Coming to Faith

If you'd open your Bibles to Romans, I'm going to talk about Romans 10, verses 14-21. But this is the conclusion to a large section of the book of Romans, and the conclusion is not strong unless you see sort of where Paul has been heading with what he's talking about. I want to go back and look at chapter 9 just a little bit, because he's setting up the, he's preparing for a conclusion to this section, what he's talking about. And he, he's, he started talking about how God is at work in the nation of Israel with his people. And in chapter 9, he's talking about how God's call or election of Israel or choice of Israel as his children, how that came about, and why it is that the Gentiles have been included as opposed to just the elect of Israel. So I want to lead us in prayer as we open this passage. Father, your ways are not always clear to us because your wisdom is far beyond ours. And how you work in the world is sometimes confusing to us and sometimes uncertain. But one thing that Paul makes clear for us is that your choices are always good and they're always right, and we can always depend on them, even though we don't understand them or we don't see where they're leading. We ask that you give us confidence in your great authority to lead the world and to lead us and help us to see the role that we play in the great kingdom plan that you have. In the name of Christ, I ask this, amen. Paul's talking about in this section, chapter 9, beginning at verse 6, where he starts out, he is describing how God's work has come about so that God has reached out to the Gentiles to include them in this great kingdom purpose that he has. And then he sort of takes a stop to redirect himself toward the issue of Israel. It is not as though God's word, chapter 9, verse 6, it's not as though God's word has failed. So he's now talking about the idea that God had chosen Israel as a tool through which he would do his work in the kingdom, and Israel has rejected God's authority and God's control over them. Now, he wants to assure the Jewish Christians in Rome that God's word and his work and what happened in the Old Testament was not really a failure. So he says, here he's focused on the fact that God has exercised his divine authority over all that was taking place in the world. He starts by giving a history, the fact that not everyone that was born a Jew was really within the kingdom of God. So he talks about Rebekah, who had a child born, and one child from her was the one through the chosen line that would take, the other child was not. And in this instance, he says God makes a choice as to how he wants to deal with us. And the choice that he makes is completely and totally under his authority. He makes the decision. He decides what he's going to do. He quotes from the Old Testament a passage from Moses that says, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, I'll have compassion on whom I will have compassion. What Paul is talking about is that God's choices about how he works in the world are completely under his authority and under his control. It doesn't depend on our effort. He makes this choice to let us see that God does not look out in the world and say who's doing a good job and now I'll choose him. God's choice is not the result of our good works. Paul makes this point because the Jewish people had long felt that obedience to the law would earn them righteousness. And he was trying to make sure that they understood that salvation was not the result of human effort or work. And so he emphasizes here God's choosing of the people by his own decision, by his own will, however he wants to. So he said, I understand that some of you will see this to be a problem. You'll say, then why does God blame us in terms of judgment if he's making that choice? Or who can resist God's authority and power and will? That's your objection. Paul simply refers this to say, how can you complain to God? We know his character. He's just and he's merciful and he's right. So you can be assured that however God's choices come along, they're always going to be fair and just and right. So if God chooses to do something, he's going to do it and it will be right. God can make choices in any way that he wants. And if he chooses to do something and it causes something to occur in this world, we're to see that it's the right thing. It's the best choice. It's what most of all could be done. Then he emphasizes from the Old Testament, a passage where the prophet says, Israel's like clay put on a wheel to spin. And if he starts making something and there's a flaw, he can take that clay, make it into a lump again and make whatever kind of vessel he chooses. Paul is indicating here that God's ultimate choice to make a vessel like a potter on a wheel might be changed based on his own decision, his own choice as to what he wants to do. That election is not something that's done once and for all before the beginning of the world without any consideration. But in the middle of all of this, God is in the process of choosing regularly what he wants to do. Just because you may have chosen something different than what God wanted doesn't mean that he's through with you. He can take you like a potter and clay and take a flawed vessel and reshape it into something that is valuable and good. He says in Hosea, I will call them my people who are not my people, and I will call her my loved one who is not my loved one, talking again about what God does. I can take the Gentiles and I can take them and make them mine, even though they were not my people. And I can say to those people who call my people, by the choices you make, you've taken yourself outside of the authority and place that I have for you. He quotes a number of scriptures to begin to emphasize the fact that even though God has chosen Israel, there is still in his mind a place for the Gentile world. God is concerned about reaching everyone, all who are there. Now he ends this chapter by focusing on Israel's unbelief in verse 30 of chapter 9. What shall we say then, that the Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness have obtained it, a righteousness that is by faith, but Israel who pursued a law of righteousness has not attained it. Now what he means by using this word righteousness, he's using it in two different ways here. One, he says, the Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness, he means by that a righteousness built on the law. The Gentiles didn't sit down and say, we're going to keep all the Old Testament laws that Moses was given, they didn't set out to do that. But when the gospel was proclaimed, he's talking now to the Roman church where there are both Gentiles and Jews there, but when the gospel was proclaimed, the Gentiles responded to Christ and placed their trust in him and because of their faith in Christ, received the righteousness of God. So that the Jews who created their own idea of righteousness, if we do everything that comes in the law, then we will become righteous. The Gentiles said, we haven't done anything that's in the law, but we believe in the words of Jesus Christ and who he is and they commit themselves to him and then they're accounted righteous and then they begin to do the works of the law as a result of their righteousness. The Jews wanted to do deeds to gain righteousness. The Gentiles act in faith and then begin to live in righteous obedience to God. So that the Jews who did not pursue, the Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness have found it, the righteousness that comes by faith, but Israel who pursued a law of righteousness has not attained it because their works that they depended on was not the way God wanted them to live. It was not by faith, but they were depending on their own effort to be able to achieve that. Now Paul has laid this foundation to talk about Israel's failure to live up to what he wanted and the Gentiles being adopted into the family of God as his children. Now Paul takes in chapter 10 to express his burden of the fact that his Jewish brothers and sisters have failed to find this righteousness that God wanted them to find. My heart's desire and my prayer to God for the Israelites is that they may be saved for I can testify about them that they were zealous for God, but their zeal was not based on knowledge. Since they didn't know the righteousness that comes from God, but sought to establish their own kind of righteousness, they did not submit to God's righteousness and Christ is the end of all of that kind of righteousness in the past. So there's a new kind of righteousness available to all who believe what he talked about the Gentiles having. So in chapter 10 he starts talking about how it is that a person comes to this faith that he says the Gentiles have found. In this most famous section of chapter 10, that if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, verse 9 of chapter 10, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified and with your mouth that you confess and are saved. Paul uses these two ideas of the inner act of faith and the outward expression of that faith. With your heart you believe and with your mouth you confess. Paul sees this as the way by which the righteousness of God comes. And I was talking to you this morning about the Lord's Supper and about how in so many different religious groups they see righteousness and the grace of God as coming by the means of activities like baptism with the Lord's Supper or membership in the church. What Paul I think is constantly reminding us of is that the grace of God and the righteousness of God and the salvation that comes to us is a matter of the heart, that it happens in your heart, inside of yourself. The great debate that came in the Reformation was over whether or not the sacraments of the Catholic Church had to still have an impact. And many denominations never really got away from closing the door on the sacramental system. It is a series of external events that would bring grace into your life. In our tradition, of course, that is not a part of what we see. We see that salvation is a result of the inner faith. It comes to us by hearing and it comes to us inside of ourselves and it's expressed by the word and the activity that results from that encounter with God. Now he ends this by saying this is true for everyone, for everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. And now this is where I want to pick up. Paul knows that the people who are listening to him have heard him talk about how the Jews have been sort of set aside because of their failure to see the righteousness that comes by faith. He sees that the people who are there in this congregation that are Jewish might have objections to this. How in the world can you say that the people chosen by God have been set aside for these Gentiles who suddenly now seem to be the center of God's attention? Chapter 10 verse 14. How then can they call on 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 they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, how beautiful are the feet of those who bring the good news. Oftentimes this passage, if you've been in church very long, you've heard this passage preached about as a missionary enterprise. The whole world is out there needing to know Christ and how can they know Christ unless someone goes and preaches to them? And this is sort of a way by which you would say, here's how it happens. How can they call on someone they've not believed in? And how can they believe in someone they've not heard of? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can there be a preacher unless someone is sent? How beautiful are the feet of the one who brings good news. So if you're going out as a missionary, you're going out to witness, then you become someone who's beautiful in God's eyes because of what you're doing. But I think Paul is doing something a little different here. I gave you all this background to say that he's talked about the terrible thing that's happened because the Jewish people have not taken this center place in God's plan as God intended they would. That's what his election was for. But they have not been willing to follow him. And now he says, God has opened the doors to the Gentiles. And he, I think, is saying, now you're sitting here listening to this and you're saying this isn't fair. For how do you expect the people of Israel to call on someone they didn't believe in, they didn't recognize or know? How does the Jewish people get the door closed on them because they didn't have an opportunity to hear about Christ? And how could these people ever believe if they'd not heard the message? How can they hear unless someone is preaching to them? How can someone preach unless they've been sent? And then there he uses this passage, how beautiful are the feet of those who bring the good news. That's Paul's answer to them. This is a passage of scripture, a quote. You'll see in the footnote of your Bibles, if you have those with footnotes, that this is a passage from Isaiah chapter 52 verse 7. Paul answers this series of questions with this passage. Isaiah said, how beautiful are the feet of those who bring the good news. Isaiah the prophet was saying there are people who are bringing good news. God is sending prophets into the world. You may object by saying we didn't know. But Isaiah himself recognized that God had sent messengers and even said how beautiful are the feet of the messengers who have come to Israel and who are still coming, quoting in his day, who are still coming. God has been in the business of sending his messengers to his people that they might know the truth of the message that he has to give them. But not all Israelites accepted this good news that was coming. You see it ties to verse 16, those who bring the good news. The Israelites had the good news given to them, but the fact was all Israelites, not all of them, accepted this good news. There was a remnant. Paul's already talked about that a little bit, but he's saying now there was a remnant of people who received the good news, but most of the people did not. Then he quotes again Isaiah. You see he's answering each of these Jewish questions or concerns about his message about the Gentiles and the Jews with quotes from the scripture. First from Isaiah. Isaiah says people have been sent. Now he says again in this quote from Isaiah again, Isaiah says the Lord, for Isaiah says, Lord, who has believed our message? The prophets over and over again brought the message of God to the people of Israel, but the consistent thing in all the prophecies was the resistance of the people who heard the prophet's message. People do not want the word of the prophet. When I was in seminary and I had to preach before my seminary class, I chose this idea as the topic of a sermon, do not pray for prophets. For when prophets come, they always say to the people who are faithful in the church, there's something wrong with you, change your life. The prophets in Israel didn't go to the foreign lands and prophesy. They went to the people of Israel to say there's something wrong with you. And all through the history of God's dealing with people, the very last thing that the people who call themselves followers of God want is a prophet because he looks the people in the eye and he says, God is not pleased with you. No one likes that. No one wants to hear the message. And we look at the stories of prophets, you see that what Isaiah was complaining about is true. I've given your message to these people, but they're not interested in hearing it. They only are angry. And most of the most common reaction to the prophets of God was persecution and even threats of death. And it wasn't unusual for them to even kill the prophets of God. Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message and the message is heard through the word of Christ. It's not that the message hasn't been sent, but it's the fact that people are not prepared or willing to listen to it. But I ask, did they hear not? Of course they did. That's Paul's reaction to that question. How can they ever do this if they hadn't heard of Christ? Now he says Christ here, but the message of Christ is what he's talking about and the message of Christ is not different from the message of the Old Testament. The message of the Old Testament was, if you surrender your life completely to the authority of God in faith and you live according to the instructions given to you, you will find life in all of its fullness. That's the message of Christ. All Christ did was to say that the message was even more demanding on his part because he asked not that you simply not kill anybody, but you eliminate anger from your life. His demand was not that you didn't commit adultery, but that you eliminated lust from your life. The demands of Christ were even harder than those of the Old Testament, but even the prophets then did not receive a welcome to those that came to give the message. Faith comes by hearing the message and the message heard through the word of Christ. But I ask you, did they not hear? Of course they did. Now he quotes again a passage of scripture from Psalms. Their voice has gone out to all the earth, their words to the end of the world. Here the psalmist is saying the message of God has gone out to all the world. Now you may say you didn't hear, but here is scripture. The message has gone out to all the world. Now in Paul's writing in the first chapter, he talked about the fact that there are many people who may not be apprised of the message of the Bible, but that everyone in the world had been exposed to the reality of God. Every person looks at the universe and says to themselves, I can't make this. You look at a tree and you say, I can't make a tree. I can plant a seed, but I can't make a seed. So there is a consciousness in everyone in the world that there is a God, and the God is bigger than they are, and more powerful than they are, and that they have failed to acknowledge that. So starting with this natural revelation that we call, all the way through this particular revelation in Jesus Christ, all the way through, the reality of God's word is proclaimed to people that there is someone greater than they are, that they deserve to fall down and worship Him. Their voices, their voice, he's talking about the prophets now, the ones who give the message of God, has gone out to all the earth. Their words to the end of the world. God has a great passion to make Himself known, and He is doing everything possible to be able to make sure that that message gets out. Again, I asked, did Israel not understand? That was one of the objections they had up here, that a person needed to be able to hear, and they needed to have someone to preach to them so they could understand. Did Israel not understand? First Moses said, I will make you envious by those who are not a nation. I will make you angry by a nation that has no understanding. Here he talks about what God has done with the Gentiles. He's talked about this previously, about how God has given to the Gentiles a righteousness that they did not seek. And He has not given a righteousness to the people of Israel who has made their own righteousness. He said from the very beginning, God saw that His own people would not respond to Him. And one of the things He did was to say, if you won't do what I've asked you to do, I'm going to work with these people who will. And when you see what happens in their lives and what they do because of their obedience and trust in Me, then it will make you jealous of being able to have the life and the world that they have. God's intention with the Gentiles was simply to create among us people who live in obedience to Christ that those who knew the Old Testament and believed it was true would look and say, this is the life that God promised Israel. This is the promise that God gave to His own chosen people, and now it's becoming true in the lives of these people who are not the chosen people. Instead, they are Gentiles, so that they would turn and say, what is wrong with us? Why is it that this has not happened among us? Now, this idea is not simply a historical idea found in the first century. Todd was telling me about some couple from his own church that went over to South Africa, and some of you are going over there and might see some of this taking place, that they came back and they were disillusioned a little bit about the mission work, but they said one of the things that was so impressive to them was you would go to a church service and people would come up in the church service and they would say they had diseases, bad diseases, serious diseases. People would lay their hands on them and pray, and they'd just be healed. We had a young man out to college, I don't remember if he came to church with us very much, but he was from Barbados, and he had heart trouble, and they had indicated that he would die. And he went to his local church and the people laid hands on him and prayed, and his heart trouble left. Doctors could find no sign of it. Anybody who goes overseas discovers how powerful in some of these places where new believers are giving their lives to God in unusual circumstances, in painful circumstances, are seeing spiritual power that to us sound almost like superstition. The power that is equal to what you see in the New Testament. And so we look at those places where the gospel is being proclaimed and believed in radical circumstances, where people are willing to risk their life in obedience to Christ, where people are radical about doing exactly what God wants, and you hear people go to places like that. I was in Russia. I heard someone went over there in the cold wintertime, you know, in our churches we have a sign up, you know, they've investigated this building and it can seat 100 people. I heard someone who went to Russia and talked about going in a place that in this country would seat, you know, 75 people and it'd be 200 people, lining the walls, standing up, lining the aisles, standing up, no heat in the building, cold Russian winter, anxious to hear the message of Christ. I mean, you know, in our church I heard people come to church and it was, you know, 73 and they were so cold they'd get up and left. You know, a little inconvenience just here makes us unwilling to even hear the message of Christ that He's prepared for us. We should be so jealous of places where the gospel power is so evident and clear. That's what Paul's talking about. God's intention by using the people in Africa and Asia and allowing these people with such radical commitment to Him to experience the greatness of His kingdom ought to cause us to say, why can't this happen here? Does God only speak to Africans or Asians or Russians or Chinese? No. This is America, Christian America. We're so proud of that. Actually, God didn't give us that title, you know, we just adopted it on our own. A little arrogant, I think. It seems to me, you know, a nation where people come and you lay hands on their heel, that there's more power of Christ in that than what we see here. We should think again about claiming the title of emptiness with a new name. That's what Paul's talking about. You Jews have been struggling with this and you look out and you see the Gentiles whose lives have been transformed and their country's been transformed and the gospel, Paul's writing is 20 years after Christ is dead. 20 years after His death. And all of a sudden, the Roman Empire's beginning to be changed. The gospel is growing with such power and such authority that the Roman church could see the impact it was having and the Jewish people could see what was taking place as the gospel was just sweeping across the world. With power and authority, people are dying for their faith. Just killed by the Roman emperors and thrown into the lions and praying, thank you God for the opportunity to show my great love for you. And, you know, in our country, people are too busy to hear the gospel. And look at the open room here. The hunger for God is just not there. What Paul said was, God's intention was to show His power in a way so that the Jews would say, I want to be able to experience now what Moses experienced in Egypt. I want to see now take place what happened in the old days when people walked in faith and obedience to God. And that they would say, now I'm going to turn to Christ. Because you remember, Christ did these very same things. Jesus didn't do anything any more than the prophets did. You know, the prophets raised the dead. The prophets made an ax head float. The prophets just say the word and the fire of God would come down and consume a whole altar. Jesus didn't come with anything more than the very power of God that was available to the prophets and shown in the prophets. The Jews looked at Jesus' life. They heard His message and saw the power of God and could not accept it. Just dismissed it. I will make you envious by those who are not a nation. And I will make you angry by a nation that has no understanding. These people are ignorant. They don't know the Old Testament. They don't know God like we do. How are all these things happening among them? They're so primitive. They don't understand. But they understood one thing. Jesus Christ is Lord and the power of all. And Isaiah says boldly, I have found those who did not seek me. He's talking about the Gentiles again. They weren't looking for Christ. But when they heard who He was and His message, they received it. I revealed myself to those who did not ask for me. The Gentiles weren't praying for the Messiah. They weren't asking for the Messiah to be sent. They were happy with their life, as miserable as it was. They didn't know any better. But suddenly, Christ came to them through the lives of His followers. Those 12 people, the 11 who were left, who went out and began to preach the gospel everywhere over the world. And churches were started. And the gospel flourished. They had no great preachers. No churches with 10,000 members. But they had people who lived the message of Christ in such a powerful way that the Gentiles around them said, this is what we want to have. And so I revealed myself to those who did not ask for me. But concerning Israel, he says, all day long I have held out my hands to a disobedient and obstinate people. The church in our country is not thriving and strong. And there are very few of them in communities that are. But God is not through. His hands extended to us. We don't become powerfully spiritually strong by doing the same thing we did yesterday and the day before and the day before that. We become strong by doing what God wants us to do, regardless of how difficult it is. And willing to pay the price for whatever He asks us to do. What God wants to do in this country is the same thing He's doing in Africa. Same thing He's doing in China. Same thing He's doing in Russia. He wants to demonstrate to the world His mighty power. You could say it this way, but concerning the United States, He says, all day long I held out my hands to a disobedient and obstinate people. He starts by talking about His election of Israel and how He wanted to have this great thing come for them. He talks about how they had perverted the message that Moses gave, thinking, I can be good enough to earn God's blessings. Saying, you were trying to say, I'm going to make this myself, instead of living by trust and faith in me. Now, whenever you perverted this so that it was a righteousness that came as a result of your doing good deeds, I had to quit. I had to bring my message to people who weren't trying to do good deeds and say, believe in me, trust me, live in obedience to what I ask, and I'll show you my power. And so they trusted Him in faith. By grace you are saved through your faith in me. And He demonstrated in these Gentiles what He wanted to do in the Jews. It wasn't that He turned His back on the Jews. He's saying, I have my hand extended to you all the time. God's not turned His back on America, nor our churches. But we've turned our backs on Him. All day long He holds out His hand, but we're disobedient and we're obstinate. This is the theme of people who fail to experience the wonderful, redeeming power of God. Whatever is true about election, it does not mean that God has closed His hand to everyone or even to anyone. What it means is that God's plan to choose people through whom He can change the world is still at work. And His hand is open. You see, if this election idea that everything is settled before you're born were true, why would God be holding out His hand to people who were chosen to be disobedient? He's not. He's holding His hand out to people who choose to be disobedient. The failure to achieve the mission that God has for us is not because of His election and we're simply not able to do it. It's because of our choice and because we will not do it. What Paul does for the people of Israel is to say, the chance is still there for you. You just have to decide if you're prepared to submit yourself to the authority of God and be obedient and humble. And in that, you will find the great calling that God had for you from the beginning. Let's pray. I don't think that if I were to take down the name of all of you who are here and walk around this community and say, what do you think of this person? I don't think a single person in this room I would hear people say they're a bad person. They don't do good things. I think they would say you're good people. But it's not those people that we have to please. What we have to ask ourselves is, God, is there any resistance in my life to you? Am I depending on being a good person instead of obedience to you? Do I have a resistant heart or a submissive spirit? It doesn't take very many people to live this life of devotion before the Spirit of God makes itself known. Our choice is to say, do I want to live that life? When Paul talked about this, Lord, he mentioned two things. He mentioned the fact that someone would be sent with a message from you. And that message would have power. I know it's not a matter of a preacher's skill or whether or not he's interesting. But a simple word from you, spoken that's true, can touch us in ways that nothing in the world can. Is there in our lives resistance to you? I ask your Spirit to reveal to us any hidden resistance. Is there in our hearts pride, arrogance, and disobedience? I ask you to reveal in me wherever that's hidden, however it's disguised, however I ignore it. I hope that your hand extended to me will not go unnoticed. But that I will grasp it with all of my life. I think these people here, Father, want to know you and all of your power. Show yourself. Amen. Amen.