The Need for Missions

Lead Vocalist (Joel)

Welcome & Announcements (Sterling)

Good morning family!

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Now please take a moment of silence to prepare your heart for worship.

Call to Worship (Isaiah 52:7-10)

Prayer of Praise (Brannan Holdren)

Our God Saves

Facing a Task Unfinished

Prayer of Confession (Jason Wells), Cowardice

Assurance of Pardon (Joshua 1:9)

There is a Redeemer

Nothing But the Blood

Scripture Reading (Romans 10:13-17)—page 1125 in the black Bibles

Pastoral Prayer (Sterling)

Prayer for PBC—Help us to evangelize

Prayer for kingdom partner—Howell, Joey & Callie (StoryRunners)

Prayer for US—For the U.S. Supreme Court

Prayer for the world—Brunei

Pray for the sermon

SERMON

START TIMER!!!

Do we really need missionaries?

In the late 1700s, a young English pastor named William Carey became deeply burdened for people in faraway lands who had never heard the name of Jesus.

Most Christians around him had never met someone from India or China, and very few had ever thought seriously about world missions. But Carey began reading travel journals, studying maps, and praying over countries he would never see. And he became convinced that Christians had a responsibility to take the gospel to the nations.

One day, at a meeting of Baptist pastors, Carey stood up and began to argue from Scripture that churches had a responsibility to send missionaries to those who had never heard of Christ.

But before he could finish, an older, respected pastor cut him off and said, “Young man, sit down; when God pleases to convert the heathen, he will do it without your aid or mine!”

In other words: we don’t really need missionaries. If God wants to save the nations, He'll do it Himself.

Perhaps you can relate to that older pastor. You believe God is sovereign. You believe He will save whomever He chooses to save. And you’re just not all that concerned about the nations because God is going to do what God wants to do. But the Scriptures are clear that God intends to save the lost THROUGH churches that faithfully pray, send, and go to the nations.

Last week we kicked off Missions Month at PBC.

As a church we want to be more faithful and fruitful as we engage in the missionary task.

So we’re stepping away from our normal study through a book of the Bible to think carefully about missions.

Last week we answered two questions.

First: What is the missionary task?

I gave you three definitions to answer that question. This week, let me just give you one.

This comes from John Folmar and Scott Logsdon’s book Prioritizing the Church in Missions...

“Missions involves churches sending qualified workers across linguistic, geographic, or cultural barriers to start or strengthen churches, especially in places where Christ has not been named.” [1]

The second question we answered last week was: Why should we be engaged in this work?

And the answer is that we should be engaged in missions because God is a missionary God.

The glory of God is the only lasting fuel for missions!

This morning we’re going to begin answering the question how.

And this question is so important that we’re going to need several weeks to answer it.

Today, Romans 10:13–15 will teach us how faithful missions requires gospel proclamation.

Next week, Acts 13 and 14 will show us how this work is entrusted to the local church.

And then we’ll conclude this series by considering how we will obey this calling at PBC through our strategy to pray, send, and go.

Turn in your Bibles to Romans 10:13-15

After explaining how all have sinned and our only hope for salvation is the righteousness of Christ, the Apostle Paul anticipates an objection.

What about the Jewish people? How will they be saved? Has God forgotten His people?

Paul’s answer is that the Jewish people are saved the same way as everybody else...

God saves sinners who respond to the gospel proclaimed by sent messengers.

That’s the Big Idea I want us to unpack together this morning.

And in that Big Idea, we see three truths that will make up our outline this morning.

The Necessity of the Gospel,

Our Responsibility with the Gospel, and

God’s Sovereignty and the Gospel

First, consider with me...

1) The NECESSITY of the Gospel

Romans 10:13—For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

If you’re not a follower of Jesus, your first instinct in reading that verse might be, “saved from what?”

Until you understand why you need to be saved and what you need to be saved from, verse 13 doesn’t really mean much.

To understand Romans 10:13, you need to understand...

Romans 1:18–23—For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

Here’s what the Scripture is teaching:

God is angry. His wrath is being revealed from heaven. Why?

Because we have sinned. We are ungodly and unrighteous. But why? Surely there are a lot of people much worse than me!

Because you have failed to give God the worship He deserves.

Instead of worshiping Him, we worship created things—money, family, success, comfort, or ourselves.

The God who is worthy of all your worship and praise has received—at best—a few scraps here and there.

So we deserve His wrath. And the Bible says because God is an eternal Being, His wrath is an eternal reality.

This is what the Bible calls hell, and it’s what everybody everywhere deserves.

But the Good News of the gospel is that God rescues sinners from the hell that we deserve!

That’s what it means to be saved. It means you’ve been rescued from a place of eternal suffering!

Notice that verse 13 does not say you can save yourself by calling on the Lord.

The language is passive—you can be saved, but you can’t earn it.

Paul puts it this way in…

Ephesians 2:8–9—For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.

If you’re in this room trying to clean up your life to earn a spot in heaven one day, you need to listen to me. There is nothing you or I could ever do to be saved. You have to receive salvation as a gift!

But how do you receive this gift of salvation?

Romans 10:13—For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

But what does it mean to “call on the name of the Lord?”

We know it’s not enough to simply call Jesus “Lord,” because even the demons did that.

Besides, Jesus says in Matthew 7:22-23 that many people will call Him Lord who aren’t truly saved.

If the only way to be saved is to call on the name of the Lord, than we better figure out what that means!

Thankfully the next verse gives us a clue...

Romans 10:14a—How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed?

The calling that Paul has in mind in verse 13 is a calling with faith.

You can call Jesus, “Lord,” you can even call out to Him when you’re in trouble, but that’s not the same thing as truly believing in Him.

To believe in Jesus is to trust Him. To put all your weight on Him. To believe that He, and He alone, is your only hope to be rescued from the hell you deserve.

Look at…

Romans 10:9—… 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.

This is the Gospel. The Good News that God rescues sinners through the death and resurrection of King Jesus. We deserve hell because we have sinned against God. But God sent His Son to live the life we should have lived and die the death we should have died. Then God raised Jesus from the dead on the third day so we too could have life in Him.

Now I want to talk about missions in a moment, but right now I want to talk to everyone hearing my voice right now. Have you put your faith in this Jesus? Are you trusting Him or someone else? Would you turn from your sins and put your faith in Jesus today?

If you do that today, would you talk to me or another Christian near you about how you can make your faith public through what the Bible calls baptism?

And if you’d like to learn more about baptism, following Jesus, or anything else we’re talking about today, would you look for me after the service? I’d love to talk with you.

Now for the Christians in this room, let’s stop and think about the implications of this first point, particularly as it relates to missions.

Because the gospel is necessary for salvation, the gospel must go out into all the world!

Romans 10:14b—And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard?

The answer to Paul’s rhetorical question is that they can’t! You can’t believe in a Savior that you’ve never even heard of!

And yet there are nearly 5 billion people in the world with little or no access to the gospel. [2] These are people that could live their entire lives without ever even hearing that Jesus died on the cross and rose from the dead.

They don’t know any Christians. They are few are no churches in their area. Perhaps the Bible hasn’t even been translated into their language. Any many of them will live and die and never hear the name of Jesus.

What happens to those who die without ever hearing?

Some have tried to argue that God will save those who don’t have an opportunity to respond to the gospel.

But this is a fundamental misunderstanding of Scripture.

We don’t go to hell because we reject the gospel. We go to hell because we’re sinners!

If people who never hear the gospel were saved when they die than the absolute worse thing you could ever do is send them a missionary. Because once they hear the gospel they’re now responsible to respond.

But if you look at Christians in the New Testament, it’s obvious that they had a burning desire to GO and TELL those who hadn’t heard the gospel so that they could hear and be saved!

God saves sinners who respond to the gospel proclaimed by sent messengers.

If sinners are going to be saved, they need to hear the gospel.

Which means someone needs to tell them!

So consider with me…

2) Our RESPONSIBILITY with the Gospel

If we need to believe the gospel to be saved, and we need to hear the gospel in order to believe it, than someone needs to proclaim the gospel so we can hear it!

That’s Paul’s concern in the final part of verse 14.

Romans 10:14c—And how are they to hear without someone preaching?

When you see that word “preaching” here, don’t think about a preacher doing what I’m doing right now. The word in the original language is referring here to something much broader than preaching a sermon on a Sunday morning in a church service.

In Paul’s day, if a king had a message to get out, he couldn’t call a press conference or ask the newspapers to publish it, or post it on social media. He would send out a herald to proclaim his message. That’s the way the word is being used here. It means to proclaim or to announce something.

So if you want to paraphrase Paul’s question, you could say “how are they to hear without someone telling them?”

And the answer to that rhetorical question is that they can’t! If nobody tells them the gospel they won’t hear the gospel!

Imagine if your doctor discovered you had cancer but never told you because he didn’t want to make you uncomfortable. That wouldn’t be kindness—that would be cruelty. And when we keep the gospel to ourselves, we’re doing something eternally worse!

Which means, you and I have a responsibility to take the gospel we have received and tell it to others.

Parents and grandparents—are you teaching your kids and grandkids the gospel? Do they understand that God made them? Do they know that He’s holy? Have you taught them that they’re sinners and they deserve God’s wrath? Do they know the good news that Jesus lived a sinless life and died a sinner’s death in their place? Have you taught them that Jesus rose from the dead and now invites them to turn from their sins and trust in Him?

Employees, do your co-workers know the gospel? Hopefully they know that you’re different. Perhaps they know you go to church on Sundays. Maybe they’ve noticed your language isn’t quite as salty as everyone else at work. Maybe they know you live your life differently than they do. But do they know why? Do they simply think you’re a moral person? Do they think you’re trying to be good enough to earn salvation? Or do they know that you’re striving to please God because you’ve already received salvation as a gift?

Christian, the gospel you’ve received needs to go from you to your family, your friends, your neighbors, and more as you have opportunity.

But the gospel also needs to go to the unreached. Because if the unreached peoples around the world never hear the gospel they’ll never believe it!

Perhaps it will be helpful to be a bit more clear with what I mean by that term “unreached.”

It might help if we contrast the term unreached with the term unsaved.

An unsaved person is someone who has yet to turn from their sins and trust in Jesus. Unsaved people are all around us!

In fact, not a Sunday goes by without some unsaved person in our gathering with us, even if it’s just one of the little toddlers running around here after the benediction.

But we never have unreached people in our gatherings. Ever.

Because by definition, an unreached person has little or no access to the gospel.

And if someone is able to attend a worship service at PBC we can reach them with the gospel!

David Platt defines the term unreached this way: “Unreached peoples and places are those among whom Christ is largely unknown and the church is relatively insufficient to make Christ known in its broader population without outside help.” [3]

According to the International Mission Board...

SHOW PEOPLE GROUPS SLIDE

… there are over 12,000 people groups in the world, over 7000 of them are unreached, and over 3000 of those aren’t even being engaged. [4]

How are they to hear without a preacher?

This does not mean that every single one of us has to go to the nations as a missionary…

Romans 10:15—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!”

Going is beautiful. And we ought to celebrate and support those who go. But Paul's implication is clear: not everyone will go, because some must send those who go.

All of us need to do the work of evangelism, which is telling people the good news.

Some of us need to do the work of missions, which requires that we cross cultural barriers—like geography and language—to take the gospel to those who haven’t heard.

But even if you never go, you can be involved in the work of missions by helping to send.

John Piper puts it this way: “If you love the glory of God, and if you love people you have three possibilities: Go. Send. Or Disobey. And if you are not a conscious goer or a conscious sender, you are disobedient to the glory of God and to love.” [5]

God saves sinners who respond to the gospel proclaimed by sent messengers.

If sinners are going to be saved, they need to hear the gospel.

Which means we have a responsibility to tell them.

But what happens when we go?

Consider with me finally...

3) God’s SOVEREIGNTY and the Gospel

Romans 10:16–17—But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?” So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.”

Notice two things that happen when churches are faithful to send missionaries to go and tell unbelievers the gospel. This is really groundbreaking, are you ready?

Some people believe, and others don’t.

We shouldn’t be surprised that some people don’t obey the gospel. That was prophesied long before Paul.

But we should still go in faith that some will respond. Maybe not on our timetable or in our way. But the book of Revelation tells us that one day Jesus will be worshipped by people from every tribe, and language, and people, and nation. [6]

Imagine you were taken to the locker room of a massive high school. There in that locker room are hundreds of lockers. Someone then gives you a key and a promise. “This key will unlock a limited number of these lockers. Most of these lockers will not be opened by this key, but each locker that is unlocked contains a pile of cash that is yours to keep. A fortune is waiting for you if you will just use this key.”

What would you do? Would you try a few lockers and then give up? If you truly believed the person who made this promise, you wouldn’t stop until you had tried to unlock every locker with this key.

Because God is sovereign, we can proclaim the Gospel with confidence knowing that some will repent and believe!!!

We don’t go because we know who will believe. We go because God knows who will believe.

Some have argued that a strong belief in the sovereignty of God actually kills missions. But I would argue it does the exact opposite.

The greater your confidence in God’s sovereignty, the greater your confidence in missions.

Sovereignty doesn’t make missions pointless—it makes missions possible.

William Carey certainly believed in the sovereignty of God.

He believed God was sovereign over salvation and would save whomever He willed.

But unlike many of the pastors in England, that belief didn’t drive him to passivity. It drove him to action.

He did not say, “Because God is sovereign, I can sit back, relax, and do whatever I want.”

No, he did the opposite.

In fact, William Carey famously said “Expect great things from God. Attempt great things for God.”

And he did. In 1793 he and his wife and their four sons arrived safely in India. And they faced considerable hardships. His son Felix died, causing his wife to suffered a nervous breakdown which eventually took her life. It took seven years of endless labor before Carey baptized his first convert to Christianity.

But by 1821, Carey and his team had baptized nearly 1500 converts and started over 25 churches. [7]

As inspiring as Carey’s story may be, it is not without it’s flaws.

Yes, he was a bold and daring missionary who crossed cultural distance to make disciples and start churches among the unreached.

But he was a sinner just like you and me.

We need to look to something—or someone—greater than William Carey if we’re going to faithfully pray, send, and go to the nations.

We need to look to Jesus.

Romans 10:17 tells us that salvation comes through hearing the word of Christ.

But what is that word? It is the announcement that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, took on flesh, lived a sinless life, and died a sinner’s death in our place.

And that is what we remember this morning when we’ll celebrate communion in just a few moments.

And as we take the Lord’s Supper today, we are not only remembering what Christ has done for us…

We are also remembering what Christ has done for the world.

This Table is not just for us.

It is for every tribe and language and people and nation.

It is a preview of that great feast when the redeemed from all the earth will gather around the throne of the Lamb.

So as you take the bread and the cup this morning,...

Remember that the most beautiful feet on earth are not the missionary’s feet.

They are the nail-pierced feet of Jesus, who didn’t just come to this earth to preach Good News. He came to die in our place.

Let His love be what motivates us to pray, send, and go until everyone has heard His name.

Prayer of Thanksgiving

There is One Gospel

LORD’S SUPPER

Doxology

Benediction (Psalm 90:17)