Arise: With Good News - 26 April, 2026

Sharing your original moment, I have a question for you.

Why do people climb mountains? Is it just to reach the top and

see the view? Well, I'll tell you something.

Every rock and every river, every sore and every splinter, I

would climb every mountain with you.

Isn't that sweet? But it's not mine.

It's top house band. And it's the very words that

Nathaniel and Jenny came down the aisle with these words.

Why do people climb mountains? I don't know if you've ever been

halfway up a mountain and wondered why am I climbing this

mountain? As you huffed and you puffed,

someone here was doing the grouse grind this past week for

the first time. Yes, Michael, how'd it go?

At any point did you ask yourself, why am I climbing this

mountain? Can I finish it?

Can I get it done? Do you know, that's very much a

question for us? It's a question for us in terms

of why do people talk about Jesus with those who don't know

Jesus? Why do we seek, why does the

church seek to do that thing called evangelism to talk about

Jesus with those who don't know Jesus?

Why would we climb that mountain of unbelief?

Why would we climb that mountain of terrible awkwardness?

Why would we climb that mountain of great risk?

Why would we rise up and do such a thing?

The Apostle Paul said that he did it because of an intense

longing in his heart for others to know the one who loved him

and who loved them. We're going to read that passage

in Romans chapter 10 and just keep in mind this question of

Romans 10 · chapter mention

why do people climb mountains? Brothers and sisters, he says,

my heart's desire and prayer to God for the Israelites is that

they may be saved. For I can testify about them

that they are zealous for God, but their zeal is not based on

knowledge. Since they do not know the

righteousness of God and sought to establish their own, they did

not submit to God's righteousness.

Christ is the culmination of the law so that there may be

righteousness for everyone who believes.

Moses writes about this righteousness that is by the

Law. The person who does these things

will live by them. But the righteousness that is by

faith says, do not say in your heart who will ascend into

heaven, that is to bring Christ down, or who will descend into

the deep, that is to bring Christ up from the dead.

But what does it say? The Word is near you.

It is in your mouth and in your hearts.

That is the message concerning faith that we proclaim.

If you declare with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in

your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be

saved. For it is with your heart that

you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that

you profess your faith and are saved.

As the Scripture says, anyone who believes in him will never

be put to shame. For there is no difference

between Jew and Gentile, the same Lord as Lord of all, and

richly blesses all who call on him.

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

How? How then can they call on the

1:00 they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the

one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without

someone preaching to them? And how can anyone preach unless

they are sent as it is written? How beautiful are the feet of

those who bring good news. But not all the Israelites

accepted the good news for Isaiah, says Lord, who has

believed our message. Consequently, faith comes from

hearing the message and the message is heard through the

word about Christ. Paul describes his deep longing.

He says I desire intensely that the Israelites, that is his

people of origin, the family of legacy that he found himself

coming from, he's really praying and hoping that they would know

Jesus it he's using language that says it pains him deeply

that they don't know the righteousness of God.

It is his longing that they would come to faith.

Now he recognizes that they have many good qualities.

In fact, they have a zeal for God.

He just says it's misinformed zeal.

And this can be troubling for us as well at times where we can

say that's a really good person, that person has a lot of

sincerity about what they believe.

But Paul presses in here to say that neither zeal nor sincerity

of belief is enough if the object of belief is false, if

it's wrong, if it's inadequate. And it pained him deeply that

the whole adequacy of God explained and expressed in Jesus

Christ had not been embraced by them.

In fact, it was a deep disappointment to him.

And he says this is so wrong because God would include

everyone who believes in Jesus, who entrusts themself to Jesus

for righteousness, for inclusion in the family of God.

God would accept all Jew and Gentile.

It's his deep longing. This is why Paul would climb a

mountain. He would climb a mountain so

that they might believe, so that they might receive Jesus into

their life and the love of God into their lives.

Have you ever looked out as a Christian at some of your family

or the country from which you came, and long in your heart

that I think their lives would be different if they really knew

Jesus? Maybe you've wondered about that

for yourself because you're not quite there yet either.

And so you're wondering for yourself, would my life really

be all that different and better if I received Jesus as Lord into

my life? Paul would suggest that there

was a longing even in Israel that only God could satisfy for.

He says, I know that they are zealous for God, but having been

there himself, he would suggest it's not satisfactory.

It's not enough to just make yourself follow all the rules

and laws of the Scripture as they had been doing.

It's not enough to just be spiritual.

It's not enough to just be religious if the object of your

religiosity does not bring true life.

And so Paul's longing is one that could inform our own

movement, our own desire to climb that mountain.

And I wonder, is it possible for evangelism to be done well?

Evangelism is using this word that speaks of speaking or

proclaiming good news, announcing good news.

It was just a common Greek word. In fact, they had a whole group

of people who were called Heralds.

Hark the Herald, Angels sing. His name is not Harold.

He It was his role to be a herald and announcer of good

news. Is it possible to announce good

news? Well, we've probably all had

those moments in the mall or on the mall, UBC mall, when someone

comes up to us to have a conversation and we realize, oh,

this is the evangelist who's come for me.

Been there. I've been that person, the

evangelist who's come for you. Is it possible to do that well?

I really like this line from Theo of Golden that speaks of

what could be done well and could art be done well?

Asher looked at the old man. Theo, I get the impression

you've thought about this before.

What do you think makes for good art?

Theo rested his chin on his right thumb and placed a bent

index finger over his bottom lip.

Yes, I've thought about it. In fact, I've thought about it a

great deal, and I've asked others about it, but I don't

know if I have an answer either, other than this.

It might not make a lot of sense, but for anything to be

good, truly good, there must be love in it.

I'm not even sure I know fully what that means, but the older I

get, the more I believe it. There must be love for the gift

itself, love for the subject being depicted or the story

being told, and love for the audience, whether the art is

sculpture, farming, teaching, lawmaking, medicine, music, or

raising a child. If love is not in it at the very

heart of it, it might be skillful, marketable, or

popular, but I doubt it is truly good.

Nothing is what it's supposed to be.

If love is not at the core, can Allen Levy get an Amen?

Amen. He's, He's on to something

there, isn't he? And if evangelism is an art, a

craft, an expression of a longing, that longing must

actually be formed and shaped by love.

That's when it's at its best. You see, the Scripture tells us

that Jesus has come to form a new family of faith in him.

He did not come to form that family with force.

He came to form that family with love.

He did not come to form that love with a hammer, even though

they were asking him on the day that he marched into Jerusalem

riding a donkey. They were looking for hammer

time. And he says no, it's humble

time. His way was so different, for it

was truly informed and shaped by the love of God, and so he comes

to form a family. Paul speaks of this movement as

the move of God to come near. He doesn't treat God as one that

we need to climb up into the heavens to get to, because

somehow God, the perfect one who forms us in love, is just up in

the heavens, just out of reach from us.

He says no, Christ has come out of the heavens to us, but Christ

died on the cross. He says you don't even have to

go down into the depths. You don't have to go into death

itself to die and find a home and a family with God.

He says no, Christ has risen from the dead.

Whatever move that you might construct to say, that's what I

have to do to get close to God, God has done more.

He has come close. We celebrate the incarnation of

Jesus, of him coming close at Christmas.

We celebrate Jesus laying his life down on the cross and going

down into the depths of Sheol because he is forming his family

and he has the power of life that is expressed because he

went through Friday and made it good and so he has the power to

give life to those who are dead. Jesus is forming his new family,

and so the signs of faith that are actually signs of being in

the family. Paul expresses here as very

simple. He says if you declare with your

mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God

raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

That's it. The union of speech with belief.

Jesus is Lord. The simplest confession of the

church, The simplest confession of baptism, that if you have

entered into the waters of baptism, you were asked the

question, who is your Savior and Lord Jesus Christ Jesus is Lord.

This is the confession of the Church.

It is the confession of a will and life surrendered to Him.

You are Lord, and what I believe is that you have conquered death

and have been raised from the dead.

What I believe is that you have paid the price and cost of my

sin, and so you died and were raised from the dead.

What I believe is that Jesus has been raised from the dead and

now I have a living relationship with him.

Not with the memory of a dead man, but I have the membership

of life with a living God. And so this is where in

resurrection, in the celebration of Easter, here in our Easter

Tide Sundays, we see the essential nature of belief and

faith about the resurrection of Jesus as essential to our life

and inclusion in his family. Do you believe in your heart, in

the depths of your mind to accept this mystery that Jesus

has been raised from the dead? He says while you will be saved,

you are being saved, you are saved.

Salvation has come to this house.

Herein is the assurance of our salvation.

It was bought and paid for by Christ and somehow by some

mysterious move of life, I've come to believe and entrust my

life to him. I've repented of my way.

I've changed my mind and said, Lord Jesus, you are Lord and you

have risen. You have conquered death.

To be in your family is to be free.

And now we are in a new family of faith.

Read this with me. It says as the scripture says,

Are you ready? Anyone who believes in him will

never be put to shame, for there's no difference between

Jew and Gentile. The same Lord of all and richly

blesses all who call on him, for everyone who calls on the name

of the Lord will be saved. Welcome to the new family of

those who call out on Jesus and have found that he answered.

Paul says this is a move made by God that is not centered in the

temple of Jerusalem. In fact, now it is pushed out to

a table that can go around the world.

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

Do you know this morning we prayed together with Ryan the

prayer of the people. And in the prayer of the people

we practiced what is said in the Psalms.

Do not forget his benefits. We gave an account of the

benefits of salvation, the benefits of being brought into

the family of God by grace, for we said maybe you prayed it with

him. You have provided the word, the

word. You have provided the word that

delivers us from the evil one. That's a great benefit.

Did anybody get away from an evil person this week?

Did you get away from the devil this week?

Maybe you don't even know it. You can just say, yeah, it

happens. I'm so glad I didn't even have

that kind of trouble this week. He delivered us from the evil 1.

Did anyone experience healing of diseases?

A cold, a virus? He heals us of our diseases.

Did anyone experience comfort in your pain?

The comfort of God in disappointment or pain?

Did anyone experience the forgiveness of sin?

Father, you are perfect. Did any of you experience the

courage to take a stand? Did you feel like the Lord gave

you a word that lets you comfortably, confidently take a

stand? To hold your boundaries, To be

non anxious? Forget not the benefits of the

Lord. Did any of you feel like the

Lord gave you wisdom when you thought you were going to be a

fool? Did you experience love when you

thought you were unlovely? Did you experience the ability

to give love to someone who was unlovely?

Did you celebrate and delight in this word that says you have

been transferred from death to life, from the Kingdom of

darkness to light, from the Kingdom of Satan to the Kingdom

of the Son of God? Forget not his benefits.

He is a family and He draws us into a family with benefits.

The Spirit of God is calling and, and This is why he says

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

And the Spirit of God is calling people to himself and to God.

We believe this. We believe that before we go out

from here, the Spirit of God has been calling some to himself

before we go and gather at a family dinner that the Spirit of

God has been working there before.

We as a church showed up 16 years ago believing that God

would form a church here at UBC. We believe that God was ahead of

us. The Spirit of God was calling.

Paul believes that. He believes that the Spirit of

God is calling his family of origin to faith in Jesus.

And yet he knows that God is also calling us.

So he brings us into the logic, the beauty and the mystery of

the mission. The logic of the mission goes

this way. How?

Say it with me how? It's a terrible question.

How? Like this is the question that

gets us all uptight. How can that be done?

It's as bad as the child who asks why, how?

How is this going to happen? How can they call on the one

they've not believed in? How can my neighbor call on

Jesus if they've not believed in him?

There must be a mustard seed of belief.

How can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard?

What if they've never heard? How many of us have asked that

of our family of origin at times, knowing that we were the

first generation to trust Jesus? How and how can they hear

without someone preaching to them?

And how can anyone preach unless they are sent?

And now he's gotten down to The Who, How, not who, not how.

Who? This is where it's headed.

Who is going to preach? Who is God going to send?

This is the logic of mission. These four questions haunted my

life for a season in university, and it all started with this

one. This how?

Which was no question at all, but in a way it is.

It's a statement. How beautiful are the feet of

those who bring good news? Well, how beautiful are they?

When I was just graduated from high school, I started working

at a bank. I worked there for a week and

then I took a holiday. Unheard of.

But I was young and had asked when they hired me.

I'm not going on the senior trip.

My senior trip is to go on mission to New Orleans.

And for some reason the VP of this division in the bank took

mercy on me and said go take your senior trip, do something

good in New Orleans. And so I went to New Orleans

with a group of other teenagers and we served in the city.

I tell you, it was my first experience of inner city life.

There were bars everywhere, not places to drink.

There were bars on the windows, there were bars on the doors.

There were bars around the park. I was like, who locks up their

park at night? And I started to feel scared.

I was out of my comfort zone. And over the course of that

week, I even learned how to drink coffee for the first time.

I was so tired. Every day was full of going out,

cleaning parks, cleaning places, going out, greeting people,

taking groceries to people's homes, going out, playing with

the kids, going out, asking to pray with people, going out and

announcing Jesus. I was tired.

I was stretched and on the last day the director of the center

looked at us and she said you have beautiful feet.

And the smart aleck 17 year old that I was said my feet stink,

they're terrible, it's ugly. What do you mean I have

beautiful feet? And then she said it's the

highest compliment I ever pay to a group and I only say it

rarely. Now she had my attention.

You have beautiful feet. And then she read those

questions. How can they call on the one

they've not believed in? And how can they believe in the

one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without

someone preaching to them? And how can anyone preach unless

they are sent as it is written? How beautiful are the feet of

those who bring good news? And in that moment, God set a

truth and a question and a call deep in my heart that I fought

for almost my full first year of university.

And God kept bringing those questions and then the promise,

how beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news?

And I was like, God, that's just seems so awkward and not who I

am. But how beautiful are the feet

of those who bring good news? Do you know this passage is

first in Isaiah 52? It's the passage we read during

the service. How beautiful on the mountains

are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace,

who bring good tidings, who proclaim salvation, Who to say

to Zion your God reigns? Do you see, it was the practice

that when the armies of Israel went out from Jerusalem, went

over the mountains and would fight a battle, If they won,

they would send a messenger. If they lost, they would send a

messenger. Get ready, the armies of Assyria

are coming. That's bad news.

But if they sent good news, these were the original runners.

I wonder if those who ran with good news ran like our marathon

runner in London today, if they could run a marathon under 2

hours just flying with good news beating in their hearts.

Peace for you, good tidings for you, salvation for you, God is

for you. How beautiful are the feet of

those who bring good news. And the Watchmen on the walls of

Jerusalem would look over the mountains where they knew they

would be coming from, and they could say, oh, there's a

messenger running. Look at that messenger coming.

And they were waiting. Why do people climb mountains?

That's the question we started with today.

Why did Jesus climb the mountain of your unbelief?

Why did Jesus climb the mountain of our sin?

Why did Jesus let that sin rest on him as great violence and

suffering, a cup of bitterness and pain?

Because of love, The Church will have beautiful feet when we

enter and accept the mystery of the mission.

Some of you are anxious about the mystery of the mission, and

the mystery of the mission goes like this.

But not all the Israelites accepted the good news.

Paul was an Israelite who accepted the good news.

Peter, Josh, Mary, Nathaniel. These were people who accepted

the good news. Clopas, Mary Simon, the Zealot,

they accepted the good news, but there were many who did not

accept the good news of Jesus as the person of God who had come

to give them life. But Isaiah's foretold and saw

this saying, Lord, who has believed our message, the

prophets have come, even the Messiah has come, and who

believed? Consequently, faith comes from

hearing the message, and the message is heard through the

word of Christ. Friends, you must also accept

the mystery of the mission, and that is that you and I are never

in charge of someone else's believing.

You are never in charge of someone else surrendering their

life to God. This is the Holy Spirit's work.

This is the mystery of Word and Spirit, where the message is

heard through the Word about Christ.

So when you climb that mountain to share with another the

mountain of your fear, to share with another the good news of

Jesus, and you feel out of breath because your heart's

going, don't do, don't do. And your hands feel tingly and

anxious. Anybody been there in that

moment? My friend DJ said this about at

UBC. He says my experience at UBC was

that every time I got ready to say the name of Jesus, my pulse

went up. But as soon as I said the name

of Jesus out loud, something changed in the air around me.

The mystery of the mission is that you and I are not in charge

of others believing. We're just in charge of

dispensing that which has been charged to us as the messenger

climbing that mountain, coming down the mountain to meet

another person and share with them the invitation of Jesus.

How many of you had an original moment today?

What did you all talk about? You talked about the weak.

Your original moment is actually a pre practice of sharing your

testimony. When did you love God, love

people, share the gospel, delight in the gospel?

When did you experience the love of God, the love of people, of

the power of the gospel in your life?

This week that is preloading good news.

If you heard another peace person share their story, it's

your story. Now you can say, well, you know,

I met someone who was so anxious about their test that they

prayed before they did it and they asked Jesus for peace and

he gave it to them. That wasn't your story, but it's

the story of the church on the day you heard it.

You have been preloaded with good news that points to Jesus.

At some point you may have to just say the good news.

And the best story that's ever changed my life is that God has

come in the person of Jesus Christ.

He lived in a place called Israel, and he died on a cross

in outside Jerusalem. But God raised him from the dead

to announce that all of my sin could be forgiven, to announce

that I will never be ashamed to be in front of God if I am in

Christ. So many aspects of good news.

At some point you'll have to share the story.

Let's stand together in a moment.

We're going to come to the table.

We have not been invited to the temple in Jerusalem.

Instead, God says, I want to make my temple in you, and I'm

going to invite you to my table as a foretaste of the banquet at

the end of the age. And Jesus has paved the way for

us to share this table. Isaiah said in the temple that

he saw a great vision and there he heard the heavenly creature

saying, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, holy, holy

holy is the Lord God Almighty, holy holy holy is the Lord God

Almighty. This really shook Isaiah up

because then it says the glory of the Lord has filled the whole

earth. Mind blowing if he thought the

glory of God was going to be just contained in that temple.

But no, the glory of God has been extended over the whole

earth as if the Lord was saying the whole earth is mine.

And so we pray Lord, your Kingdom come on earth as it is

in heaven. We already acknowledged this,

that there is no God forsaken place on earth, but Isaiah was

really stressed out. In fact, it says he, he says I'm

undone, I'm falling apart God as I'm standing here in front of

you. He says because I am a man of

unclean lips and I live among a people of unclean lips.

In other words, he's saying the things that we say out of our

mouth actually reflect what's in our heart, and it reflects an

emptiness, a profaneness, a sewerness.

He's got a sewer mouth because he has a sewer heart.

And he says, God, I'm in trouble.

I'm in trouble. It's almost as if God says do

not fear, because then one of the heavenly creatures comes

down and goes to the altar and grabs with tongs.

A live coal burning hot coal and comes up to Isaiah, touches him

on the lips. I wonder if he heard it sizzle

as it came up and said do not fear.

He cleansed. Friends, I tell you that every

altar that we see today is meant to be a table, and Jesus is the

live coal that comes from that table and transforms our lives,

transforms our lips, transforms our hearts so that what comes

from our lips actually reflects a heart that is at home with

God. And it came at a great cost as

Jesus gave his body, as Jesus poured out his blood so that we

could be at home with him. And that's what we're going to

celebrate as we come into this moment.

So if you're helping with the Lord's Supper, if you would come

as we continue to worship and we're going to share this table

with each other with the bread.