Session 45 – Romans; Romans 9-11: Mark Lanier, 10/25/26

ROM 045_Romans P45_PODCAST_102526
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[00:00:00] So if you were living in Rome at the time that they received the letter from Paul, and you wanted a map of the city, they had them. This is not one, but they had them. Uh, this is one that's kind of a reconstruction of what it would've looked like, and you can see the Tiber River, which ran down through the western side of Rome.

You've got the Gardens of Caesar over here, the Gardens of Agrippina up there. Uh, you've got what's now the Vatican. It was, uh, the Vatican Hill, uh, up there. You've got over here most of the big buildings on this side of the Rome-- uh, of Rome. This is where the, the major action was. So you got the Circus Maximus, if you remember Ben-Hur.

You've got, uh, the Flavian Amphitheater. Later on, the, the-- it's not at the time of Paul, but within the next [00:01:00] century, they'll build the big Colosseum that we're familiar with over here. You've got, uh, uh, the Baths of Agrippa up there. You've got all of this stuff, but if you focus in right down here, you've got an island in the middle of the Tiber, and this is an island that was, um, already in good use.

Uh, in fact, they dumped a bunch of sick people there. There was a, a temple that had been built there 300-plus years earlier. Uh, you remember if you ever see the, uh, the staff of a doctor, it's got the snake that goes around it. Uh, that's the-- the snake was the symbol of the god of, of healing and, and supposedly a snake jumped off a ship and swam to the island, and they decided it belonged to the god of healing.

They built a temple there. Uh, later on, a church, uh, the Basilica of St. Bartholomew was built there. But this bridge that goes from the, the mainland of Rome [00:02:00] over to the Tiber Island, uh, is the oldest bridge of the Roman Empire that's still in use today. Wow. This was built sixty-three BC. Wow. So it's already 100 years old by the time Phoebe is taking Paul's letter into Rome.

Uh, the, the bridge, uh, uh, actually crosses this branch of the Tiber, and you can see the initials and the name of the fella who fabricated the bridge. Here's a cleaner picture of it right here. But his name was Fabricius, and this says that, uh, Fabricius, the son of... It's a whole bunch of abbreviations, but the bottom line is the son of Gaius, was the keeper of the roads and the master of the roads, and he built and approved this bridge.

And he put-- He was so proud of it, he put his name on it in four different places. [00:03:00] I mean, this is, like, major work, okay? Now, if you're gonna build a Roman bridge, you've got these archways. And I put together, with the help of AI, a little video to show you something, 'cause I want you to be impressed with the way an archway was built.

If these guys take this wood frame out right now, do you know what happens? Falls down. All of this falls down, and all of that falls down, and you got a failure. Actually, you got two failures. But if they put that one stone in place, one stone makes all the difference in the world[00:04:00]

One stone turns two failures into a bridge, and it's pretty incredible. Now, I use this to open class because the ancients often built their arguments like they built their arches And this is called a chiasm And a chiasm is something where the middle, the keystone, becomes the key to the argument. We do things very differently today.

We tend to argue A, B, C, therefore D. And we build our arguments that way. The ancients would build their arguments differently, like they [00:05:00] could build an arch. Now, sometimes they would still A, B, C, D, but they used something called a chiasm, and so that's what we're gonna talk about in our first point. Our first point is going to be looking at Romans nine through 11 as one big arch, one big chiasm, and then we're gonna focus on where the, the keystone would be, the crown, the, the, the creed that's at the, the beginning...

the, the middle point of that arch. And we'll close with the wilderness words. Now, I have been challenged. Uh, Lois, uh, Gentry is one of our class faithful followers who emails me periodically, and she could tell I was thinking, "When we get in the new space, it's time to start with a new series." And she said, "No."

She said, "You can figure out how to finish Romans, and I want you to finish Romans and start the new series next [00:06:00] year." So we're up against the clock. I'm gonna figure out how to finish Romans, but we're gonna finish it, God willing, by the end of this year. So we gotta move. All right? So here's what you're gonna get.

We're gonna finish nine through 11 today, and because I'm just gonna give you some homework. But I wanna put it in the framing of a chiasm because Tom Wright argues, and I think somewhat effectively, that all three chapters form a chiasm. But to communicate that to you, I wanna give you two other chiasms first.

I want you to understand this ancient arch of arguing. So let's do the first one. Here is a very easy chiasm. It comes from the teachings of Jesus. We're gonna find this in Matthew 23:12. Matthew 23:12, Jesus says, "Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever [00:07:00] humbles himself will be exalted." You see, it's a chiasm.

It builds up, and then it builds back down in reverse order, and the middle becomes the thrust. Jesus is saying, "Be humble." Humility. Humility is your keystone. That's the center of the argument. The center of the argument's not pride, the center of the argument is humility. And so it builds it that way. Make sense?

Now I wanna give you a second biblical chiasm, and it's one of the clearest chiasms you'll find. But it's also one that, that it-- I mean, I could spend a whole class on it, so we're just gonna do it fast, but it becomes relevant at the end of class, so it's worth learning and hanging onto. Here it is. It's the Tower of Babel.

The Tower of [00:08:00] Babel is a story in early Genesis that's written as a chiasm. It's found in Genesis chapter 11, the first nine verses, and we're gonna throw it on the arch. Here it is, the Tower of Babel. If you're reading it, it starts out, "The whole earth had one language." And then it goes, and it talks about, "Over there, they had settled in Shinar.

And the men spoke to one another, and they said, 'Let's make name for ourselves. Let's make bricks, and we will build for ourselves a tower and a city that goes all the way up into the heavens.'" That's one branch of the arch. And then we've got the keystone, "And the Lord came down to see." [00:09:00] And it reads, "He came down to see, uh, the city and the tower."

See how they parallel each other? And it says, "Which the sons of men built," parallels let us build for ourselves. And then God said, "Come, let us confuse." Now you say, "Well, what does that have to do with let us make bricks?" Well, it both say come.

I hope God led us but if you're reading your Hebrew you'll see that the verb for make bricks is the same verb as confuse just spelled backwards So it just spells backwards the same verb And instead of men speaking to one another 'cause they all had the same language, God confuses it and they all have a different language.

And instead of going and settling there in Shinar, they all [00:10:00] leave from there, i.e., from Shinar. And instead of the whole earth having one language, there is a language or many languages of the whole earth And it makes a twist there. That's a beautiful chiasm, and the middle becomes the thrust, and the middle is, is Pastor Jared's sermon in a nutshell almost today.

We can search to ascend the hill of the Lord, Psalm 24, but it's gonna take the Lord to come down 'cause none of us can build up to God on our own, and our best efforts will result in confusion. That's the Tower of Babel. Now, let's look at Romans 9 through 11. If you go back, and you can watch on the internet, and you can hear our first series is...

Our first lesson as [00:11:00] we got into this was Paul's lament that begins Romans 9:1-5. This is a lament in the classical Old Testament lament form. A lament is a, a ti- a, a, an expression of great sorrow. In fact, he begins, "I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart." Lupe megale. Lupe means a deep pain, a grief, a sorrow.

Not to be confused with the restaurant. Paul says, "I could wish, I could wish" And this is what's called a desiderative imperative. I'll put it up there for you. "I could wish" It me- it means I could almost wish. "I could wish that [00:12:00] myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen, according to the flesh."

This was Paul saying, "I'm not negotiating with God. It's not that I could do that." But he, he says, "I want you to know how deep my love is for my kinsmen, that I could wish, I could almost wish that I myself were accursed." And that Hebrew word, anathema, um, well, it's a Greek word, anathema, for the Hebrew word herem.

But that, that Hebrew word herem means to devote to destruction. I wish that I could be devoted to destruction, cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen. This is a classic prophetic lament. But prophetic lament in the Bible, where the prophets lament and woe, always contains and expects a hope that God is going to [00:13:00] deliver.

And you see it over and over and over. And sure enough, Paul's lament in his chiasm, at the opposite end has his doxology. So this whole section, what starts with lament, expecting hope, ends with hope. He ends the lament at the end of 11. So at the end of 11, we have, "Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God!

How unsearchable are his judgments! How inscrutable his ways! For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor? Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid? For from him and through him and [00:14:00] to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen." See, that's the doxology that's the counterpart to the lament.

And if we were gonna spend another year in Romans This would have made an entire class just on that la-- that end of Romans 11. And I'd be showing you why these two counter or, or, or counterparts. So for example, Paul's lament has an amen, the doxology an amen. They're the only two amens in these three chapters.

Paul's lament talks about the glory, which was one of the gifts given to Israel, but the doxology speaks of the glory of God, to whom belongs the glory. [00:15:00] In Paul's lament, he's got that catalog of gifts, everything that was given to Israel. In the doxology, he's got the catalog of the giver. God is the one in whom is all the knowledge and all the wisdom.

God is the one, and he catalogs the giver. In Paul's lament, he cites from Isaiah... Well, he doesn't cite. He makes a reference that, that is a reference to Isaiah 40 verse 8, and then he cites to Isaiah 40, comes back to it in chapter 11 verse 34 in the doxology. So that doxology is the other end of that base of the chiasm.

By the way, you remember Fabricius engraved his name four times on the bridge? Paul kind of engraves his name a whole bunch on this section as well. He's got a bunch of chiasms within [00:16:00] chiasms within chiasms. So if this whole thing is a chiasm, if, if Tom Wright reads it right, I think he does, look at the chiasm just within the doxology The riches, the wisdom, the knowledge of God I'm here.

Let's, let's, uh Acts and the letter to the Romans. Romans 8, 9, 10. It's a good thing these chapters are in numerical order. They'd be really hard to find if it went like 1, 9, 6, 3. All right, Romans 11. Look at this

11:33. So here's our doxology. So we've got here, "Oh, the [00:17:00] riches, wisdom, and knowledge of God." Wisdom... No, the riches, sorry, wisdom, and knowledge. You see? You got it? One, two, three. One, two, three Then we say

Who has known the mind? Well, what sits in your mind? Knowledge. So if this is A, that's B, and that's C. Who has known the mind? That's a C. Who has been his counselor, i.e., who's got the wisdom? That's B. Or who's given a gift to him to receive a gift in return? How do you give a [00:18:00] gift to the one who has all the riches So if you look at it, you've got a little chiasm.

Knowledge, who has known his mind? Wisdom, who's been his counselor? Riches, who's been given a gift to him that he might be repaid? But what does that leave at the center of the chiasm?

That's your keystone. That's Paul's point. How unsearchable are the judgments of God? How inscrutable are his ways? That's an appropriate center point of the chiasm that ends three chapters of Romans that deals with issues that have caused the church to fight over predestination and free will [00:19:00] forever and a day.

How unsearchable are his wis- this is just like Paul's the arch builder, and the keystone, he's putting his name on it right there. He's got it. So you've got, you've got a chiasm within a chiasm, but here we've got the start of the chiasm, Paul's lament and the doxology. And then after Paul's lament, he tells the story of Israel's past.

He goes through Moses, he goes through the wilderness, he goes through, uh, the prophets. He tells the story in the past. If we were going to go into more detail than we're going to, we would see that Is- that 11:1-32 tells Israel's forward story, what's going to happen to them into the future. So he tells the past, and the counterpart arch is the future.

The past is where Israel stumbles over the stone[00:20:00]

The counterpart is Israel hears but refuses. He's echoing the same principle. And then you've got the thrust in the middle. And what comes in the middle? What is the keystone? It's Romans 10:5-13, but even more specifically, the center of that is Romans 10:8-9. Now, this whole section of Romans was set up by a big question: Did the word of God fail?

And Paul's answer to that has been this whole story, but it's been in a chi- or argument, but it's been in the form of a chiasm, where he wants you to understand the word of God never failed. And the thrust, Romans 10:8-9, the word of God not only didn't fail, the word is near you. [00:21:00] It's in your mouth, and it's in your heart.

That's the word of faith that we proclaim. Because if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and if you believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. And that's the thrust. That's the center. That's the key. That is what keeps the two walls from being failures. That's what makes the bridge.

That's the k- center of the argument. That's the center of what Paul wants us to understand. That's the core of what he's taking away. Now, some people say... I, I think almost all scholars agree there's a chiasm in the doxology. That's like a gimme. Um, some scholars don't necessarily agree with the idea that all three of these are in a, a chiasm.

I'll be the first one to say that there are some people who just [00:22:00] look for chiasms everywhere, okay? And I mean, chiasm hunting is a scholar sport with referees where they can throw the flag and give you a 15-yard penalty if you call a chiasm that's not really there. But I think this one's legit. By the way, did you see that?

That's the chiasm. A, B, C, B, A, you know? With the little arch. Anyway, okay. I had fun with that one. Did you notice the score? Chiasms three, doubts two.

Do you know how many people I had to get to act? We, I maybe, I would, we took, had a whole afternoon of filming at the football stadium to get that done. That's why Tech lost. Um, either that or I did that with AI. Um, but I want you to see that arch as the shape of Romans 9 through 11. Spend some time looking at it.

Study it. See if it makes [00:23:00] sense to you. Now, if that's the case, it brings us to where we are today, which is the creed that's at the crown of the arch. It's that center keystone. It's what holds everything together. It's the point of emphasis. And so let's look at that in a little bit more detail. Paul writes, "What does Scripture say?"

It says, "The word is near you", angus in the Greek. The word is near you It's in your mouth. It's in your heart You don't need to build a Tower of Babel to go up and to find God by building yourself up It's come and it's near you. It's so near it's in your mouth and heart. It [00:24:00] goes from the word is near to the word your mouth all the way down inside your heart.

Paul is showing movement here that draws it to where it could be no closer. It's in your heart, and he says that's the word of faith that we proclaim. And this verb proclaim, kerusso in the Greek. Kerusso is, um

It's a formal announcement. But if you go back and look at some of the classes I've been teaching on this, we've been using the analogy of, of, not analogy, but we've been looking at the words that Paul uses metaphorically that come from, like, the Isthmus Games, where he's working so hard to prepare tents for in Corinth while he's writing this.

This is also a game word. [00:25:00] Keruxo is the announcer. In modern times, you would use the word... It d- he doesn't simply say, "It's the faith that we say." He doesn't use lego here. He uses this, this more formal, herald, proclaim. It's like, have you ever seen in the, the boxing matches when the guy gets out in the tuxedo in the ring, and they drop the mic down?

And he says, you know, whoops, hold on. "In this corner, wearing the red trunks, is the mighty Max Bowman. And in this corner, his frightening opponent, wearing the white with blue trim, is his wife, Beverly Bowman, who's never lost to him yet." That, that, that announcement, that's what, at the games, they would do.

They would [00:26:00] herald out. They would announce who the competitors were. So Paul is saying, "The word's near you. It's in your mouth. It's that word of faith that we proclaim."

And it's a little stilted grammar, but I, um, uh, Doug Moo, I just think, is 50 times brighter than I am, knows Greek 50 times better, um, but I disagree with him here on how to translate the hodi. Uh, you can translate it because, and that's fine, or you can translate it that, and I think that that is probably cleaner for us because it's what's being announced.

It's at the games. Here's the, the announcement. So if you go back and you look, you've got the word of faith that we proclaim, and, and that is the word of faith that we proclaim. Here it is. Here's the announcement. Here's the heralding. Here's what's being [00:27:00] said, that if you confess, if you homologeo, if you confess, it means...

Uh, homologeo means sort of to say the same thing, but it, it's, it's confess. If you, if you affirm what others are affirming. If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord. And if you believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. Now, Paul is referencing back to a passage that Moses wrote in Deuteronomy.

Deuteronomy 30:14 says, "The word is very near you," which is what Paul said in verse 10. "It's in your [00:28:00] mouth and your heart, so you can do it." Paul quotes this or references back to this, but he doesn't... He takes out the do it, like he's taken out so many do its before. His emphasis isn't so you can do it. His emphasis is so that you believe it.

So you look at this and Paul says, "If you confess with your mouth, believe with your heart" Then you'll be saved. Now, what do we confess? What do we believe? That Jesus is Lord. That is probably, um, an handful, it may be the oldest, I don't know, Christian creeds, Christian sayings, Christian affirmations. In, in Greek, it's just two words.

It's, uh, uh, [00:29:00] Kurion Iesou. Kurion Iesou is Jesus is Lord. Uh, look at it in 1 Corinthians chapter 12, where Paul's writing from. But when he was writing to the Corinthians,

he says in 1 Corinthians 12 verse 3, "I want you to understand nobody speaking by the Spirit of God ever says, 'Let Jesus be cursed.' But no one can say, 'Jesus is Lord,' except by the Holy Spirit." That's, that's the early Christian creed. That's what Christians st- some think you said it at your baptism. Jesus is Lord.

And look, back in Roman times, Caesar was Lord, and that meant Caesar was worthy of all the worship, that meant Caesar got all the gifts, that meant [00:30:00] Caesar was the center, Caesar was the keystone, and you were to worship Caesar as God. But Paul says very clearly, and the early church said very clearly, "Jesus is Lord."

Now, I would suggest it's got more overtones as well than just the Roman overtone of what it meant in Roman society. Because that word Lord is the word that was used to translate and to state the name of God in the Old Testament, Yahweh. This is a divine proclamation of a divinity far beyond what Caesar claimed.

Jesus is Lord. It's an early church creed. If you will, uh, it's a New Testament church creed. Look at Ephesians... I mean Philippians. Look at Philippians 2 verse 11[00:31:00]

Paul talks about, uh, to set this up, have the same attitude that was in Christ, who even though he existed in the form of God, didn't regard equality with God something to be held onto and grasp, but he emptied himself. He took the form of a slave, a bond servant, being made in the likeness of men, then humbled himself to other men to the point of death, even death on a cross.

And Paul says, "Therefore, also God highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven, on Earth, and under the Earth, and every tongue should confess Jesus Christ is Lord." That was the early confession of the church, one of the earliest.

And so we've got that here. Let me add the scriptures up there for you to look at them if you want to. And this is what Paul's [00:32:00] saying, "If you confess with your mouth" If you proclaim that Jesus is Lord, if you believe in your heart, and the word believe, pistuo in the Greek, I don't have it highlighted, but pistuo in the Greek is, is not just a mental acknowledgement.

It's not just, "Okay, well, I technically believe." That kind of belief even demons have, as James says. But Paul's belief here is a, a deep conviction that maybe we translate better trust. It's often translated trust in the Bible. I'm willing to, to trust it. And some people say to me, they-- I get emails, "How much faith do I need to have?

I'm not sure I got enough." Let me assure you, Jesus is the only one who ever had perfect faith. You get [00:33:00] all of His righteousness, including His perfect faith Trust in Him. That's what it's-- Paul is saying. If you trust that God raised Him from the dead. And that's interesting, too. It's not a generic trust.

So I spent the four weeks s- uh, leading a, a, a reading group at St. John's Law School, I referenced this to y'all before, on C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity. And it was interesting because, um, I asked them, I said, "Is-- or do all roads lead to God?"

Do all roads lead to God? And, um The, the, and I, I used as an analogy, there, there's a young lady, um, sitting to my left, and she-- I, I said, "Sophie, where are you from?" And she said, "Queens." I said, "If I take the Lincoln Tunnel, will [00:34:00] it get me to Queens?" And she said, uh, "No, but it should." And I said, "What do you mean?"

She said, "Well, all roads should lead to Queens." I said, "But do they, in fact?" And she said, "No." And Paul doesn't say, he never holds a, a, a suggestion that all roads lead. He wants you to believe that Jesus Christ was dead for your sins, buried, and resurrected. That's the gospel. That's the good news. And if you believe, if you trust in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

That raised from the dead, though, is very important. And then Paul adds, "You will be saved." What's he talking about there? Does that mean you get that ticket to heaven? Gonna be riding the clouds, [00:35:00] baby

This world is not my home. I'm just a-passin' through. My treasures are laid up somewhere beyond the blue

No. That's not what Paul's talking about, and that's not the biblical concept, and I hate to pop your bubble, but if you're reading through the Bible very carefully, you'll see the point of the whole thing was God created to dwell with humanity, and sin messed it all up, and God's gonna need to create a new heaven and new earth.

But he did not make us as spirit only I do not want to delve into politics. Heaven forbid, I try and avoid it like the plague. But I was asked the other day, "Do you believe that God is non-binary?" And I said, "Do you believe that God has an XY [00:36:00] chromosome?" "Well, but it says he's the father." I said, "In Isaiah, it says he's a mother.

'Can a mother forget her nursing child? That's when I'll forget you, Israel. You were a nursing child to me.' Have you ever seen a dad nurse a baby?"

I, I don't-- I, I, we don't understand what's going on here because we h- are a bunch of Plato thinkers who think that we're just a bunch of spirits that are trapped in a body, and one day this body's gonna be done away with, and our spirit will float free in the heavens. No. God's going to recreate us. If Jesus was physically resurrected, he had a glorified body.

He came and visibly was seen by Paul on the road to Damascus. God will give us a glorified body. Amen. We will be-- And he will create a new heaven and earth, and we will dwell, and we'll have work to do, and he'll walk in the garden with us, and it will be the most [00:37:00] wonderful fellowship there could ever be.

And we will worship him eternally, and we will be without sin. Yes. That's what... Uh, but Paul, here, he's saying, "You will be saved." And that word sozo in the Greek means you'll be rescued from mortal danger. It's the same word for you'll be healed. It's the same word for you'll be preserved. It's the same word for you're in a catastrophe, and we-- you'll be brought through intact.

In the Old Testament, when the pro-- when the psalmist says, "Save me, Lord," do you think he's talking about take me to heaven? No. He's saying, "Save me. I'm in desperate need right now. You gotta come to the rescue. I need some help." And God saves us eternally, but he also s- that eternity starts when we put our faith in Jesus.

So we got things to do even [00:38:00] in these wretched old bodies until we get to that one. We got prayers to offer. We got faith to share. We've got love to show. We've got an image of God to portray And so Paul is saying, "You'll be saved, not just a ticket to heaven, but saved eternally and saved to work now." Now, here I think he's got his eye more toward the eternal 'cause he quotes Joel in a moment, and Joel's salvation from the day of the Lord, the day of judgment.

But you read Ephesians, "By grace you've been saved through faith, not by works, lest any man should boast. But we're his workmanship. We are created in Christ. We are saved for the purpose of good works that he set out before us to do." So Paul's got it all put together here. With the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is, and is [00:39:00] saved.

By the way, he's just carved his name on the bridge again. We've got another chiasm here See if you see it. If you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord, believe in your heart God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. Confess with your mouth, mouth is A, heart is B. Confess A, believe B. And then look at the next verse.

For with the heart, so you got heart, that's the B, one believes and is justified. And with the mouth, one confesses and is saved. See, he's inverted them. He's done the arch. He's done the chiasm. He wants you to understand the thrust of this is your faith [00:40:00] Your faith in God. And that's just, uh, one of his signatures.

I mean, he threw it up there on the bridge. That's the creed at the crown. We've got a few minutes, let's do the w- wideness words. Because the scripture says everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame. Remember we talked earlier about the Isthmus Games, and the guys are running, and there's a rock, and, and Israel stumbles on the rock And who put the rock there?

God says, 'I did. I'm laying in Zion a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense.' But whoever believes in Jesus won't be put to shame. That's Paul's quote in Romans 10:11. The Scripture says, 'Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.' And there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, because the same Lord is the Lord of all.[00:41:00]

He bestows his riches on all who call him If you go back to another lesson here, I talked to you about, uh, King Croesus and, and the consumer test of the gods he did, where he sent the missives out. And, and the Oracle at Delphi is the one who w- was accurate and, and could say what the king was doing 100 days later when nobody knew.

But we talked about it, and I said, "What was the cost of getting a word from the gods?" Well, you had to travel, you had to pay, you had to wait, and then you got a riddle you couldn't trust. But Paul is saying the opposite. He's saying the Word of God has come to you, it's in your heart, and it's clear. And it's not you paying to get the Word of God.

None of you are paying God for His Word. Don't even begin to think you [00:42:00] could. You're not paying God for it. God, who has everything, is giving you the riches. The Lord of all is bestowing His riches on all who call Him. That's why the guy sucking on the hot dog in the stand, who never entered the race, who never trained, who never took the blocks, who never spent the race, that's why that picture should come back to you, because everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.

Everyone. This is the, the pinnacle of nine through 11, but it's no different than what Paul set out as his summary statement in Romans 1. "I'm not ashamed of the death, burial, and resurrection," i.e. gospel, "of Christ." It's the power of God to save. Save everyone who believes. The Jew first, but [00:43:00] also the hotdog-sucking Greek

Because in the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith. As it's written, "The righteous will live by faith." Go back to Babel

In that chiasm The people said, "Let us make a name for ourselves. We will build into the heavens. We will transport ourself to God."

Paul s-- that, by the way, didn't work out well for them. Remember that Paul says it differently. He says, "Don't build your ziggurat, don't bu- build your [00:44:00] tower to reach up to God."

But everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved This is not about us making a name for ourselves This is about us calling on the name that is above every other name. Remember what his name mean? It's like your resume. It's who you are. It's your character. It's what you've done. It's your reputation.

It's your curriculum vitae Everyone who, what did the Lord do? What does it mean to call on the name of the Lord? What did the Lord do? He died, was buried, and resurrected for your sins. You call on that. It's not about making a name for yourself. [00:45:00] And that's our first point for home. Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord.

You got people on your heart that you want to know Jesus Everyone has that person's name on it, in it. Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. Don't ever get too far removed from that. Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved Go back to the ziggurat The people are working their way to God, they are ascending to Him, and that ascent brought judgment.

But God, Paul says, in Christ has descended to us. God's descent [00:46:00] brought the Word, not just the capital W Word that became flesh and dwelt among us, but the word that is in our mouth, the word that we proclaim, kerux, so the word that we, we herald And that's our second point for home. That word is near to us.

It's in our mouth, and it's in our heart. The word is near you in your mouth and your heart. Let's give that word. Paul will say later, "How are people gonna believe if they don't hear? How are people gonna hear if people don't take the word?" We got a word that's in our mouth, that's in our heart. It's the most important word we can tell people, and sometimes we have to tell it to them by the way we love them and the way we live because they're not gonna listen as well as they will watch[00:47:00]

Books on tape are never as good as the movie

Back to the ziggurat. The ascent led to babbling. By the way, do you know where we get the word babble? From the word that's translated here, Babylon, the Tower of Babel. Babble, babble, babble, babble, babble, babble, babble. Nonsense syllables But when God descended, the resurrected Christ

You have the Holy Spirit coming down at Pentecost, and you have the exact opposite of what happened at Babel. Now everybody can understand in their own language The word [00:48:00] makes sense And that's our third point for home. What we need to understand is the keystone that holds everything together in Paul's argument has a name on it, and it's not Fabrikas, it's Jesus is Lord And that is the keystone.

That is the center of Paul's argument. That is what keeps our failures from crumbling down and what gives us a bridge that makes sense That keystone, God wrote that name, Jesus is Lord, on the keystone And Paul does not want us to miss it. Amen? Amen. All right, we're gonna do Romans 12 next week, but let me give you a lunch topic.

By the way, several of y'all did email me and said your lunch topic last week. If you'll recall, the lunch topic [00:49:00] last week was did any of this make sense? Some of you said yes, some of you said no. Um, here's your lunch topic. If you go back and, uh, look at the Bible and the rabbis, the rabbis said if you take the Old Testament law, there are 613 commandments you need to do

If you take David's synopsis in Psalm 24 that Pastor Jarrett preached on this morning, there are four who may ascend the hill of the Lord, who may stand in his holy place. Clean hands, pure heart

Clean hands, pure heart, uh, something else, and then, uh, oaths, uh, don't, uh, swear falsely. I forgot what the third one was, but there was a third one in there. There are four. Isaiah's got six he lists. Micah, what does the Lord require of you? He's got it reduced down to three: [00:50:00] do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God.

Jesus, the whole law can be put down into two: love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind, love your neighbor as yourself. The whole law, that's it. It's all wrapped up into two. Paul's got it wrapped up into one: Jesus is Lord. Amen? Amen. Okay, let me pray over you, and I'll see you, God willing, at 9:30 next week in the FLC.

Lord, we ask your blessings upon us today as we go about To proclaim your salvation to this world, to confess not just with our mouth and not just believe with our heart, but to live a life showing Jesus is Lord The loving, wonderful, self-giving Jesus is Lord

We thank you for that. And [00:51:00] we confess with our mouth, Jesus is Lord, our Lord, Lord of all, but ours personally, as we trust in our hearts that you raised Him from the dead on our accord. So it's in His mighty power, His name, His, His deeds that we pray to you and approach you. Amen.