heaven, that is, to bring Christ down from above, or who will descend into the abyss, that is, to bring Christ up from the dead. But what does it say?

The word is near you in your mouth and in your heart. That is the word of faith which we preach. That if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead, you will be saved. With the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. For the scripture says, whosoever believes on him will not be put to shame.

For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord over all is rich to all who call upon him. If you have an outline in front of you, you'll see where we're going this morning. I have a couple of words of introduction regarding the general history and experience of mankind, and then some of the themes of chapter 10, and then we'll begin to work our way through this text of Scripture. Before we begin though, let's call on help from God for all these things. Oh Lord, Only you can illuminate what you have written.

Only you can burn it into our hearts and make it relevant and real to us in the midst of our sinful thinking. And We pray now that you would help all of us, that you would help me, and that you would help each one of us as we read these holy words to be awestruck and also motivated by them. Lord, that you would give us a holy sense of each and every of these words that our eyes will follow on this morning. O Lord, we pray this in the name of the Lord Jesus. Amen.

One of the great battles in World War II happened in Europe, in which the American brass decided they were going to deceive Hitler and his troops. Our troops were trapped in a certain location, and the desire was to divert Hitler's army and send them in the wrong direction. And what they did was they sent airplanes into the air and dropped thousands of parachutes in a location to attempt to draw Hitler into that area so that they could be free to do the things that they wanted to do by way of attack. So they dropped these parachutes and the way to bring the parachutes down were dummies looking like men. All these dummies were falling from the sky and it worked and Hitler's army swept over.

The diversion was successful and there they were looking at all these dummies on the ground standing in the wrong place. And what happened in this battle is exactly what has happened to mankind. This is the problem of mankind, and this problem of mankind is addressed here in this text of Scripture. In this text, in Romans 10, The history of the world and the nature of mankind is revealed. It's the story of your life, it's the story of my life, it's the story of every neighbor you've ever had, it's the story of every country, it's the story of every religion that you've ever heard about.

And the history of mankind can be summed up in some of the words that are in this text. The history of mankind can be summed up in these words, men seek a righteousness of their own. And in doing so, they are chasing dummies. They are being diverted by the great deceiver of mankind. To have them at the wrong place at the wrong time, doing the wrong things, thinking the wrong thoughts, chasing dummies is exactly what it is to find a righteousness of your own.

Men seek a righteousness of their own. This was Israel's problem. Seeking a righteousness of your own expresses itself differently in different people's lives. But it's the same problem just wearing different clothes. There is no distinction in mankind.

The religious Israelite, the pagan Greek have the same desires, they have the same problem, and they have the same solution, and that is salvation by grace in the Lord Jesus Christ. But instead, we, all of us here, and all of the rest of the world, maintain the same heresy in our hearts that is spoken of here. We are seeking to establish a righteousness of our own and have not submitted to the righteousness of God. Here it is right off the pages of Romans chapter 10. We feel that to find life and to find ourselves, we need to go after it with all of our hearts, defining it on our own terms.

But God has said something different. You lose your life in order to find it. You lose your own righteousness, and you find a righteousness that is not of your own. And this problem is everywhere. It was everywhere before our conversion, and even after our conversions, we're tempted to fall back into that same trap, which is exactly why some of the sternest words in the Bible were spoken to the Galatians.

Oh Galatians, who has bewitched you. It's possible to fall back into this even after you're converted. It's an enormously dangerous, soul-destroying thing to have it before your conversion. But to have it after your conversion would only cause disappointment and problems in your life. And so in the home and in the workplace and in the church, we make up our script for the way we want it to be.

In business we reject biblical standards, we do what the Gentiles do, and we read all their books on success. And in the church, we do the same. Instead of preferring God's explicit ways, we like our own better. We create dozens of methods and programs to make our statement in this world. Even though God has revealed himself for all these things, we want something new.

We want a new book or a new program or a new technique that isn't found in Scripture. We want something else. We want a righteousness of our own. We want a life of our own. We want something that is beyond what God has given.

We are all wired to seek a righteousness of our own. And this is the tendency of autonomous, idolatrous man, you and me. So to address this problem, Paul says, for there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord over all is rich who call upon him, for whoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved." So, again, by way of introduction, Romans 10 boldly proclaims that as men seek to find their own way in life, There is the pearl of great price sitting there. It is there. It is in your mouth.

It is near you. You don't have to have some amazing experience. But it is here. It is here in what has been revealed. Now, I also wanted, before we got into the text, to speak of some of the themes that are in chapter 10.

We've just finished chapter 9, and now we're moving into this next section. And I just want to identify quickly some of the themes that are here. The sovereignty of God and the will of man is in this text. If Romans 9 breathes of the sovereignty of God, then chapter 10 breathes of the role of human agency and that men say no to God. And in it we find a repetition of the doctrine of justification by faith alone.

Why would he repeat this? He's been talking about justification by faith alone all through this book. And here he repeats it again. I just believe that the Apostle Paul is exercising pastoral care. He understands that to misunderstand righteousness and by faith alone, If you don't understand justification and how it works, there are many other problems that creep in.

So He's caring for us. He's reminding us, He's reminding us so that we wouldn't invent a righteousness of our own. How often we need to meditate on the grace of God. It shatters our pride. It helps us to understand that there is nothing in us that makes us worthy but the imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ.

So he's repeating it here. And I believe that he is making something clear to us implicitly. And that is the importance of the message of the cross and the blood and the righteousness of Jesus Christ and how this must be a dramatic focus of our own lives personally and our lives in the church. That when we come together in the congregation of the people of God that we are preaching a righteousness that is by faith alone, that the cross is the center of all that happens in the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ. Here in Romans 10, after putting the cross in the center of chapter 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and 5 and 6 and 7 and 8 and 9.

We get to 10 and He puts the cross right in the middle of it again. Isn't that amazing? He's repeating Himself. Fathers, Do your children ever think you're repeating yourself? Dad, you've said that a thousand times.

Well, you're in good company because the apostle here, in providing pastoral care to the children of the Lord Jesus Christ, would, he would find it in himself right to repeat himself. One time I was a young man in our church in California and there was an older man, probably 45 or 55 years old. He was the father of a friend of mine. We were walking out of church one day and he said this, he just shook his head, I've heard all this before and it just was a stab to my heart. Because he did, he had heard it before, but he didn't love it again.

And now I trust that today we would love this again as we have loved it each time as we've entered in again. Would you love it again? Would you sink your whole soul into it? Rest both of your feet there. Find it filling your heart, the doctrine of justification by faith alone.

We learn what kind of people God views as beautiful. How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news. You want to have a beautiful life? Bring the good news! There are many ways that you can proclaim yourself to be beautiful in this world.

You can look at all the magazines and that they will tell you how to be beautiful. No, forget that. If you want to be beautiful in this world, bring the good news. It also gives us a help in our feelings toward the lost. Right at the beginning of this chapter, Paul speaks of his heart's desire for Israel.

And what does he do in response to his desire? He prays. That's what he does. His heart is full of love for those who are lost around him, even those who hate him, even those who've stoned him. He loves them.

Has your heart gone cold to those who hate you? Those you've shared with many times who are hard to you, who don't treat you right. What about you? What about me? Do we get jaded?

Do we have terrible attitudes about it? Do we snicker at them at the dinner table with our children about these people who've rejected the gospel? Do we belittle them? No, Paul does not. His heart's desire maintains, this should be ours.

This should be an opportunity for us to repent and say, Oh Lord, help me not to feel wrongly about the loss, but like this great father of ours in the faith, Paul, that his heart's desire for Israel would lead him to pray. And I love the way that Lloyd-Jones captures the tenor of this issue in the text. He says this, if you are not deeply concerned about the lost condition of anybody who is dear to you, then you are a monster. You have become lopsided and unnatural in your thinking. And then we also, in this text, we find the place of Israel in God's plan and their fatal flaw.

Their fatal flaw we will find and explain it later but it was ignorance and rebellion against the righteousness of God and that was their problem. Well these are some of the themes that are here now Let's move into verse 1 and take it in. Verse 1, we read of Paul's desire for his countrymen, which leads him to prayer. This is Paul's heartfelt love for the lost. Brother, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they may be saved.

Well, there's a lot to run in here. We could talk about his desire. We could talk about the prayer aspect. We could talk about the word saved. And it would be a blessing to just camp on each one of those.

But Paul's desire is for something real and genuine in the hearts of his countrymen. They have been overtaken by heartless forms. They've been overtaken by bankrupt motivations. They've been overtaken by performances. And it is summed up in here that They have zeal for God, yet without knowledge.

And this lostness moves Paul's soul to prayer. And the question is, does the lostness of the souls of those around us move us to prayer or to pride? Does it move us to cry out or does it move us to criticism? Does it move us to selfishness Or does it move us to speak the truth and love to them? With Paul, there is this resounding love in his heart that comes out in his prayer for his people.

It says that His desire is for what? That they would be saved. That they would be saved. Have you ever asked anyone, are you saved? That's a great question to ask.

Are you saved? The only problem with that question is when people hear it, they don't know what you're talking about. They just don't know. Because they've been chasing dummies all their lives. They've been trying to create a righteousness of their own.

So that when you ask them, are you saved, they think weird thoughts, so You have to explain it. You have to explain it to them. But there are only two categories of people on the earth today. You are either lost or saved. And what would you be saved from?

You'd be saved from eternal punishment. You would be saved from the blackness and the deprivation of God in this world and in the world to come. You'd be saved from guilt. You would be saved from a lost and lonely life in this world. You would be saved from not having a people all your life to having a people.

You'd be saved from so many, many amazing things. Think of the black cloud of guilt that comes over your soul as you consider your imperfections and how many things are wrong in your life. You will be saved from that black cloud. It may come back to torment you, but God can help you, pull you out of that pit, out of that miry clay, and you would be saved from that. He can make the phallus clean.

He sets the prisoner free. And he takes the sinner up out of the jaws of death and he saves them from those jaws of death. And so this is why Paul is broken. He says, oh, my heart's desire is that they would be saved, that they would quit seeking the dummies, quit running fast in the wrong direction and then finding that it was all wrong, that they had been chasing dummies all their life. What a blessing it is to be saved from that.

And so his brokenness is for that, that they may be saved. And then we find Paul explaining Israel's problem in verses 2 through 4. And that is, they have zeal without knowledge. That's a good summary statement. How do you understand what happened to Israel?

Well, what happened to Israel is really what has happened to the whole human race. All men have zeal without knowledge. Both Jew and Gentile, he's speaking to both here, but particularly this problem of the Jews is the problem of all men. And so the Jews are outside and they do not have the safety of zeal with knowledge. They are believing the wrong thing with all of their hearts.

You know zeal does not equal wisdom. Many have zeal but they're standing on thin ice. Many have zeal and they're running toward dummies with all of the confidence that their souls would give them. And they're passionately and confidently running after the dummies of this world. And they're lost and they're seeking a righteousness of their own.

Outward performance, passion does not prove anything. You know, the desire in our hearts, The desire to be supreme, the desire to be satisfied, the desire to be superior, the desire to be self-made is the great tragedy in the human soul. And all of us have it. And Israel is demonstrating this problem that the entire human race has. It's the struggle of every culture.

And that's why Paul says, for I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge, for they are 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." He is speaking of this religious nature of man that always seeks to establish its own righteousness. And this is why John Piper, when he was commenting on this text, says it like this. I quote these amazing words. By God's design, Israel is the historical microcosm of the world's conscience and your conscience.

Israel is the historical theater where the drama of every human soul is played out for all to see. Think of that. The idolatry, the replacement of God for other forms. That's what the whole world does in its own idolatry. What goes on inside you spiritually and every other person has gone on in Israel historically.

And the story is told so that we can see ourselves and see the world and understand. If you want to know your own spiritual condition before God as a human being, if you want to know the great issues for all the world, you can learn it from watching the history of Israel as it is interpreted in your Bible. And there are two things that are causing this problem in Israel. First is ignorance. It's ignorance of the righteousness of God.

He says they are ignorant of God's righteousness. They're ignorant of it. And even though they are sincere, they are ignorant. They desire success but they don't have it in their souls. And what can happen to Israel can happen to each one of us as well, as we seek to build our own lives our own way.

This is the problem of fallen mankind. Fallen mankind is ignorant of the righteousness of God. And you know, this could be a description of almost anyone in America. Here's how righteousness works in America. If I'm a good person, if I'm successful, if I'm a contributor to society, then I'm deserving of heaven.

That's a righteousness of your own. You know, there's a cottage industry of ministries that teach people how to do evangelism to deal with this one problem. The American soul is satisfied in its own goodness. The American soul feels that if they're just good enough, they will be acceptable before God. That's not what the Bible says.

The Bible says the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all, capital A-L-L, ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth and unrighteousness. That's the truth. And if I'm a good person, then I will be saved. And the American church is largely ignorant of the fact that even one sin, one act of rebellion, is treasonous, one idol, one single sin, one rebellion against God is enough to send us to hell. There's ignorance about righteousness and the righteousness of God among our people here in America.

So that's why this cottage industry has grown up to teach people to help them understand that they are sinners and that their only hope is the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and their human goodness, their human righteousness gets them nowhere. Their civic activity, their niceness in their neighborhood, the money they give away is nothing. Now the problem of ignorance is spoken of in many places in Scripture. Jesus said, you are mistaken not understanding the Scriptures or the power of God. They were ignorant of the real meaning.

Peter in Acts chapter 3 said, but you disowned the holy and righteous one and asked for a murderer to be granted to you. Now brethren, I know that you acted in ignorance. That's the problem. There's ignorance of the righteousness of God, and that's where we come in. That's where the preaching of the Gospel comes in.

We'll talk about that when we do the second half of the passage. But we are part of the banishing of ignorance of the righteousness of God. How will they know that they're not righteous on their own? Unless we open up God's Word and show them. And that's the call of this chapter.

That's the passion of the Apostle Paul here. So They are ignorant. You know, Paul himself told Timothy that his own rejection was because of ignorance. He said, and yet I was shown mercy because I acted ignorantly. That's where mankind is.

Mankind is acting ignorantly. And we should understand that. And so it's for us to tell. And Paul is making this clear. Well, it's not only ignorance that's the problem.

There's also rebellion. There is this God-hating heart in all mankind. So in spite of the clear teaching of the Old Testament, the Jews like their own standards of holiness. And it says here, they did not submit to the righteousness of God, meaning they wanted their own righteousness. They wanted a righteousness of human goodness.

They were rebelling against this thing. Why? Because they didn't want to be told that they were sinners. They didn't want to be told that they were so bad. Nobody wants to be told that they're bad.

We spend our lives glossing over what's going on inside of us so that people won't know how bad we are. If people knew how bad we were, they wouldn't want to be part of us. But God is rich in mercy and He does not regard us for our own righteousness, but the imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ. And that's how we should be relating to one another as well. But Israel was in rebellion.

The issue was submission. They did not submit to the righteousness of God. They did not want to know that they were sinners. They did not want to know that they were sinners. They did not want to know that it wasn't their duties, but it was their hearts that God wanted.

All of them. He wanted a heart that cried out, Oh, Father, forgive me. That's the heart he was looking for. He wasn't looking for the playing around and doing of duties. He did ask for the duties.

But it wasn't the duties that he wanted. He wanted the heart that supported the duties, that drove one to do them authentically. So the issue is submission to authority. And here's the ground of all the problems in the world. It is a problem with the authority of God.

Now what does it mean that Christ was the end of the law here as he says? Does that mean now the law means nothing? Throw away your Old Testament here. Rip it out. It means nothing.

You don't need to read it anymore. The law is banished. It is the end of the laws that what he means there's absolutely no way you can conclude that that's what it means on every other verse Paul is quoting the Old Testament he's saying He's saying that the law of the Old Testament is proving righteousness by faith. He quotes 13 Old Testament passages in I think 11 verses to prove the righteousness of God has always been God's standard. That faith has always been God's standard.

It was never the blood of bulls and goats. It was always a heart rendered up to God. It wasn't a national righteousness, and it wasn't a sacrificial righteousness. It was a righteousness by faith, just like Abraham, as Paul has already argued in Romans chapter 4. It was reckoned to him as righteousness because he believed God and he had faith.

And that's what he's saying here that this end of the law means that he fulfills the law. Not making the law irrelevant but making it even super relevant because Christ interprets all of it in His own life. If you want to understand the law, you have to look at Christ, because He will help you interpret it. The Jews looked at the law on the Sabbath, and they misinterpreted it. And Christ said, no, that's not what I meant.

I didn't mean that you couldn't walk more than three-fourths of a mile I didn't mean that and he takes many of the areas that were misunderstood out of their own rebellion at the same time. It didn't mean that the law had ended. Here he quotes Leviticus, Deuteronomy, Isaiah, Joel, and Nahum, and the Psalms, And he is proving by the law that righteousness is by faith. And it always has been. So then Paul moves in verses 5-12 to explain righteousness by faith.

He has spoken of his own great desire that his countrymen would have a righteousness by faith and then he has explained Israel's problem. They have a zeal without knowledge and they also have rebellion against the righteousness of God. And then he explains the solution to it all, and that is a righteousness which is by faith alone. And he's going to explain a number of details about how this works in the human soul. We should understand this for two reasons.

First of all, for ourselves, to remind ourselves of the gospel. Secondly, we need to be able to explain this to those who don't know Christ. And we need to use the technique of Paul here to use Holy Scripture to explain it. So he explains righteousness by faith. And there's so many interesting things in here that I love.

Here's one. We learn here that righteousness by faith and righteousness by the law actually speaks something into your heart. Isn't that interesting? Righteousness by the law speaks to you and gives you a message. But righteousness by faith also speaks something into your heart.

It's telling you something. And when you're told something, you start feeling something and you start living a certain way and the two ways are different. But there is the law of righteousness that speaks into the heart and it blesses the soul. It satisfies the soul. It's a righteousness that causes marvelous things to happen.

I just want to talk about the beautiful speech of righteousness by faith into the soul of man. And he says there are two kinds of righteousness. There's righteousness by the law and by faith, verse 5. For Moses writes about the righteousness which is of the law. The man who does those things shall live by them.

And there's the righteousness of faith, and that is the righteousness of Christ, which is imputed to all those who believe. And then we see that the Old Testament preaches justification by faith. You know, unfortunately Israel had mutilated the law of God. They had rejected the heart of it. They had seized the dead body of the letter, as Calvin has said.

They went to the letter and forgot the heart of it. It wasn't that the letter was wrong, it was that their hearts went wrong after looking at the letter. And so the kind of justification that the Jews practiced was a distortion and a fabrication of what the Old Testament actually taught. You know what? The Jews wanted what you and I want.

The Jews want what the whole world wants. The Jews want a manageable God. The Jews want a lesser God. They want a God who is easily pleased, not, who's less demanding. We want a God that's less demanding than the God of the Bible and so we create our own but Unfortunately God is not easily pleased The Wrath of God is against all ungodliness and all unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth and unrighteousness and spend their whole lives chasing dummies.

God is not easily pleased at all. And so he has provided something not easy at all, something gigantic, something of amazing quality, the blood of Jesus Christ. Our sins were so great that He would provide a sacrifice greater than our sins. But we want a God who is easily pleased by being a nice person. How about that?

Anybody can do that for a while. We want a God who's easily pleased. Instead of loving Him with all of our hearts, we just want to attend church. We just want to be seen as having a righteousness. But our righteousness on our own is so small.

We want a God that is so easily pleased, but God is not easily pleased. His wrath is only pleased by the death of His Son. And that's the point that Paul is making here. And it's easy, it's so easy to Bring God's demands down to earth and make them into religious duties. And that's why the Lord Jesus said, Oh, you prophesied in my name.

Oh, you did a miracle here and there. Depart from me, I never knew you." These are the people, the Pharisees, and we have this same tendency to want to bring God down to our own level and our own standards and make Him easily pleased. He is only pleased by the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ and not by our own righteousness. And then what does he mean in verses 6 through 10? There's some confusing language here, and I'd like for us to tackle it.

What does it mean, this whole conversation about bringing Christ down or up from the dead? Do you see that? Verse 6, but the righteousness of faith speaks in this way. Do not say in your heart who will ascend to heaven, and he's quoting Deuteronomy 32-12. That is to bring Christ down from above, or who will descend into the abyss.

And he's quoting the next verse in Deuteronomy 30 and verse 13. 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. And he's quoting Deuteronomy 30.

What does this mean? What's he talking about in here? And what he's saying here is that righteousness by faith is not dependent on some amazing experience of bringing Christ down or bringing him up from the dead, or going into heaven and having an amazing, incredible vision. It's not bad at all. It's right here.

It's at hand. It's in your heart. It's in your mouth. You don't have to have some Interesting, amazing category of experience to have this. It is near.

It's not far away. It is with you. And so, You know, it doesn't come by having some out of body extraterrestrial experience. It comes through the justification by faith and the application of the blood of Christ. It's that simple.

So we need the Word of God, and we need the justification of God by faith alone. It's all we need. That's what he's saying here. And so it speaks of the certainty of God's Word, how reliable it is in the face of so many new ideas that might seem exciting to take you to the next level, which isn't really there. You know, we have a lust to know more and do more than what Christ has given so that we find a new book that gives us that extra thing that we always wanted so badly.

Men want something more than God supplies. And he says, no, It's not out there. It's not in some outrageous experience that will just fix everything forever. No. It is in your mouth.

It is near you. It is in Jesus Christ. He is the Word. Trust in Him completely. And then finally, he calls us to a genuineness of heart.

Verses 9 and 10. That if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart, that God has raised them from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation." Now he's talking about what real salvation is. It is a serious and sincere feeling from the heart. You know, No one can live with their heart without confessing within it.

That's the way we're built. We will confess the things that we love. We love to talk about the things that we love, and we don't talk about the things we don't love. And if you're able to confess with a pure, with a true heart, then it is a sign that you have been saved. If you confess the Lord, you will be saved.

You know, one way we confess is through baptism. Baptism is a confession of faith. And this is why we obey the command to be baptized. It is a way that we confess. It says here that faith speaks.

Faith cannot remain silent. And what is being confessed? The Lord Jesus. That's what's being confessed. And it's a genuine confession.

Now, there's a difference, There's a big difference between the chasing of dummies and chasing something real. There's a difference in having dummies and petting them and carrying them around all your life than having something real. And, like, there's a difference between joyously confessing with your mouth and just using words. There's a difference between believing in your heart with a genuine passion that moves your soul. In contrast, just sort of being whatever in your heart toward the things of God.

There's a difference in having righteousness from God and manufacturing it on your own. There's a difference in having the righteousness by faith speaking right into your heart than it is to fabricate human things to make you satisfied. There's a big difference between these counterfeits, these dummies, and the real thing. Real faith speaks from the heart. It's genuine.

Is it possible that there's anybody here today who has been speaking not out of genuineness, who still holds those dummies so dear. And there's not been a true, genuine, oh Lord. I confess with my mouth that Jesus Christ is Lord. And I want Him to be my Lord. I place Him in authority over me.

I want His authority. I am tired of my authority. I have seen how it attracts me to dummies, and I hold on to my dummies. Is there anyone like that here today? Is it possible that you have confessed with your mouth, but it's only been empty words.

Is it possible? Only God can convict you. Only the Spirit of God can help you know that. I can't help you know that, but God can help you. If it's possible, cry out to God and say, Oh Lord, I do desire to confess with genuine faith in my heart.

There is a difference. But the righteousness of Christ is real. It is real. There's a big difference in having a perfunctory religion and going from death to life. There's a difference in spiritual death and being raised from the dead.

There's a difference of going from ignorance to knowledge and true enlightenment in the soul, there's just a big difference. To have zeal for something inadequate and then to have zeal for something that's real and reliable. To say, hey, I have been carrying around dummies all my life. I've grown to like them, but I see what a weight and what a stench they are to me. I need a righteousness that is by faith alone.

And that is when someone is converted, when they realize that. And so then lastly, Paul proclaims the riches of God in verse 11. He proclaims the riches of God. For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek. For the same Lord over all is rich.

He's rich to all who call upon Him. And that's that genuine real call. He is rich toward them. He's not like a dummy who has nothing, who has no resources. He has something to give.

And so he proclaims the riches of God in verse 11. What do you... In this whole chapter, in the whole first part of this chapter, the riches of God are spoken of. What do you get? What do you get?

You get faith that speaks into your heart. You get a heart that believes. You get a mouth that confesses. You get salvation. He mentions it in verse 9 and 10 and 13.

You get salvation. You get snatched from the jaws of death. You get righteousness, not of your own. You are not going to be put to shame. You are justified.

And this is for all who call upon Him. This is God's unprejudiced love, which takes the old and the young, all the races of the earth, from every tongue and tribe and nation and religion, signified by the terms both Jew and Greek, and everyone else in between. OK, let me give you three applications. Number one, think back into verse one. What was happening there?

Paul's great desire. So here's the first application. Establish, establish heartfelt prayer for the lost. Establish it. Become less like me, become less like you, and become more like this great Father of the faith toward us.

And let the desire, pray that God would give us the desire. We are dependent upon him. Let's pray the Lord of the harvest that he would send out workers, and we would be those workers But pray what does what does Paul do in the face of this great desire? What does he do? Does he sit down and write well that would be okay?

Does he just jabber about it to everybody? Well that would be that would probably be okay too. But what does he do? He prays. That's what he does.

And that's what we should do too. In the face of an enormous problem, What do we do? We pray. In the face of an enormous unbelief in a relative. What do you do?

You pray. In the face of an enormous hardness that you have seen coming toward you by your friend. What do you do? You pray. Let's establish the pattern of heartfelt prayer as does Paul.

What patterns need to be broken to establish this in your family? What patterns need to be established in this in your work day? We know that some of the great saints prayed three times a day, morning, noon, and at the end of the day. It's a good, all did the same thing. We should consider our patterns and look at patterns that are better than ours and find instruction from those.

The second application is this. Explain the danger of zeal without knowledge. It is for us to open up our mouths and speak of the dangers of righteousness of our own. And we know that Jew and Greek, that every category of society, from head bangers to Amish, have all the same problem. And that is they manufacture their own righteousness.

One might have a tattoo, and the other one might have a funny hat. But it's all the same thing. And I'm not necessarily condemning a funny hat, but if it's to achieve some righteousness on your own then we should just call it a funny hat. But we all in our hearts want to achieve a righteousness of our own. We are, our hearts are a factory of idols, as John Calvin said.

And it doesn't really matter who you are, where you live, or where you grew up. Your heart is manufacturing idols. That's our problem. So, as we go on our way, let's understand this about ourselves, and let's also explain the danger of zeal without knowledge to our own countrymen, and to our own children, and to our own souls. Lest we too be found self-righteous as were the Jews.

Because the Jews are no different than we are. Who is the Pharisee? Who is the scribe? Who is the man that passes by the wounded one on the road, who is the one that wants the respectful greetings in the marketplaces, it's all of mankind. It's you and me.

We are the Jews. We are the unrighteous, prideful manufacturers of self-righteousness. And it is for us to know it first for ourselves, then for our families, and then for our countrymen. And then the final application is this. Extol the riches of righteousness by faith.

We spoke of all these riches that are there. What blessings there are in being justified by faith alone. To understand them and to communicate them. You know, if men would chase dummies, they would be chasing after the wind. They would be chasing things that cannot satisfy, chasing things that cannot speak and cannot bless.

Which is why the Lord Jesus said this, Blessed are you who hunger and thirst for righteousness, And you will be satisfied. Not a righteousness of your own. Hungry and thirsting after a righteousness from God is our only hope. There is only one satisfaction that truly satisfies. And all the rest is chasing dummies.

And so as we extol the riches of righteousness by faith, we must know the difference in chasing dummies and chasing something that is real and beautiful and something that satisfies the heart of them who hunger and thirst. And we all do so hunger and thirst. And so here this text leads us to so many things, but one thing perhaps more prominently above all the rest, and that is to keep us from looking to find ourselves and establish our own righteousness, but to lose ourselves in the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ and to confess it with all of our hearts. Would you pray with me? O Lord, that you would keep us from establishing our own righteousness, independent, significant in our own right, seeking to establish our own righteousness and not submitting to the righteousness of God.

O Lord, that you would come and help us as a little church to know this with all of our hearts and to proclaim it and to pray that it might be established in other hearts. In Jesus' name, Amen.