How Beautiful the Feet
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Text: Romans 10:12-17
12 For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him. 13 For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”14 How then will they 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? 15 And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!” 16 But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?” 17 So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.
This is the Word of the Lord
Background- Paul is addressing in Romans 9 and 10 that Israel does not believe. He is showing the Roman church that salvation no longer belongs to the ethnic Israel alone, but it is open to anyone, Jew or Greek. Further, in this passage, he is going out of his way to show that you cannot be complacent in just accepting that you are saved for some reason of being born into it, but you must call on the name of the Lord, and now, because of Jesus, anyone can call on Him.
So as we begin today, im gonna look at 3 different takeaways from Paul’s writing here. The first being that we have been given this incredible good news! The second that there are people who have never and could never hear the good news.
And lastly that we are called to share this good news and how we can share it.
Pray with me
Lord we come to you ready to receive your good news. We come humble servants, not fit to carry your Gospel, but used by you anyways. Lord let us understand your word better, let eyes and ears be opened and let our mouths be loosened, that we may glorify your name everywhere we go. Father I ask that you use me as I preach your message and that despite me, your name be glorified. In your Son’s name, amen.
Let’s look at that passage one more time – Romans 10:12-17
Good News
-How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news-
What a line, right? Paul is pulling straight from Isaiah 52:7 here, which I will read quickly.
How beautiful upon the mountains
are the feet of him who brings good news,
who publishes peace, (B)who brings good news of happiness,
who publishes salvation,
who says to Zion, “Your God reigns.”
So what is this good news mean to Isaiah? Well he says “good news of happiness”. He also says “who publishes salvation”. But mostly it is that Our God Reigns. How great is that? Now how does Paul mean it when he quotes this from Isaiah? For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. Paul does mean Salvation. So often we see this is scripture. From the Psalms we see David say in Psalm 18, "I call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised, and I am saved from my enemies." God is one to be called upon to be saved.
But Paul is getting at something important here, people must call God him to be saved.
So many of you don’t know me but I spent 2 years in China and while I was there we partnered with a group from the International Mission Board. One of the things they taught us was how to share the gospel in Chinese. They gave us a 15 minute little schpiel for us to learn and eventually we learned it and now its my favorite illustration ever. See, really this entire point that im getting at about the good news is to remind us that we have this infinitely good news and I wanna share it with yall before I move on.
So we do this really cool thing with the story of the Gospel in China. We come at it from an honor shame lens. Basically, the people group we worked with viewed things less in a justice and legal sense, and more in what brings honor and shame to a family. So we talk about how our first fathers sin, Adam and Eve, how they broke, well, shattered the relationship with God on their end. But then we told them that God provided a way to fix this relationship in Jesus. But before we got to Christ’s death and resurrection, we wanted to show something that has been forever been my favorite way to share the Gospel with our Chinese friends. We tell 4 stories. We talk about Jesus calming the storm, and we end that with “Jesus is greater than nature.” Then we tell the story of feeding the five thousand and we say “Jesus is greater than our needs”. See the people we worked with were farmers and slaves to the weather so Jesus does need to be greater than nature or our needs. They also were animists and relied on shaman to control the spirits and weather. So then we tell the story of Jesus casting out the demons from the demon possessed man and we say “Jesus is greater than spirits”. So we’re ramping up here, we hit their dependency on weather for farming, their religion, and then we go for the big one. We tell them the story of Lazarus, that “Jesus is greater than even death.” And then we hit Jesus death and pause. He is greater than all these things but died. So when we hit the resurrection, its this glorious thing, this Jesus who was greater than all of these things is back alive to provide for his people. So before I continue today, I just want to remind you of the Good News. That despite our ruined and wrecked relationship with God on our own, Christ came to repair that relationship, and despite hardships and hunger, bad weather and even death, He is so much greater and so much more worth it all, that is the good news folks, that is the good news that we carry. Our God is Greater.
Jesus is greater and that’s final. Moving on to the next point.
How will they hear?
So now that I have given the Good News, lets get to the Bad News. Paul uses a pretty solid logical argument here. Let me read it in the NLT for you guys real quick.
But how can they call on him to save them unless they believe in him? And how can they believe in him if they have never heard about him? And how can they hear about him unless someone tells them? 15 And how will anyone go and tell them without being sent?
There are people in the world who are unable to call on the Lord because they just have not heard the word. Earlier in Romans Paul has already addressed people who do not call on the name of Jesus. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. All of us is in sin, but at least, praise the Lord, we know the Good News. But the sad reality is that without hearing the Word of God, the Good News that we have, these people will not escape God’s judgement.
And I could stand up here and give you all the statistics about people all around the world. People in China who are unreached, people in Indonesia who are unreached where Pastor Heath is going this week. And these people are certainly important! But let me not overcorrect towards the unreached and ignore your neighbor. There are refugees in your back yard. There are international students. There are homeless people. There are so many lost people in your day to day life that may never hear and accurate picture of the Gospel. Guys, there are just lost people everywhere!
Look at Paul’s words again, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach good news”. What he doesn’t say is “how beautiful are the feet of those who might preach the good news” That is a completely certain statement that Paul makes here. How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news. No ifs or mights but just certainty.
Now, we’re gonna come back to this on our last point but I just want to read one more passage from Romans that Paul gives us and what it means for us sharing the Good News.
Romans 13:8-10
Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law.(I) 9 The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery,” “You shall not murder,” “You shall not steal,” “You shall not covet,”[a](J) and whatever other command there may be, are summed up(K) in this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”[b](L) 10 Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.(M)
How does this relate to the other passage? It means that we are called to love our neighbors and if we really love our neighbors, then we will share the Good News with them. I often hear this compared to a burning building, you have neighbors and want to tell them, hey the building is on fire, get out of the house! We live our lives surrounded by people who have not called on Jesus, their house is on fire. We are called to love them, to share this wonderful beautiful good news with them.
So I want to say that yes, we are called as a church to go to the unreached, to support those going, to help equip and send and encourage and pray. But by no means is that all the work we have to do. We also need to be those who love and carry the Gospel to those who are your neighbors. Farmers, bankers, nurses, teachers, you are all called to share this Good News everyday.
So, lets move to my last point, how do we share the Gospel?
We see that Paul rightly points out that for someone to call out to Jesus for salvation, they must hear the Good News. Which means we must be carrying to Good News to others.
I feel like as Americans we usually are handed two options on how to share the gospel. I learned one way as a child and my grandfather who is a pastor in north alabama learned another way. They way he learned was that we can go on the street and tell people the Gospel. The way I learned was that we can just love our neighbors and hope that one day they ask about why I love them so well, we can “live out the gospel.”
Let me push back on both of those right now.
Now, the Holy Spirit can and does work in any way that He chooses so please do not hear my dismissing these but let me ask two questions.
Where is the rest of your love for your neighbor if you just share the gospel with them and do not pour into their lives otherwise? And following that, where is your love for your neighbor if you pour into their lives but never ever share Jesus with them?
In David Platt’s newest books he talks about Jesus and how he didn’t just walk around talking. He wept over those in need and provided for them. He befriended people. He called Zaccheus but also ate with him. He fed and provided and healed all while sharing the Good News. He didn’t just share the News and move on. He cared for people.
On the other end of the spectrum, I have heard it said before
Preach the gospel always use words if necessary
But one of my professors likes to say about that quote, Preach the gospel always use words if necessary is like feed the hungry, use food if necessary.
Another pastor said that you cant live out the front page of the news, you talk about it, so you cant live out the Good News without talking about it. These two guys points being, you cant just love people and hope they learn about Jesus through just your actions. And you cant just talk about Jesus but not love others like him.
That passage we read just now from Paul, the entirety of the law is fulfilled in Love. In Christ’s love for us and our love for others.
So lets look once more at the Original passage
How then will they 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? 15 And how are they to preach unless they are sent?
So I have two more related stories for you before I close us out.
- Nosu story – told twice
- Gary story
My point being, that no matter where you are, the Lord is putting people in your lives that he wants you to share the gospel with. There are neighbors who have never heard the gospel or maybe never experienced the love of Christ paired with the gospel. Friends, we are called to love our neighbor. We are called to these peoples. How will they call on Jesus if that haven’t believed? And how will they believe if they haven’t heard? And how are they supposed to hear or understand without someone preaching the Good News and showing them the Love of Christ?
So as we close, remember the sweet Good News that we have, that the Creator of everything came down to reconcile us to Him. That he died and was raised from the dead for us. Remember that there are people who cannot call on Jesus that will not hear if no one tells them. And remember that we are called to love others, that we are the feet that carry the Good News in our daily lives, on mission trips, but also just across the street.
Let us pray.