Faith From Hearing

Good Morning everyone! Before we begin if you would turn in your Bibles to where we will be camping out today.

All of you are probably wondering who I am and why I am in front of you and not someone better looking like Jeremy.

Before we start anything however I am going to pray for us and then I will do a brief introduction.

[prayer]

[introduction]

Today we are going to be in taking on a rather large passage with a lot of content in it

Our focus of this passage is going to be the last three verses

I also want you to see our “big point” before we begin.

This is what I am going to be arguing and pleading for us to understand and act on today:

If faith comes from hearing the Gospel, then the proclamation of the Gospel is the number one priority of both individual believers and the body of Christ (the Church)

Romans 10:1–17 CSB

Brothers and sisters, my heart’s desire and prayer to God concerning them is for their salvation. I can testify about them that they have zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. Since they are ignorant of the righteousness of God and attempted to establish their own righteousness, they have not submitted to God’s righteousness. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes, since Moses writes about the righteousness that is from the law: The one who does these things will live by them. But the righteousness that comes from faith speaks like this: Do not say in your heart, “Who will go up to heaven?” that is, to bring Christ down or, “Who will go down into the abyss?” that is, to bring Christ up from the dead. On the contrary, what does it say? The message is near you, in your mouth and in your heart. This is the message of faith that we proclaim: If you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. One believes with the heart, resulting in righteousness, and one confesses with the mouth, resulting in salvation. For the Scripture says, Everyone who believes on him will not be put to shame, since there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, because the same Lord of all richly blesses all who call on him. For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. How, then, can they call on him they have not believed in? And how can they believe without hearing about him? And how can they hear without a preacher? And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written: How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news. But not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, Lord, who has believed our message? So faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes through the message about Christ.

The first thing we see in this text is:

1) Paul’s Concern - 10:1-3

So I want to give a bit of context here as to what Paul is saying

Paul is writing to believers in Rome

And here in this letter Paul has spent a fair deal of it talking about the difference between a true faith and one based in good works

Paul levels the claim that salvation is by grace through faith alone and is not by works, upon all people

But one group that gets a bit of Paul’s attention in this claim is his own people, the People of Israel

Paul has spent a good deal of time in this letter speaking about his people and how despite what they believed, that on the basis of the Old Testament, salvation has not been a product of good works

Meaning you cannot work hard enough or BE good enough to earn your place in heaven

And when this is constantly talked about, Paul recognizes how this can come across:

That he is against the people of Israel

So Paul begins this section by saying:

Romans 10:1 CSB

Brothers and sisters, my heart’s desire and prayer to God concerning them is for their salvation.

Paul’s concern was communicating the message that the people needed to hear but did not particularly want to hear

Romans 10:1 CSB

Brothers and sisters, my heart’s desire and prayer to God concerning them is for their salvation.

He even says that his concern clearly is not for their lack of zeal

Their lack of salvation is not based upon a lack of zeal or certain “rigor” for God but Paul launches the accusation that it is they have zeal but:

“…not according to Knowledge”

The knowledge Paul speaks of is what?

Romans 10:3 CSB

Since they are ignorant of the righteousness of God and attempted to establish their own righteousness, they have not submitted to God’s righteousness.

Why is that so bad?

I mean honestly, we don’t usually ask that question simply because you’re here right?

Is it true simply because I said it?

No, but look at this like an debate or an argument and see Paul’s line of reasoning

Here he says he is concerned because they have established their own righteousness but here in our next point we will see exactly why that’s wrong and why Paul is concerned

2) Paul’s Foundation - 10:4-13

Look again at these verses as we walk through them

Check out

Romans 10:4 CSB

For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes,

Notice the first word there, “For”

That is implying a transition from the previous sentence

And that previous sentence is our last question:

Why is it so bad that the people of Israel “established their own righteousness?”

“For” or Because “Christ is the end of the law for righteousness”

What does this mean?

That word there, the “end” of the law means that Christ is the finality, the outcome; the thing to which the law finds its completion

That’s why its a bad thing, because they have established a form of righteousness contrary to where they law is to end

This is like driving to a new location and following your GPS; that is until you think you know where you’re going so you decide that you will not listen and go a different way

All while the GPS is yelling at you to take a u-turn

And you may say, I’m a pretty good navigator Cody

Yeah? Like you can navigate the Law of God which demands perfection on a heart and mind level not just in actions? And you can navigate your way through that PERFECTLY and make it to heaven?

Of course not, we are broken from the start! We are starting out in a place where we are, we don’t know where we are going nor how to get there

Paul is saying his people have established a form of righteousness which is contrary to Christ and therefore is not leading them where they think it is

You may be wondering “What the heck is Paul talking about in 10:6-7?

Evangelical Commentary on the Bible D. Christ Fulfills the Law for Jew and Gentile (10:1–21)

Christ’s righteousness is by works, for he is the only representative of humanity to have perfectly kept the law. Indeed, he is the law personified, for the aim of the law is perfect fellowship and sociality. The sinner by contrast (the “but” of v. 6 is significant) obtains the righteousness of the law only “by faith” in Christ who is the law, not by boasting (do not say in your heart), or storming heaven (to bring Christ down), or descending into Sheol (to bring Christ up from the dead; vv. 6–7); Paul quotes a string of Old Testament texts (Deut. 8:17; 9:4; 30:12–13) to which he gives proper christological reference. For him Christ is the living law; all human attempts at self-righteousness are arrogant invasions of the domains only Christ can enter because of his righteous works

What Paul is doing here as an author is what makes him even amongst secular scholars to be arguably one of the all around smartest men in his day, was his ability to argue to a particular audience

Paul is chaining together and using the scriptures that Jews rely on, and showing them how the have misread and misinterpreted the scriptures and showing them that the scriptures have always pointed to show:

Righteousness by grace through faith alone

The fulfillment of the law found in the Messiah - Jesus Christ

Paul chains these scriptures together up to

Paul then lays out exactly what salvation IS and WHERE it is found

Romans 10:9–10 CSB

If you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. One believes with the heart, resulting in righteousness, and one confesses with the mouth, resulting in salvation.

;

Romans 10:9–10 CSB

If you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. One believes with the heart, resulting in righteousness, and one confesses with the mouth, resulting in salvation.

Romans 10:9–10 CSB

If you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. One believes with the heart, resulting in righteousness, and one confesses with the mouth, resulting in salvation.

Romans 10:13 CSB

For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.

3) Paul’s Plea - 10:14-17

Paul begins his final plea here showing why he was never AGAINST the people of Israel but FOR them

Paul lays out a beautifully simple argument as to why he must tell them they are wrong concerning their belief about salvation

Romans 10:14–17 CSB

How, then, can they call on him they have not believed in? And how can they believe without hearing about him? And how can they hear without a preacher? And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written: How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news. But not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, Lord, who has believed our message? So faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes through the message about Christ.

And as I said at the beginning, our main point I wanted us to see here in this text was this:

If faith comes from hearing the Gospel, then the proclamation of the Gospel is the number one priority of both individual believers and the body of Christ (the Church)

Paul has just laid out before us the importance of the Gospel, and the importance of people hearing the Gospel

That while WE as humans could never be righteous (that is be in right standing according to the law) because we sin; that Christ has accomplished what we have not and is offering His righteousness to us!

But not only is Paul here emphasizing the Gospel but also the message of the Gospel being taken out!

If the Gospel really is good news, why aren’t we sharing it?

Because people cannot call on one they do not believe in, and they cannot believe in one they have not heard of, and they cannot hear unless someone preaches (or speaks) it to them!

You may be thinking, “AHA see right there Cody it says preacher, and that’s not me so I’m off the hook”

NOT so fast

The word there is simply to preach or to proclaim and is the same word used throughout the gospels when Jesus sends out the disciples to proclaim the kingdom of God

SO, that means, if you’re a Christian, you’re a disciple and therefore you are called to proclaim the good news

Now I want to take time to give a practical application to this text and really answer the one lingering question, which is: Why in the world am I talking to you?

In July of 2016, the LORD called myself and my wife to step out in faith and take the Gospel to those who do not have it. Little did we know the LORD was moving in the hearts of others, who would also join in on this mission

The calling the LORD has placed on our lives was this, that we would plant Missio Dei Community Church in Pittsburgh, PA.

Now when many people hear Pittsburgh, they think smoky industrial city that is really stubborn and crazy about its sports.

While Pittsburgh is still crazy about its sports, it is no longer a smoky industrial city but rather one that has set itself apart as a leader in medicine and technology. 

Let's talk the name and its purpose:

Missio Dei is a Latin phrase coined in the 1900's meaning "Mission of God." 

The purpose behind the selection of its name is simple.  We believe as a church, that the Church exists not for its own mission but rather the Mission of the One who established it and commissioned it - Christ our Lord. 

That the Church exists for the proclamation of the Gospel, the creation of disciples and sending of disciples who will proclaim the Gospel and make disciples and so on. - This is the mission of God, therefore, it is the mission of our church.

We believe the Gospel has the power to take the people of Pittsburgh, a people rooted in proud tradition and community solidarity and establish a local body of believers which can be a be a beacon of hope in a hurting, broken world and which will multiple into other local bodies of believers around our community, state, nation, and world

We also want to recognize "community" being a 2-fold importance to us.  

That in the making and sending of disciples, naturally churches will be planted.  We want to emphasis community to recognize the churches planted from us do not exist in and of themselves, but rather we are a community of churches called to pray for one another and bear one another's burdens.

That our church exists to reach out and proclaim the Gospel to the community the LORD has placed us in.  We want to be passionate about how the LORD is working in the very place we were called to sow.

Speaking of which, let's talk about that community more specifically and why we are going

Monroeville, PA

Monroeville is a community approximately 20 minutes East of Pittsburgh and home to approximately 28,000 residents

Amongst the nearly 30,000 people who reside in Monroeville, it is 70% unchurched

I will explain that definition here in a second

That means 19,600 of the 28,000 people are currently unchurched

Maybe you're like me and while that sounds like a lot, your not sure how to wrap your mind around that number simply because that's really hard to visualize

So let me visualize this for you

This is a Monroeville as most of us would probably find, by looking on Google Maps

In order to get a good visual of this statistic I want to highlight a set of streets

If we zoomed in on this set of streets this is what you will see

And let's use an example, like... this house

In this house, is the "Stock" Family...And here to help you out, is every house on this picture, 322 houses total

Now like I said before, Monroeville is 70% unchurched; which conversely means is 30% churched

Now when we say "churched" the typical definition is one who has attended a church service at some point in the past 6 months

So churched is considered someone who attends church 2 times in a year

Let's just assume for a second that churched ALSO means someone who is a believer in Christ, one who has repented of sin and has trusted in Christ for their salvation and daily walks to build His kingdom 

Statistically, only 62% of Christians have not shared their faith in the past 6 months with no active signs of changing that in the next 6 months

So 322 houses are before you....

If we assume like I said earlier that 30% of churched also means Christian, and 62% are also not sharing their faith than in this neighborhood, this is what the map would look like with Christians who are proclaiming the Gospel

That's 59 out of 322 houses

Now on the map, that may actually seem like a fair amount of houses

But let's bring up the other houses who statistically would not be churched alongside the churched

This is what we are looking at...

Now the first thing is that at the beginning, to make the statistics easier, we assumed churched also means a believer in Christ

Now most of us would probably say it is fair that of even those pictured here as churched, that it would be very generous to say that half of those people are actually followers of Christ

Now this isn't a hard statistic because honestly half is a pretty generous number, but to be realistic this is what this map would most likely look like this for reality as opposed to just self reported statistics Now tell me, that little green house in the middle what is the likelihood that they will be pursued by someone who loves Jesus and desires that they come to faith in Him?

Or tell me, what is the honest likelihood that this picture will change in anyway for the better if there is not an insurgence of believers who understand the Mission of God and are leveraging their lives to proclaim the Gospel of Christ?

Let me just also bring this point of application to everyone in the room

Because you may be thinking, Cody that’s your problem, I’m not called to go to Pittsburgh

Well church I love you but this may be an encouragement or it may hurt but...

What would your house look like? Could you say that your house is one that is actively pursuing people on your street to build relationships with them?

Is your house one that is active about sharing the fact that Christ has risen from the grave and is alive and saving?

I can tell you statistics all day but you see that picture and can honestly know, that picture will get worse without churches passionate about growing believers up in their faith and sending them out as missionaries into their own communities leveraging all they have for the sake of the mission.

Because how will the people believe if they aren’t hearing? And how will they hear if no one is sent

So what do we do with this? What is the mission of Missio Dei Community Church?

Our Mission at Missio Dei Community Church is 3-fold

Firstly, We exist to build believers who love God and enjoy Him forever by worshiping Him and bringing glory to His name

Firstly, We exist to build believers who love God and enjoy Him forever by worshiping Him and bringing glory to His name

We want to grow believers who love God in a way they are captivated by Him and cannot help but to share what He has done on their behalf

Intentional Evangelism - that is 2 fold: being intentional about building long term relationships and sharing faith as the relationship grows as well as seeing those Gospel opportunities of encountering strangers. Destination Discipleship - Think growing with a goal; Paul speaks about us as believers in 2 Corinthians being transformed from one degree of glory to the next

Secondly, we exist to serve others; specifically:

The Church through spiritual giftings imparted by the Spirit for the betterment of the Church and the furtherance of the Gospel and...The community both around us and globally through Gospel-centered service which seeks to see others as greater than ourselves

Lastly, we exist to equip God's people to live on mission and make the name of the LORD known everywhere. 

We are committed to developing and deploying every believer as missionaries into their communities, families, and work places for the sake of the Gospel and to further establish other local and global bodies of believers

How can you partner

Pray!

Give!

Go!

So let's talk when!

We will be moving up to Pittsburgh coming up this May!

Moving around this time will afford the team time to engage and see the community as it is in the summer and what a season of outreach will yearly look like!

Working will then begin and really be from June 2018 until April 2019

Now you may say...well what does that mean?

This includes engaging and building relationships with local leaders and businesses in our community as well as a season of outreach and relationship building events. Also during this season the team will begin building out contact trees and launching small groups to move in to a season preparing for launch. Lastly we see our launch of Missio Dei Community Church in May of 2019