Sermon Tone Analysis

I Am Not Ashamed: Beautiful Feet

Text: Romans 10:13-21

Theme: The gospel is for "whosoever".

Christians must preach it everywhere.

Date: 11/13/2016 File name: Romans_2016_31.wpd

ID Number: 229

"For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved" (v.

13).

Could the gospel message be any clearer than this?

Where, within the compass of one short verse, can be found a better statement of the scope, the simplicity, and the substance of the gospel?

I. THE GOSPEL IS FOR EVERYONE

“for, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

(Romans 10:13, NIV84)

A. THE SCOPE OF THE GOSPEL

1. the gospel is for whosoever

a. whosoever means anyone, and everyone can call upon the name of the Lord

1) Jew or Gentile can call upon the name of the Lord,

2) the young and the old can call upon the name of the Lord

3) the enslaved and the free can call upon the name of the Lord

4) the rich and the poor can call upon the name of the Lord

5) the cultured and the crude can call upon the name of the Lord

2. anyone can call upon the name of the Lord

a. the reach of the Gospel is not limited

B. THE SIMPLICITY OF THE GOSPEL

1. salvation is as simple as falling off the proverbial log

2. Paul tells us that salvation comes when one "calls upon the name of the Lord"

3. this harkens back to what he has just written to us in Romans 10:9-10

a. if the sinner will openly, unashamedly confess that "Jesus is Lord", and "believe in their heart that God has raised him from the dead" that person will be saved—they will be made righteous in God’s site because of the shed blood of Jesus

C. THE SUBSTANCE OF THE GOSPEL

1. the result of believing and confessing is that they "shall be saved"

a. to be saved is to be delivered from the power of sin and death

“He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us.

On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us,” (2 Corinthians 1:10, NIV84)

b. notice in that verse that our deliverance is past, present, and future

2. The Gospel Is for Everyone, and that means it’s for you if you’ve not yet been saved

II.

THE GOSPEL IS OUR ASSIGNMENT TO SHARE

“How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in?

And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard?

And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?” (Romans 10:14, NIV84)

1. most pastors like this verse—it justifies our existence

2. at the same time, I am under no illusion of what people think about preachers

a. we live in culture that finds preaching utterly ridiculous, and increasingly superfluous

b.

I’m familiar with the general opinions people have toward preaching

1) it’s generally too long

2) it’s generally too boring

3) it’s generally full of too many personal opinions

4) it’s generally too judgmental

5) it’s usually a waste of one’s time

6) it’s usually irrelevant

ILLUS.

An anonymous church goer of another time penned ...

I never see my preacher’s eyes

Tho’ they with light may shine—

For when he prays he closes his,

And when he preaches, I closes mine!

c. yet God still uses the preaching of his Word—an oral event—to edify the church, encourage the saints, and engage the lost

3. Paul tells us that it is through the foolishness of preaching that people will enter the Kingdom of God

a. the last clause in verse 14 is, And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?

ILLUS.

Imagine if the Apostle Paul could have been interviewed by TIME magazine or the New York Times newspaper 2,000 years ago:

Reporter, “So tell me, do you prefer Saul of Tarsus, or Paul the Apostle?”

Paul, “Just call me Paul.

Or a ‘servant of the Lord Jesus Christ’ would be fine, too.”

Reporter, “OK.

Paul.

Christianity is a new religion that is taking the culture by storm.

Can you tell us what your strategy is for reaching the Roman Empire?

What’s your big weapon?

Why are so many converting?”

Paul, “Our strategy is stand up in the Jewish Synagogue, and the Gentile market place, and preach about Jesus.”

Reporter, staring blankly, “That’s it?

That’s your big plan?

That’s your secret for changing the world?”

Paul, “Yep.”

b. and that plan has not changed, because it’s a God-ordained plan

4. and if you think preaching is a strange way to change the world, the message of our preaching is even stranger

“For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe.” (1 Corinthians 1:21, NIV84)

a. if you read closely, it’s not the foolishness of preaching that the Apostle refers to in

1 Cor.

1:21, but the foolishness of what is preached

1) think about it—think about the message of the Church ... a Jewish peasant, a common tradesman, from an obscure village, in a backwater province of the Roman Empire, who became an itinerant preacher and miracle-worker, who opposed the status-quo of his culture, who was ridiculed by the religious intelligentsia of his society, whose core group of followers only numbered a little over 100, and who was publically executed by the state as a threat to social order is, in reality, the incarnate Son of God, the Anointed One of Israel, and the Savior of the world?

... OK, let’s get real

2) do you understand how foolish that message must have sounded to the culture and various subcultures of the 1st century Mediterranean world?

3) do you understand how foolish that message sounds to the technically sophisticated, thoroughly secular, biblically illiterate culture of 21st century America?

“but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles,” (1 Corinthians 1:23, NIV84)

5. is preaching the only way of delivering the Gospel?

a. no, but it’s the primary way

b. and in vs. 14-15 the Apostle logically lays out how the process of spreading the good news of the Gospel works

A. 1st, SINNERS MUST CALL UPON THE LORD TO BE SAVED

1. Paul actually begins with the end product of preaching

a. how are people saved, how are they born again, how are they born from above, how are they delivered from sin and death, how does one become righteous in God’s sight?

2. by calling on Jesus

a. the verb call on in vs. 14 is synonymous with believing, but the Apostle uses the verb call upon or call on because it implies a desperateness

ILLUS.

In the Gospel of Mark, we find the story of “Blind Bartimaeus.”

Jesus, and his disciples, and a large crowd are leaving the city of Jericho headed for Jerusalem.

Sitting alongside the road is a man named Bartimaeus who is blind.

He is there to beg alms from passersby.

However, when he hears that Jesus is coming by he began to shout “Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me!”