How Will They Hear?

All right, Romans 10.

You guys ready?

So here's where we've been.

The reality is this that Paul has been working really hard to show the sovereignty of God, right?

He has put forth uh argument after argument, example after example, to show uh God is sovereign over his creation, uh, and that he accomplishes his purposes uh through his power and work.

Um and so uh uh Paul has shown us this through the way that our sin uh affects that, right?

The way it affects our own state and condition, that we are helpless uh without something beyond ourselves, uh transforming us, bringing us to new life, uh, so that we can actually worship rightly, right?

Romans 1 and 2 is our worship is off, so therefore we are under curse because we have chosen to worship creature rather than creator.

And then God helps us to actually worship properly by saving us, by calling us, by electing us, by predestining us, all these things, right?

And we couldn't do any of this without God.

We are totally depraved, uh, that means absolutely hopeless uh without the supernatural work of God in and through us.

And now we get to this kind of place that a lot of us, if we're honest with ourselves, as we engage with these topics, kind of come to a place of um um what seems irreconcilable.

If God is sovereign and he has predestined and elected those of whom will be saved, and Christ died for those elect, and this is all going to work according to his purposes, then why do we preach the gospel?

Why do we evangelize?

Why do we live missionally?

If God's gonna, we kind of do the same thing with prayer, right?

Why pray if God already knows what he's gonna do?

We tend to ask God, who are you?

And who do you think you are, right?

We kind of question his motives, we question his ability, we question who he has revealed himself to be, because ultimately, you and I, what we strive to do is we strive, if we're honest with ourselves, make God fit into our philosophical framework.

Well, we do this all the time, right?

With love, right?

If God is love, then blank.

And what we're saying is the way that I define love, the way that I understand love, then God has to fit into that definition and framework.

We've done this for a long time.

We do this with uh sovereignty and election.

If God is love, we use language like robots and puppets, right?

Just we can't choose.

Um, but that was that was weak.

I'm better than that.

My pop and lock skills are been a little rusty lately.

But uh, but we do this, right?

If God is love, then he would give us free will.

And we would be able to choose freely who we want.

We do that.

What are we doing?

We're saying God has to fit into our philosophical framework of what love equals.

And then what we're saying is that our idea of love is actually God, not God Himself.

Here's the problem with that the world is doing the same thing, the church is adopting this language.

If God is love, then he will accept or affirm A, B, and C sin.

What are they saying?

Well, this is how love should look, right?

If God is love, then he would never reject a person just because of their sexual orientation, or they would never reject a person just because of this or that, right?

That's not loving.

They're using your exact same argument.

Because what they're saying is that their understanding and definition of what love should be is actually God and not God Himself.

You see, God reveals himself as he is, it doesn't have to fit into our philosophical framework or our understanding of what these different character aspects of who God is should be.

You see, God is God.

He's not anti-philosophical, but he is transcendently beyond our philosophy.

What God determines is.

And so God has determined something very uniquely.

He has determined that not only will he elect and predestine those of whom he would save, but he's determined that they will be saved through the preaching of the gospel.

That seems irreconcilable to us.

That seems contradictory.

But if you and I are willing to simply submit to the word of God and not try and make God submit to our philosophical framework, we can rest.

If we're not willing to do that, then we're gonna continue to wrestle with things that seem irreconcilable and contradictive and make God try to fit into what we think he should be.

Praise God, he is who he is and not who I think he should be.

He'd be a much weaker, pathetic God.

So as we come into this chapter, Paul's gonna show us the necessity of the preaching of the gospel.

Why you and I have to live missionally and proclaim the gospel so that those of whom God has chosen from the foundations of the earth might come to life, right?

It might be actually born into this newness of life and have salvific faith and experience the salvation of the Lord.

Let's dive in.

As we look at this first section, right, 5 through 13, uh, what we're gonna see is this summary that our inward faith will produce an outward confession.

Our inward faith will produce an outward confession.

Um, here's how Paul starts.

He starts off with uh uh this kind of contradiction of Moses, right?

He's what he's doing is he's juxtaposing this to what he said previously in verse 4 about the salvation that comes from God.

He says, if you want to receive salvation from the law, then you're gonna have to obtain or you're gonna have to be submissive to the entirety of the law.

If you're gonna seek to have right standing with God through the law, keeping his commands, then what Paul is helping them understand is that you're gonna be held to the standard of perfection.

You have to keep the whole law.

If that's how you want to be justified, if that's how you want to have right standing with God, it's through obedience of the law, then you have to realize that you're going to have to live by the totality of it.

Jesus kind of talks about this in uh one of the best sermons that Jesus gives, well, one of the most infamous sermons Jesus gives, the Sermon on the Mount.

He closes this sermon with this reality.

Because this is what he does.

He goes through the Beatitudes, right?

Blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are the meek, blessed, right?

But then he goes through this laundry list of different sin.

He hits uh things like vengeance and lust, adultery, divorce, anger, and murder.

He hits all these things, right?

And here's what Jesus never does throughout this.

You think you you might think Jesus is the nice guy, the kind one.

He's gonna be super compassionate and merciful.

Throughout this entire sermon, Jesus raises the bar, not lowers it on what sin looks like.

He says, uh, you used to think that adultery was this physical act of sleeping with someone who was not your spouse, right?

He says, No, it actually starts before you ever commit the act.

It starts in your heart.

When you just lust after another woman, you've already committed adultery.

You used to think that murder was when you actually physically, literally killed someone.

He says, I tell you something different.

It already happened when you had hatred in your heart.

You didn't have to flesh itself out in actions or physical undertakings.

It was the desire itself that constituted a guilty verdict.

You see, Jesus didn't lower the bar through the Sermon on the Mount, He raised the bar in every aspect of what sin is.

And then he closes this infamous sermon with this phrase.

In Matthew 5.48, he says this you therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly father is perfect.

Now imagine sitting under that teaching and realizing the time and time again you failed.

You committed murder, you committed adultery, you you had vengeance in your heart.

You all these things, because maybe you never physically did them, but Jesus said, But you've desired it, you've wanted it.

And that enough was sufficient for a guilty verdict.

You see, this is a devastating statement to hear at the end of this sermon from Jesus because throughout the context of the sermon, again, he never lowers the bar according to their understanding of obedience to the will and commands of God.

He just continually raises it.

So if you want to be justified by the law, if you want to have right standing with God through obedience to the law, what Paul's saying is that you have to perfectly fulfill it.

And it's not just in action, what Jesus kind of helps us understand, it's in the innate desire within the heart that you have to perfectly obey it.

You and I know we can't do that.

You and I know we haven't done that well.

When we lay our heads down at night, we know the thoughts that we had, the desires that we had, the intentions that we had.

We know the places where you just wanted to, you know, hurt that person on the highway.

You wanted to ram your car straight into the side of them and knock them over that edge.

Nobody's ever wanted to do that before.

We know.

Paul continues in verses six through nine.

He gives us this stark contrast between the righteousness attained through obedience and the righteousness attained through faith.

You see, the righteousness that's attained through faith has no boasting.

It has nothing of where we can say, look at my accomplishments, look at all of my work, look at everything that I've ever done.

I've earned this right standing with God through my obedience.

The righteousness that is attained by faith has no room for boasting in it.

And Paul sprinkles in some language uh from Deuteronomy to help prove his point.

I love what Paul does uh here, and he does this throughout his writing, is that he shows us that this is the way that it's always been.

That the Old Testament is not divorced from the New Testament.

Many of us as Christians, we kind of look at the Old Testament and say, ah, we're gonna put that aside.

Give me them epistles, give me the gospel, right?

But we throw away like three-fourths of the Old Testament or three-fourths of the Bible when we dismiss the Old Testament.

But the Old Testament speaks of and points to the death and resurrection of Jesus.

In Luke 34, Jesus actually rebukes his disciples because they did not see that all of the scripture, the psalms and the prophets that they put and the law pointed to his death and resurrection.

And Paul uses this, he uses this to show this is how it was always supposed to be.

It was Abraham, your father, who by faith, righteousness was accounted to him, not through circumcision, not through obedience, not through works, but it was attained by faith.

The law terminates on Jesus.

Throughout this letter, Paul is consistently pointing back to the Old Testament to show righteousness by grace through faith.

It's always been the plan of redemption for God's people.

Now let's look at the uh Deuteronomy scriptures in the context there for a moment to try and understand this from an OT, Old Testament Jewish perspective, right?

If we look at Deuteronomy 9, this is the first kind of section he he kind of borrows from.

It says this do not say in your heart, after the Lord your God has thrust them out before you, it is because of my righteousness that the Lord has brought me in to possess this land.

Whereas it is because of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord is driving them out before you.

Not because of your righteousness or the uprightness of your heart, are you going in to possess their land?

But because of the wickedness of these nations, the Lord your God is driving them out from before you, and that he may confirm the word that the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.

So he's saying, There's no room to boast here.

He's pointing back to this text in Deuteronomy to say, God is not doing any of this work here and now because of your righteousness, because of the way that you've upheld the law, the way that you've been obedient.

This has nothing to do with you.

This has everything to do with the plans and purposes of God.

The preceding phrase of who will ascend and who will descend, the word is near to you.

These three phrases are borrowed from Deuteronomy 30.

It says this for this commandment that I command you today is not too hard for you, neither is it far off.

It is not in heaven that you should say, Who will ascend to heaven for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it.

Neither is it beyond the sea that you should say, Who will go over the sea for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?

But the word is very near you, it is in your mouth and in your heart, so that you can do it.

And here's what Paul says about this Deuteronomy 30.

He says, This is pointing to Jesus.

Right?

When Jesus was being born and his announcement from the angels, it was that Emmanuel is with us.

God Himself is with us.

The word became flesh.

And so when it talks about the word is near to us, it is truly near to us in the person of Jesus.

And he says, if you're gonna ascend to heaven, is that not to try and bring Christ down?

Or if you're gonna descend into the abyss to receive this word, is that not to raise Christ from the dead?

But I tell you that the word is near to you.

See, Christ has already come.

He has already descended from heaven to be with us, made uh in the image of man, taken on flesh, and then he was risen from the dead after his crucifixion.

What Paul is showing his audience is that the totality of the law has already been fulfilled in Christ.

It is Jesus who has already come down to us, and it is Jesus who has already risen from the dead.

So here's the summation of what he's trying to communicate.

To try and attain right standing with God through obedience is a rebellious action of tyranny to try and circumvent the finished work of Jesus.

It is a rebellious attempt to circumvent the finished work of Jesus.

No one can come to the Father except through him.

God's righteousness as attained by faith is believing that Emmanuel, God with us, has come to be among his people, that he died as one of his people, but raises to life on the third day to liberate his people.

This is the promised truth of verse 9.

If we read it up top, we see here, because if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

Salvation, right standing with God, comes to us by faith in Jesus alone.

Verses 9 through 13 is putting on display the confidence and assurance that we have in salvation through Jesus.

This is something that has been reiterated through this letter.

If you want to try and be saved through obedience to the law, if you want to try and be saved through your own work, good luck.

When is enough enough?

We talked about this the other week, that self-righteous pursuits never end in enough.

But the work of Jesus does.

It ends with, it is finished.

It is enough that Christ's righteousness is perfectly sufficient and efficient for us.

All people, Jew and Gentile, are saved by grace through faith in Jesus.

No one will be us will be saved apart from faith in Jesus, and no one who has truly put their faith in Jesus will ever be disappointed.

Let me say that again.

No one will attain salvation apart from the finished work of Jesus, and all who put their faith in that finished work will never be disappointed.

His salvation is sure.

Now, some people have tried to use these verses as like a as some type of incantation of sorts to acquire faith, a formula for salvation.

Right?

If you just believe and confess, then you will be saved.

Paul's not laying out for us a sequence of words that, when followed, will equal salvation to the one reciting it.

He's showing us that there's a confident hope in the salvation Jesus offers to his people.

And we've seen this kind of in evangelism, right?

If you just believe in your heart and confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, you will be saved.

And what we do is we try to get the confession without the inner reality of faith.

There's a lot of people, including demons, who will confess Jesus is Lord.

But it'll be absent of faith.

It'll be absent of repentance.

It'll be absent of anything salvific to them.

Every knee will bow, every tongue will confess Jesus is Lord.

And it's easy to write, manipulate someone, and I'm not saying that this is every occasion, but often throughout the church and their understanding of mission, it's hey, you don't want to go to hell, do you?

Well, just say Jesus is Lord and then you'll be saved.

Paul's not giving us this formula formulaic equation to get salvation out of someone.

He's showing to us that there is no disappointment in the salvation that Christ gives us.

It is sure.

It is something that we can put our full-fledged confidence in.

That anyone who believes in their heart and confesses with their mouth that Jesus is Lord, they will be saved.

If this faith has flooded your heart, then a confession will flow from your mouth.

The miraculous, gracious, sovereign movement of inward faith will produce a faithful outward confession that Jesus is Lord.

And this is something that we have to wrestle with with people, right?

Too many times in evangelism and mission, we've tried to make converts and not disciples.

The command is to make disciples, not raise their hand and quote a prayer, not confess Jesus is Lord before there's actual faith in their heart.

It's to make disciples.

And what should happen is that as we show them the beauty of the gospel, as we work through the scriptures to show them God's promises, as we labor in prayer with our brothers and sisters who were trying to see the resurrected, risen Christ, then at some point in time the affection will be so stirred within them that they will confess with joyful reliance, Jesus is Lord.

Simply saying Jesus is Lord is not salvific.

As I said, demons will declare the same without any salvation.

But it's a confession that springs from faith that saves us.

If we look at verses 14 through 17, what we'll see is that faith comes from hearing in hearing through the word of Christ.

Paul says this salvation has now come to everyone.

Salvation has come to all people.

And what we have to do is we have to understand the context of what Paul's trying to say.

What he's doing is he's writing to predominantly Jewish people.

He's been addressing Jewish people for chapters on end about how the way that you thought you were made right standing before God is false and it has no hope.

And it's only if you put faith in the finished work of Jesus will you actually have the salvation that God offers.

So when Paul says that salvation is now for everyone or all people, what he's doing is he's showing his Jewish audience the radical inclusion of the Gentile people.

Right just beforehand, what did uh Paul reiterate?

He reiterated the Old Testament saying that those who were not my people, I will make my people.

That that and he asks this question what should we say to this?

Well, he gives an answer.

That those who were not even seeking the righteousness of God have attained it by faith.

And that those who were seeking the righteousness of God have not obtained it through their own works, labor, and toil.

And so when Paul says that.

Now salvation has come to everyone.

He's asserting here the reality to his Jewish audience that this includes the Gentiles also.

That God is bringing or making a people of his own possession from all the peoples of the earth, every tribe, nation, and tongue.

It's the scope of God's salvation beyond geopolitical Israel.

And it encompasses what we understand as true Israel.

True Israel, that is, those who are united by faith to Christ, because ultimately Jesus is the true Israel.

In Galatians 3:16, Paul says, Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring, singular.

Galatians 3:16

It does not say and to offsprings, referring to many, but referring to one, and to your offspring, who is Christ.

Who is Israel?

Jesus is Israel, because the promise to Abraham was for his offspring, who is Christ.

And so true Israel is all of those who by faith are attaining the righteousness of God through his finished work and are united to him by baptism of the Spirit.

To understand the text in his context, Paul's laboring vigorously to show for his readers that being a national Israelite has nothing to gain for right standing with God.

It is only in being united to the true Israel, Jesus the Christ, are we able to have right standing.

So truly, everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.

This is a true statement.

Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.

It's not just for geopolitical Israel or national Israel, it is for all people of the earth, every tribe, nation, and tongue.

There are people of whom God has called and elected before the foundations of the world to call on the name of the Lord and experience salvation.

But now in this text we come to this mission critical statement.

How then will they call on him whom they have not believed?

And how are they to believe in him whom they have never heard?

This is mission critical.

Paul just said, everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.

And then he inserts this statement of mission.

But how are they ever going to call on him whom they've not believed?

And how are they going to believe if they've never heard?

And how are they going to hear if no one preaches?

And how are we going to preach if no one is sent?

Gospel preaching is mission critical.

In the sovereignty of God, he has so mysteriously chosen that salvation would come to his people through the proclamation of a message, a heralding.

We are then called to preach.

If everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved, how sad a state it would be if they were never told the name to call on.

He says this.

The first is love of God and concern for his glory.

The second is love of man and concern for his welfare.

Yes.

With great joy and moved with affection, we should preach the gospel in correspondence with God's sovereignty.

What great confidence does God's sovereignty give us in evangelism?

There are people who are his in this city.

Right?

In Acts 18, Paul is thrown out of the city and he gets this word from the Lord.

He says, Paul, get up and get back into that city and preach the gospel, because I have many in that city who are mine.

The assurance of God's sovereign election of those of whom he would save should give us full-fledged confidence to run out into these streets and proclaim the gospel, because there are those of whom will hear and believe because Jesus has died for them, purchased them by their blood.

The Father elected them before the foundations of the earth, and they're waiting to be awoken like stone statues who have life breathed back into them when we proclaim the gospel of the King of Glory.

We can go and preach because we know there are people in this city who are the Lord's.

God's sovereign power has both elected those whom would be saved and required that faith would come through hearing.

And so we are a sent people.

We are a sent people.

Paul says this in this uh uh a series of questions.

How will they then call on him who they've not believed?

And how are they to believe in of him whom they have not heard?

And how are they to hear without someone preaching?

And how are they to preach unless they are sent?

We are a sent people.

This word sent is the same word that they would use for apostles.

Now we don't take the office of apostle, but we take on the work of apostleship, one who is sent to be able to proclaim the gospel.

This uh for us to be sent by the Spirit into the world with the gospel so that they might hear and be saved.

We are sent to preach so they might hear and believe.

I love this quote from 1800s pastor Charles Spurgeon.

He says, This if God would have painted a yellow stripe on the backs of the elect, I would go around lifting shirts.

But since he didn't, I must preach whosoever will.

And when whatsoever believes, I know that he is one of the elect.

Spurgeon was okay with this seeming contradiction.

Because this is how God revealed himself and his plan for salvation through his word.

I will elect those whom I will save, and I will require that they are saved through the hearing of the preaching of the gospel.

Spurgeon called these things friends.

When asked, how could you reconcile this God's sovereignty and man's responsibility?

He simply looked at the person who asked the question and said, I didn't know good friends needed reconciled.

Why can we not submit to that?

Because in our hearts, as human beings, we want God to submit to us.

What is our framework for what love looks like?

What is our framework for what uh goodness and mercy and kindness looks like?

Well, then that's how God must be.

No, you are the clay.

Do not raise your voice to the potter.

Simply submit to the work of his hand.

In 15 B through 16, we see the effectual power of the gospel to accomplish its purposes.

The hearing of the gospel will, by God's grace and power, cause some hearts to be softened to respond in faith and obedience, while others, by God's judgment and power, cause them to be further hardened in at enmity with Him.

Old time preachers would say that the same sun that melts the wax hardens the clay.

We believe that the gospel always accomplishes its purposes.

We don't have to determine the outcome, we just have to be faithful to proclaim it.

You see, he says there at the end, for Isaiah says, Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us.

Or 16, sorry, but they have not all obeyed the gospel.

For Isaiah says, Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us.

There are some who will hear the gospel but not believe.

Through God's judgment and power, they will remain in rebellion and at enmity with Him.

But we have the confidence of evangelism that some will be softened by the power of the Holy Spirit, and faith will be produced, and salvation will come to them.

While we may not be certain who will respond to the gospel, we can be assured that there will be some who do respond in faith.

And we can know fully this truth, because God has revealed it through his word, that saving faith comes by hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.

Paul inserts this statement after this series of questions.

He says, as it is written in the letter, later half of 15, how beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news.

What he's talking about here is about a messenger of war.

Right?

What would happen is that they would send people off with a message to an enemy.

And maybe it was a peace treaty, or maybe it was uh send someone off to uh see how a battle is going in war.

But they would travel great distances, and then they would actually train uh soldiers and other people to stand up on a watchtower to look for the messenger to come back.

And they were trained so well that they could tell by the pace of their feet, by the dust that was kicked up behind them, by the posture of their stance from a great distance away whether it was good news or bad news.

They could tell if it was victory or defeat, they could tell if it was peace or war.

They could tell by just observing the way they were running back.

This is what Paul's referring to.

How beautiful are the feet of those who bring the good news of the gospel.

With haste should we be running out there, the dust should be kicked up from behind us as we tread forward with the best news all of creation could ever desire to hear.

Jesus is Lord.

As we go through 18 through 21, we see that God makes a people through preaching.

God makes a people through preaching.

Uh verses 18 through 21, Paul's reiterating some points.

Point one is that people that he is writing to have heard that right saying with God comes by faith and not by works, because this is an Old Testament reality.

This might be new to them in their understanding, but this is not something new that has been revealed by God.

This is how it has always been.

This truth has been from the beginning with Abraham and has stretched out through all of redemptive history.

Point two is that God is going to make a people from among those who were not seeking him.

This shows the chasing down sovereignty of God to save sinners from every person, tribe, and tongue.

And point three, Paul's going to reiterate, is that the general call of repentance in faith is made.

It is not the general call of repentance that leads sinners to repentance, it is the effectual call that accomplishes such miracles.

Here's what I mean by that.

Every person has heard the call and is able to stand responsible for their response to repent and believe.

Every person on earth will be held responsible to the general call that is made to all image bearers, repent and believe.

That general call has no power.

That general call only has responsibility and condemnation behind it.

It's the effectual call, the sovereign working of the Holy Spirit that calls those of whom Christ died to saving faith.

This is what the golden chain of salvation or the ordos salutis that we work through in Romans 8 talk, that those whom he called, he also justified.

Get this straight.

The reality is that without the effectual call and the sovereign work of God and election and predestination and the work of the Holy Spirit to make you alive and have faith in your heart, all of us would fail to respond to the call.

It is the mercy and love and kindness of God that enables us to respond to the effectual call and repentance and faith.

Ultimately, God is making for himself a people.

This is what Paul is reiterating.

God has elected a people for his glory.

His son has come.

So God the Father has elected and predestined a people for his glory.

The Son has come and purchased and ransomed those people through his blood.

And now the Spirit comes and fills us and sends us so that we might proclaim the gospel and the will of God be fulfilled by grace through faith.

And the vehicle for this is preaching.

This people will not be through an earthly bloodline, but through heaven's bloodline.

It will be the Israel promised by faith, not works.

It will be a people made through the preaching of the gospel.

But we don't believe this.

You and I fail to believe this on two different primary levels, I think.

Number one is that some of us we are waiting let me go.

Main idea.

I'm skipping a whole section here.

I'm looking at the clock, my glasses are in my car.

We're sent to here's the main idea of this text.

We are sent to preach so they can hear and believe.

We are sent to preach so they can hear and believe.

It is in this moment where we are struck with the reality of a seeming cosmic contradiction.

That God is totally sovereign and elects those who He would save out of His free will and good pleasure, and the need for preaching and evangelism for people to hear, believe, and be saved.

These two things are not at ends with one another, but they are the divine kiss of sovereignty and responsibility.

This is how God has determined it would be.

And so, in light of that, you and I should be driven.

We should be driven for mission.

We should be out there preaching the gospel.

Here's how you and I are believing.

Are you ready how you and I are believing?

You and I are believing that no one's gonna be saved out there.

We've got a huddle inside this protective four wall.

We might as well just keep our mouths shut and pray, Lord Jesus, come quickly.

That's the posture of the church, is it not?

That's ridiculous because that's so antithetical to the promises and working of God and how he's revealed himself to be.

He said, There are people in this city who need to hear the gospel proclaimed, and you got to be sent out and be preached so that they might come alive through the miraculous work of the Holy Spirit, and I might expand my kingdom through the proclamation and heralding of the good news of the finished work of my son.

There are people out there waiting for you and I to stop being scared, to stop being intimidated, to open our mouths and proclaim that Jesus is Lord, so that faith may arise in their hearts and the kingdom take root and spread out like a mustard tree that just covers this area for the glory of God and the good of those of whom he died for.

We should be driven to bring God glory through proclaiming the excellencies of his saving power through the finished work of his son.

To bring our neighbor the greatest love of being reconciled to the Father by faith in Jesus' finished work.

If you want to know what it looks like to love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself, it is to proclaim the excellencies of his power and work so that they might receive the greatest love they could have ever imagined.

Christ.

What great joy is mission?

The kingdom takes root and spreads through people preaching first and foremost.

If we desire to see the kingdom expand, then we need to go forth with the gospel, not with kindness, not with compassion, not through social justice, not through inclusive efforts.

It is the gospel alone that spreads the kingdom, that grows the kingdom through adding many to his eternal family.

But you and I don't believe this.

Right?

Transition.

Many of us, what we believe is that compassion alone builds the kingdom.

If we're honest, if we survey the church, you and I really believe, some of us in here, compassion alone builds the kingdom.

Here's what I mean by this.

Look, this has been an error in the church for decades.

We think that being nice and doing nice things is enough to add to the kingdom.

Right?

And this is when we look at the cross, uh, Jesus being crucified, right?

Being mocked, beaten, scourged, he's not on the cross.

This is what Jesus didn't do.

He didn't go, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait, time out.

Did I forget to tell you guys just to be nice to each other?

I did, didn't I?

All right.

You know, heaven, get me down.

I don't have to do this.

You guys can be nice to each other?

Great.

I don't have to go through all this.

No, no, we can't be nice to each other.

And this is when perfect love steps on the scene, we murder it.

We can't be nice enough to each other.

It takes the gruesome sacrifice of our Messiah to accomplish salvation for us.

And what the church has done is we've traded our confession for compassion.

Here's some implications of this through time.

We forsake the very thing that has the power to save, the preaching of the gospel, repentance, and faith.

We create a model with inside the church that the world actually desires to be a part of without being regenerated or born again.

And then we, in return, over time, are moved to jump on worldly endeavors that are rooted in compassion alone.

Do we not see this in today's day and time?

Here's what happened.

Here's the chain reaction.

Decades ago, we determined that we've got to get rid of the doctrines of sin and hell.

We can't preach those things.

And it was likened to this a cargo ship that was struggling on its journey.

And you had to choose what you were going to throw overboard and what you were going to keep.

And the doctrine of sin in hell was something that was chosen consciously to throw overboard.

So we lost this message.

No one wants to hear about sin and hell.

Stop preaching about sin and hell.

We can win the world if we are nice and do good things.

So, what was born out of that?

Works of compassion.

Let's all just get together and dig wells.

Let's all just get together and do feeding programs.

Let's all just get together and go serve and take a bunch of pictures with the people that are poor and hopeless, and that, you know, and then we can post them and everybody can think how awesome we are.

We can do good things, and we can invite the world to do them with us.

Hey, I know you don't believe in Jesus, but who wouldn't want to give water to people who don't have water?

Let's go do that together.

Hey, that sounds great.

Let's do it.

So then what happens?

The world participates.

Because fundamentally, the world wants to kind of do some good things.

Even if it is for their own pat on the back.

But then here's what happens: the world does good things.

And the church begins to participate with them.

And the end result is that the world remains in sin and destined for hell.

So what happened is we lost this doctrine, we lost this preaching of sin and hell.

We said we got to get rid of it, we got to abandon it, and we're just gonna focus on being nice and doing good things.

And we started inviting the world in to do that with us, right?

Feeding children, bringing clean water, uh, shoes for people who don't have shoes, you know, things like that.

Well, the world was like, cool, we'll do that.

And so they started participating with us.

And as we invited them, they kept coming and we kept doing good things together, and all along we lost the confession, right?

We didn't lose, we lost preaching.

And so then the world said, Well, I like to do good things, I'm gonna start doing good things too.

And so they started doing good things, and then the church started jumping on with them.

We we see the turn of events perfectly in the cultural situations of our time.

The world has started a good movement through inclusivity, black lives matter, critical race theory.

And what's happening?

The church is jumping on board with it.

There's no regeneration, there's no call for repentance, there's no salvation.

There's none of this.

It is let's do good things together because we believe that actually compassion alone builds the kingdom.

And I've said this before.

What we're actually saying is that we want the fruit of the kingdom without submission to the king.

When we've lost our confession, being nice and doing good things, church, leaves the world in a state of sin and destined for hell.

Ultimately, at the end of the day, you're not doing good, you're doing wickedness.

You're not loving, you're hating.

Because you can't do enough good things to make Jesus love you more.

You can't do enough works of compassion and be nice enough to have right standing with God.

Do we get this?

Do we understand that it is only by faith in the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ alone that attains for us the right standing that we need to have with God the Father?

That's it.

That alone.

And you know why we're not going to be f- I mean, look, look, kingdom living should equal uh faith in Christ should have implications of kingdom living, right?

We should love justice, we should do mercy, we should see the restoration of the city happen, but that's because we have already brought people into that kingdom by the preaching of the gospel and the faith that they have applied to his finished work.

And then the church transforms the city with the message of the gospel continually on their lips.

The compassion movement has forsaken and abandoned its confession.

And I would argue that it is causing more people to be falsely convinced that they are good with God because they do good things.

And we'll see many who look back at the church as they are descending into eternal conscious torment and say, Why did you not warn me?

Let it not be for us, church.

Some of us, though, we believe God alone builds the kingdom.

We are the frozen chosen.

Right?

We're the ones who believe, hey, God is so sovereign over who will be saved, we don't even have to do anything.

So we're just gonna huddle in here and preach and pray and wait for Jesus to come back.

This is so antithetical to the revelation that God has given to us as his people.

We don't, we are not passive in Christian living.

We are active in our Christian living.

We are one sent because we've been filled with the Holy Spirit and we go forth into culture with the proclamation of the gospel.

This is what Paul helps us understand in 1 Corinthians.

How does God's sovereignty and our responsibility work in tandem together?

When referring to how the Corinthians heard the gospel, he says this in verse uh chapter 3, verse 6 I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth.

Ultimately, is it on God to perform the miracle, right, of salvation inside an individual?

Absolutely.

But that never comes without the labor and toil of plowing and sowing and watering for the kingdom's fruit.

In Matthew chapter 9, Jesus says this.

Matthew 9 · chapter mention

He says, Then he said to his disciples, the harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few.

Therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.

Whose harvest is it?

It's God's harvest.

Why is it God's harvest?

Because before the foundations of the earth, he has elected and predestined those of whom he would be saved.

He can guarantee that the harvest is plentiful because of his sovereign purposes and salvation.

And he gives us that assurance and he gives us that promise.

But it is not absent of the responsibility that we go forth as harvesters ourselves.

We have to be laborers in this kingdom.

It takes human effort in the preaching of the gospel because that's how God has destined it would be.

What joy should that be?

We think so opposite of that.

We talked about this last week.

We think so opposite of that.

We are terrified to preach the gospel.

We don't think anybody's gonna believe in Jesus.

We're so far away from American Christianity that nobody even wants to hear about Jesus anymore.

Praise God, America is going post-Christian because there are thousands upon thousands and thousands of people who believe falsely that they were good with God because they said some prayer in Baptist school or they said some little chant from a friend, whatever it is, right?

We've been believing that America equals Christian.

No, it doesn't.

The kingdom of heaven equals Christian.

And it doesn't matter what state you're in, what party you're a part of, what time inside of history that you have existed, the kingdom is beyond and transcendent our American experience.

Thank God we are going post-Christian.

Maybe we'll get off our rear ends and go out and preach the gospel now.

Instead of just assuming we're good because we vote Republican, because we love guns and the Constitution and so forth.

I'm going there.

Church, we are sent.

We are sent.

Look at Jesus' final, some of his final commands to his disciples in Matthew 28.

Go.

Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you, and behold, I am with you always to the end of the age.

Listen, some of us are like a bad worker who knows that you're getting off the clock in about 45 minutes to an hour, and you're doing everything you can to kill that time.

We think Jesus is gonna come back maybe in 2022, right?

He's got to.

Look at what's happening, right?

That's what and so what we're doing, we're being lazy workers.

And you know what God said?

What Jesus Himself said would happen to lazy workers?

One story that Jesus tells is that you would be dismembered, torn limb from limb, and judged.

Are you just waiting to punch the clock for Jesus to come back?

Or are you gonna run out there and bring as many people as you possibly can into heaven with you?

Because the harvest is ready, and we as a people have been sent.

Here's the beauty of the gospel as I wrap this up.

Jesus has sent the Spirit so that the Spirit would send us.

Jesus has sent the Spirit so that the Spirit would send us.

Acts 1.8.

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you'll be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria to the ends of the earth.

The Spirit promises power for us.

Power for what?

Power to go and preach, power to make disciples, power to testify of the glories of the excellencies of his work.

Not power to just huddle up and hide.

That doesn't take power, that's weakness.

In John 16, 7 through 8, Jesus says this, nevertheless, I tell you the truth.

Church, hear this.

It is to your advantage that I go away.

For if I do not go away, the helper will not come to you.

But if I go, I will send him to you.

And when he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment.

Jesus literally tells his disciples, it's better that I leave because I'm sending another.

We don't believe that.

We don't understand it.

Most of us just forsake the Holy Spirit as a third person of the Trinity altogether.

You have been filled with the Spirit.

He has empowered you, He has sent you, He has gifted you for what?

For the expansion of the kingdom through the preaching of the gospel.

So what do we do?

Kids have been losing their minds since the beginning of the service.

We gotta, I'm sure they're up there tying up teachers and stuff.

All right, here's what we got.

Number one, take ownership of being sent.

You want to talk about human responsibility?

Forget human responsibility if we have free will or not.

Let's just put that argument to bed.

Free will is a unicorn, it doesn't exist.

There.

Here's what we have to understand.

You have been sent.

If you want to talk about responsibility and ownership, take responsibility and ownership in the fact that the King of all creation, the Lord of Lords, the King of Kings, your creator, has sent you.

Most of us are too busy arguing whether what God's love looks like or how much free will we have, and we're not, we're being completely rebellious and disobedient to the fact that you have been sent.

Take ownership of being sent.

Live missionally amongst your context, right?

How much does missional thinking drive the decisions that you make, right?

When you're putting your kid on a baseball team or on a soccer team, I'm thinking, how is this missional?

I'm gonna put my kid in a sports program that's near to my home.

Maybe I'll meet some people on my radius.

You know what I do every single time I get on a team?

Uh except for this last time, it was a weird situation, but I go and talk to the Indian family.

Because you know what happens?

No white people go talk to the Indian family.

And we befriend them and we talk about them and we try to invite them over for dinner or we go to lunches with them and we spend time with them.

Right?

I'm thinking missionally, yeah, kid, hey, hey, good throw, Liam.

Good throw.

All right, now let me and you.

How are we gonna build a relationship here?

What about your coworkers?

Some of you are terrified to preach the gospel in work.

Great news.

If you take them to Applebee's, you're not in work anymore.

So take them to lunch.

Don't go to Applebee's, that place is horrible.

But take them to lunch and share the gospel with them.

Uh think about this.

Think about how many times you eat out, right, in a given month.

It's probably a lot.

And then think about if two times a month you made certain you were going to take a coworker out to lunch and buy their lunch and try to build a relationship with them and share the gospel over time as you earn relational equity with them.

Are you thinking about your work schedule that way?

Are you thinking about your neighbors on how you can engage with them to share the gospel?

Are you thinking about your family and the ways that you're sharing the gospel with them?

How much does mission and the fact that you have been sent inform and shape the decisions you're making in your life?

Are you just trying to stay afloat?

Are you just trying to get what you want?

Are you just trying to have it your way?

Are you just waiting for Jesus to come back?

Listen, at the end of time, you're not going to be held responsible on whether you have free will or not.

You will be held responsible on if you acted properly into the fact and truth that you've been sent.

Number two, encourage one another to go.

This should happen in the context of community.

We should encourage one another to go.

Hey, who's an unbelieving person that you're building a relationship with right now, right?

Have that conversation.

Hey, who are you sharing the gospel with?

Hey, hey, remember that guy that you shared and say him by name.

Hey, remember David who you took out to lunch and you were sharing the gospel with him?

Have you had any follow-up conversations with that?

Hey, let me pray for David right now.

Hey, you said that you were gonna join the sports team.

Have you have you worked to build relationships with any of the parents?

Hey, are you involved in your kids' school in the way that you hey, hey, hey, are we encouraging one another to go?

Are we just constantly sharing how hard life is with one another?

I'm not saying that we shouldn't burden or uh shoulder one another's burdens and sorrows, but but another thing is the reality that we should be spurring one another on to good works.

That fact that we are sent.

Man, so many times mission groups should not be some huddle of sappy sorrow.

Oh, so yeah, I get it, man.

We go through hard things, but if things are just hard all the time, maybe you're just not believing the gospel properly.

Or maybe you are so narcissistic on being unhappy.

You know what's reality?

I talked about this with somebody else.

It's fascinating.

The Bible says this the Bible says, bear one another's sorrows and burdens.

But it also says to rejoice with those who are rejoicing.

You know what we do constantly within the church?

We demand that people be sorrowful with us, sad with us.

And when someone's rejoicing, we have the audacity to say, Well, I'm not going through that.

You shouldn't be that happy because I'm not.

We demand people share in our sorrows, but we do not demand upon ourselves that we share in their rejoicings.

Those are both commands of God.

That was just extra.

We should encourage one another to go.

Lastly, church, we have to reclaim our confession.

Sacred mission is about the confession of the gospel.

It is upon the confession that we are saved.

Those all who call upon the name of the Lord, all who say Jesus is Lord will be saved.

We are not gonna back down from this confession.

We're not gonna back down from proclaiming the gospel, we're not gonna back down from preaching on sin, repentance, in hell.

We are not going to back down.

The prayer of the elder team, the prayer of us personally is keep us faithful.

I don't care if you grow this church, Lord, or if you don't grow this church.

I don't care if if we have to compromise to grow this church, then destroy us.

Put us to death.

Don't allow us to do it.

Keep us faithful.

Faithful to what?

To preaching the gospel, because the most loving thing that we can do for the world around us is to shepherd them, to come alongside them, to show them Jesus alone is Lord.

Amen.

Amen.

Let's pray.