The topic of John Piper's sermon presented here is salvation according to
the Bible. It is an education and encouraging sermon.
May God bless,
Carl
my website -- http://www.nettally.com/saints/
my blog -- http://www.anniemayhem.com/cgi-bin/wordpress/
---
How Shall People Be Saved?
by John Piper
Part One
(Romans 10:13-21)
For "everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved." 14 But how
are they to call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they
to
believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear
without someone preaching? 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!" 16 But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says,
"Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?" 17 So faith comes from
hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ. 18 But I ask, have they
not
heard? Indeed they have, for "Their voice has gone out to all the earth,
and
their words to the ends of the world." 19 But I ask, did Israel not
understand? First Moses says, "I will make you jealous of those who are
not
a nation; with a foolish nation I will make you angry." 20 Then Isaiah is
so
bold as to say, "I have been found by those who did not seek me; I have
shown myself to those who did not ask for me." 21 But of Israel he says,
"All day long I have held out my hands to a disobedient and contrary
people."
The relevance of this text is huge for understanding how you came to be
saved from God's wrath and from the guilt and dominion of sin with the
hope
of eternal joy in God. It is huge for understanding how your children or
parents or brothers and sisters or neighbors or colleagues or the
unreached
peoples of the world will be saved. The process of coming to faith and
salvation is laid out here as nowhere else. Today we will focus on part of
verses 14-17.
Before I read it, recall what Paul has just said. He has just stressed
that
Jew and Gentile have no distinction in the enjoyment of the riches of
God's
glory. Both, with no distinction, will enjoy the fullness of God's
salvation
if they call on the name of the Lord. Romans 10:12-13, "For there is no
distinction between Jew and Greek; the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing
his riches on all who call on him. 13 For [quoting Joel 2:32] 'everyone
who
calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.'"
Keep in mind that the problem Paul is dealing with in Romans 9 and 10 is
mainly the unbelief of Israel and why it happened and why this does not
undermine the faithfulness and reliability of God. So what Paul does in
the
last verses of Romans 10 is show once more that the reason most of Israel
does not have a share in salvation is that they do not believe in the
Messiah, Jesus. That is what he will say in verses 16 and 21.
It might be good to read those two verses. Verse 16b: "For Isaiah says,
'Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?'" In other words, he
calls Isaiah to witness from chapter 53 verse 1, that very few are
believing
what he proclaimed - and what he proclaimed in that chapter, you recall,
is
the coming of Christ and his sufferings and resurrection and the doctrine
of
justification. So his point in verse 16b is that very few Jews are
believing. Similarly, in verse 21 Paul quotes Isaiah 65:2 where God says,
"All day long I have held out my hands to a disobedient and contrary
people."
We will come back to this next week and talk about Israel's unbelief in
view
of God's sovereignty and the doctrine of election that Paul taught in
chapter nine. But for now just notice that the main point of Romans
10:14-21
is to underline again the unbelief of Israel as the reason they are not
enjoying the blessings of salvation.
But one objection might be that God has not put in place the prerequisites
of salvation. Maybe Israel (and Gentiles too by implication) hasn't
believed
because they don't have what they need to have to be held accountable to
believe. So Paul removes that objection by spelling out the steps to
salvation that apply to the Jews or to anyone else. And he argues that
they
have indeed been put in place for Israel.
But what we will focus on today is the steps themselves so that we know
what
we must do to be a part of God's saving plan for ourselves and our family
and friends and the nations without the gospel.
Let's read again verses 14-17.
But how are they to call on him in whom they have not believed? And how
are
they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to
hear without someone preaching? 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!" 16 But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah
says,
"Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?" 17 So faith comes from
hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.
When Paul says, "How beautiful are the feet of those who preach good
news,"
he is quoting Isaiah 52:7. The point is twofold.
Bringers of Good News Are Precious and Beautiful
First, preachers of the gospel - bringers of God's good news - are so
precious that we see even their soiled and bloody feet as beautiful.
Beautiful feet are not soft, manicured, painted, well-tanned feet.
Beautiful
feet are like the dirty, worn, wrinkled, leathery, scarred feet from many
miles of trekking into remote places with good news that could not be
heard
any other way. So the first point of quoting Isaiah 52:7 is this: bringers
of good news are precious people - people of whom the world is not worthy
-
beautiful for their worn out bodies in the service of king Jesus. Paul
Brand, the medical missionary to India, said that his missionary mother
took
all the mirrors out of her house when he told her at about age 70 she had
aged; and for the last 20 years of her missionary life (into her nineties)
she never had a mirror in the house in the mountains of India. When she
died
villages gathered from all through the mountains to bury a beautiful
woman.
God Has Sent People with the Good News
The other point of saying, "How beautiful are the feet of those who preach
good news," is to show that God has indeed sent people with the good news.
The conditions have been met to hold Israel accountable for believing and
calling on the Lord for salvation.
So let's focus on what the conditions are that have been put in place for
Israel and that must be put in place whenever anyone is to be saved. There
are five steps that Paul mentions. Let's take them in reverse order from
the
way he mentions them in verses 14-15 and mention them in the order that
they
happen: 1) a preacher must be sent; 2) the sent preacher must preach the
good news; 3) the preached good news must be heard; 4) the heard good news
must be believed; 5) the belief must be the kind that calls on God for
salvation. Sending, preaching, hearing, believing, calling on God.
All of that is in verses 14 and 15, but verse 17 adds something more
specific. After quoting Isaiah 53:1 in verse 16 ("Lord, who has believed
what he has heard from us?"), Paul repeats three of the five steps to
salvation, and makes one of them more explicit. He says, "So faith comes
from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ." So we have three
steps repeated: believing, hearing, preaching. But here the preaching is
defined: it's the "word of Christ." I take that to mean the word about
Christ. It's the same Gospel that Paul has been preaching all through the
book of Romans. It's the word of Romans 10:9, "If you confess with your
mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him
from
the dead, you will be saved."
So now we have 1) sending to preach, 2) preaching the gospel about Jesus
Christ, 3) hearing the gospel of Christ, 4) believing in this Christ, 5)
calling on the Lord Christ for salvation. Let's take them one at a time
and
apply them to our situation if we can. Let's go backward in the order Paul
does. We'll only cover two of them today.
1. Calling on the Lord
"Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved" (Romans 10:13).
Why does Paul mention calling on the Lord as something that needs to
happen
after believing on the Lord? Aren't we justified by faith alone?
I think the reason Paul mentions "calling on the Lord" in addition to
"believing on the Lord" is because he has in mind a salvation larger than
simply justification alone. I think he means the whole experience of
deliverance not only from the guilt of sin, but from its power and from
many
temptations and many trials and from hell and the wrath of God in the last
day. God has ordained that we be justified by faith but that we express
that
faith over and over throughout life, calling on the Lord for deliverance
and
help in a thousand ways.
You see this again and again in the Psalms, and in the gospels. Psalm
18:3,
"I call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised, and I am saved from my
enemies." Psalm 50:15, "Call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver
you, and you shall glorify me." Psalm 91:15, "When he calls to me, I will
answer him; I will be with him in trouble; I will rescue him and honor
him."
Psalm 145:18, "The Lord is near to all who call on him, to all who call on
him in truth."
And just one example from Jesus' life. Blind Bartimaeus hears that Jesus
is
coming and starts calling out, "Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!"
And
Jesus says to him, "What do you want me to do for you?" And the blind man
said to him, "Rabbi, let me recover my sight." Then Jesus says, "Go your
way; your faith has made you well" (Mark 10:46-52). So Jesus sees
Bartimaeus'
calling as an outgrowth or evidence of his faith and even points to the
faith as decisive.
So Paul sees the issue of salvation here as the total blessing that comes
from having Jesus as your Lord all through your life and into eternity.
It's
the salvation of Romans 8:28 - all things working together for our good -
forever. And he says that this blessing comes through calling on the Lord.
That is the way we should live our lives. We should call on the Lord
continually.
In fact in 1 Corinthians 1:2 Paul defines a Christian this way. He writes,
"To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ
Jesus, called to be saints together with all those who in every place call
upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ." That's what a Christian is:
"those
who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ." Do you call on him?
Sometimes people ask if it's OK to pray to Jesus. Well, Paul defines a
Christian as a person who continually prays to Jesus. "Lord Jesus, I am
failing, help me." "Lord Jesus, I am weak, strengthen me." "Lord Jesus, I
am
lost and confused, guide me." "Lord Jesus, I am caught in a web of
temptation and sin, deliver me." That is what it means to be a Christian.
That leads to the second of Paul's five steps toward salvation - moving
backward.
2. Believing on the Lord
Verse 14: "How shall they call upon him whom they have not believed?" You
might answer, well a lot of people call on the Lord in emergencies who
don't
believe on him. The two most common times for hearing the name of God or
of
Jesus Christ outside the a religious community is when a person hammers
his
finger or gets in a serious car accident. These "calls" are not from
faith.
They are from anger and emergency. There is no true love to Christ. He is
just a skilled paramedic who can just as well disappear into the night
after
he has bandaged me up.
But Paul clears up this ambiguity for us very quickly. In fact, he has
already done it. The calling he has in mind is a calling on Jesus Christ
as
Lord - our Lord, not the stranger who shows up to get us out of a jam and
then disappears into the night. Romans 10:9 makes this clear: "If you
confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that
God raised him from the dead, you will be saved." So the calling that
saves
is a calling on Jesus as your Lord. This is why Paul says, "How can you
call
on the one you haven't believed." Until you believe in Jesus as Lord, you
can't call on the him as Lord.
This would be a good place to make four observations about faith - about
believing - and then save the rest of the text for next week.
The first observation we have just seen, and it is very relevant for the
way
many have been taught to describe their conversion and Christian growth
erroneously. So the first observation is:
2.1. Saving faith believes on Jesus as Lord and calls on him as Lord from
the beginning.
You can see that mainly in Romans 10:9, "If you confess with your mouth
that
Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead,
you will be saved." If you don't confess Jesus as Lord, you are not saved.
Romans 10:9 makes plain that the "Lord" that we call upon to be saved in
verses 12 and 13 is the Lord Jesus. That is what saving faith does. It
calls
on Jesus as Lord.
Some have been taught that their experience should be interpreted like
this:
I accepted Jesus as my Savior, and not much change happened. Then I later
surrendered to him as Lord, and more change happened. That is not a
biblical
description of what has really happened. It would more biblical to say: I
trusted Christ but understood little of his great salvation and sovereign
rule in my life; I was immature in my faith and in my affections for
Christ.
Later I had experiences that opened my heart more and more to the richness
of Christ as mighty Lord and beautiful Savior and more and more of my life
was conformed to him.
For some this happens in a series of crisis events; for others it happens
gradually and without crises. But it is wrong to say that there is saving
faith where there is no submission to Jesus as Lord. Saving faith is faith
in "the Lord Jesus Christ," even if at first we grasp very little.
2.2. The second observation to make about saving faith is that it believes
facts. It is more than believing in facts, but not less.
This is plain from Romans 10:9 as well: "If you confess with your mouth
that
Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead,
you will be saved." The resurrection of Jesus from the dead is a
historical
fact. It really happened in space and time history. Saving faith believes
that. This is one reason faith in Jesus as Lord and Savior can be so weak
in
so many. Faith is rooted in facts, and for many the facts are not known.
The
gospels are there to give us the precious facts with all their personal
and
powerful significance. But the facts are basic and essential. Saving faith
believes facts, and sees them as glory-revealing facts.
2.3. Saving faith is more than belief in facts; it is also a personal
confidence that these facts mean Christ has saved me and will fulfill for
me
all God's saving promises, including eternal joy with him.
James 2:19 says, "Even the demons believe - and shudder!" The devils
believe
that the Son of God was incarnate, and that he lived a perfect life as the
spotless Lamb of God, and that he died for sinners, and that he rose again
from the dead and that he reigns and will one day cast all of them into
the
lake of fire. This belief does them no good at all, because they are
Jesus'
enemies. They believe and shudder.
Saving faith rests in the facts. Rests! Reposes. Feels at home and secure.
Saving faith experiences confidence rise in the soul that these facts have
paid my debt and provided my righteousness and opened paradise for me. So
saving faith is a confident resting in these facts, that God saves me.
We will talk next week about how that confidence happens. But it is plain
here that it happens by the word. Verse 17: "Faith comes by hearing and
hearing by the word of Christ." So if you are struggling, put yourself in
the way of the word, the way of hearing the message of the cross. Hearing
the gospel of Christ crucified and risen is the means God uses to give us
confidence that we are saved by it.
2.4. Finally, saving faith includes a spiritual satisfaction for all that
God is for us in Jesus.
You can call this an emotional element, or an affectional element, or a
spiritual taste that delights your heart with Christ. Or you can call this
aspect of faith a cheri****ng or a treasuring of Christ. Whatever you call
it, it is an essential part of faith.
I could take you to several places to see it most plainly. For example, we
could go to Philippians 3:7-9 where Paul says that he counts everything as
rubbish compared to the surpassing worth of knowing Jesus his Lord. This
is
a treasuring of Christ. A cheri****ng of his beauty and worth. That is part
of what saving faith is. To be sure, we grow in this. But there is always
a
seed of it in saving faith.
Or we could look at John 6:35 where Jesus says, "I am the bread of life;
whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall
never
thirst." This means that believing in Jesus is finding him to be the bread
of life and the living water that satisfies the deepest longings of my
soul.
So saving faith is not just believing in facts and not just confidence
that
all will work out for my good forever, but also a spiritual sense that
this
"good" is Christ himself and that having him is better than life.
---
Part 2
Romans 10:13-21 For "everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be
saved." 14 But how are they to call on him in whom they have not believed?
And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how
are they to hear without someone preaching? 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!" 16 But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For
Isaiah says, "Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?" 17 So
faith
comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ. 18 But I ask,
have they not heard? Indeed they have, for "Their voice has gone out to
all
the earth, and their words to the ends of the world." 19 But I ask, did
Israel not understand? First Moses says, "I will make you jealous of those
who are not a nation; with a foolish nation I will make you angry." 20
Then
Isaiah is so bold as to say, "I have been found by those who did not seek
me; I have shown myself to those who did not ask for me." 21 But of Israel
he says, "All day long I have held out my hands to a disobedient and
contrary people."
Today I hope to finish a message I began on Romans 10:13-21. I pointed out
in the previous message that after the death and resurrection of Jesus for
our sins, there are five things that God beings to put in place so people
can be saved. Paul mentions them in verses 13-15: "Everyone who calls on
the
name of the Lord will be saved." 14 But how are they to call on him in
whom
they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they
have
never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? 15 And
how
are they to preach unless they are sent?" So salvation comes from, 1)
calling on the Christ, 2) believing in him, 3) hearing the gospel about
him,
4) someone preaching Christ, 5) and God sending the preacher.
In the previous message I described what it means to believe and to call
on
the Lord. I will come back in a few minutes to deal with the last three of
the five steps. But first there are two other matters that this text
pushes
forward into our consideration. One is the unbelief of the people of
Israel,
and the other is the sovereignty of God in relation to the responsibility
of
man. So we will deal with these two and then close by coming back to
hearing, preaching, and sending.
The Unbelief of Israel
This has been the brokenhearted, painful theme of Romans 9 and 10 ever
since
we began with Romans 9:3 where Paul said, "I could wish that I myself were
accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen
according to the flesh." This is the terrible reality Paul is wrestling
with
in Romans 9 and 10. How to understand, how to explain, how to feel about,
and how to respond to the unbelief and lostness of God's chosen people,
Israel. By rejecting Jesus as their Savior and Messiah and Lord and
Treasure, they are accursed and cut off from eternal life.
Paul comes back to it over and over. Romans 9:27, "Though the number of
the
sons of Israel be as the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them will be
saved." Romans 10:1-2, "Brothers, my heart's desire and prayer to God for
them is that they may be saved. I bear them witness that they have a zeal
for God, but not according to knowledge." Then in today's text, Romans
10:16, "They have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, 'Lord, who
has
believed what he has heard from us?'" And verse 21: "But of Israel he
says,
'All day long I have held out my hands to a disobedient and contrary
people.'"
This will be Paul's burden all the way to the end of chapter 11. Notice
how
chapter 11 begins, "I ask, then, has God rejected his people? By no means!
For I myself am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, a member of the
tribe
of Benjamin." In other words, Israel's present unbelief and rebellion is
not
the whole story or the end of the story. Look at the warning to us Gentile
Christians in Romans 11:25, "Lest you be wise in your own conceits, I want
you to understand this mystery, brothers: a partial hardening has come
upon
Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. 26 And in this way
all Israel will be saved, as it is written, 'The Deliverer will come from
Zion, he will banish ungodliness from Jacob.'" So from beginning to end in
Romans 9-11 Paul's burden is: What does it mean that Israel is
unbelieving,
rebellious against her Messiah, and accursed and cut off from Christ?
One of the main things Paul wants to say in these chapters is that
Israel's
unbelief and lostness does not mean that the word of God has failed!
Romans
9:6 rings the central bell, "But it is not as though the word of God has
failed." His first argument for this central truth is built on the
doctrine
of sovereign, free, unconditional election in chapter 9. In other words,
the
unbelief and lostness of Israel does not undermine the plans of God,
because
he is sovereign over their unbelief and built it into his plans from the
beginning. "'I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have
compassion on whom I have compassion.' So then it depends not on human
will
or exertion, but on God, who has mercy" (Romans 9:15-16).
Some of us, over the duration of our lives, have been shaken to the
foundations by this truth of God's sovereignty over man's belief and
unbelief. We have run from it, pretended it wasn't there, argued against
it,
wept over it, and finally bowed our heads and hearts before it, and then
discovered it to be one of the most deep and firm and precious foundation
stones in the house of our fragile faith. We see now, with trembling joy,
that without it we would not have believed, and we would not endure to the
end and be saved. We saw that especially in Romans 9.
The Sovereignty of God in Relation to the Responsibility of Man
Now today, here in this text, without losing sight of any of that (he will
return to it immediately in chapter 11, and so will we), Paul says
something
very crucial and very different to balance our way of thinking about his
sovereignty over the unbelief of Israel. And here I am moving to the
second
point of the message. The first was the unbelief of Israel. The second is
the sovereignty of God in relation to the responsibility of man. Paul
says,
Israel's unbelief is not owing to the absence of what she needs in order
to
be held responsible to believe.
That's the point of these five steps in verses 14-15. To be saved you have
to call on Christ. To call you have to believe on Christ. To believe, you
have to hear the word of Christ. To hear, you have to have someone
proclaiming the message of Christ. And to proclaim with divine authority,
you have to be sent by God. And the point of saying all this in these
verses
is to stress: they have happened for Israel! And therefore her unbelief is
not owing to the absence of anything she needs in order to be held
responsible.
Look at verse 18: "But I ask, have they not heard?" In other words, "Have
not these conditions of sending and preaching and hearing been met?" And
Paul answers, "Indeed they have." Then Paul uses the words of Psalm 19:4
to
emphasize this. "Their voice has gone out to all the earth, and their
words
to the ends of the world." I am not sure whether Paul means for us to
understand these words in the context of the Psalm (general revelation in
nature) or if he is simply using the words (without claiming to be quoting
them in context) to stress the wide extent of the gospel in the world for
all Israel to hear. But his main point is clear: The message of Christ has
been preached to Israel and she has heard it, and so is responsible for
her
unbelief.
Then Paul underlines this in verses 19-20, "But I ask, did Israel not
understand [literally: "know"]? First Moses says, 'I will make you jealous
of those who are not a nation; with a foolish nation I will make you
angry.'" In other words, the fact that pagan, uncir***cised, unclean,
uninstructed Gentiles are believing on the Messiah and inheriting the
promises made to the Israel was predicted by Moses, and is happening all
around them and should waken them to the truth of the gospel they are
rejecting. Their accountability is greater because of the Gentile
response.
Then he says it again in verse 20: "Then Isaiah is so bold as to say, 'I
have been found by those who did not seek me; I have shown myself to those
who did not ask for me.'" In other words, Gentiles are finding salvation
in
Jesus Christ, the Jewish Messiah, just as Isaiah prophesied. They are
being
saved by faith alone, not by works of the law. All this was a megaphone to
make the message of free grace through the Messiah Jesus understandable to
Israel.
But Paul draws the sad result in verse 21: "But of Israel he says, 'All
day
long I have held out my hands to a disobedient and contrary people.'" In
other words, all the prophecies and all the fulfillments and all the
gospel
that Israel heard was not believed by most of them.
But notice how Paul describes their unbelief. This is very different from
Romans 9. There he said, "I will have mercy on whom I have mercy . . . So
then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy"
(v. 15). God is ****trayed with absolute sovereignty over the human will
and
its unbelief. But look and wonder at how Romans 10:21 describes God's
relation to Israel's unbelief - and our unbelief: God says, "All day long
I
have held out my hands to a disobedient and contrary people." So here is a
picture of God beckoning, calling, inviting, wooing through his prophets
and
preachers. But the hearers do not believe; they are "disobedient and
contrary."
My aim here this morning is not to analyze how this can be, but to urge us
all to embrace the paradox of God's sovereignty and man's responsibility.
The sad thing is that some embrace the sovereignty of God over the human
will and say: "It is wrong to ****tray God with his arms stretched out,
inviting and calling." And others embrace the responsibility of man and
say,
"If God invites and calls and beckons, then he can't really be sovereign
over man's will, and man really is ultimately self-determining and God is
not really in control of all things."
Both of these are sad mistakes. It is sad, because one group rejects
something deep and precious that God has revealed about himself for our
strength and hope and joy and love - namely, his absolute sovereignty. Oh,
how sweet it is when all around our soul gives way, and we need a reliable
and firm rock in a world that sometimes seems utterly out of control and
meaningless and cruel. Oh, how sweet at these times to know that God is
not
good and helpless, but good and sovereign. And the other group (who
embrace
the sovereignty of God) sometimes rejects something utterly crucial for
understanding the justice of God in dealing with people, and they fail to
see how we should plead with people and persuade people and invite people
and woo people with tears, to Christ, and on behalf of Christ.
So my aim is not to explain the paradox but simply to underline it with
three other examples (and there are many more), in the hope that God will
cause your mind to submit to his word, whether you can explain it all or
not. In Matthew 11:25 Jesus says, "I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and
earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding
and
revealed them to little children." And then in verse 28, he says, "Come to
me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." He has
hidden the truth from some, and he invites all.In John 6:35 Jesus says, "I
am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever
believes in me shall never thirst." And one verse later he says, "All that
the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never
cast out." All are invited to Christ. And the Father gives some to
Christ.In
Acts 13:38 Paul says to the synagogue in Antioch, "Let it be known to you
therefore, brothers, that through this man [Jesus] forgiveness of sins is
proclaimed to you, and by him everyone who believes is freed." And in
verse
48 Luke says, ". . . And as many as were appointed to eternal life
believed." All are invited to believe and be forgiven. And as many as were
appointed to life did believe.
I am not explaining it this morning. I am simply proclaiming it. This is
what it means for God to be God. Man is not the final, ultimate sovereign
over his own life. God is. God is the potter. We are the clay. But on the
other hand, God "desires all people to be saved and to come to the
knowledge
of the truth" (1 Timothy 2:4). He holds out his hands all day long to Jews
and the Gentiles of the Twin Cities. He calls, he beckons, he invites.
Sending, Preaching, Hearing
Which leads us to our final point. I said that I would close by returning
to
the three steps of the five in verses 14-15 that we did not cover in the
last message. "But how are they to call on him in whom they have not
believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never
heard?
And how are they to hear without someone preaching? 15 And how are they to
preach unless they are sent?"
The first two points of today's message come together and produce the
third.
First, there is the unbelief and lostness of Israel - and of the world
without Christ. Second, there is the fact that though God is sovereign
over
the human soul, whether believing or unbelieving, he holds out his hands
all
day long to the Twin Cities, its Jewish people and its Gentile people, its
students, its old and young and single and married, and to all the ethnic
groups near and far.
These two points come together and force the question: how is the voice of
this God heard? How are his extended hands seen? How is his patience
known?
The answer is point three: He sends messengers and entrusts to them the
message of reconciliation (2 Corinthians 5:19). They open their mouths and
say, "We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God" (2
Corinthians 5:20). And people hear the gospel. And in the gospel they hear
Christ calling and inviting and drawing.
Here we need another message. But I leave it for the Holy Spirit to preach
to your own heart. Effective messengers of the gospel are sent by God.
Speaking for Christ is not a merely human impulse. God blesses God-sent
messengers of the gospel. But be careful here! Don't say to yourself, "I
am
not sent, and so I will not speak." Rather say, "Here I am, Lord, send me.
Send me to an unreached people. Send me to the urban neighborhoods of
Minneapolis. Send me across the street in my peri****ng suburb. Send me
across the office. Send me to the telephone today. Send me across this
room
when the service is over."
Yes, there is a divine calling and a sending that is more official and
vocational - that is what I have as a vocational pastor of this church.
That
is what some of you will have. But there are more spontaneous, occasional
callings and sendings. If you have Christ within you, you will experience
this. So let's all pray for this to happen to us more and more: Lord here
I
am, send me. Open my mouth with the gospel. May many hear and believe and
call on your name and be saved. Oh how beautiful on the mountains are the
feet of the one who brings good news!
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