Coast Bible Church - Righteousness and Salvation are Near - Audio

In this sermon, Pastor Neil discusses the religious zeal of the Jewish people of the Apostle Paul's day and their tragic failure to realize that they could not rely on their own righteousness to hasten the coming of the Messiah. The only righteousness that mankind could ever hope for was near them - and is near us - the righteousness of faith in Jesus Christ.

Duration: 52m
Broadcast on: 09 Oct 2010
Audio Format: other

I was I was span in my brain for opening illustration for this sermon and I was having trouble and so I just thought to myself you know what I have had this old clip that I've been saving for a day when I had no opening illustration and here it is. Honk if you love Jesus, text while driving if you want to meet him. I was just keeping that in the cooker you know for a while for a rainy day and it just you know it just felt like today. Now that has nothing to do with the sermon but I just thought you'd get a good laugh out of it. How many of you text while driving? Alright good. Oh wait I see I see one or two hands. Come on now folks. I thought that was pretty good you know. Pastor Lloyd Ingram I guess it is. Decided to put that up on his marquee. You know we we just kind of gave up on our marquee. We just kind of leave it as is. We're not that creative but nevertheless you know really what we're talking about today is we're continuing on in our series in Romans. The series is entitled God's Plan for Israel and we are at part five of that series. Part five is entitled Righteousness and Salvation are Near. Righteousness and Salvation are Near. Now we've come through a lot in Romans and I want to take us through a real brief recap to bring us all up to speed that we might know where we are in this grand book. Grand letter I should say to the Christians at Rome. Questions abounded among the people to whom Paul wrote particularly among the Jewish people in his audience. They would and among Gentiles alike there was there was there was widespread confusion about doctrine and issues related to the church and how God was working in the world and among the many questions were if the God of the Bible is the one true God why has his own people been rejected by him? Why if if the one true God of the Bible is God why has he rejected his own chosen people Israel and that brought us to part one in our series. God's promises remain for the Israel within Israel. Read verses 1 to 13 of Romans 9 and you will see that clearly a remnant of Israel will go on to attain all the promises all the promises that God has given to Israel. Now there were some who objected to Paul and they say well well wait a minute how how come God only shows mercy to a few people? Why doesn't he simply show mercy to all and to that Paul responded in part two of our message mercy and hardening are God's prerogatives Paul says in verses 14 to 21 of chapter 9. He says in verse 18 that God has mercy on whom he wills and he hardens whom he wills and as difficult as that is for some of us to swallow we must recognize that Paul teaches and the Bible speaks to the fact that God is sovereign over his creation. He's the potter we're the clay. Now thankfully we've learned that when God does choose to harden or to blind someone the Bible is clear that that hardening is not an act of eternal condemnation but is related to temporary judgment carried out in this life. In fact the Bible speaks of the fact that hardening is reversible look at Ephesians 2-3 and you'll find that we were once children of wrath but now have obtained mercy and this reminds us in part three of our message that never without mercy God's patient and purpose full wrath. His wrath is never without mercy his hardening his blindness is never without mercy it's always with a view to bring about glory to himself and open up wider the gates of salvation to others. Now in the case of Israel God has temporarily blinded them to the gospel that's what the Romans nine teaches but the reason he's done so is so that the gospel could abound to the Gentiles mainly you and I here today. Paul contends that in this present age God is concerned with the calling of the Gentiles and the refining of Israel and that was part four last week in our message the calling of the Gentiles and the refining of Israel and Paul tells us as Jesus tells us before him as Zach

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