Romans 10:1-17 | Prayerful Proclamation (2)

I want to speak with you today about evangelism. That’s a Churchy word and so I’ll understand if you don’t really know what that means. But evangelism is simply the practice declaring your faith in Jesus Christ.

Evangelism is pointing people to Jesus with your words! It’s introducing people to Jesus and inviting them to begin a personal and intimate relationship with Him.

And I know, that whenever someone like myself gets up front of a crowd like this and starts talking about Evangelism, all sorts of things are happening in your brains.

Some of you are excited, maybe you have the gift of evangelism and it gets you going to talk with the lost about Jesus. The rest of us are probably less enthusiastic. We may even feel guilty that we don’t talk about Jesus enough, and if that’s you, perhaps you’re thinking of checking out on me right at the moment. The last thing you need is guilt trip! And so you’re gonna go to your happy place, you’re gonna spend the next 30 min. setting your fantasy football schedule.

If that’s you, here’s a hot tip, if you’ve got Browns or Bears players, just bench them all.

But seriously I get it, as Christians who care enough about Jesus to come to Church fairly regularly most of us know that we ought to be sharing our faith and most of us feel guilty about how regularly we fail to do so. So some of you are getting ready to check out, and some others of you are interested to what I have to say. I hope Levi, gives me a tract or 12 steps to sharing my faith with my co-worker so I can do the thing already, check it off the religious to do list and get back to just living with my head down, living my life with Jesus under the radar!

And before we get into anything this morning, I just want all y’all to pump the brakes!

It’s true we are a people who prayer for others in the moment and point them to Jesus, but this looks vitally different than what most of us think. And if you would come with me on a journey through Romans 10, I think you will discover that the pressures off and that this is actually easier and far more natural and less awkward than most of us think or make it out to be!

So open your Bibles with me and we’re going to look at Romans 10:1-17 in three parts.

V. 1 we’ll see the heart of Evangelism: A longing for the lost to know Jesus.

vv. 2-13 we’ll see the message of Evangelism and let me just say, it is insanely good news for our crazy busy culture! The message is that Jesus offers us love over lists!

Then vv. 14-17 we’ll see the Lifeline of Evangelism, the privilege and joy that it is to lead others to Jesus.

So we’re gonna unpack Romans in these 3 points, and my hope is that by the end you will not only see that we are a people who pray for others in the moment and point them to Jesus, but that you will be inspired and empowered to live further up and further in to this Identity as a child of King Jesus.

Sound good?

Alright, firstly: Romans 10:1 The heart of Evangelism: longing for the lost to know Jesus and be saved. Read it with me. Paul writes:

Romans 10:1 (NLT)

1 Dear brothers and sisters, the longing of my heart and my prayer to God is for the people of Israel to be saved.

Paul is writing here about his ancestors, relatives, and friends. Paul was a Jew of noble birth, an Israelite of Israelites, educated at the Harvard of Jewish culture, surrounded by deeply Jewish circles, and zealous for all things Jewish. Like many powerful Jews of his day, Paul initially despised Jesus, seeing Him as a liar and lunatic. If Paul wasn’t in the mob that crucified Jesus, his people certainly were.

But if you know the story—and it’s ok if you don’t, you can read it later in Acts 9—you’d find that Paul’s name used to be Saul. Saul made it his life’s mission to hunt down Christians, until King Jesus blinded him and knocked him off his high horse! Jesus told him to stop persecuting His followers and start proclaiming Jesus to both Jews and gentiles. And that’s what Saul—now Paul—began to do. Saul the murderer met the risen King Jesus, who then sent him out as a missionary to the world.

But Paul was and remained a Jew. His elite Jewish circles, his religious standing—he must have lost friends and family when he chose Jesus over the religious status quo of the day. These were his people, raised in the same traditions, and most of them were lost. They didn’t recognize or submit to Jesus as King; they didn’t believe in Him as God or follow Him or call upon Him.

Yes, they were Jewish, but bloodlines don’t bring salvation. Salvation has always been about faith in God, not heredity. The only blood that matters is Jesus’ blood—and you have a choice to be covered by it or not.

This is the heart of evangelism, and it’s Paul’s heart: he longs for the lost to be saved, to be found in Jesus Christ. Over and above every other longing, Paul’s heart longed for his friends, his family, his co-workers and fellow Harvard grads to know Jesus!

Do you?

As a Church, this is why Crossroads exists friends. We exist to help the lost get found by Jesus and to help those who have been found learn to live and walk in Christ’s freedom.

This is what we long for! This is what our hearts beat for. It’s what King Jesus’ heart beats for! He longs, we long for the lost to get found and the found to live free! And we pray for God to make it so! We pray to God, because this is a God sized problem! It’s a work only He can do! Not by power or by might, By the Spirit of the Living God!

The heart of Evangelism is a longing for the lost to be found and freed by Jesus in salvation and if that’s the heart, then we must ask a followup question, how is it then that someone is saved or found by Christ!?

Or to ask it another way, what’s the message of Evangelism?

Look with me at the next 14 verses — Romans 10:2-13 — and we will see the message of Evangelism, is a loving relationship with Jesus over a religious list of rules.

Romans 10:2–13 (NLT)

2 I know what enthusiasm they have for God, but it is misdirected zeal. 3 For they don’t understand God’s way of making people right with himself. Refusing to accept God’s way, they cling to their own way of getting right with God by trying to keep the law. 4 For Christ has already accomplished the purpose for which the law was given. As a result, all who believe in him are made right with God. 5 For Moses writes that the law’s way of making a person right with God requires obedience to all of its commands. 6 But faith’s way of getting right with God says, “Don’t say in your heart, ‘Who will go up to heaven?’ (to bring Christ down to earth). 7 And don’t say, ‘Who will go down to the place of the dead?’ (to bring Christ back to life again).” 8 In fact, it says, “The message is very close at hand; it is on your lips and in your heart.” And that message is the very message about faith that we preach: 9 If you openly declare that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For it is by believing in your heart that you are made right with God, and it is by openly declaring your faith that you are saved. 11 As the Scriptures tell us, “Anyone who trusts in him will never be disgraced.” 12 Jew and Gentile are the same in this respect. They have the same Lord, who gives generously to all who call on him. 13 For “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

Firstly, Paul tells us what lostness looks like. And this is gonna sound familiar.

He says the lost are zealous! (vv. 2-4) They are zealous to be right in their own eyes and on their own! Now they do this in the name of god, god with a small g. Folks everyone, everywhere is worshipping some god and we all are trying to be right before whatever god it is that we’re serving! The problem is that the lost person’s zeal is misguided, it’s misdirected because the don’t know the One True God, they don’t humbly submit to Him and they don’t have the knowledge of how to be made right before Him!

So what they end up doing is establishing a list of rules that they think make them right and then they zealously and violently, enthusiastically, strive to follow those rules!

Does this sound like anyone you know?

Does anyone know any zealous person who is violently trying to be right in their life? Think of all the virtue signalling and all the arguments online, between families and friends. The lost are zealous to be right before their god. They work and strive in so many ways to be right before their god, the god of social justice and wokeness, the god of wealth, prosperity and health, the god of security, the god of economic stability, the god of politics, the donkey and the elephant, the god of success, the god of sports, the god of the American dream.

Each of these things, if we turn them into idols, or lower case g Gods, these idols will all have a list of rules on how you can be right and the lost exhaust themselves in trying to live up to them!

Look at the text, this is what the Israelites said then, this is what they are saying now, this is what every lost person says by how they live

Romans 10:5–7 (NLT)

5 For Moses writes that the law’s way of making a person right with God requires obedience to all of its commands. 6 But faith’s way of getting right with God says, “Don’t say in your heart, ‘Who will go up to heaven?’ (to bring Christ down to earth). 7 And don’t say, ‘Who will go down to the place of the dead?’ (to bring Christ back to life again).”

Moses taught us, Ghandi taught us, the 30,000 gods of Hinduism teach us, Alah the God of the Isalm teaches, Joseph Smith and the Mormons, the Jehovah’s Witnesses, The cult of sex, the god of success, the list goes on these small g gods all teach us, we must go up to Heaven to get God. We must descend to the depths to get god! God is far off, he’s mostly upset with us and too big and important to be bothered by us tiny and insignificant humans so we must strive to follow his rules and try to get to Him!

This is the message of every religion ever. Here’s your rules, follow them if you want to get to whatever demonic god it is that stands at the end of them!

And this friends is not the message of Evangelism! Jesus is the only God who does not lead into a lists of rules but rather He leads into a loving relationship with Himself!

His Love compels Him to come to us because He knows we will never be able to get to Him on our own!

So Paul says don’t say, how will I go up to get Christ or how will I go down to get to Christ!

Don’t say that. Don’t live as if that were true! It’s not! It’s not true friends. You don’t have to strive to get to Jesus! The beautiful news of the gospel is that Christ, God has come to you and He’s come to you with Love not condemnation!!

Romans 10:8–13 (NLT)

8 In fact, it says, “The message is very close at hand; it is on your lips and in your heart.” And that message is the very message about faith that we preach: 9 If you openly declare that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For it is by believing in your heart that you are made right with God, and it is by openly declaring your faith that you are saved. 11 As the Scriptures tell us, “Anyone who trusts in him will never be disgraced.” 12 Jew and Gentile are the same in this respect. They have the same Lord, who gives generously to all who call on him. 13 For “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

Look at the simplicity of this message friends. Jesus came for you. Jesus died for you! Jesus raised to new life so you could find life in Him, by knowing Him, not following a list of rules! This message is a message of love Church and relationship. Look at how many times your heart is mentioned! Anyone who trusts or entrusts themselves in Jesus will be saved! Anyone who would call out and keep calling out to Jesus will be saved! If you would trust the truth of this message and simply call out to this Jesus, He’ll do the rest!

Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be found by Him, and those that keep on calling upon Him will be set free by Him!

This is the essence of saving faith, to call upon Jesus and to keep calling on Jesus in a conversational and intimate relationship!

Friends, if you’re spirit, if your soul doesn’t just breathe a sigh of relief upon hearing this Truth, you’re not listening! You’re not mopping up what Jesus is spilling here!

Let me help you pick up what this means!

I’ve been on a John Eldredge kick recently. John is a Christian author who’s been highly influential over the last 20 years helping people understand God’s Word and walk in the beauty of its truth as men and as women who are children of the King.

I recently read his marriage book entitled Love and War. It’s phenomenal. I just finished his book called Resilient, also, phenomenal. And I just started a book he wrote called Walking with God. I haven’t gotten to the first chapter yet but already I’m hooked.

Let me read you part of the introduction:

“It is our deepest need, as human beings, to learn to live intimately with God. It is what we were made for.

Back in the beginning of our story, before the fall of man, before we sent the world spinning off its axis, there was a paradise called Eden. In that garden of life as it was meant to be, there lived the first man and woman. Their story is important to us because whatever it was they were, and whatever it was they had, we also were meant to be and to have. And what they enjoyed above all the other delights of that place was this—they walked with God. They talked with him, and He with them.

For this you and I were made. And this we must recover.

I’ve spent too many years trying to figure out life on my own. Reading books, attending classes, always keeping an eye out for folks who seemed to be getting the hang of things. I’d notice that the neighbors’ kids seemed to be doing well, and I’d think to myself, What do they do that I’m not doing? Their kids are in sports. Maybe I should get mine in sports. I’d walk away from a conversation with someone who seemed to be on top of the world, and afterward I’d think, She seems so well-read. I’m not reading enough. I should read more. I’d hear that a colleague was doing well financially, and quickly I’d jump to, He spends time managing his money. I ought to do that. We do this all the time, all of us, this monitoring and assessing and observing and adjusting, trying to find the keys to make life work.

In context of our passage this morning, you should hear echos of the lostness in there. We enthusiastically, zealous try to get our lives right! And

We end up with quite a list.

But the only lasting fruit it seems to bear is that it ties us up in knots. Am I supposed to be reading now, or exercising, or monitoring my fat intake, or creating a teachable moment with my kids?

What’s the next box that needs checked off my list to make my life right?

The good news is you can’t figure out life like that. You can’t possibly master enough principles and disciplines to ensure that your life works out. You weren’t meant to, and God won’t let you. For he knows that if we succeed without him, we will be infinitely further from him. We will come to believe terrible things about the universe—things like I can make it on my own and If only I try harder, I can succeed. That whole approach to life—trying to figure it out, beat the odds, get on top of your game—it is utterly godless. Meaning entirely without the God of Heaven. He is nowhere in those considerations. That sort of scrambling smacks more of the infamous folks who raised the tower of Babel than it does of those who walked with God in the garden in the cool of the day.

In the end, I’d much rather have God.

You might have heard the old saying “Give someone a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach someone to fish, and you feed him for the rest of his life.” The same holds true for life itself. If you give someone an answer, a rule, a principle, you help him solve one problem. But if you teach him to walk with God, well then, you’ve helped him solve the rest of his life. You’ve helped him tap into an inexhaustible source of guidance, comfort, and protection.

Really now, if you knew you had the opportunity to develop a conversational intimacy with the wisest, kindest, most generous and seasoned person in the world, wouldn’t it make sense to spend your time with that person, as opposed to, say, slogging your way through on your own?

Whatever our situation in life—butcher, baker, candlestick maker—our deepest and most pressing need is to learn to walk with God. To hear his voice. To follow him intimately. It is the most essential turn of events that could ever take place in the life of any human being, for it brings us back to the source of life. Everything else we long for can then flow forth from this union.

And you can have this union, if you would but call up on Christ!

This friends is our message! It’s the message of Evangelism. God offers to you and me a Loving relationship over a list of rules! He has come to us in Christ and invited us to walk with Him, to call upon Him in any and all of life’s moments! Everyone. Who calls upon the name of the Lord Jesus will be saved. They will be found. They will be freed!

The good news of Jesus is a deep sigh of relief and a lifeline for those striving to make their lives right! It’s so insanely simple and so full of rest and life!

And those who live in light of it, they are made beautiful by the grace of the message!

Which brings us to our final point.

The Lifeline of Evangelism: Leading people to Jesus vv. 14-17.

Romans 10:14–17 (NLT)

14 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? That is why the Scriptures say, “How beautiful are the feet of messengers who bring good news!” 16 But not everyone welcomes the Good News, for Isaiah the prophet said, “Lord, who has believed our message?” 17 So faith comes from hearing, that is, hearing the Good News about Christ.

The lost are endlessly, zealously striving to find life and it’s killing them! Those of you who’ve been found, those of you who’ve learned to call on the name of the Lord Jesus, those of you who’ve developed a “conversational intimacy with the wisest, kindest, most generous and seasoned person in the world,” you’ve found rest because you’ve been found by God and extended a lifeline in the person and work of Jesus Christ.

And if you’ve experienced the truth and beauty of walking with God in union with Christ, well then evangelism becomes not a list you must do, but an extension of you’re being.

As life happens, you’ve learned to call upon the name of the Lord and He guides, directs and loving leads you along way.

Evangelism for you then is nothing more than simply inviting others into your conversation with Jesus.

You pray for others in the moment, because you’re always taking things to the Lord in prayer, calling upon His name and you can easily point others to Jesus, because you’ve experienced time and time again, Jesus show up in your life to save, redeem, restore, challenge, convict, guide, comfort, heal, free, protect, vindicate, and care for your weary soul!

The heart of evangelism is a longing for the lost to know Jesus as you do.

The message is that you can’t, but Jesus can, does and will if you call upon Him.

This is a lifeline you experience on the daily and so of course, you extend it to the lost around you whenever the opportunity presents itself.

We are a people who pray for others in the moment and point them to Jesus.

Of course we are! How could we be anything less or different?

Alright now with that said, we’re going to shift gears a little bit and celebrate communion and we’re going to do that a little bit differently.

Communion is a symbol that Jesus gave to us to help us remember the beautiful truths of His Gospel.

The bread represents His body broken for us and the juice represents His blood shed for us.

That’s His work and the provision that was made by Jesus. He came to us and He gave Himself for us.

The table has been set so to speak and we have an opportunity to respond.

We have an opportunity to take of Christ’s body and His blood and to consume Him.

I want you to talk your hands and place them together in a prayer hands like the emoji, like this (show).

Now I want you to interlock your fingers. This Church is what Christ is inviting us into. He’s invite us to take Himself into our being, to be united with Him.

As you take of the bread and the cup this morning I want you to think about what the bread and juice are going to do as they pass into your body and meditate on what happens to us when we call on the name of the Lord.

In the same way we take in the bread and juice, Jesus invites us to call upon Him and to take Him into our being so that our bodies become a temple of His Holy Spirit! In a real sense you and I become united with the God of heaven and we now have access to Him whenever and wherever! We can spiritually walk with God as Adam and Eve walked with God in the cool of the morning in the garden!

This is what communion is meant to represent and remind us of.

So with that in mind, allow me to pray over you the prayer that Christ Jesus prayed over you in John 17 and then leave you to participate, to celebrate and meditate on it as you take of the bread and cup together.

Jesus prayed this for us:

Holy Father, you have given me your name; now protect them by the power of your name so that they will be united just as we are.

 Make them holy by your truth; teach them your word, which is truth.  Just as you sent me into the world, I am sending them into the world. And I give myself as a holy sacrifice for them so they can be made holy by your truth.

 “I am praying not only for these disciples but also for all who will ever believe in me through their message. 21 I pray that they will all be one, just as you and I are one—as you are in me, Father, and I am in you. And may they be in us so that the world will believe you sent me.

 “I have given them the glory you gave me, so they may be one as we are one.  I am in them and you are in me. May they experience such perfect unity that the world will know that you sent me and that you love them as much as you love me.

 “O righteous Father, the world doesn’t know you, but I do; and these disciples know you sent me. 26 I have revealed you to them, and I will continue to do so. Then your love for me will be in them, and I will be in them.”

Jesus make it so. Unite us to yourself. Help us call upon you and experience union with you!

'Now, as you partake, reflect on this profound union Christ has made possible. Let this be a moment of intimate communion with our Lord and with each other.