This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

(upbeat music) - Welcome to Daily Drive Time Devotion, Romans chapter 10 this
week, our second day in our look at this chapter. We're looking at verses two to
eight. This week we're looking at how to be an expert witness from this chapter
of the Bible.

Yesterday we talked about the fact that it takes passion. There's also a second
thing that you and I have to understand in order to be an expert witness and
that is we have to understand what gets in the way. To be an expert witness, to
share your faith with others, you have to understand what gets in the way.

What are the common barriers to salvation? And Paul talks about three of them in
this passage, Romans chapter 10 verses two to eight. Paul in this passage is
talking about people that he knows and he knows what the barriers are in their
life because they're the same barriers that were in his life.

The amazing thing is people are the same. Whether it's Israel 2,000 years ago or
America today, the barriers to salvation are common to all of us because they're
all rooted in our pride. We all struggle with pride.

So as we read through these barriers, I'm sure you'll recognize some of them
that were in your life as you came to faith in Christ. And I'm sure you'll
recognize that it's something we need to be aware of in other people's lives. We
need to love people and recognize they face the same barriers that we faced.

They face the same barriers that I faced. Paul in Romans chapter 10 verses two
talks about the first barrier being a barrier of what he calls zeal without
knowledge. Romans 10 two says, "For I can testify about them "that they're
zealous for God, "but their zeal is not based on knowledge.

" He's reflecting there, Proverbs chapter 19 two in the Old Testament, "It is
not good to have zeal "without knowledge nor to be hasty "and miss the way,"
that verse says. I was reading a while back of a television station reporting on
a girl who was suffering liver failure. And the station, after they did this
story, received several phone calls from people volunteering to donate one of
their livers.

Now that is zeal without knowledge. They didn't know they only had one liver.
They would die if they tried to donate it.

There's something about zeal that is attractive to all of us, but if it is with
a lack of knowledge, it can often lead us in the wrong direction way too
quickly. In fact, a lack of knowledge can often make enthusiasm more of an enemy
than a friend. If I'm trying to go to Los Angeles from where I live and decide
it works better traffic wise to go south on highway five than to go north, which
is the only way to get there from where I live, I could drive as sincerely and
with as much zeal as I wanted, but I would not get there going in that
direction.

Misguided zeal keeps a lot of people from faith because once you've committed
yourself, once you've become zealous about not having faith, once you've become
zealous about the difficulties of faith, once you've become zealous about
anything where it would keep you from having faith, it takes a great deal of
humility to admit I was wrong. Does for me, just takes a great deal of humility.
And we need to realize that is a barrier to salvation.

It's something that can be overcome, but it is a barrier that needs to be talked
through and prayed through, zeal without knowledge. A second barrier Paul talks
about in these verses is what he calls self-righteousness. In verse three, he
talks about it.

Since they did not know the righteousness that comes from God and sought to
establish their own, they did not submit to God's righteousness. Here's the
process. Without knowledge, without knowing what God has done for us, we
establish our own righteousness, our own way of feeling right about ourselves,
right about our lives, right about our relationship with God, right about the
world.

And once we've established our own sense of righteousness, rightness, we can't
submit to God's because it would mean letting go of our own. That's what gets in
the way, this thing that we have developed in our own mind. When Paul says they
did not submit themselves to righteousness, very important phrase.

He's declaring the reason why so many of us have a hard time coming to faith in
Christ. Coming to faith in Christ is receiving a gift, a gift of salvation, but
it is more. It is more than receiving a gift.

It is also submitting to someone else. It's admitting I need that gift in my
life. There are many, many ways that people try to get close to God that take
much more energy, much more personal suffering than Christianity.

There are many, many ways that people try to get close to God that come with a
great deal of personal effort and personal sacrifice. When we talk about what
Jesus did for us, we realize that he made the sacrifice. And it's so easy to
replace our idea of sacrifices we must make with the truth that Jesus made the
sacrifices for us.

And it results in ways to salvation that just don't work. Salvation by
subtraction. We decide that I am saved because of what I didn't do.

I didn't do this bad thing or that bad thing or that bad thing, I'm not as bad
as that person, so I must be close to God. Or we come up with the idea of
salvation by service. I try to do it for God on my own strength, and the more I
can do, the closer I feel I must be to him.

The truth is, Hebrews 11 six tells us, without faith, it is impossible to please
God because everyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he
rewards those who seek him. That's where it starts. So self-righteousness, my
idea of building a right kind of life, a right kind of relationship with God is
often what gets in the way.

Now God can get it out of the way, but I have to be aware that it's there
sometimes. And then Paul talks about a third thing that gets in the way. In
terms that the people he was writing to in that day could understand and were
dealing with, he talks about the law.

In our terms, I would put it this way, it's the good things that we feel that we
do. Now listen to what Paul says about that in Romans chapter 10 verses four to
eight. Christ is the end of the law so that there may be righteousness for
everyone who believes.

Moses described in this way the righteousness that is by the law. The man 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's in your mouth and in your
heart.

Now here's the problem with the law that Paul talks about here. Moses described
the righteousness by the law, he says. The man who does these things will live
by them.

It's not enough. It's not enough just to have or to acknowledge or even strive
toward a law. You have to be able to do it every time, to live by it every time.

And you cannot, I cannot, no one is perfect. It's like the law is a parachute to
some people. Then they think, if I could just pull the rip cord, then it would
save me.

The problem is, none of us are strong enough to pull the rip cord. None of us
have the moral strength to be perfect in every circumstance, every instance of
life. And millions and billions of people have jumped out of the plane thinking,
I can pull the rip cord.

And every one of them has not had the strength. No one has ever had that
strength. Because righteousness is not found in the law.

It's found in the Lord. It's not found in Moses, it's found in the Messiah. It's
not found in the sacrificial system, it's found in the one who sacrificed
himself.

And so that's why verse four says, Christ is the end of the law. He's both the
finish and the destination of the law. He is both the completion and the
conclusion of the law.

Some people read that Jesus is the end of the law. Does that mean we don't have
to keep the 10 commandments? Of course not.

Jesus didn't come to erase the law, he came to complete it. So we need to live
it out in a new and fresh way. That's what he talked about in the Sermon on the
Mount.

Now as Paul talks about the law and faith and self-righteousness, in verses six
to eight, he says some things that leave a lot of people reeling. What is he
talking about? When he says, don't say in your heart who will ascend into
heaven, who will descend into the deep.

How does that answer the question he's talking about? Let's walk through that a
little bit more carefully. First he talks in these verses about righteousness by
law, by the good things that I would do.

And he says, the man who does that, the woman who does that has to live by that.
If that's your choice, you gotta be perfect every time. All you've got is what
you've done and it's not enough.

I don't want to stand before a holy God saying, all I've got to get me into heaven
is what I've done and that I've been perfect. I can't measure up to that. So he
says, the righteousness by the law, you will not be able to measure up to.

But then he says, the righteousness that is by faith says this, I don't have to
go up to heaven or go down to hell because faith is right here in my mouth and
heart. That's what this is about. The righteousness that by faith says, don't
say in your heart who will ascend to heaven to bring Christ down or descend into
the deep to bring Christ up.

But it says, the word is near you in your mouth and heart. You don't have to go
somewhere else to find faith. Get up to heaven or go down and bring Jesus up
from hell.

He has already come into this world. What Paul is saying here is faith is not
out of reach. The law is out of reach.

Being good is out of reach. Being perfect is out of reach. But the law is not.

And he's quoting in this passage from Deuteronomy. You get this picture of Moses
teaching the people in the book of Deuteronomy. And he began by telling the
Israelites that this teaching was not beyond their reach.

It was as close as their own mouth, their own heart. The emphasis of the entire
book of Deuteronomy is on the heart. And Paul is in essence telling these people
that he loves, the Israelite people, that they had missed the message of that
book of the Bible.

By the way, Jesus' favorite book of the Bible, he quoted more often from
Deuteronomy than any other book. Paul said, don't miss this. The word is near
you.

It's in your mouth, it's in your heart. It's not out of reach. So as you think
of somebody you're praying for to come to know Jesus Christ, is one of these
barriers in the way?

Probably all three of them. I know all three of them were in the way in my life.
Or even worse, let's just ask ourselves the question, do I sometimes contribute
to one of these barriers being in the way?

Do I act in ways that promote self-righteousness in other people by not being
humble in the way that I act toward them? Do I act in argumentative ways that
promote zeal without knowledge rather than breaking it down? How do I help
people to work through these questions rather than solidifying their objections?

Do I act sometimes as if enthusiasm is enough to have faith? Or do I make people
feel that it's out of reach? It is not.

In fact, let's pray right now that, first of all, God would deal with the
barriers in our own lives before we pray about anybody else. As you pray, you
might need to begin by praying, Jesus, these are things that have kept me from
getting to know you, from beginning a relationship with you. And so right now, I
thank you for what you've done for me.

And I want to get those barriers out of the way and start a relationship with you
today. Or you may need to pray, Jesus, I've come to a relationship with you, but
some of these things are barriers that are keeping me from growing in you. I'm
focusing so much on the good things that I might be able to do that I'm not
trusting you for the great things you could do in my life.

I'm focusing too much on my self-righteousness, the plan that I've built, so I'm
not looking at your plan. I've got a lot of zeal for some things, but it's not
based on the kind of knowledge that you would want to be in my mind. And so
Jesus, before praying about anybody else's barriers, I pray about my own.

Help me to get them out of the way so that I can live a refreshing faith in you
in my daily life. And then I pray also for my friends. Help them to be able to
set aside these barriers so that they can live the refreshing life of faith that
you have planned for them.

Lord, you have a way of gently setting aside barriers. You have a way of just at
the right time giving us the word that we need. And I pray that you would do
that in the life of my friends.

And I pray it in Jesus' name, amen. Well, join us tomorrow as we continue
looking at how to be an expert witness from Romans chapter 10. We'll be looking
at verses eight to 13.