How Are They to Preach Unless They Are Sent?

Romans 10:5-17

Introduction

What is the missing link in the task of bringing the Good News to a world that desperately needs to hear it?

The world is growing exponentially.

The number of people who have no access to the gospel gets bigger every day.

Right now, there are over eight billion people in the world.

Of that eight billion, only 4% profess to be evangelical Christians.

Billions of people live in places or among people groups where the gospel is unknown. These people have never seen a church and never met a Christian.

There are no Bibles available for them to read.

They will grow up, live, and die without ever hearing the truth about who Jesus is and what He has done.

These people will face the judgment seat of God based on their own record of sin, and in perfect justice they will be condemned.

Our missionary efforts are not keeping up with the growth of the world’s population, and we are certainly not completing the task of making disciples of all people groups on earth.

What is the key to turning that around?

Different people give different answers to that question, from political stability and world peace to the development of new technologies.

According to this passage of Scripture, however, we are the key.

More specifically, you are the missing component in the missionary enterprise.

You, as a church that loves Jesus and believes His word, are the essential ingredient in getting the gospel to all the peoples of the earth.

The Apostle Paul wrote it to a church he did not start and that he had never visited. He did so because he needed their help to carry out his missionary calling. He had spent years sharing the gospel and starting churches in the eastern regions of the Roman empire. He now wanted to go to Spain, at the other end of the Mediterranean Sea, because no one had taken the gospel there yet. In order to get there, he needed to pass through Rome, which lay right in the middle of his route. He hoped that the church in Rome, which had been started by anonymous Christians at some point during the decades since Jesus died and rose again, would become a missionary sending partner with him. He hoped that they would receive him and help him on his way. He wrote the letter to tell them the things they needed to know about what he believed, and what he preached, so that they could feel confident in supporting his ministry. In the process, Paul lays out one of the most thorough presentations of the gospel that we find in the New Testament. 

The letter begins with the exposure of the devastating problem which the gospel solves.

That problem is sin. The nature of sin is rebellion against God, and everyone on earth is a sinner. 

No one is righteous. No one seeks after God. No one does good. 

Everyone has sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. It doesn’t matter if you are a Jew or a Gentile, a good religious person or a rank pagan. Every person in the world has rebelled against God, and as a result, everyone deserves God’s judgment. 

We have gotten ourselves into a mess that we cannot get ourselves out of. We need righteousness to stand before God, but we are not righteous. We are all sinners.

If this were the end of the story, we would have no hope. 

However, God has done an amazing thing – He has given us His own righteousness as a free gift! He did this through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Jesus redeemed us by living a completely righteous life, and then dying the death we deserved to die, taking on Himself the wrath of God that we deserved to receive. He took the guilt and punishment of our sin and gave us His righteousness as a free gift. 

We receive this gift, not by working for it or earning it, but simply by believing in Him and trusting Him to save us. 

This is the heart of the gospel, and this is the message Paul preached. 

Jesus, the Messiah, God Himself in human flesh, became a man to be our substitute, living the life we should have lived and then dying the death we deserved to die. He rose from the dead as the conquering King of kings and Lord of lords. Everyone deserves condemnation from God, but everyone who believes in Jesus and trusts in Him for salvation will be saved. There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus!

Salvation Through Faith

This brings us to our text in Romans 10:5-17.

In this passage, Paul draws a direct line between his understanding of the gospel and his ministry as a missionary.

He begins in verses 5 with an allusion back to the words of Moses both in Leviticus (v.5) and then Deuteronomy (v. 6-8). Here Paul is not pitting the words of Moses against each other. The first reference in verse 5 is to Lev. 18:5 (quoted also in Gal. 3:12; and also Luke 10:28). As we read verse five, with New Testament eyes, we see this type of righteousness has been accomplished by Jesus himself. Only Jesus has lived a life that met the perfect standard the law requires.

In other words, Paul in verse 5 is pointing to the work that Jesus has done, Jesus completed.

Listen to me it is infinitely difficult, hard, and painful, in fact for us sinners impossible to satisfy the law demands. Jesus has already accomplished this for us.

Listen to me brothers and sisters, no sinner should today attempt to do what is impossible and unnecessary for him. This was the conclusion Paul made in Galatians, and it’s the same for our text today, as we will unpack together.

Verses 6-8, carry us back to the time when Moses was giving instructions to the people of Israel with respect to their entrance into the land of Canaan. He sets forth the curses that would be poured out upon the disobedient (Deut. 27:9–26), as well as the blessings that would be bestowed upon the obedient (Deut. 28:8–14). He then addresses each Israelite with similar words found in this verse 8. But Here’s the point that I don’t want us to miss today,

The point Moses emphasizes is that the law has been given to Israel in the context of grace, and that Canaan, which the people are about to enter, is God’s gift to them. In no sense was this gift the product of their own righteousness or their own effort. The connection to us brothers and sisters is that the really difficult task of obtaining our salvation is not for us to undertake. Jesus has done everything to make our salvation necessary

Religious people (today & in Paul’s Day) often complicate what God has made simple. Salvation doesn’t require climbing up to heaven or descending into the depths. Christ has already risen. He has already defeated sin and the grave. The good news is not hidden - it’s right here, in the Word we proclaim. The salvation that is offered is not offered to the elite few that can climb to heaven or figure out the depths. The gospel is near, it’s on our lips and in our hearts, and it is powerful enough to save all who believe.

Following this verse, Paul spells out again what a person must do to be saved. How a person obtains this gift of salvation. Let’s look back into the text, at verse 9;

“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” (Romans 10:9).

This involves both inward belief and outward confession.

It encompasses both who Jesus is – Jesus is Lord! – and what Jesus did – He died and rose again. A person is saved, then, by believing in the person and work of Jesus Christ, and by confessing to the world that He is your Lord.

Just to make it plain how free and universal this offer of salvation is, Paul summarizes by saying, “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” (Romans 10:13).

When Paul says early in the book of Romans that sinful people are justified by faith and not by their works, this is what he means. Jesus is Lord. He is God Himself in human flesh, the sovereign King of the universe. He died as the sacrifice for our sins and rose again from the dead. Everyone who calls on His name and puts their trust in Him is saved from their sin.

The Missionary Logic Of The Gospel

At this point, Paul applies divinely inspired logic to the gospel he has just preached. He does so through a series of questions.

The first question is this: “How will they call on him in whom they have not believed?” v. 14

In other words, just saying some words is not enough. Repeating a prayer that does not reflect the convictions of your heart will not save you. Yes, you must call on Jesus to save you, but you must call on Him from a believing heart. We are saved by grace through faith. The plan of salvation requires that sinners believe in Jesus before any words from their mouth can do them any good.

The second question begins the transition from the content of the gospel to the imperative of missions. “How are they to believe in Him of whom they have never heard?”

The expected answer, obviously, is, “They can’t!” Saving faith has a specific content. You have to hear about Jesus – who He is and what He did – in order to believe in Him. Saving faith is not a vague, general confidence in the goodness of God, nor a Pollyanna optimism about the future. Saving faith is confident trust in a specific message and a specific person with the specific name of Jesus. No one can be saved if they have never heard the message of the gospel. This is the greatest need of every man, woman and child on earth – to hear and believe the Good News about Jesus.

The third question completes the transition to the necessity of missions. “How are they to hear without someone preaching?”

Again, the obvious answer is, “They can’t!” No one can hear the gospel unless someone tells them. God did not give the task of evangelism to angels. The message of the gospel cannot be figured out by intuition from studying nature. The only way anyone can be saved is for someone who knows the gospel to go to them and tell them. This is God’s plan for the salvation of the world. This is why Jesus told His followers that they would be his witnesses from the place where they stood to the very ends of the earth. God’s method for saving sinners is for His people to go to every people group and every place in the world to tell everyone the glorious good news about who Jesus is and what He has done. Only those who hear can believe. Only those who believe can call on the name of the Lord, and only those who call on His name can be saved.

After 2000 years, you might think that we were at least close to finishing this task. We are not. As I already mentioned, there are literally billions of people who have no access to the gospel. Every day, we estimate that over 150,000 people die without ever hearing the gospel. Those people have no hope. Because they have never heard about Jesus, they have never believed in Him, and because they have never believed in Him, they are not saved. There is no Plan B. There is no way to be reconciled to God apart from hearing and believing the Good News. They must hear to be saved. The responsibility for making sure they have heard that gospel belongs to those of us who already know it. If you believe the biblical gospel, you also have to believe in the absolute necessity of missions.

The fourth question, though, adds a new wrinkle to the logic of the gospel. “How are they to preach unless they are sent?”

Individual Christians, by and large, are not in a position to get up and move to another continent all by themselves. They must be sent. There must be a group of believers who train them as disciples, who discern and affirm their call, and who gather the resources to send them. That group is called a church, and this is where everyone in this room comes into the picture. Missionaries must be sent, and they must be sent by churches like this one. Agencies like the International Mission Board exist to serve local churches in sending and supporting missionaries, but the responsibility lies with the church. You, as a local church that loves Jesus and believes the gospel, are the key to the fulfillment of the Great Commission.

How Do You Send?

In practical terms, what does it look like to be a sending church? I would like to challenge you to apply this text of Scripture to the life of your church by doing each of the following things.

First, PRAY.

We are convinced that prayer is essential to the success of the missionary task. God moves in response to prayer. We may not understand how it works, but God has commanded us to pray, and all of us have testimonies of ways that God has acted in incredible ways through our prayers.

How should you pray?

Ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest field (Matthew 9:38).

Pray that God would open doors for workers to go into places that have been closed to gospel witness.

Pray for your missionaries to have grace, courage, endurance, and joy.

Pray for their marriages and their children.

Pray that God would keep them faithful in sharing the gospel, and that He would accompany their words with His power to save.

Pray through the news, knowing that everything that happens is either an obstacle or an opportunity for your missionaries around the world.

Pray for the missionary faithfulness or your church.

The International Mission Board has incredible resources to help you in this ministry of prayer. Go to the IMB website, IMB.org, and click on the prayer button on the top of the opening page. I would encourage you to incorporate prayer for missions in every gathering of your church, from the Sunday morning service to small group Bible studies. Be a praying church that prays for missionaries and prays for the nations!

Next, GIVE!

Yes, I am talking about money. Did you know that we as Southern Baptists have one of the most incredible missionary support mechanisms in the world? It takes money to send and support a missionary. Most missionaries from other agencies have to go from church to church and friend to friend asking for financial support. It can take years for a missionary to raise enough money to go, and once they have moved overseas, their support typically begins to drop until they must leave their ministry and return to the States to raise support all over again. Southern Baptist decided to do things differently. We all raise support for all of us. We do this through two channels. One channel is called the Cooperative Program. Your church gives money each year to a denomination-wide pool, and that money is divided between your State Convention, our six seminaries, our North American Mission Board, a few other smaller agencies, and the International Mission Board. This provides a little over a third of the money needed to support our overseas missionaries. The second channel is called the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering. One hundred percent of this offering goes to support our missionaries around the world. Because of this system, IMB missionaries can concentrate on what God called them to do in reaching the nations with the gospel, without fearing that they will no longer be able to take care of their families.

Let me urge you to give generously to the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering, even as you continue to give as a church through the Cooperative Program.

We have unprecedented opportunities to take the gospel to the nations.

We have qualified candidates who want to go.

We have a goal of increasing our mission force by a net total of 500 missionaries in the next five years.

To do so, we need the funds to send them. As we celebrate Jesus’ birthday, let’s make sure that the biggest recipient of our generosity is the cause for which He came in the first place.

Third, SEND!

Send your members overseas. Send them short term and send them long term. Develop a partnership with a missionary team on the field and find ways to bless and help that team. Few things revolutionize a believer more than to go overseas in a well-planned short-term mission trip that is helpful to the workers on the ground. Studies have shown that people who go on mission trips pray more, give more, and are more likely to go long-term themselves. Be a sending church! Encourage each other to get involved. Raise your children and grandchildren to think it is a glorious thing to go to the nations. Be known as a church that sends.

Finally, GO!

Don’t just send others. Pray seriously about going yourself. For most of us, our default is to stay where we are unless God does something extraordinary to lead us to go. Let’s flip that on its head.

Don’t ask, “Why should I go?” Instead ask, “Why shouldn’t I go?”

After all, the command of Scripture is clear. The needs of the world are overwhelming. Your purpose for living, as a Christian, is to serve your King and live for His glory. I challenge everyone in this room to go to God in prayer, before this day is over, and honestly ask Him, “Why shouldn’t I go?”

Conclusion

The gospel that saved us also compels us to share it with others. That is the conclusion Paul reached in his letter to the Romans. Most of this amazing book of the Bible consists of a thorough, systematic explanation of the gospel. Paul went to such great detail, I believe, for two reasons.

First, he wanted the church in Rome to support his missionary endeavor in Spain, and he felt this was what they needed to know about him and his message in order to support him in good conscience.

Second, as far as Paul was concerned, the very content of the gospel was what made his missionary service imperative. Paul wrote Romans to encourage the Roman church to be an effective missionary-sending and missionary-supporting church.

That same challenge now comes your way. God, in his grace and mercy, got the gospel to you. With it comes the missionary imperative. Pray fervently for the advance of the gospel. Give generously so that missionaries can go. Send your best to the ends of the earth. And before you go to bed tonight, ask God honestly, “Why not me?”