Why Do We Share Jesus in our Neighborhoods and the Nations?

If you would open up your Bibles to the book of Romans, chapter 10.

Romans 10 · chapter mention

The book of Romans, chapter 10.

Romans 10 · chapter mention

We are uh taking a break from our series in the book of uh Nehemiah, just to do this emphasis um Sunday on missions.

So we'll be in Romans chapter 10.

Romans 10 · chapter mention

My name is Pastor Sammy, one of the pastors here at the Springs.

And so if I haven't met you, I'd love to get to meet you.

I'll be in the back at the end of the service.

Have you ever heard something that you couldn't wait to tell someone?

Yes.

Maybe it was just great news that you heard.

Maybe it was, you know, I think about me maybe a year and some change ago of figuring out that I was going to be a father.

Maybe for you it was a new job, a new opportunity.

Maybe it was a favorite sports team that won, or a place that you found, a restaurant that you really enjoyed and discovered, had good deals at the restaurant or a store, and you have this news that you want to share with someone, something life-changing.

Maybe it didn't even happen to you, maybe it happened to someone else.

And you want to share that news with others.

What if you had the greatest news in all the world?

How excited would you be to share that?

See, in our passage in Romans chapter 10, we'll see that you and me have the greatest news in all the world.

Romans 10 · chapter mention

The greatest news.

But if we're being honest many times, this good news of Jesus feels like stale news.

It's something that we're used to, that we're numb to, that we might maybe have and we keep to ourselves.

But my prayer is, and the goal this morning is that all of us, every follower of Jesus in here, would be reminded of the beauty of the gospel, the beauty of the good news of Jesus Christ.

And as we remember the power of Jesus' death on the cross for us, and that we are saved, that we'd want to share it with others.

Not just to the neighborhoods, but to the nations.

The other thing is this that I my prayer and hope this morning is that some of you today you will be saved.

In hearing the gospel message and its significance and importance, that you today would be saved.

So let's go to Romans chapter 10.

Romans 10 · chapter mention

And here's the big idea question that the passage will answer for us.

It's this why do we share Jesus in our neighborhoods and the nations?

Why do you and me share Jesus to the neighborhoods and the nations?

And Paul's going to give us three reasons here in Romans 10 for that reason, why we share Jesus with others.

So let us stand, as is tradition, for those of us who can in reverence for the word of God.

Because when this book is opened, so is our hearts, amen?

And our mind.

And so when you turn to your neighbors, you're standing and say, Are you hungry?

Not physically, but for the word.

Right?

We are a church that's grounded in the Bible.

Amen?

Do you remember this in Nehemiah?

We went over this, they stood, submitting themselves under the word, and so here we do the same.

So let's start in Romans chapter 10, there in verse 13 through 15.

Romans 10 · chapter mention

It says this, for everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.

How then can they call on him they have not believed in?

And how can they believe without hearing about him?

And how can they hear without a preacher?

And how can they preach unless they are sent?

As it is written, how beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news.

Let's pray.

Lord God, we come to you.

You are, as we sung, worthy of our worship.

That's just not singing a song.

Worship is now.

It's our attention, it's our devotion, it's our love for you, God.

You are worthy of it.

And so we pray that through the preaching of your word, that we would listen intently to receive, believe, and obey it.

Lord God, help me, your preacher, in this moment.

Fill me with your spirit.

I am in need of your help.

So that you would be glorified.

But also the listener needs your help too.

We all need your help, Lord God.

So, Spirit, come, fill our minds and hearts.

Would you save people today?

And would you send people today to live out your mission?

In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.

You may have a seat.

So it's stated, usually we preach through books of the Bible.

We've been preaching through Nehemiah, but again, we're taking a break to look at this passage here in Romans 10 as we emphasize missions.

So some quick context on the book or letter of Romans.

This was the Apostle Paul who wrote the majority of the New Testament, who was a persecutor of the church, was a religious Pharisee who then encountered Jesus, was radically changed, and became one of the most prominent missionaries to ever exist.

Where he went around place to place planning churches.

And one of the places that he wanted to go to was Rome.

And so, really, this whole letter of Romans was part of him telling the church, hey, I want to come to you.

I've been all over these places, I've laid a foundation, and I want to go to a place now where there is no foundation near to where you are.

And he's saying, Hey, I'm gonna need your support.

But in this reaching out to Romans, he writes this strong, heavy theological book.

Really, it's a book about what it means to be saved.

What is the gospel?

And here in Romans chapter 10, Paul, in these few chapters, have been talking, is talking about Israel, the people of God, who've rejected God, who've trusted in their goodness, in their religion, in their rules to be saved.

Romans 10 · chapter mention

And Paul is talking about, hey, this is through Jesus only.

And so here we are again answering this question: why do we share Jesus in our neighborhoods and the nations?

First point is this very simple but powerful.

Jesus saves.

Preach, preach up.

Some of y'all didn't hear me.

Jesus saves.

Amen?

We see this in verse 13.

It says, for everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be what?

Saved.

What I want to do is break down this verse with a couple of these words here, but I want us to start with the last word of that verse, saved.

What does it mean to be saved?

Here's what we're doing this morning is we cannot be sent to the neighborhoods and the nations unless we understand the message.

Unless we understand the gospel we're supposed to share.

So what does it mean to be saved?

For some of us, it's a word we've heard, we've used maybe.

We've heard maybe, are you saved?

Have you been saved?

Or I was saved?

But what does that mean?

Saved from what?

This is core to the gospel message, okay?

What's the gospel?

First, the gospel is the good news.

That's what it means.

The gospel is more than just a genre of music.

It's a great genre of music, but it's more than that.

It means literally in the language, in the Greek, good the gospel means good news.

It's a message to be shared.

An important part of that, of understanding the good news, is understanding this word saved.

But what does it mean to be saved?

To understand why we share Jesus, we need to get this.

All of you as you leave here need to understand that.

What does it mean?

First, we have to see what are we saved from?

What are we saved from?

The Bible says we're saved from sin.

Also here in Romans, Romans 3.23 it says this for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

Sin in the original language, it means to miss the mark.

It means there's a mark, there's a destination like a bullseye to hit.

But sin is missing that mark.

That there's this standard in which we are all called to live.

And that standard is holiness.

That standard is perfection.

But all of us, what?

We miss that mark.

That is sin.

That God is what?

He is glorious here.

He is holy.

That there is a God who is creator.

Don't miss this.

Here's the thing that happens.

We hear this gospel message, and some of us have tuned out.

We said, oh yeah, that's for so-and-so.

I'm saved already.

No, no, no, no.

The greatest need that you have in your life is believing the gospel more deeply every single day.

And when you remember the joys of the gospel, you're going to be able to share that.

And so, what is the gospel?

It's sin, what?

It separates us from God, a holy God, who is our creator.

And he creates us to have a good and right relationship with him.

But what happens is what we chose sin.

And this sin, it separated us from him.

It created us dirty and filthy, and he is clean and he's pure and we fall short of it.

And so now we live in a broken world.

We live in the consequences of that sin.

War, death, disease, hunger, you name it.

But what's the consequences of that sin?

Look at Romans 6.23.

For the wages of sin is what?

Death.

Physical death.

But also an eternal death.

Hell.

Separation from God, punishment from God.

That we are deserving of that sin.

It is a wage.

What's a wage?

It's a payment.

Right?

When you work, you work for a wage.

And when you work those specific amounts of hours or the tasks that you've done, you've earned that amount.

You've earned that wage.

And you have a wage for your sin, which is death.

It's death.

Now, for some of you in here, if you're hearing this for the first time or it's hitting you for the first time, you should be wondering where is the good news?

This is all bad news.

You have to understand in order to be saved, first you have to know what are you being saved from.

You, in your natural state, your condition, the Bible says in Ephesians 2, you are dead.

You are dead in your trespasses and sins.

You are lost.

The Bible says you are an enemy of God.

That when you were born into this world, you weren't even born into a neutral state to see, okay, will you do more good or bad?

No, you were born in sin.

You were in bondage to it, you are trapped to it.

Your soul is stained by it.

You ever have a have a stain on your shirt?

My wife knows this.

You know, she put gives me a lot of caution when I'm wearing white.

Because I'll stain my shirt.

And there's sometimes there's stains that don't come off.

You can try all this stuff.

But it doesn't come off.

I was trying to think of the names of the things, but what bounty or what's the little stick that we try to use?

The shout, tithe.

It doesn't come off.

See, in the same way, your soul is stained by sin.

And there is nothing that you can do to clean it.

No amount of deeds, nothing, and we deserve punishment.

That's what it means to be saved.

It means to be saved from sin.

So how does that happen?

Let's go back to our verse.

We're breaking down these words.

Verse 13, the next word I want to focus on in verse 13 of for everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved is the name of the Lord.

Lord.

Who is this Lord?

What is the name in which people are to call?

In your Bibles, look right there in verse 9.

What does it say?

If you confess with your mouth, what?

Jesus is Lord.

The name to call on is Jesus.

This Greek word is kurios.

This is a weighty word.

To the audience that Paul is talking to, to the Jewish person to say this word, or even the Greek person to say this word Lord is scandalous.

To the Jew, it's saying that Jesus is more than a rabbi.

He's even more than the Savior who's supposed to come.

This Jesus is the creator who is worthy of worship.

That he is God, that he is the Lord.

To the Greek.

It's saying, my allegiance is not to Caesar, but is now to Jesus.

It's not to the false Greek gods, it is to Jesus.

That he is Lord.

That in his name he is the only one who can save.

This is so important.

Because we can say amen to this, but we we have to understand the cultural implications of this.

You know, the the way it's talked about about religion and paths to God is it's like a mountain.

There's many different paths, there's many different routes to get to God, to get to heaven in the end.

So there's a path of Islam, a path of Hinduism, a path of Buddhism, a path of Christianity, and all these paths will get you to God.

But the gospel and the word of God does not teach this.

And this is counter to everything our culture believes and preaches.

But this is the word that it is only the name of Jesus.

It is on that name, calling out that name only, the name of Jesus.

So it's not calling out the name of Confucius or Buddha or Krishna or Muhammad.

It is calling out the name of Jesus and Jesus alone to be saved.

And why is this important?

We're talking about a message about missions and sharing the gospel because there's no point in sharing Jesus if there's other ways.

Why potentially offend somebody?

Why go and uproot your life like me and my wife who spent two years in South Asia to leave our family, why if they have their own way?

There's no point.

But if Jesus is the only name under heaven in which we can be saved, then we go.

Right?

And you gotta get this.

The moment a church begins to lose this and begins to say, you know what, there might be another way, is when they lose the witness.

It's gone.

The motivation is gone.

It is only the name of Jesus.

The next word I want to focus on here in verse 13 for everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved is this first one.

Everyone.

Who is everyone?

It's everyone.

It's you.

It's me.

It's everyone who breathes.

Despite the popular opinion at the time that Paul is writing this, many people believed that salvation and being saved from sin was not for everyone.

It was for a specific tribe, a specific ethnic group, a specific class of people.

This is what people believed.

That Jesus was for some people and not all people.

We see Paul deal with this here in this chapter in verse 12, a couple verses before.

He says this, for there is no distinction between Jew and Greek.

He's been arguing this throughout the book of Romans.

That there were Jews that were believing only they can be saved.

Only they were the people of God.

And Paul's saying, no, there is no distinction.

Why?

It says, for the same Lord is Lord of all.

That the same Lord to the Jewish person is the same Lord to the Greek person.

It's the same for all of us in this room, for everyone in the world.

That they have the same Lord.

It says, bestowing his riches on who?

All who call on him.

Do you believe this truth?

It's one thing to believe this, but do you live this?

Because when you live in the weight of this, that Jesus is for everyone, and we'll share it.

We'll care about that.

Or do you keep it to yourself?

Or do you keep it to people who look and act like you?

No, no, no.

It's for everyone.

Everyone.

Chip, share this verse, Romans chapter 7, 9 through 10.

Romans 7 · chapter mention

We talk about this that we are a church that wants to be a Revelation 7, 9, and 10 church.

Where what?

There's a people, there's a tribe, nation of every place, everyone from all over the world worshiping Jesus.

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

Before I move on to the second point and we jump into the next verse, I also want to say this in verse 14 to the believer in here.

Call on the name of the Lord, not just to be saved, but to be sanctified.

You know, there's a desperation we feel, right?

Maybe that moment we realize that we were lost in our sins, and we called out because there was nothing we could do.

Of God, I'm a sinner, I need you to save me.

Sometimes we We miss that desperation and that calling out to the Lord Jesus for the problems and the struggles we were in.

I'm saying, Jesus, I call on you to save my marriage.

Jesus, I need your help with this 10 struggle in my life.

Jesus, I can't, I don't have the strength to move on.

And so for you to today, you can call on the name of Jesus to be saved, but also to grow.

Some of you, it has been so long, please listen.

Some of you, it's been so long, even as far as a Jesus, where you just called on his name.

And you've been trying and trying to do it on your own, just as you are saved through Jesus alone.

The only way you'll be sanctified and grow is in Jesus alone and calling on his name.

So why do we share Jesus in our neighborhoods and the nations?

First point is Jesus saves.

He can save people from sin, he saves everyone.

Second point is this people have never heard.

Why do we share?

Because people have never heard.

Look at verse 14.

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

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

And how are they to hear without someone preaching?

Do you see the chain here?

It starts first with being saved.

And the verse before, how can someone be saved?

They have to call.

But you can't call on Jesus if what?

You don't believe.

And how can you believe if you've never what?

Heard.

And how can you hear if no one's preached?

And as we'll see in the next verse, how can someone preach if no one's what?

Saint.

People have never heard.

Before I lean in this, I want to I want to talk about belief here.

Belief and understanding what that means is important as we're trying to make sure we get the gospel so we can share it clearly with others.

We are not saved by our own works.

You and me are not saved by our works.

If I asked you right now, and I said, if you were to die and stand before God, why would he allow you to spend eternity with him?

And the first thing that comes in your mind is about what you do and don't do.

You're missing the gospel.

You've missed it.

And I wanted to show you this here in this chapter.

Look at Romans 10, 3 and 4.

So for you in here, that was you?

If I asked you that, why should you go and you said, well, I'm I've done good things and I go to church, and if that's you, you need to lean in.

Look at this in verse 3 and 4.

He said, for being ignorant of the righteousness of God and seeking to establish their own, their own what?

Righteousness.

Righteousness is their goodness.

They're seeking to what?

Establish their own.

Saying, I could be right, I can be clean by myself.

What does it say?

And seeking to establish their own?

They did not submit to God's righteousness.

For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.

It is faith.

It is trusting in what?

In Jesus alone.

In Jesus alone.

I've used this analogy before, but it's so helpful, and I would encourage you, followers of Jesus, you can use this yourself.

Because there are so many people in this world who think they are saved who are not.

It's like this chair.

I believe this chair can hold me up.

Looks good?

Looks nice.

Renee was sitting on it and held her up.

Can look at a manual and see all the things about it.

I can go to the factory and study how they made the chair.

I can get in a group and we come together and we memorize some of the manual together and talk about how the chair can hold me up.

I can hear the testimonies of others talking about how the chair can hold me up.

We can gather together once a week and we can sing songs about how the chair can hold me up.

But I will never know the chair can hold me up till when?

Until I sit on it.

Here's what you gotta understand.

You can believe Jesus died on the cross and rose again.

You can believe all the right things.

You can come to church, you can read the verses, you can memorize the passage, you can sing the songs, but unless you sit on it, that's what this word is saying here in the Greek.

It means to trust.

I'm trusting in you, Jesus, in your work on the cross for me to save me.

Not in myself.

Right?

That's the belief it's talking about.

That's the trusting.

Because here's the thing the devil believes.

And he believes better than you.

He knows more than you.

But he doesn't trust.

So why do we go?

Because people have never heard.

You have to believe this.

I've shared this before.

There were times we were in South Asia and we're talking with people and we're saying, hey, have you ever heard of Jesus?

Can we share about Jesus with you?

I say, who's that?

Did he just move in?

Does he live on the east side of town?

Or they have no idea.

So you need to understand this, okay?

The greatest problem in the world is lostness.

Right?

It's to be in your sin.

But what's the greater problem than that?

Is to be in your sin and have no way out because you've never heard of Jesus.

So as we're talking about missions, as we're talking about sending and trips like London and wanting to send others here and to the nations, you could say, oh well, there's need here.

And we could talk about the springs here.

There's need.

That's why we're here.

But guess what?

Who's here?

You and me.

And there are churches down the street.

But guess what?

There are places where there is no church.

There's no believer.

There's no Bible in their language.

They've never met a Christian before.

And they've never heard the name of Jesus.

And so when we start what?

We start believing this gospel, the foundation of that.

We've all sinned.

We can only be saved by His name.

It's for everyone.

There's no other way.

What does it instill in us when we hear that there is someone who's never heard?

Yes.

We have to go.

We have to share.

There are places around the world where that's the case.

That's the greatest problem.

I need to wake some of you up.

The greatest problem is not gas prices.

The greatest problem is not politics.

The greatest problem is not war.

The greatest problem is not the things that are happening in your life.

I know they are serious.

I'm not trying to belittle those things.

But there are people who are dying who do not know God.

4.6 billion individuals live separated from Christ with little to no access of Jesus.

That is over 50% of the world's population.

No access.

More than half the world.

And my prayers that God will call some of you to go.

That's my heart.

That the world may look at a small church like this or this community and think nothing of it.

But my hope and my prayer is that God would call up and call out missionaries to the nations.

Here's the thing, there are also those, again, this is about the nations where there is greater need, but there is need here.

Where there are people here in Tampa who have never heard the gospel.

They may know what Christmas is.

They maybe have an understanding of Jesus, but you go, you get into the gospel and they have no idea.

They have never heard it.

How will they hear unless what?

There's a preacher.

I want you to turn to your neighbor and say, You're a preacher.

You're a preacher.

Turn him.

You're a preacher.

Alright?

Now, now you're not you're not a pastor and not preaching like this on the Sunday morning.

But you are a, what this word is, a heralder.

You are someone who proclaims the truth of God.

A preacher, every single one of us.

This is what this Greek word means, charizo.

It's use of a public proclamation of the gospel.

It suggests formality, gravity, and authority that the message that is being shared must be obeyed.

And you know what some of you did?

You disqualified yourself.

Said, no, not me.

You don't know what I've done.

You don't know what I did.

Can I tell you who this man is who's writing this?

This man, Paul, killed Christians.

This man, Paul, would come into a room like this and stone some of us, grab us and drag us and throw them in prison.

This is the man who is inspired by the Spirit writing these things.

And if he can use Paul, who he says, I'm the chief, I'm the greatest of all sinners, then he can use you and me.

He can use us.

The nations need us.

People have never heard the gospel.

Why do we share Jesus in our neighborhoods and nations first, Jesus saved second?

People have never heard in third.

Because God sends.

Look at verse 15.

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.

Why do we share?

Because God sends us.

Because we know that he saves and we know people haven't heard, but also he sends us.

God is a sending God.

The Hebrew word shellach in the Old Testament for send is used over 200 times.

As God is the one doing the sending.

That he sends Moses to Egypt.

And he sends the prophets to Israel to speak on his behalf.

And he says, Jesus and to the world as the prophet and Messiah.

As he God sends the disciples to the ends of the world.

Look at verse 15.

I love this.

It says, How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news.

Feet are usually not something we would describe as beautiful.

And I would say, especially during this day, where people didn't wear shoes, wore sandals, and they walked everywhere for miles.

Especially someone who had a message to share.

When she had a story of a lady named Granny Brand.

And there's a, I believe there might be a picture of her.

She was um 68 years old serving as a missionary in India.

For one whole year, she was begging her mission organization to keep allowing her to serve in India.

They were trying to get her to retire.

They said, you're 68, it's time to come back and rest.

And she said, no.

She would serve another twenty four years there.

And her son, who grew up as a missionary kid, he writes in this book, uh, in his image, writing about his mother, where he writes about a time when his mom was 75 years old.

She was still walking miles every day, visiting villages every day, teaching people about Jesus.

And as she was 75 and she was traveling, he thought it would be wise to just tell her, hey, it's time to quit.

She was traveling alone, she fell and broke her hip.

After two days, lying there in pain, some workers found her, put her on a makeshift cot, and loaded her into a Jeep, and drove her 150 miles over deep, rutted roads to find a doctor who could set the broken bones.

But the bumpy ride damaged her bone so badly that her hip never completely healed.

He said, I visited my mother in her mud-covered hut several weeks after this happened.

I watched as she took two bamboo crutches that she had made herself and moved from one place to another with her feet just dragging because she had lost all feeling in them.

I suggested that she retired.

And she turned around and looked at me and said, of what value is that?

If we try to preserve this body just for a few more years and it is not being used for God, of what value is that?

And she kept on working.

Point where she couldn't even ride the donkey anymore.

She kept falling off.

There were Indian men who would come and pick her up in a hammock and carry her.

And her son writes of a vivid memory.

He says, The most vivid memory of my mother is of her propped up against a stone wall as people are coming to her from their homes, schools, and places of work.

I can still see the wrinkles in her face and her skin so tanned by the weather and the heat.

He said, I saw her speaking to those people.

I looked at them and saw the sparkles in their eyes and the smiles on their faces, and I saw them deeply moved by the message of God's love spoken by this old woman.

I knew what they saw was not an old woman who had passed her prime, but a beautiful person bringing tidings of love straight from heaven.

How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news that the world can look at this insignificant lady.

And see no value.

That's not beautiful.

Right, the feet aren't beautiful.

Why?

They're beautiful because the message that they hold, the good news that they have, and you have a message.

God has given you a message to share and declare to others.

And obeying what this looks like, it may not look like grainy brands here, it may not look like that.

I'm not trying to challenge the significance of rest either.

I'm telling you to pray in the Holy Spirit of what does it look like to obey God and what he's calling you to do.

The most beautiful feed, and I'll ask the band to come up as we close.

The most beautiful feed was of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Where Jesus, for all eternity, with the Father, with his feet, left heaven and came into a womb of a mother, where his human and earthly feet were knitted together.

Beautiful feet are the feet of Jesus in a nowhere town.

As a young kid in being raised in Bethlehem and Nazareth.

Beautiful feet are the feet of Jesus where in meeting and finding his disciples, those feet would walk on water.

Beautiful feet are the dirty and dusty feet of a Savior who was tempted in the wilderness for 40 days.

Beautiful feet are the feet of Jesus as he enters into Jericho with the palm branches on his feet as he steps over them, as they give him praise.

Beautiful feet are the feet of Jesus as he stands amongst the powers of the world, like a pilot.

And the crowd shout at him.

Beautiful feet are the feet of Jesus as he makes his way with the cross on his back, stepping on the spit of the crowd.

Beautiful feet are the feet of Jesus as his feet are covered in blood for being whipped and tortured.

Beautiful feet are the feet of Jesus as they pierced him with a nail to keep him on the cross.

And it wasn't a nail that kept him there on his feet.

It was the love of God for you and for me.

Beautiful feet are the feet of Jesus that three days later he rose from the grave and is risen King, the Lord of all, who now demands all people from all places to worship him.

And it is because of that, at that name, there is salvation.

So here's the significance.

Here's the weight of this moment.

Have you called on this name to be saved?

I'm not saying try to be religious, try to be a good person, come to church.

Have you realized the stain of sin on your soul that you cannot wash?

And say, Jesus, save me.

I believe, I sit down and trust in you.

If you haven't done that, you can do that today.

You can come down and we can walk through the gospel with you.

Are your feet beautiful?

What are you doing with the good?