ローマ人への手紙10章1-21節 | Romans 10:1-21
どちらがマシでしょうか？完璧でない政府と無政府なら、どちらがマシでしょうか？ローマ13章1節で、神様が上に立つ権威を立てられたと読むと、ある人はすぐにこう考えるでしょう、「え、じゃあ、自分の国の政府の気に入らないところは全部神様のせいだということなの？」誰しも、自分の国の政府、国家、政治家、法律に関しては気に入らないところがあります。人間の政府はすべて、完璧ではありません。しかし、無政府状態の混乱に比べれば、それらの政府が存在することには感謝しなければなりません。ハイチでは警察署には火がつけられ、空港は占拠され、ギャングが国を制圧してしまったため、何十万人もの人々が生きるために首都から逃げている状態です。ローマ13章1節が教えていることは、神様が社会を維持するために政府が立てておられることを私たちは感謝することができる、ということです。
Heavenly Father, thank you for your word.
Thank you for revealing yourself to us, and showing us what you are like.
Open our hearts this morning to hear your word and conform our lives to it.
Help us to know what is true, and to love you more.
In Jesus name I pray, Amen.
Good morning everyone. My name is Tanner and this is Hiro. I’m so glad we could gather together today to worship God.
Recently I read an article about these monks that live outside of Kyoto who are known as “the marathon monks.” These monks are famous for the intense challenge that they believe they must complete to attain salvation. They are called the marathon monks because these monks, in order to attain salvation, go on a 1,000 day pilgrimage where they run 42 kilometers, an entire marathon, every single day for 1,000 days.
I’ve never even thought of completing one marathon, let alone 1,000 of them! By the end of these 1,000 days, they will have run the same distance it would take to run around the entire earth one time.
Now if that doesn’t sound hard enough, they run in the middle of the night, from around 2am to 8am. They also are not allowed to wear shoes, but instead wear sandals made of straw. And that’s not even the hardest part…The hardest part of this challenge is towards the end when they are required to go for 9 consecutive days without sleeping, eating, or drinking.
They say this challenge requires immense discipline and only a handful of people have ever completed it. They say once you complete this challenge, you have become righteous, you have attained salvation. Only the strongest and the most disciplined people could reach salvation.
Today we are looking at Romans chapter 10, the chapter was just read up on the screen, but it is also printed on your bulletins. In Romans chapters 9-11 Paul is asking the question “why did the Jews reject Jesus?” Romans chapter 10 is about salvation. Paul expresses his desire for the Jewish people to be saved in verse 1, and then he goes on to tell us how in fact people are saved, how people can attain salvation.
As we read through Romans chapter 10 today, I have 3 points
1.How not to be saved (v1-4)
2.How to be saved (v5-13)
3.Our response after being saved (v14-21)
First, let’s look at verses 1-4, How not to be saved:
If you were to go before God and have to give a reason for why you should be let into heaven what would you say?
Several years ago, a famous American politician was interviewed by the New York Times about reflecting on his own legacy at the age of 72. He spoke about all of his accomplishments, different initiatives he had spearheaded, and the change that had come from his work over the course of his long career.
The surprising part of his interview was when he started talking about what will happen to him after he dies.
He said, “I’m telling you if there is a God, when I get to heaven I’m not stopping to be interviewed. I’m heading straight in. I have earned my place in heaven. It’s not even close.”
This politician’s comments reflect how most people think about salvation. A lot of people today believe that if we do enough good things we can earn God’s favor and earn salvation for ourselves.
The Jews who Paul is writing about thought this way, that if they followed God’s law well enough, they could, as verse 3 says, “establish their own righteousness.” And the Jews were very serious about following God’s laws, as Paul says in verse 2, “For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge.” I can imagine the Christians who are a part of the church in Rome at this time comparing themselves to the Jews who were so strict and filled with passion about following God’s commands.
They probably asked themselves “If the Jews, who were so concerned with how to be right with God, could not be right with God, what makes me so sure that I can be right with God?
Maybe you felt similarly when I talked about the marathon monks establishing their own righteousness by running the length of the entire earth and starving themselves. I mean I ran a 5k once, but that’s it, compared to these monks it seems like I have no chance of getting into heaven!
Verse 2 here contradicts a common belief held today that says “It doesn’t actually matter what you believe, as long you’re a nice person.” Nobody is doubting that the marathon monks are zealous, or filled with passion. But do they actually know what God desires?
The truth is, it does in fact matter what you believe. I could be on a road trip and really focused on getting to my destination, but if I don’t have a map to tell me where the destination is, it doesn’t matter how passionate I am, I will never get there.
In the same way there are many religious people who mean very well but are wrong about their beliefs.
The Jews deliberately chose to follow the wrong route to God in spite of God’s clear directions.
The Jews of Paul’s day were trying to make themselves good enough for God by following God’s rules, but that could never work.
Galatians 3:10-11 tells us
“For all who rely on the works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law, and do them. Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law…”
律法の行いによる人々はみな、のろいのもとにあります。「律法の書に書いてあるすべてのことを守り行わない者はみな、のろわれる」と書いてあるからです。律法によって神の前に義と認められる者が、だれもいないということは明らかです。
So what does God actually desire? God demands absolute perfection, and if we compare ourselves to that, nobody is good enough to be saved, not even the marathon monks.
So if nobody is good enough to be saved, how could anyone be saved? Look at verse 4 “For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.” Jesus Christ was the only person to perfectly follow God’s law. He was righteous. And Paul is saying here, that Christ’s righteousness, can also be our righteousness, “to everyone who believes.” believes in what?
This leads us to point number 2.How to be saved (v5-13) Looking at verses 5-13
Paul in these verses tells us how someone can be saved, how someone can attain salvation. And it’s not what most people think.
People think that in order to attain salvation I must elevate myself, I must climb the ladder of good deeds, or I must deal with my own sins on my own. But verse 6-7 tells us “Do not say in your heart, who will ascend into heaven?...or who will descend into the abyss?”
Verse 9 tells us very directly how someone is saved, “if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”
Really? That’s it? All I have to do is believe? I don’t have to go on a great quest across the ocean, or run 1,000 marathons, or go slay a dragon? I just have to believe? Yes. And through our faith in Jesus, his righteousness becomes ours.
The truth is Salvation is so simple, but we make it complicated. God’s grace sets the bar so low, but this low bar offends our pride and we think we’re too good for it. We want to feel like we’ve achieved something. Just like the Jews Paul is writing about, all of us today naturally search after our own righteousness.
A few years ago I made a friend who is an older man and is a Buddhist and he invited me to his temple to learn about what he believes. I remember he shared with me that he believed if he chanted enough he could attain enlightenment, he could establish his own righteousness. He then asked me what Christians believed and I told him that we are saved simply by believing, and that all of us are unrighteous but through faith, Jesus Christs’ righteousness becomes ours.
And I remember he got mad at me when I told him that. And in the moment I didn’t understand why,
but later after our conversation had ended and I was about to leave, I asked him “how long have you been coming to this temple?” And he said “For over 40 years.” And then it hit me, “ahh I see why you were angry with me.”
You see Here’s this man who has been slaving away, day after day, year after year, coming to this temple and through strict discipline did his chants believing that he was ascending his ladder, he was establishing his own righteousness, and then I come along and tell him that actually he doesn’t have to do any of that and that salvation is completely free.
The gospel is offensive to our sinful nature which seeks to establish its own righteousness.
Some people make the mistake of looking at how the world works and they think that that is also how God must work. |The world operates on the principle of reciprocity: if you do good and work hard, you are rewarded.| Only the best and the strongest and the most powerful win. Those who are weak and slow lose.| So obviously God works the same way right?|
That is not true. if you want to know who God really is, how he acts, look at how he has revealed himself. God humbled himself, took on flesh and died a painful death via a method typically reserved for the scum of the earth, he died on a cross. This is the very identity of God and how he relates to humans.
Most people think they must be powerful to reach God, but for the true God of the Bible, power is revealed through weakness. 1 Corinthians 1 says that the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to those who believe, it is the power of God to save.
The cross inverts human logic. Human logic says those who are more attractive and righteous, God will reward. But divine love is not like human love. |
God does not look over the masses of humans and sees some more holy or righteous than others. Rather the lesson of the cross is that God chooses that which is unlovely and repulsive and unrighteous, and with no redeeming qualities, and he lavishes his saving love in Christ upon them.
1 Peter 3:18 says
“For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit.”
キリストも一度、罪のために苦しみを受けられました。正しい方が正しくない者たちの身代わりになられたのです。それは、肉においては死に渡され、霊においては生かされて、あなたがたを神に導くためでした。
Other religions put burdens on people by telling them to try harder to achieve salvation. In other religions, Salvation is not for everyone. But the gospel is good news for the struggling single parent, or for the person who just got fired from their job, it is hope for the person who has absolutely nothing. Salvation really is for all people.
16th century theologian John Calvin said “The first step in receiving the righteousness of God is renouncing our own righteousness.”
Even after we become Christians we are still tempted to build our righteousness on something other than Christ. What are you tempted to try to establish your righteousness in?
Earlier I asked if you had to go before God and give an argument for why you should be let into heaven, what did you say? If your answer had to do with anything that you’ve done, that’s the wrong answer. The only reason we are saved is because of what Jesus did on our behalf.
Believe in Jesus. Believe that Jesus died on the cross for your sins, and believe that he rose from the dead, and you will be saved. Renounce your own righteousness and accept Christ’s. The bar for salvation is set so low, and it is so free, that only a few will enter.
Lastly let’s look at verses 14-21 and point number 3.Our response after being saved (v14-21)
So we are saved through faith in Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross made on our behalf to give us his perfect righteousness. Salvation is free! It is only by faith, but how does someone get that faith? Paul tells us how, look at verse 17 “So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.”
Paul says all you have to do is trust in Christ and call out to him to save you, and you will be saved. But he gets very practical here in verses 14-17, “How are they to call on him in whom they have not believed?” “And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard?” “And how are they to hear without someone preaching?” “And how are they to preach unless they are sent?”
Friends, we live in a country that is less than 1% Christian. Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary came out with a study that said that 88% of people in Japan do not even know a Christian. These verses are a reality for millions of people in Japan, who will live their entire lives and never hear the gospel message even one time.
A crucial part of our discipleship as Christians is the sharing of our faith with others. Just as we have freely received grace from God we want to freely give it away to others. How thankful you are for the gift of Jesus’ perfect righteousness is revealed by how willing you are to share it with others. Every single person in this room knows at least 1 person who does not know Christ. Who is one person you want to share the gospel with? Our response after being saved should be to want to share this message with others!
One of the core values of this church is “the relentless dissemination of the Gospel Message.” We exist to share the gospel with those who do not know, so that they might hear, and that through hearing they might believe and be saved. The best place for people to hear the gospel is at a church, but Japan has a problem: the number of churches in Japan is far too small.
MSCC Tokyo was started by a group called Mustard Seed Network, a church planting organization that wants to see the gospel preached in Japan through starting churches.
Mustard Seed Network has a vision to start 12 churches in Japan’s 12 largest cities by the year 2025.(12 churches picture on slide) Mustard Seed Tokyo was started in 2020. Since the start of this church, through the preaching of the gospel, and through God’s grace, many people have come to believe in Jesus. In 2022 we sent out a team from Tokyo to the city of Hiroshima to start a church so people can hear the gospel in that city.
In March of this year Mustard Seed Christian Church Yokohama was started, with another in Saitama set to start later this year. More churches means more preaching of the gospel, which then gives more people, who have never heard before, the opportunity to hear.
Because we believe in the gospel, this church is sending my wife Delaney and I to the city of Sapporo to start a new church there. There are people in Sapporo who have never heard the gospel. We want to start a church in Sapporo that will preach the gospel to give people an opportunity to hear, that some may believe and be saved.
We have loved being a part of this church.
The last 3 years have been some of the toughest, but most amazing years of our lives. I could not imagine the last 3 years without this church.
We will miss all of you so much, but we believe that the gospel is worth sacrificing for.
It is worth sacrificing your comfort, it is worth being seen by others as foolish, because it is the power of God. This beautiful gospel message, this message of God saving undeserving sinners, is the hope of the world.
Please pray for us as we move to Sapporo to start a new church there. Will you join this mission that God has called us to to share the gospel with those who don’t know?
The only reason why, as Christians, we can make sacrifices for the gospel is because Jesus sacrificed himself on the cross for us. Every Sunday we take time to remember Jesus’ sacrifice by taking communion. This is a meal only for Christians, and so if you are here and are not a Christian, we ask that you please remain seated and take this time to reflect.
