Immanuel Sermon Audio
Finish the Mission (Romans 10)
at some of our missionaries, some who have gone, and a reminder to you, and a reminder to me of the importance of us giving. And we collect this world missions offering every November and December. We have people that give to it throughout the year. You can do that as well. But we collect this money. We send all of it out so that we can send people to places like Lusotho, to the ends of the earth. We send them to big sprawling urban cities, and then we send them to very rural places, like the one you just saw on the video. And we send them out to preach the good name of Jesus. And she talked in there about the sacrifice of going. And one of the things that we have been talking about, and we're gonna talk about especially this morning, is the sacrifice of giving. That going is important, and yes, it requires a sacrifice, but so is giving, and so are the ones who send, and that also requires a sacrifice. And so this morning I want you to take your Bible, open to Romans 10. There's an outline you can follow along in the bulletin. Romans chapter 10, while you find Romans 10, and get all situated, I will just let you know, in case you haven't been paying attention, that we are in the midst of a presidential election. And I found that online, and I think that just about makes fun of everybody who wants to be president this year. So they're all up there somewhere. And we're in full swing. There's ads that are starting to show up on TV more and more, and bumper stickers showing up, and primaries are just right around the corner, and there's debates. And so there was a debate last night, and there was also a Dallas Cowboys football game. And I'll just tell you, because I watched both back and forth, they were both pretty miserable. I would watch one for a while, and I'd say, I can't watch this anymore, and I'd flip it over to the other one, and I'd say, no, I think this is worse. I'm going back to the first one. Then I'd go back to the first one, and I'd say, no, that one, the other one was better, and just back and forth. Neither was very encouraging. One of the things you hear a lot when people are running for political office, you hear a lot about problems. That's sort of the job of a candidate, is to point out problems. And they bring up, there's this problem, or there's that problem, or this is not good, or this could be much better. And as the candidate, what they're saying is, I have the solution. I'm pointing out the problem to you, but then I'm going to tell you how I'm going to fix it. And a good politician is able not only to point out problems, maybe problems you didn't even know existed, or things that don't really need to be fixed, but they point these things out, but then they offer a solution that is somehow convincing to you as the voter. Now, as Christians, we sort of need to step back from that and say, okay, elections matter, and voting matters, that's an important thing in the country we live in, we need to take that right seriously. But as you listen to all these problems, I just want you to remember, yes, there are a lot of little P problems in the world. But as followers of Jesus Christ as people who believe God's word is God's word, we believe there's really only one big P problem in the world, and that problem is sin. And we also believe that if you want to find the solution to that problem, you better not look to the Democrats or the Republicans or the independents or anybody else in the middle. You better look to Jesus Christ. And if you're gonna acknowledge that the Bible is right when it says that sin is the one big P problem that stands behind all of the other little P problems we face in one way, shape, or form, and you're gonna look to Jesus Christ, you have to sort of detach yourself, although elections are important, and I get interested in them, and I follow polls and I watch debates and all that stuff, you just sorta gotta step back and say, nobody on that platform can fix the big P problem. It doesn't matter what party they're in or not in, they do not have the solution that we're looking for to the one true problem we all face, which is sin. And if you want the solution, you've gotta look to Jesus Christ, and so that leads us right to the big idea of our passage this morning, very simple. We're talking about the mission that we have to make disciples, we will finish that mission, when we believe the gospel is the only message that saves. We've looked in the Old Testament, Chris looked at Matthew 28 with us last week, we've talked about God's desire for all of the peoples of the earth to know the truth about Him. We've talked about this mission we've been sent on to make disciples, not just decisions, not just as Chris said last week converts, but disciples who are following Jesus, and this morning in Romans 10 we see this. We will finish the mission when we believe that the gospel is the only message that saves. And so I want you to look in your Bible at Romans 10, we're jumping into the middle of an argument here, but we're gonna begin in verse 13 and read to verse 17. So this is the word of God in Romans 10, 13. For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. How then will they call on Him in whom they have not believed? How are they to believe in Him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? 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? But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, Lord, who has believed what He heard from us? So faith comes from hearing and hearing through the word of Christ. Let's pray. Father, what a privilege not only to come into your presence and to sing and to pray, to listen to your word, but what a privilege to represent you to the world, to be your ambassadors, to be given a mission and a purpose and a task to accomplish. And as we look at these verses in Romans 10, Father, press in our hearts the truth that the gospel of Jesus Christ is the only message that saves. And then as we look at these verses, give us wisdom to understand what that looks like in our life and what role you have for us to play. Give us wisdom, guide our hearts, convict us where we need to be convicted. We pray in Jesus' name, amen. We're gonna ask a couple of questions and try to answer them. Then we're gonna apply this directly to missions and then also to the Lord's Supper as we wrap up. So here's the first question. It's a very simple question. What does it mean to call on the name of the Lord? Look back at verse 13, Romans 10, 13. This is a great, great promise. This is really good news for people who believe that the one big P problem in the world is sin. Romans 10, 13 says, "Everyone who calls on the name "of the Lord will be saved." That's fantastic news for you and for me. The problem is sometimes we read that verse and we assume that we know what it means to call on the name of the Lord when maybe we don't really know what it means to call on the name of the Lord. And so first of all, let me tell you what it doesn't mean. Calling on the name of the Lord does not mean praying a rote prayer or quote unquote inviting Jesus into your heart. That is not what we're talking about. We're not talking about rote prayers that a preacher prayed this and you echoed it behind him. We're not talking about this sort of vague fuzzy idea of what it means to invite Jesus into your heart, neither of those things or what it means to call on the name of the Lord. And I'll be honest with you, this is the default assumption for most people who live in the Bible Belt of the United States. If you just said to them, hey, have you ever heard of Romans 10, 13, everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved, what does that mean? What most people who identify as Christians live in the Bible Belt of our country would say is something like, well, you pray the sinner's prayer and you invite Jesus into your heart. The problem is that there is no magical formula prayer in the Bible that you can just sort of recite out loud that gives you an automatic one-way ticket to heaven. As much as we'd like to think that there is, it's not there. And there's no idea in the scriptures of sort of inviting Jesus into your heart. That's not the language that's used. We've invented that, we've come up with it to maybe to help children understand something, but the problem is it just bunnies the water and nobody knows, what does it mean to invite Jesus into your heart? What does it mean to call on the name of the Lord? Here's some ideas taken from scripture. First of all, calling on the name of the Lord involves worship. Worship. Genesis 4, 26 and Psalm 1, 16, 13. Both use the phrase calling on the name of the Lord and in the context they're both talking about worship. Second, calling on the name of the Lord involves prayer. Not necessarily a wrote prayer, not a magical prayer, but genuine prayer. You remember the story in 1 Kings 18 with Elijah and the prophets of Baal and they're about to have this face off in Elijah sort of giving them the ground rules for the competition and what he says is, you guys call on the name of your God and we'll see what happens. And I'm gonna call on the name of Yahweh the Lord and we'll see what happens. In whichever God answers our prayers is the true God. So in that context he's talking about prayer. Thirdly, calling on the name of the Lord involves repentance. This is something that gets left out when we reduce, calling on the name of the Lord to invite Jesus into your heart. We leave out the idea of repentance. Children need to hear it, teenagers need to hear it, adults need to hear it, senior adults need to hear it. Repentance, turning from sin and turning towards Jesus Christ. Acts 2, 21. Peter is preaching the first Christian sermon and he tells the people. He quotes this same verse that Paul quotes here and he says, you need to call on the name of the Lord and everyone who does that will be saved. And then just a few verses later they say, clarify that for us. What do we need to do to be saved? And he says, you need to repent. Repentance is part of it. Fourthly, faith is part of it. Calling on the name of the Lord involves real faith, genuine faith. You understand when I say faith, I'm not talking about intellectual assent and saying, yes, I believe there was a guy named Jesus and he probably died on a cross. Those things happened in time and space. But personalizing that and trusting in it for your own life. So worship and prayer and repentance and faith. And lastly, obedience. That's right here in Romans 10 verse 16. Paul says, some people have not obeyed the gospel. That's a strange statement to us because we think the gospel is not something you do. It's something you believe. Paul says, oh, no, no, no, no, no. Part of hearing the gospel and responding appropriately is most certainly obedience. So you say, what does it mean to call on the name of the Lord? It's not a wrote prayer. It's not quote unquote, inviting Jesus into your heart. It's this, worship, prayer, repentance, faith, obedience. You say, that sounds like a lot. It is a lot. It's a total reorientation of your relationship with God. It's way more than just saying, you know, I don't wanna go to hell when I die. So I think I'm gonna pray this prayer so that I can go to heaven when I die. It's entirely and completely reorienting your life away from sin and to Jesus Christ. And these are the things that are involved. Worship, prayer, repentance, faith, obedience. You understand that whether we're doing programs here in this building at a manual Baptist or whether we're sending teams to Kenya, what we want in people's life is this. We don't care about wrote prayers. We're not asking anybody to invite Jesus into their heart. We're saying to people, to children down in the preschool, to teenagers, to adults, to old adults. This is what Jesus wants from you. Worship and prayer and repentance and faith and obedience and everyone who turns in that way, re-oriented their life in that way to Jesus Christ, will most certainly be saved. That's the promise of Romans 10, 13. Listen very carefully, Romans 10, 13 is not a promise that anyone who prays a magic prayer will go to heaven someday automatically. That's not the point. It isn't the point. It's not what we're seeking to make here at a manual, people who have recited a prayer. It's not what we're looking for on the quote unquote, mission field. What does it mean to call upon the name of the Lord? Totally reorienting your relationship with God. Question two, what needs to happen for people to call on the name of the Lord? This is very simple, straight out of the text in Romans 10. Number one, someone must be sent. Number two, someone must preach. Number three, the gospel must be heard and number four, people must believe. After that, you call on the name of the Lord. You turn in repentance, you turn in faith, believing in Jesus Christ. You reorient your life towards following Him. Here's the unfortunate reality when you look at that list. In churches, and I'll be honest enough with you to say, this is the fault of preachers. People like me, me, not just people like me, me. Sometimes we glamorize part of this chain as if it was more important than another part of this chain. Sometimes people like me or me stand up and we talk about the importance of you need to go, you need to witness to the people at work, you need to witness to the people at home. Look, you need to do all those things. But sometimes we make that second bullet point, the idea of preaching sounds so much more important than the first bullet point, the idea of sending. That's wrong. Every part of that chain is important. And if it breaks down at any link, the whole process is gone. Those who give and send are just as important as those who preach. And sometimes we start to talk about the missionaries like we saw in the video and we say, man, those people make the real sacrifice so that people can hear. You talk about a preacher and you say, man, preachers, pastors, people in ministry, their life is filled with spiritual work. It's so important, it's so important. It is important, it's part of this process. But it's no more important than the first link in the chain, which according to Paul is people being sent. And if that's gonna happen, people have to give. So just for two seconds, close your Bible. Common sense, no Bible, just common sense. I think we can all say missionaries and pastors are important in the process of finishing the mission. We're gonna need some pastors and we're gonna need some missionaries. Common sense tells me, I'm an accounting major, so I think I can say this with a tiny degree of authority. If nobody gives and nobody sends, people like me are up a creek. Somebody's gotta give, somebody's gotta send. And shame on me or any other preacher who wants you to think that the preaching part of this process is more important than the giving and the sending part of the process. It's not. Now open your Bible again. That's enough away from the Bible. That's common sense. Somebody's gotta give. The money's gotta come from somewhere. Here's the biblical side of this. In the very beginning, in the book of Genesis, God created a lot of different things. And did you know one of the things he created and one of the things he said was very good is a thing called work. He made it. And he didn't say, oh, Adam, you messed up, now we're gonna have to start working. Before Adam messed up, before the fall, there was work. And God looked at it, and he said, this is a great thing. Work is a great, fantastic thing. All kinds of work. There was work with your hands. One of the things Adam was supposed to do was to get out in the garden and control it and tame it and have dominion over it. It wasn't gonna happen on its own. He had to work it physically. And one of the things Adam had to do was name the animals. That didn't require a lot of physical work, but he had to sit there and he had to think. He had to use his mind. There's work with your hands. There's work with your brain. There's work that involves both of those things. And God says, that is good. When you go out and you leave this place and you go back to quote unquote, real life, you're eight to five, you're nine to six, you're whatever it may be. Your work honors God. Your work matters to God. Don't just think, well, the stuff God really cares about is church stuff and missionary stuff and preacher stuff. He cares about that stuff, but he also cares about you in your work. And he wants you to be excellent at it. And he wants you to delight in it. And he wants you to work hard at it. He made you to do that. You understand when I say God made you to work, that when you go work, whether you're singing hymns or not, that's part of your worship to God. Doing something he made you to do is valuable to God. And on the backside of that, when you work, when you earn a living, you make money, and you turn around and you say, my job is to send. And it's important, it has to happen. I give and I send so that we can have pastors, so that we can have missionaries, and both of those things are important. So sometimes I think we make this mistake. And again, I'm telling you that's probably because of people like me or not just people like me because of me. We make this mistake and we talk about missionaries or great evangelists as if there's some sort of super league of Christian. Like when we get to heaven, the hall that you walk down is gonna be lined with all pastors and missionaries, just pictures up on the wall. I don't think so. I think our ideas of what's important and what's great and what's really sacrificial and needed is gonna get flipped on its head when we get to heaven. I think that's one of the things Jesus was trying to teach us when he said the first will be last and the last will be first. It's gonna go down way different than we may think. And I think you're gonna start walking down this sort of proverbial hallway and you're gonna be looking at the people in the positions of honor and the folks whose picture's hanging on the wall. And I think it's not even necessarily gonna be the millionaire who gave out of his abundance, but I think it's gonna be the blue collar working class guy who went to work every day and worked hard. It's gonna be the stay at home mom who took care of her kids while her husband worked hard and their picture's gonna be up there. And you say, what in the world are they doing up on the wall? You're gonna say, somebody had to send 'em. Somebody had to work. Somebody had to earn a living. And somebody had to give sacrificially so that you could have pastors and missionaries. You think the pastors and missionaries did all of it? No. Somebody had to send them. What I'm trying to say to you is that those who work in the real world, quote unquote, real world, and they give sacrificially and they support pastors and they send out missionaries are equally as important as the pastors and the missionaries who go out. There is no hierarchy here where one is more important than the other. They're both part of this process. And Paul says, look, if all of those things don't happen, no one is calling on the name of the Lord. How can it happen unless they believe and before they can believe they have to hear. And if they're gonna hear someone's gotta preach and if someone's gonna preach, they gotta be sent. That means somebody's gotta work and somebody's gotta send 'em. These are the things that have to happen for people to call on the name of the Lord. Now, applying it to missions. Here we go. We don't expect all people to call on the name of the Lord, but we do want to see all people's, plural, people's, call on the name of the Lord. This goes back to the distinction in these words that we've talked about the last few weeks. When we say we don't expect all people to call on the name of the Lord, what we're saying is, no one has any illusion that every single person on planet earth is gonna come to faith in Jesus Christ. That's not reality. But we do have a great hope that all of the peoples, all of the people, groups, all of the families, all of the tribes will one day come to trust in Jesus. And we have this hope because of the book of Revelation. We're gonna look at it next week on Sunday morning. This picture in Revelation of a multitude of worshipers from every language, every tribe, every people group all over the earth. They're gonna be there in the end. And so we have hope that all of the peoples will be there. But we don't go out naively expecting that every person here in Odessa or in Kenya or anywhere in between, that every single individual is gonna trust in Jesus. And I'm getting this from the text. Look at Romans 10. He talks about this process. Here's what it means to call on the name of the Lord. Here's what needs to happen for people to call on the name of the Lord. Verse 16. But they've not all obeyed the gospel. Some weren't interested. Isaiah describes this and he quotes Isaiah and he says, "Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?" You remember the story of Isaiah? You remember Isaiah six. We're not gonna look at it this morning, but you probably remember it if you've read through the book. Isaiah is there. He's a prophet. He's worshiping in the temple. And the temple's filled with the glory of God. And there's smoke and there's an earthquake and the buildings rattling and he's there and he's praying. And he sees this vision of God on his throne and the angels are there and the angels are singing, holy, holy, holy is the Lord God almighty. The earth is filled with his glory. And they're singing back and forth. And Isaiah naturally instinctively starts to confess his sin. And God does what only God can do. He removes his sin. Isaiah can't do it himself. God removes it for him. And then God asks a question. You remember the question God asks? He says, who's gonna go? Who will we send? Who's gonna go out and preach? And you remember what Isaiah says? Maybe the dumbest thing he ever said in his life after what he heard next. He said, here am I, send me. And you go look at it in Isaiah six. After he says, here am I, send me, God says, great. You should just know that nobody's gonna listen to you. No one's gonna pay attention. No one's gonna believe. You're gonna talk. You're gonna preach. You're gonna tell 'em about me. You're gonna tell 'em to repent. And no one is gonna do it. Have fun. That includes Isaiah's ministry as a prophet. It includes Isaiah 53-1, which is the verse that Paul quotes here in Romans 10. Take your Bible, hold your spot in Romans 10. Flip back to the book of Isaiah, back to the left. If you hit Psalms, you went too far. Isaiah's a big book, you oughta be able to find it. Isaiah 53. Paul quotes this verse, verse one in Isaiah 53, saying, we've gone out to preach, we've sent them. They've heard and some have not obeyed the gospel. And he quotes Isaiah 53-1, who has believed what he has heard from us? Keep going. And to whom is the arm of the Lord been revealed? For he grew up before him like a young plant, like a root out of dry ground. He had no form or majesty that we should look at him and no beauty that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows acquainted with grief. And as one from whom men hide their faces, he was despised and we esteemed him not. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows, yet we esteemed him stricken and smitten by God and afflicted, but he was wounded for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities and upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace. With his stripes, we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray. We've turned everyone to his own way and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth like a lamb that has led to the slaughter and like a sheep that before it shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth. By oppression and judgment, he was taken away and as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people and they made his grave with the wicked and with the rich man in his death, although he had done no violence and there was no deceit in his mouth. Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him. He has put him to grief. When his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring and prolong his days, the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. Out of the anguish of his soul, he will see and be satisfied. By his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted, righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities. You understand that when Paul in Romans 10 decides to quote a verse from the Old Testament, he doesn't do what we do and just sort of flip through and put his finger down on a verse and say, "That one will be good." He says, "Let me think about one that fits." And he picks Isaiah 53-1, who has believed what he heard from us? And Isaiah says, "Well, this is what I've been telling people "that somebody was gonna come to do this." And Isaiah says, "Nobody has believed." They didn't listen. And Paul says, "You know what? "I know how Isaiah feels "because this is what we preach about Jesus, "that he came, that he bore our sins, "that he died our death, that he was our substitute, "and that God crushed his son "so that we could have life." And Paul says it right here in Romans 10. Not everyone has believed, not everyone has obeyed the gospel. But then he turns around and he gives us hope. He doesn't want us to be pessimistic. He wants us to be realistic. Not every single person will believe, but here's the hope that he gives us, Romans 10-17. Faith comes from hearing and hearing through the word of Christ. That's why we send them. That's why we preach. That's why you talk to your kids and your neighbors and your coworkers and your parents and anybody else that will listen to you about the truth of Jesus Christ. You know that not all are gonna obey the gospel and respond in faith and obedience and prayer and worship and all of those things, but you have confidence because of what Paul says that when the word of Christ is proclaimed, some will believe. Faith comes from hearing and hearing through the word of Christ. The last point of application is this. It's very simple. The Lord's Supper is a celebration for those who have called on the name of the Lord for salvation. The Lord's Supper is not something that we do to try to make ourselves more pleasing to God. The Lord's Supper is something that we do and we celebrate because we in and of ourselves are not pleasing to God. We're confessing our sin and admitting our need for Jesus Christ and this morning, if you are somebody who has called on the name of the Lord and you've been listening so you understand, I'm not talking about somebody who's prayed or wrote prayer. That's not what's in view. But you're someone who has truly and genuinely called on the name of the Lord for salvation. We invite you to celebrate with us this morning. If you sit here and you say, you know what, I'm not sure that I've done that. I'm not sure that I've experienced that sort of total reorientation of my life towards Jesus Christ. We just ask that as the elements pass you by, you let them pass and you take a minute to reflect and to pray about what would it look like in your life for you to call on the name of the Lord for salvation? I'm gonna ask you to bow. Deacons and elders, you can make your way to the back of the room and we're gonna pray. Father, what a great hope that we have in your son Jesus Christ. And what a great mission you have entrusted to us. Father, remind us of the importance of preaching as we hear Paul say that faith comes through hearing the word of Christ proclaimed. Let us never, never minimize or forget the importance of sharing the good news about Jesus Christ. But Father, let us never forget the importance of those who work and give and send. Father, everything that we have and everything that we are is a result of your grace in our lives. And as we take of the bread and as we take of the cup, we do not come trying to earn our way with you. We do not come trying to show you how holy we are or how spiritual we are. We come admitting and confessing our sin and proclaiming our need and our total dependence on Jesus Christ. We're thankful for his body that was broken for our sin. We're thankful for his blood that was shed to redeem us. And Father, as we take a moment to remember and to celebrate what you've accomplished on our behalf, we pray that Jesus Christ would be the center of our affections, not ourselves, but Jesus, that we would look to the author and the perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross and scorned at shame and sat down at the right hand. Father, we pray in the name of our King Jesus, amen.