May 4, 2025, Message by Stevin Johnson
Transcribed by Beluga AI.
May the fourth be with you. It is that day. And I thank Sophia for her toy. Let me use this tonight. All right? All right.
I’m not sure where Pastor Kev left off in Romans. I know there were some things he wanted to talk about. So during Mint’s group, when we found out Otz and I were going to have to split duties while he’s gone. Next time he said, you want me to sign you guys something, or are you going to choose it? Usually he lets us choose it.
This time it said, okay, assign us something. Goes, okay. You got Romans 10:1-13 saying, all right, I’ll do my best.
So Romans 10:1-13.
1 Brethren, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they may be saved. 2 For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. 3 For they being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and seeking to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted to the righteousness of God. 4 For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes. 5 For Moses writes about the righteousness which is of the law, “The man who does those things shall live by them.” 6 But the righteousness of faith speaks in this way, “Do not say in your heart, ‘Who will ascend into heaven?’ ” (that is, to bring Christ down from above ) 7 or, ” ‘Who will descend into the abyss?’ ” (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead). 8 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): 9 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. 10 For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. 11 For the Scripture says, “Whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame.” 12 For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord over all is rich to all who call upon Him. 13 For “whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.” (Romans 10:1-13, NKJV)
Lord, may the words of my mouth and the meditation of our heart be pleasing to you, our Lord, our Rock and our salvation.
All right, so I had to read through this about, I don’t know, 20 times to try to. And I got my Jack Hayford study Bible, so that helped. And I went online, looked up a bunch of things which was helpful. Found a very interesting fellow, and I can’t remember his name now, but he’s a messianic Jew who’s.
Who’s started in Florida but is in Israel and preaching there, who had a nice insight to what was going on here.
So a long time ago, in a land far, far away, a little bit of different, you know, there’s so a new hope for all who believed.
So what I wanted to do is kind of go back in the history of our faith. I mean, go all the way back to creation. And God is righteous. God’s good. Everything he created is good, which is righteous, right? He created man, created Adam. Adam was righteous.
And then from Adam came Eve, who was righteous as well, because everything God made was good. Therefore, I think it should be considered as righteous.
And then we had the fall, right? So they lost their righteousness because they ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. So God had to start his plan for salvation right then and there to have a way for us to regain that righteousness, regain what he created that was good.
So, rather than going through all that history up to Abraham, we’re just going to go straight there, straight to Abraham.
And God spoke to Abraham and told him that he was going to create a nation out of him, a people of his own. And Abraham believed him. Right. God even told him, you’re gonna head off to the promised land.
I can assume that Abraham knew who God was. I think it was, what, two generations away from Noah, something like that. So Noah knew who God was.
I make the leap that Abraham probably had at least heard of God, whether he worshiped him or not, because there were a lot of idols already at that time. Everybody had their little house gods already. But clearly God talked to him, and Abraham heard him. And Abraham said, okay, I’m going, I believe you. And God credited that to him as righteousness.
So like, okay, that’s a good spot to start from. Abraham had righteousness because he believed in God. So we’re going to jump on up to Isaac.
You know, he took Isaac to the altar to sacrifice Isaac because he believed God was going to do something for him and save Isaac, which he did. Right. So his faith is continuing.
We look at the character of Abraham too, as we kind of know that he was like us. He had some faults. Had some faults on his way to Egypt twice, right? I’m trying to plank on his wife’s name. Sorry about that. But he had a couple of faults there, right? He’s like, oh, no, she’s my sister.
When the kings of Egypt, and what was it? I can’t remember, sorry. But they had desires for his wife, and he was like, oh, she’s my sister. Okay. So he had faults; he still had faith in God. So that is kind of a bit of hope, right, that we can have our faults and we can still be all right with God. But he passed that on to Isaac, right? So Isaac, I’m sure, talked with his father. There’s a lot of information that’s left out in the Bible of that filler.
Information that Isaac probably knew God. And Isaac had the same promise from God that he was going to make a nation out of him, which went on to Jacob.
Jacob, you know, Jacob had his issues, but he also was promised the same covenant that God was going to create a nation out of him. So I’m thinking it continued along even though we started to see some, some problems. The human nature, the sinful nature.
All right, so from Jacob, there was Joseph.
Joseph was a pretty great man who did a lot of good things in Israel or in Egypt that helped save Israel. Israel went, we already, we know that they went there 400 years in bondage to the Egyptians doing hard labor. And then God sent Moses to rescue them.
Moses went in, performed signs and wonders, which you would believe would be enough for people to put everything into God, not falter.
Moses gets him, takes him out of Egypt through the Red Sea to Mount Sinai. We see a month later, Ish, that the Hebrew nation, the Israelites, fall big time. I mean, they make their promise. God’s one God. He’s the true God. There will be no other gods before him for us.
Moses says, great, going up on the mountain, I’ll be back. Goes up there. He’s gone for a little while, 40 days, turns out, but in the Israelites, not long after he left, like, who is this Moses guy?
Which always intrigued me because I thought, well, that’s an interesting question for the Israelites to ask because he just brought them out of Egypt, showing great signs and wonders from God. And you’re asking, who is this guy?
Well, I thought about that just the other day. I thought a little bit like that, well, okay, he did do that. But how, how did they really know Moses? Did they really know who Moses was? He was, what, 40 when he ran away? Because he killed the Egyptian soldier.
He lived in the desert for 40 years before God talked to him and sent him back to rescue his people. So there’s a 40-year gap, which is a generation basically, that he’s never been seen or heard of.
And now he shows up, and I don’t know the exact number of days or months that he’s even in Egypt to rescue the Egyptians, but he’s not there for very long. So I can go, oh, okay. I can kind of see how they probably said, we don’t know this fellow.
Make us a God, Aaron, make us a God. Make us a golden calf. Because we don’t know this guy. He may never be coming back, and we might be on our own, and we need a God.
So quickly they fell off of that. Okay. So we kind of know that at that point, Moses came back. He had the Ten Commandments, he got a little peeved, thrown down, made the Israelites drink the ground up, golden calf. And then kind of, they kind of started over, if you will.
At that point, then God gave them laws to live by, right laws for good moral living, laws on how to live with each other. And this is where Moses wrote about the righteousness which is of the law. The man who does these things shall live by them.
5 For Moses writes about the righteousness which is of the law, “The man who does those things shall live by them.” (Romans 10:5, NKJV)
Moving on in history, we know that they got to spend an extra 40 years in the penalty box because they didn’t believe God would have their backs going into the promised land. They finally get there, they conquer most of it.
They didn’t conquer all of it, but we kind of will fast forward through David and then where they start faltering again. They start worshiping Baal and the pagan gods and really start turning their back on God. They know God still, but they’re turning their back on him, and they get sent to exile.
So off they go into exile, and when they come back, they’re changed. They’re like, okay, that didn’t work out so well for us. That was a punishment. So let’s follow these laws and will make them who we are.
Because we’re Israelites, we’re God’s chosen people. So we’ll follow the laws to the letter, except where we need to kind of deviate around them to make it work out for ourselves. And that’s how we’re going to know we’re righteous. If we obey the laws, we’re righteous and we’re good. We’re in good with God at that point.
So I think in here is where, when we get to the part where it says Paul says,
1 Brethren, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they may be saved. 2 For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. (Romans 10:1-2, NKJV)
Their zeal for God was obeying the law and doing what was right, thinking that that’s what made them righteous. That if they followed the laws, then they would be considered righteous, which is one of the things I heard explained, and I believe it was from the messianic rabbi. He was talking about where they talk about, you know, the righteous. Paul writes about, do not say in your heart who will ascend into heaven, that is to bring Christ down from above.
6 But the righteousness of faith speaks in this way, “Do not say in your heart, ‘Who will ascend into heaven?’ ” (that is, to bring Christ down from above ) (Romans 10:6, NKJV)
Basically, the Israelites believed they were so righteous that they could get themselves to heaven.
They didn’t need the Messiah to do that. In fact, they didn’t even think that that’s what Messiah was going to do. Right. They thought the Messiah was going to come down and crush the Romans and make Israel a great nation again.
And they also talked about who will descend into the abyss, that is to bring Christ up from the dead again.
7 or, ” ‘Who will descend into the abyss?’ ” (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead). (Romans 10:7, NKJV)
Kind of. They thought their goodness and their righteousness would be able to save them for those who believed, I believe for those who believed in the resurrection, that they would.
Their them being Jews, they saw themselves as being the best thing to send sliced bread because they were Jews. They were righteous and everything that they had to end with God. Right? So that’s why Paul’s praying for them. He’s like, they don’t get it. They think it’s their actions and their things that they do that is going to make them righteous.
So we have a problem. I know, I know I do. I have a problem with self-righteousness. And I think a lot of people do.
And we see, kind of here, with virtue signaling that we’ve seen since COVID happened about, you know, those who wore masks, those who didn’t wear masks, those who were vaccinated, those who were not vaccinated.
There’s a little bit of warring over who was more righteous than the other in their actions. So I don’t think we can actually say that we’re much better in that we make ourselves self-righteous, and that we should not do that.
Our righteousness, as we know, comes from one place.
All right, so he talked about in here that Jesus is the end of the law for righteousness for everyone who believes.
4 For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes. (Romans 10:4, NKJV)
So this is where Paul’s, you know, we’re in Romans, so he’s writing to the Romans and he’s really laying it out about, I believe he’s laying it out here about the self-righteousness and how the Jews, like talked about, think they’re more righteous than everybody else.
And he’s explaining that this is not the way that it is. The Messiah came and the Messiah is the righteousness for us.
He was the end to the law of everybody having to follow the law to be righteous. He ended that through his death and resurrection. That was the plan, that if you believed on him, you would be righteous.
Okay, so the New Testament is full of, and Paul writes about a lot of it, is that constant back and forth between the Sanhedrin, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and believing that Jesus was the Messiah. Some good examples of that are with Stephen, and Stephen being stoned to death.
But his calling out to the Sanhedrin about seeing God and seeing heaven and seeing that righteousness and having belief in that and getting stoned for that, that the Israelites, the Jews, could not comprehend that that is possible, that the righteousness came from Jesus.
Again, they were thinking that the Messiah was going to be this great person who came and delivered them from the bondage of the Romans.
So this is where I kind of bounce back to the very first bullet of praying. Paul prayed for the Jews, his brothers.
I believe that that’s what we should be doing. You know, part of learning through what on how to preach. The course that Kevin kind of gave us a brief course on is the questions are to ask: what is God saying here, you know, and what is the intention? What does he want us to know, and what are we to do about that?
In this passage, these verses, I think God is telling us about self-righteousness and about how that is a trap and can lead you to believing that you’re the only way. your way is always the right way. And that if I do good, how many times have we. We. I’ll just say, how many times have I sinned and go, oh geez, why did I do that and think that? Well, at least I didn’t sin as bad as that person did. My sin’s not as, not as big as that other person did.
For me personally, I see that as a form of self-righteousness. I still sin. God still sees that sin the same way. I did something that was not right before the eyes of my God.
I don’t think I know he doesn’t play favorites with anybody, right? He is no respecter of persons. I’ve heard that before. I assume that other folks have heard that as well.
My sin of thinking an angry thought, it’s the same sin. Same sin as somebody who committed adultery against their spouse or murdered. It’s seen the same way.
So I can’t sit here and be self-righteous about it. I need to remember that I can’t just make myself better in front of God because my sin just wasn’t as great in my book as the other person. I’m only as righteous as the blood that was shed for me on the Christ on the cross.
That’s my only righteousness. I and you and everybody who believes inherited that righteousness from Jesus when he died, his promise to us.
So I believe we need to pray for those who are lost, who don’t understand, understand that, don’t understand the righteousness from the blood of Jesus that was shed for us.
We need to pray for ourselves as well. There are certainly other clubs that don’t believe the same things that we do or don’t practice their faith the same way we do. They’re still in the club.
Very interesting, because you go sit in there in their worship services and listen to what they’re saying. A lot of them say the very same things that we believe in.
However, their practices are a little bit different, and it’s hard to not sit and go, well, that’s weird, that’s stupid. Why do you do that that way instead of thinking, well, no, at least they believe in Jesus, and they believe in the crucifixion, and his blood was shed for all.
But it’s the other guys who don’t believe any of that, who don’t believe that Jesus was the Son of God and that his death was for us all, that you need to pray for them.
I feel blessed, and I’m sure that you probably do as well, that at some point someone told us about that and gave us an introduction to Jesus. We said, hey, I want that.
And when we accepted that and we said, yes, Jesus is my Lord and Savior, I believe that he died and was raised again for me and sits at the right hand of God. The Holy Spirit entered each one of us.
When that happened, whether you realized it right at that moment or not, it happened.
And as you grow and you get that wisdom and knowledge, that’s because God’s imparting that on you. He’s imparting it in you so that you understand and you can have that relationship. Because God wants a relationship with each one of us. It’s his true passion is to love each one of us dearly and to bring us into his kingdom for eternity. And I want that for people that I know that don’t believe. And I want it for those that I know, know, but were once, like me, very secular Christians.
They know, but they don’t have the relationship because they don’t completely understand. They have the knowledge, or lack of knowledge, is the way I see it. It’s there. And if I say it, it’s kind of like almost, if you will, it’s kind of like the magical words that if I say this, but I don’t really have it in my heart and I don’t really mean it, then do they really have it?
If you’re not walking with the Lord and trying to have a relationship with him all the time, I really want you to.
I really want those people to. And I do have friends who live that way. They think I know Jesus and that’s all good enough. But they don’t really know Jesus.
So it’s really that last line that whoever calls on him will be saved. you’ve got to believe in your heart, confess with your mouth. And it’s written in our book that that’s the way is believe in your heart and confess with your mouth that Jesus is your Lord, that he died and he rose again. And therein is the righteousness.
Not only the righteousness from the blood, but the healing that comes from that as well.
So something that was very interesting as I was reading through this and trying to put together something to talk about tonight. And it’s always still very interesting to come into this room. I mean, we’re a pretty close family here. We have folks, hopefully, who are tuning in and looking in on Rumble or YouTube and watching this.
I do go and look every once in a while, and I do hit the little thumbs up button just because I try to get the counter up. But I don’t see too many people tuning into that.
So, God, I pray right now that somebody is going to tune into this and want to come to the Firehouse church, either in Bremerton or Palto, and learn more about Jesus and learn about that righteousness with God, the one true God, the creator of heaven and earth and all things that are good, and will come and accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior.
I tell you, it will forever change your life. You will know a happiness and a joy like you’ve never known before. Sure, there’s going to be troubles and trials.
Jesus never promised that there wasn’t going to be. But we can overcome that because of Jesus. So, friends, that’s it. It’s short and sweet tonight. I had far more examples and things going on in my head earlier that I was like, oh, this is great. Oh, I’ll talk about that and I’ll talk about this. But the bottom line is that right there, that’s where it’s at. So I encourage you and I know that most of everybody in here are prayer warriors already. But if you know somebody, pray for them. Speak it out loud.
God’s word never goes out void. It always returns. And like Kevin likes to say, sometimes sick em God.
So with that, this meal was. It’s a meal of righteousness. It was shed for us, for making us right, atoning us with God so that we will have eternity with Him.
So come and eat the food for the people of God. And as you take it, remember, you are righteous before his eyes. No matter what you’ve done before, the moment you accepted him, you are now righteous before his eyes. And he smiles upon you.
So come and eat. And may the faith be with you. Amen.
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