Enlist
Notes
Transcript
PRAY
Romans 10v9 is the final and ulitmate goal we can have for ourselevs and for all of humnaity.
If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
There it is - nothing complicated,
nothing diluted,
nothing less.
And In Romans salvation is very clearly from the wrath of God and for a share in the glory that is to come.
And so how do we accecpt such salvaion?
How will we be saved?
If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
Incase you didn’t get that, Paul rephrases the same thing in v10
For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved.
And in case you your morality is tugged more by a shame culture than a justification culture he explains it again in v11
As Scripture says, “Anyone who believes in him will never be put to shame.”
And incase you think,
Well that’s just for a certain type of people or culture,
or a type of person who isn’t like me,
then he explains it again in v12-13
For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile—the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him, for, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
The 2 aspects drawn out repeatedly here are important
The idea of believing in your heart and declaring or professing with your mouth have to be present if you are to be saved!
Anyone can say they beleive with their mouth,
but unless they truely believe with their heart they are not saved at all.
As Jesus himslef explained in Matt 7 22
Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’
Equally anyone who thinks they believe in their heart but is not prepared or able to declare or prefess their trust in the gospel with thier mouth
- well we might rightly be concerned about the genuiness of their heart as well.
As Jesus says in Luke 9 26
Whoever is ashamed of me and my words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of them when he comes in his glory and in the glory of the Father and of the holy angels.
Rather says Paul earlier in Romans:
For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile.
So here it is,
The final and ulitmate goal we can have for ourselevse and for all of humnaity.
If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
What follows this ulitamte goal is Paul’s very simple and obvious stratergy to bring people to the goal -
set out in 4 retorical questions that progress in simple logic - and all assume an obvious and simple answer - ‘They can’t’
The New International Version Chapter 10
14 How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in?
HOw can they testify, procliam ,call on the one they havne’t believed - well ‘they can’t’,
The New International Version Chapter 10
And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard?
Well they can’t, so how do they hear,
The New International Version Chapter 10
And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?
Well they can’t, so how do the preachers preach to them,
The New International Version Chapter 10
And how can anyone preach unless they are sent?
They can’t!
No-one is going to believe in their hearts and declare with their mouth unless - to get to Pauls’ starting point,
preachers are sent!
Notice the great hope of salavtion does not start logically with belief -that is the end goal,
It doesn’t start with the Spirit giving soft hearts and open ears - although that has to be.
It doesn’t even start with preaching or preachers - although the gospel does have to be proclaimed.
It starts with the church who already believe (people like us)
raising up preachers and sending them!
The church needs to be a Sending Church and the church needs to be the poeple who go.
That is what Enlist is for at GC.
To dismmiss the importance of sedning and Going is to miss both the importance and the joy of this need to spread the gospel to those who havn’t heard,
The importance - becasue to some extent we have an out of sight out of mind mentality - most people we know could go to a church that teaches the gospel - and we and or other Christains have probably told them a little about faith.
In other words, becasue we are Christains, we operate in life in a context where most people have or could have access to hearing the gospel! Rom 10 in a sense dosn’t quite apply!
But as we’ll see in a minute - that is not the case for most the world
it - Is of massive importance.
And secondly - we miss out on the The joy because we do not understand what relief and wonder (and literally how life changing)
this gospel message is to those who have not heard it!.
We fail to realise it is our very own family to whom we are delivering the gospel each time a brother or sister in Christ is saved!
We would never wish our own chidlren to be starved of the gospel - and yet that is the importance and the joy of taking it to the lost who God will call to himself through us.
And so Paul gives his readers an image to change our complacency into action inspired by importance and joy!
And he does so by quoting Ishaiah
And how can anyone preach unless they are sent? As it is written: “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!”
The quote is from Isaiah 52:7, part of a prophecy declaring the end of the Babylonian exile and the return to Zion:
During the Israelite exile in Babylon which probabaly lasted around 70 years
there must have been runners back and forth many times,
Mostly of course with bad news,
The temple has been destroyed,
the uprising has casued more misery etc.
But -
How beautiful on the mountains
are the feet of those who bring good news,
who proclaim peace,
who bring good tidings,
who proclaim salvation,
who say to Zion,
“Your God reigns!”
So there must have been rather a different skip in the step of the runner who came over the mountains to the east of Israel declaring the message that exile was over.
As he comes into earshot declaring - Our God reigns!, Our God reigns.
Slavery, exile, homesickness, anxiety, no future,
no inheritance for their chidlren,
life and death under the enemy was before them....
But wait.
Our God reigns,
Salavtion has come!
If the ‘feet’ of those who brought the message of the return from the exile were beautiful,
There was no question that the messenger knew he was running to tell his own people -
Could there be anything more important to do for his kinsmen!
Could there be any more joy in the senders and the runners hearts.
Than to tell his own people of salavtion!
how much more beautiful, Paul implies, are the ‘feet’ of those who proclaim the gospel of Christ.
We forget that we are striving to save our own poeple - God’s family - the church,
Those we will love and enjoy forever with Christ!
What could be more importnat or joyful!?
Humanity in captivity,
under the curse of sin and death,
facing God’s wrath and judgement,
Living under the enemy Satan,
Not just a lifetime of captivity but an eternity before them - whether they knew about it or not!
How beautifl the feet of those who bring such news of salvation!
start at delcare
If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
Enlist is not the minisrty tagged on at the end of what we do as a church as a little nod towards missions or career gospel workers!
No it is a minisrty without which there will be no church! - The church must be senders and goers of the Gospel.
We must encourage those who are able to Enlist into gospel minisrty.
We must support them, train them, pay them, send them, pray for them.
More of us than are - probably ought to be them!
So that, we may share in the joy of hearing more of our family declare and believe,
So that we may be invoplved in the most important - ulitmate goal of all humanity -
salavation.
The urgency of the biblical call to Enlist and to send is clear - Jesus was clear:
Don’t you have a saying, ‘It’s still four months until harvest’? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest.
Many of us say there is still time - still for months before I consider if I can be a missionary or and church worker or planter.
Open your eyes says Jesus - now is the time.
People are dying across this globe without ever having the chance to hear of the gospel of salavtion!
We are missing the the importance of this - and missing out on the joy of this!
There is no time to wait!
Did you know there are 7283 unreacehed people groups of the world,
making up 4.6billion people. nearly 60% of the world’s population -
4.6 million people who are part of a peopple group who have no, or too few evangelical Chrustians amoungst them that there is no way for tyhe gospel to spread.
They need some beautiful feet to come over their mountain! The harvest is ready.
Our duty to both Jesus and the lost is both crucially important, and crucially joyful to our fulfiment as church.
I trust being able to send and support Rick and Esther to church plant in East London has been a great joy to us.
How beautiful their feet (although my guess is you’d want to steer well clear of Ricks feet) - as some begin to resond to the Gospel they proclaim with their mouths and believe in their heart.
How important and joyful it is to be supporting Adam Jaques our Pastor in trainign as he studies and trains and serves amoungst us here.
And We are working on a couple of ideas to help us all pray and support and follow the mission partners we have as well.
we hope to launch a new webpage soon with their details and latest prayer letters avaiable.
But that is not to be the sum total of our efforts.
We are richly blessed both in resources and in gospel teachers and support staff in this church and country.
It is time to use our blessings to send and go to those who do not call on the Lord jesus - becasue they have never heard,
after all
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? And how can anyone preach unless they are sent? As it is written: “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!”
Take a look at this map.
MAP
The need is great - the harvest is ready,
It’s time for us all to ask ourselves - Can I go?
Teenagers - ask - is this a career I could consider - missions or gospel work in this country?
If the answer is maybe - then the next step is to talk to Leanna or myself, or to Martin and Claire Reynolds who help on the Enlist team.
We, with others can help assess your gifts and suitability.
Or even if you’d just consdier it - tlak to us.
We are also planning an interested in Mission Event - hopefully in March.
And for all of us, we today will committ to sending.
That will mean sacrficial giving, praying, planning, helping pack or dropping at airports,
visiting, emailing.
But what a JOY
and How Important!
To be either be the beautuful feet ourselevs - or to be the onces who put the shoes on the beautiful feet to send.
BUt don’t wait - we haven’t got 4 motnhs - the harvest is ready.
Send me an email or ring me this week.
PRAY - then video.
Q and A