How People Get Saved

Want to invite you to turn in your Bibles this morning to Romans chapter 10. Romans chapter 10 for our time of study in God's word. This morning, we worship Him by singing to him and now we worship Him by, by listening to him as he speaks to us. we have, completed our study of Romans 5 through 8, as we have been learning many wonderful, truths of what belongs to us as believers in Jesus and having completed our study of these four chapters of the book of Romans, we're at least taking a few weeks to ask the question, what then shall we do in response to these things?

And last week, our answer to that question was we, we should let ourselves be weighed down with a burden for The lost. So we need to literally allow ourselves to feel pained over the state, the condition of the lost. we do not well to simply feast upon the glories that belong to us in Christ without turning our gaze toward those who are presently outside of Christ and feeling a burden for them. And when we do feel that burden, what's happening is God is drawing us into his own heart and letting us feel something of what he feels in his heartbeat for the lost tied to what we looked at last week is the way we're gonna answer the question this morning.

What then shall we do? what we're going to see this morning is that we should understand something of the process by which the lost are saved, and how that process is inclusive of us. If we're gonna have a burden for the lost, and we want God to, to use us to, bring the lost into the experience of these things in Romans 5 through 8, then we need to understand something of how it is that the lost can get from where they are now into these blessings in Christ, and how that process And God's sovereign design includes us, as he seeks to execute that.

And so that's where we're gonna be spending our time this morning.

And if you want to give a title to the message, it would be how people get saved, how people get saved, and we'll answer this question in chapters, chapter 10 of Romans verses 9 to 15. If you're here today, And you're like, I don't, I'm not a Christian, I'm not, whatever this saved means, I, I don't know that that's happened to me, then we're like delighted that you're here this morning. You're in the right place and, and I want God to help me to serve you well and giving you some insight and how you can go about experiencing the salvation blessings that belong.

To those whom God saves.

But for us as believers, this, this will be hugely helpful as well. Paul, his burden in these verses is over the how, how this happens in terms of how a person gets saved. In fact, in verse 14, Three times we see the word how. He says, how then will they call on him and whom they have not believed?

How will they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher? Verse 15, how will they preach unless They are sent 4 times Paul is, is pondering this and, and trying to trace this back as far as he can, at least in the, the flow of thought here as to how it happens that somebody gets saved. We do well to ask the same questions.

I could not study this passage this week without, repondering some things that I've been thinking a lot about over the last, month or so. I mentioned that, we, we've been away on a vacation back in Indiana and spent some time with my wife's family and also spent some time with my side of the family where we were celebrating my parents' 50 year wedding anniversary. And just going back home and being with my parents and family and just being reminded of the cloth from which I was cut.

And the legacy that has been given to me is something that's profoundly humbling, and I find myself, the older I get, and I am getting old, becoming more and more grateful.

and, when, when somebody asked me, like, tell me your salvation story, how did you get saved. If they have time to listen, normally, I, I don't start my testimony with like the day of my conversion or even weeks before my conversion. I, I normally start my own salvation testimony with the story of my dad. was something that happened even before I was born because I know that my own salvation from a human standpoint was dependent upon that.

50 years ago, almost exactly 50 years ago, June 10th, 1962, my dad at the age of 19, coming from a broken home. was sitting in the First Southern Baptist Church of Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and sitting in an evening service and that night they gave the pulpit to a 17 year old young man from the youth group, and, it was his last Sunday there. They gave him the pulpit, he was going to be coming to the mainland United States to go to college and, and seminary. And so they let him preach that night.

My dad, the age of 19, sat there in the audience and did not know the Lord, he was not a saved man. But as this 17-year-old preached, the Holy Spirit's conviction came upon my dad, and my dad just realized, I, I need to be saved and Jesus is the savior for me. So after the service, my dad, it's hard to see in this photo, but there's a rock wall. in the background there in front of the church, and my dad took a seat on that rock wall and this other 17 year old man who had preached that night sat next to him and it was there that my dad called upon the name of the Lord for salvation.

When we were at our parents' 50 year anniversary celebration party, the family had put together this timeline that spanned two or three tables of all the significant events that have happened in the life of our family, beginning with like my parents' birth, and one of the significant events on that timeline was June 10th, 1962, and there was this photo right by it. And as I was looking at this photo, my dad came up beside me and he pointed to the spot on the wall and he said it was right there that I got saved.

What a critical moment that proved to be for our family. 2 months after that, my dad married my mom and they immediately set about to, starting a home.

They didn't know a lot about my, especially my dad, did not know a lot about establishing a godly home, but they searched the scriptures and stumbled along and, and built a godly home. They had 4 children. I was one of them. And from my earliest days, they evangelized me.

I knew of God and, and of sin and of my need for a savior, and of Jesus Christ and how he came into this world and lived the life that I could have never lived and died the death that I deserve to die and God raised him from the dead. And ascended him to his own right hand to where Jesus now from that position of absolute lordship has the power and the desire to save a sinner like me. And eventually, I and my three siblings called upon the name of the Lord for salvation just as our parents had.

we grew up and we all married spouses who had called upon the name of the Lord for salvation.

And the 4 of us children together have provided my parents with 17 grandchildren, and we all convened a few weeks ago in Southern Indiana, and the gift that we gave to my mom and dad for their anniversary was a testimony book. all of their children, all 4 of us, we wrote our salvation testimony, our spouses did the same. And then all of the 17 grandchildren who are old enough to call upon the name of the Lord, they wrote their testimonies along with words of gratitude to my mom and dad for the influence that they have had on their lives directly and indirectly.

And we presented, we put all those testimonies in a book and presented that to my mom and dad.

They, my mom said this, this is like the very best anniversary gift you could have given to us. And as we were together over a period of days, there were different points where we'd stopped what we were doing and a family member would grab the book and just read their testimony to the whole family. And I, When I think of that rock wall that my dad. was seated on a 19 year old man from a broken home, didn't know, didn't know much about having a godly home and raising children for the Lord.

What a momentous moment that was as he sat on that rock wall, calling on the name of the Lord for salvation. I've always shared that when I've shared my testimony, but I I've never thought to even inquire who was the young man that preached that night. And so this week I searched that out and talking to my, my mom and I found out who the guy was and and I stalked him on the internet and found out his email address and, and sent him an email this week thanking him because he's a part of my testimony, his faithfulness to, to preach the gospel to my dad.

The dividends of that have just been absolutely enormous.

I've not heard back from him, but it was a blessing to be able to express such gratitude to him. I am a living monument to the faithfulness of my parents to evangelize me. I'm a living monument to the faithfulness of hundreds and thousands of people down through the centuries who've been faithful to take this gospel message and pass it from one person to another, one generation to another until it reached me. All of us in this room who have called upon Jesus for salvation, all of us are living, breathing monuments.

of the faithfulness of Jesus Christ to come into this world and obey His Father and live the life that we could have never lived, die the death we deserve to die. We are monuments to the faithfulness of the apostles who At the sacrifice of their lives, proclaimed this gospel message to the world of their day, recorded it. In Scripture, we are living, breathing monuments to the faithfulness of thousands of people down through the centuries who have some at the sacrifice of their lives been faithful to take this message of salvation and pass it from one person to the next, one generation, one century to the next, until it has reached each of us who know the Lord.

And we have much to be grateful for, but then we need to inquire, well, OK, so it's come down to me, what do I do with this?

And Paul explores that in our passage. Obviously we want to be humbled and grateful for the faithfulness of so many. that we benefit from, we want to pass this message on. Paul ponder some of these things before he does.

He gives us, I think, a really good idea of the essence of salvation. What is salvation that comes to a person? There's various ways of, of, examining that, but in Romans 10, 9 and 10, we get an idea of one way of looking at this. Paul says, if you confess with your mouth, Jesus as Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you shall be saved.

For with the heart, man believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation. Basically, salvation is this, it's God giving to a person, righteousness, and deliverance and satisfaction in Jesus. At the moment, God saves a man, he or a woman, he, he, he looks at that person and says, I forgive you. Of all of the sins that you ever have, or will commit throughout your lifetime, I erase those sins from the record books of heaven, I will no longer hold those sins against you.

And now that I've washed all that away, I have something I want to give you. I want to give you my perfect and spotless righteousness. Here it is as a gift. And I want you to wear this, I want you to be dressed in this.

And I want you to see yourself in this righteousness of mine, and I want you to know that I will forever look at you through the lens of this righteousness. I will never look at you in any other way than one who has been declared righteous by me. Salvation includes a gift of righteousness and also, he says with the mouth, one confesses literally into salvation or deliverance. That word salvation has the idea of being delivered from something.

We're, we're being saved from something. We're delivered in Christ from the guilt of sin and from the power of sin and from the eternal condemnation that we deserve for our sins. We are delivered from eternity in hell, eternity in the lake of fire. We are delivered from a, a life of meaninglessness and despair and despondency and hopelessness.

We are delivered from the feudal way of life that we may have inherited from our forefathers full of addictions and, and sin and brokenness and, and ruin. We are delivered from those things into relationship with God, and into the opposite, into a life of freedom. From these things. Salvation is God giving a person righteousness, giving them deliverance, as well as satisfaction in Jesus.

Look what Paul goes on to say in Romans 10:11 and 12, he says, for the scripture says, and now he quotes from Isaiah 28:16, whoever believes in Him, that's Jesus will not be disappointed. The idea is anyone that believes in Jesus will not be ashamed of the fact that they put their trust in Christ. God is essentially making a promise to the person that he saves. And he says to the person he saves, I promise you that by the time I am done with you, And I am done doing all the things to you and in you and through you, through my Son Jesus Christ, in this age and in the age to come, I promise you, you will not be disappointed that you put your trust in Him.

No one who puts their trust in Christ. will be disappointed. No one will find themselves in heaven draped in the glory of God and experiencing the blessings that await them for all of eternity in heaven. No one will look at all of that and say, this is a letdown.

To me. We all know what it's like to be let down and disappointed. We spend our lives putting our trust and our hope in things that disappoint us again and again and again. Things let us down, people, relationships let us down, but Christ never lets us down.

And when we get to heaven, we will realize not only has God through Christ matched my expectations, but he has exceeded my highest expectations. I have not seen nor ear heard nor did it ever even enter into my heart the fullness of what God has prepared for me here. This is beyond my wildest expectation. Anyone who believes in Jesus, God says, you may struggle at times with versions of disappointment and dissatisfaction, and you may wonder what I'm up to, but God says, I promise you, I'm always doing a million things and it's gonna blow you away.

By the time I'm done with doing all the things I want to do in your life through Jesus and transforming you, you absolutely will be so far from disappointment. I will blow your mind with the savior that I am. It is a gracious, generous salvation we've received verse 12, there's no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord is Lord of all, abounding in riches for all who call on Him. Christ is Lord, that's why he has the power to do all this stuff because he's Lord, he gets to do what he wants at the right hand of God, he's got total authority to do as he pleases and from that position of lordship.

He is giving out righteousness, relationship, forgiveness, and salvation to any who call upon him, and when he gives it, he does not give it begrudgingly, but happily he does not give this salvation, this righteousness and deliverance and satisfaction sparingly. He gives it most generously. So what is salvation? You go to the very moment that a person is converted and saved.

What is happening in that moment? God is giving that person righteousness and deliverance and satisfaction in Jesus, full provision. In Jesus. Well, Paul is not content to just examine that.

So this is what happens when someone gets into Romans 567 and 8. Paul wants to go deeper and explore how does that transaction actually occur. And so through the things he says and the questions he asks in the coming verses, what we find is ultimately what we can call a fivefold explanation as to how it is that this salvation that I've just described actually gets to us and gets to particular people. And we'll see how that actually, that process ends up involving us.

The first aspect of his explanation as to how salvation gets to people is this salvation comes to those who call upon Christ. Paul says there's no distinction between Jew and Greek for the same Lord is Lord of all abounding and riches for all who, what's it say? Call upon Him, for whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Even in the next verse, he speaks of those who call upon him.

So clearly, Paul is saying that one way of looking at it is the catalyst that brings this righteousness and deliverance and full provision in Christ is the fact that a person calls upon. They, they open their mouths as it were, and they address Jesus, this Lord and Savior, and they cry out to Him, they call upon him for this salvation. People aren't just born, saved. people don't just wake up some morning and say, what, I am righteous with the righteousness of God.

I don't know how, how it happened, but, but I am, and I'm saved and delivered and have full abundant, generous provision in Christ. It doesn't just happen. It doesn't just happen to people who attend church. even attending church every week or who become a member of a church, or who do good deeds, charitable deeds, and give a ton of money away and, and, are good to the environment or whatever the list may be, this generous saving from the Lord comes only to those who address him and call upon him to save them.

Those who call upon Him for salvation call upon him. Exclusively. They don't call upon him along with a bunch of other things and I'll hedge my bets and I'm gonna just ask all these potential saviors to save me. Jesus will be one of them.

And I hope one of these saviors will save me. No, no, it's someone who makes a decision. I'm gonna stop calling on anyone or anything else for my salvation. I'm gonna stop calling on myself for salvation.

I'm gonna stop calling on and calling up my record. To vindicate my salvation. I'm gonna stop calling upon some good deed that I've done in the past or some bad deeds that I've never done that other people have done. I'm gonna stop calling on anything else.

You approach people nowadays and you ask them, are, are, are you saved? Are you, are you gonna go to heaven when you die, and their answer is a resounding yes, and you say, well, how do that? And it's interesting the things they call upon. Well, I've done this and I've not done that and Here's where my membership lies, and they're pointing at themselves, they're calling upon themselves to be their own Lord and Savior.

I remember years ago when I was in college, I was talking to an elderly man. And asked him if he was saved, and he said, yep. And I said, well, tell me about that. And he said, my uncle was a deacon.

In the Baptist church here in town. And I waited for more, and that was it. So he called upon his uncle for salvation. someone who calls upon the Lord is someone who stops calling on other things and people for their salvation.

They stop calling upon relationships and making these demands upon relationships to, to bring them deliverance from meaninglessness, despair, and sadness, and they're, they're calling upon the Lord and the Lord alone. This richness of salvation from the saving Lord comes to those who address him and say, I need salvation, and you are the savior for me. I call upon you, save me, Jesus. You say, well, what, what do I say when I call upon Christ?

What's, what's the, what's the magic wording? There is no magic wording, just call upon. Hi, Jesus talks about the tax collector in the temple who came into the temple, he was so beaten down by his sin, felt so unworthy to be in God's presence, he wouldn't even look up to heaven, he beat his breast, and all he could get out of his mouth was God, be merciful to me, the sinner. End of prayer.

And Jesus says that man went home. Having received the gift of righteousness. God heard that and said, Here's righteousness, here's deliverance, here's satisfaction and provision in my son. Wasn't some magic wording that he gave expression to, he simply called upon the name of the Lord.

Just do call upon the name of the Lord with an understanding of who he is and what he has done and that your salvation is totally dependent upon him. On October 11th, 1888, Charles Spurgeon preached in a sermon to the lost on A Sunday evening, and at the end of his message, he said to them, oh my dear hearers, do not let it be so with you after speaking of the judgment that comes upon those who don't believe in Jesus, he said, oh, that the unconverted among you may be moved to pray before you leave this place, breathe and.

Earnest prayer to God. That's biblical for him to call upon them to pray because calling upon the name of the Lord, that's the language of prayer, addressing him, breathe in earnest prayer to God saying, God be merciful to me, a sinner.

Lord, I need to be saved, save me, I call upon thy name. He then invited the non-believers, he said, join with me in prayer at this moment. I beg you, I entreat you. He said, Lord, I am guilty.

I deserve thy wrath. Lord, I cannot save myself. Lord, I would have a new heart and a right spirit, but what can I do? Lord, I can do nothing.

Come and work in me to will and to do of thy good pleasure. Thou alone has power, I know, to save a wretch like me. To whom or whither should I go if I should run from thee. But I now do from my very soul call upon thy name, trembling, yet believing.

I cast myself wholly upon thee, O Lord, I trust the blood and righteousness of thy dear son, Lord, save me tonight for Jesus' sake. People don't have to quote that word for word. That's not the point. That's the heartbeat of someone who calls upon the name of the Lord for salvation.

So this, this salvation is the gift of righteousness and deliverance and full satisfaction and provision in Jesus for eternity. But how does a person get that? He calls upon the name of the Lord. If you're here today and you've never called upon the name of the Lord and cried out to him for salvation, God is showing you, this is, this is what you need to do, and I, anyone who calls upon me, anyone who comes to me, I don't care what you've done or the mess you've made, I will in no wise ever cast anyone like that out.

I will receive you. I will hear your cry. So this salvation comes to those who call upon Christ. Well, Paul's not content to stop there.

It's then, well, why does someone call upon Christ? how you're talking to your children sometimes if they're younger and you give them an answer and they're like, why? You answer that, why? You answer that, why?

And they just keep on going. that's what Paul is doing. And so he presses another layer. Beyond what he has said, and the, the question is, well, why does someone call upon the name of the Lord?

Well, it's because they believe. Paul says those who call upon Christ do so because they believe in Christ. He says, how then shall they call upon him in whom they have not believed. So, what Paul's indicating is like if someone just spoke some magic words and prayed a prayer calling on the name of the Lord, but it's not from a heart of faith, those magic words can't save anybody.

But someone who truly is believing in Jesus for salvation, And then they cry out to him as an expression of that faith in Christ, that is a saving, calling upon the name of the Lord. Belief is the fuel that drives this heart cry to the Lord for salvation. And again, someone, someone who believes in Jesus is, is, they don't just believe in Jesus along with a bunch of other things. It's an exclusive belief in, in Jesus.

Anyone who truly believes in Jesus is someone who has withdrawn their trust. From themselves and from anyone or anything else and they've taken that trust and deposited their trust in Jesus in recent weeks, because of a lot of the economic uncertainty over in Europe and Greece in particular in Spain and Italy and so forth, actually the world over. And some European banks in Greece and elsewhere there's been a run on the banks. Just billions of dollars have been withdrawn as people are feeling so insecure they're pulling their money out.

They're pulling their deposits out and then putting them somewhere else, who knows, in their own home underground or somewhere where they feel that their funds would be safe. And some level of a run on banks has occurred and that's, that's actually a vivid picture of what needs to happen when a person gets saved. There needs to be a run on all the banks where we have been depositing trust all our lives. We go to those banks of our own selves and our own strength and our own spirituality and our own record and our own knowledge and of institutions and people and memberships and charitable giving and, and what have you that all these things we've been depositing our trust, we just, there's a run on all that, we just go and we just start withdrawing all of that.

And then we come to Jesus and say here, I'm not going to diversify. I am banking on you, and you only for salvation. And you are the one I believe in. You are the only savior who loved me enough to die for me.

You're the only Savior who lived the life that I. to live. You're the only savior who has been raised from the dead by the power of Almighty God. You're the only Savior who's at the right hand of God, absolute Lord, who can do whatever you please.

And so you're the one I believe in Jesus. And because I believe in you, I call upon you for salvation. And those who call upon him, moved to do so by this faith. God gives them the gift of righteousness and deliverance and fullness of provision in Christ.

Well, Paul, goes even further, it's like, OK, so we received this salvation because we call on the name of the Lord. We call on the name of the Lord because we believe, but where does the belief come from? And so there's a third layer of Paul's explanation of how salvation comes to a person, and he basically teaches us that those who believe in Christ do so because they've heard the truth about Christ. There must be a hearing.

For faith to be awakened in the providence of God leading to salvation. Paul says, how shall they call upon him and whom they have not believed and how shall they believe in him whom or of whom they have not heard. Paul is saying that for someone to believe in Jesus, they must hear something about him. You don't just wake up saved.

you don't just believe in Someone by the name of Jesus, but nothing about him, or you've got a wrong idea of him, you must hear the truth about the true and saving Jesus. As one writer says, faith indeed comes of hearing. Do not imagine that men will be saved any other way. There must be a hearing.

Or we can include in that a reading, but there must be some apprehensions, a hearing of the truth about Jesus. Paul even affirms this in verse 17, faith comes from hearing and hearing by the word of Christ. This is integral to the way that salvation gets accomplished in the life of a person in the providence of a sovereign God. In Acts 11:14, the angel is saying to, Cornelius that Simon's gonna come to you and he's going to speak to you words by which you shall be saved.

Simon Peter's gonna come, he's gonna open his mouth and he's going to say words, he's going to speak words to communicate a message by which you'll be saved, you'll be saved by those words. Now we all know it's Jesus that saves, but he saves through the instrumentality. of words and as you read the narrative in Acts 10 and 11, it's while Peter was delivering the words of truth about Christ that Cornelius and his household believed faith was awakened in them by God as they heard the truth, regeneration happened in them, awakening faith in them as they heard the truth about Jesus.

That's why Paul in 1 Corinthians 1:21 says it has pleased God through the foolishness of heralding, through announcement making to save those who believe.

That leads to the fourth layer of explanation that is very much tied to this, and that is, so Salvation comes to those who call upon the Lord, those who call upon the Lord are those that believe in the Lord, and those that believe in the Lord believe in him because they've heard the truth about Jesus. But why did they hear and how did they hear the truth about Jesus? Number 4, Paul basically conveys to us that those who hear the truth about Christ or the gospel of Christ, do so because somebody preaches it to them.

How then shall they call upon him and whom they have not believed, How shall they believe in him whom they have not heard?

How shall they hear without a preacher? Now when you see the word preacher, don't think of someone in a collar, or even me behind the pulpit. I would like to think I'm a preacher and I'm preaching God's word, heralding his word right now, but the word is bigger than just what I'm doing here on a Sunday morning. It's big enough to include what all of us do, all of you who know the Lord do, every time you open your mouth, and you announce the good news of Salvation through Jesus to a lost in a dying world.

this word that is translated preacher speaks of a herald, someone who acts as a herald and publicly announces some message of a king or a commander. Back in this day, if a, a king conquered another nation, He would, once the victory has been won and his authority had been established, he would send heralds. He would give them the exact message that he would want delivered throughout the land, and then heralds would go throughout the land, and they would announce the new king and the victory that has been accomplished and whatever else it is that the king wants the people to understand.

And when heralds were given this responsibility from the king, as this writer says here, they, they, they would add nothing to the message, they would take nothing from the message, they would not alter anything in the message.

That was not their job. It was not a luxury that belonged to them to sift through what the king said and said, well, I, I, I want to say this, but I don't want to say that, so I'll let someone else do that. I'll just chop this out and only communicate this. No, a herald was someone who communicated exactly what the king wanted communicated, or he's not a faithful Harald, he's not a herald at all.

We have men standing in pulpits today, unfortunately, and people who profess the name of Christ, unfortunately, who they're looking at the message that's been given to them by God and they don't like parts of it or they're aware that, well, our audience isn't going to like parts of this, so, so we're just not going to communicate this, and we'll communicate this over here. And there's pastors even on national television who when asked, they'll say, well, yeah, I, I know that, wrath, damnation, hell and sin, I know that's, that's in the Bible, but that's, that's just not my calling.

It's not what I want to convey to people. I want to speak of things positive and hopeful and of the love of God.

Someone who picks and chooses from God's revelation like that is not a herald of God. We come to people with the glad tidings of salvation, and say to them, there's salvation for you and Jesus if you would call upon him and believe in him. But there are people out there who they have no Christian worldview. I need to be saved from sin, from what?

They, they don't even understand that terminology. And so you have to give them the rest of the message of scripture, telling them who God is and who they are created by God and, and the image of God, bearing his image in remarkable ways and God created man with a destiny to glorify Him. And to serve his glorious purposes, but man has fallen short of that, and you have to communicate that to them so that they understand that we have all sinned and fallen short of this glorious God, giving glory to him and living up to his glorious purposes for us.

You have to build this worldview into the person that you are speaking to so that when you do herald the good news of salvation through Christ, they have a context to understand that.

And anyone who looks at the full scope of that revelation and says, I'm never going to say this, nor this, nor this, and I'll only say this, that's not a faithful herald. And God's sovereign plan of executing the salvation of sinners, God uses faithful heralds, and he calls all of us to be faithful and heralding the truth of scripture and the message of salvation. And when we herald, ultimately we're heralding, we're making an announcement, and it's about Jesus and what He has done.

We don't herald the people.

Here's a list of commandments and do's and don'ts, and And if you do all these things, then you will earn salvation. It's not that at all. We come to people and we're announcing, here's who Jesus is, here's what he's done, and here's where he is now, and he's Lord and King, and from that position of lordship, he's ready to save any who see their bankruptcy, and look to him and call upon him to be their Lord and Savior. It's an announcement of glad tidings, very different than any other religion.

And what is heralded by messengers of any other religion. Timothy Keller says this, the essence of other religions is advice. Christianity is essentially news. Other religions say, this is what you have to do in order to connect to God forever.

This is how you have to live in order to earn your way to God. But the gospel says this is what has been done in history. This is how Jesus lived and died to earn the way to God for you. Christianity is completely different.

It is joyful news. It is going to people and reporting to them what Jesus has done, what God has done for them, and then calling upon them to put their trust in Him. So those who receive salvation are those who call on the name of the Lord, those who call on his name. are those who believe in Him, those who believe in Him are those who have heard and those who hear, hear because someone was faithful in the providence of God to herald to them the truth about Christ.

Paul has a final layer that he contemplates here and that is someone preaches the gospel to them because he or she is commissioned and sent out by God to do so. You see, salvation comes from God. God does it all, but then how it gets to you and you hear the word and faith is awakened, as God regenerates you and you believe, if you keep tracing that back, who you run into at the end? God.

God is the author and the finisher of our salvation. He's the author even of our hearing of salvation, and he sovereignly orchestrates human history in such a way that the message of the gospel goes from person to person, generation to generation until it reaches you, that you might hear and have opportunity. To believe. Paul says, how shall they preach?

How shall they herald unless they are sent? They don't send themselves, they are sent, and clearly implied as they are sent by God. God sends them out, and he commissions all of us. And he says, Here's the message.

Here's my revelation. Don't add to it, don't take away from it. Go and herald this. And speak to the world about Jesus, my Son, and salvation through Him, report to them these things that I have given to you to report as a faithful herald.

Paul then quotes from Isaiah 52:7, where he says, just as it is written, how beautiful are the feet of those who bring glad tidings of good things. I just, I love that expression. he could have said how beautiful is the mouth of those who bring good news, or how beautiful are the words of those who bring good news. And certainly those would be true statements, but instead he says how beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news.

Paul is quoting from Isaiah. Who in Isaiah 52 is is speaking of the hope of the Israelites in the Babylonian captivity and how they awaited the coming of the heralds who would announce to them that the captivity is over and what their excitement will be when they see the heralds come running to them with this amazing news of their deliverance. One commentator says the prophet. And Isaiah 52 is voicing the jubilation of the Israelites and the Babylonian captivity at the thought and the sight of the herald runners speeding over the mountains to make the great announcement to them that they are now free.

Feet covered with dust because of the long running, they are simply beautiful to the eyes of those longing captives because of the message they are bringing. No more beautiful sight to them. And these feet. Imagine the Jews in Babylonian captivity and They, they know the time is close where freedom will come and then they're looking off into the distance and they see these herald runners and they are running at breakneck speed towards them and they seem excited and they're running fast.

They've been running a long way. They're hot and they're sweaty and, and the runners are even stumbling in their haste and then they get back up and they keep on running and And even before those heralds would reach the Israelites, they would know something by the hastiness and the countenance of these heralds that good news is on the way. And as those heralds then take their position before these Israelites longing for freedom from captivity, these Israelites would look at the feet of these heralds, dirty and dusty and calloused and worn out and perhaps bloodied from the long run.

And those feet would be so beautiful to them.

When, when Isaiah and when Paul says how beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news, the, the idea is this, how beautiful are the goings of those who bring the gospel. How beautiful are, are the goings as heralds of the truth. They, they go across the ocean, they go across town, they go across the street, when the Holy Spirit sees a believer going across the street to a neighbor or across the seas to another part of the world, or across town to reach out to someone and herald the good news to them.

The Spirit observes the goings of such person and says, how beautiful is this?

And even the convert who puts his trust in Jesus and calls upon him, his exclamation at the point of conversion is how beautiful are the feet of this person, who's gone out of their way to bring me this report. Of the salvation that I can have in Jesus. All of us have been commissioned by Christ to be heralds, right? We don't have to wait for a commission.

Christ has saved those of us that have called upon him. And he says to us in Mark 16, go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. What other commission do we want? We've heard from Jesus.

Is there someone else we need to hear from? Of greater authority. And Matthew 28, he says, go, go, get on your feet and go and make disciples of all of the nations, and I'm going to be with you as you go. And as we go commissioned by him, we go as ambassadors like Paul did, and we talk to people and we present to them the truth about Jesus and we say to them, as Paul said, that God is begging you through me to be reconciled to God.

To put your trust in Christ. This is just the way God has set it up. He could have written the gospel and the stars and everyone just looks at the stars, sees the truth about Jesus and believes in him, but God didn't structure it that way. It's through the foolishness of heralding.

Depending on flawed human instruments, who all of us have a long way to go, but God's plan of salvation for this community is to use us to go out and to herald the truth about Jesus. And salvation through him to all who will believe. Now Paul in his train of thought goes on to say in the following verses that there are a lot of people that we're going to herald the truth to who are not going to believe, but everyone who does believe will believe because they heard. And they will hear because we heralded the truth to them, and we will say the only reason we heralded the truth of salvation through Jesus, to this person is because we were commissioned by our Lord and Savior, by our God to do so.

May God give us the grace to live this out. Let me ask you to bow your heads. If you're here today, And maybe you've been calling on other things for your salvation, depending on other things, believing in other things. I'm here to tell you to turn from all of that and look to Jesus and bank your eternal destiny entirely on him.

And where you're seated, call upon him. Call upon him. If you've got questions, talk, come and talk to me afterwards. I, there would be nothing that would honor me more than to just pray with you and Answer your questions and assist you in that, and I know so many others in this room would say the same thing.

Let us help you. For those of us that are God's people, may we feel the crushing burden for the lost and may we May we be faithful heralds. God, thank you for your word. Save men and women in this room this morning.

Move them to call upon you. For those of us who are your people, help us, this, we're we're living monuments to the faithfulness of others. Some who shed their blood and lost their heads, were thrown to lions and faithfully, giving this message from one person to another down through the centuries and And we do not do well to keep this to ourselves. We, we must herald as they herald.

And may 100 years from now, there'll be Christians populating this planet who when they trace their spiritual lineage back. They would. Have a lineage that includes totally by your grace, Lord. Our faithfulness and heralding the truth.

Lord, we have opportunities to live this out, opening up our homes to our neighbors and co-workers and friends and Relatives and loving them through our homes and showing them the heart of God. We've got an Ina ministry, Lord, that's starting up in September that is all about evangelizing young people, and then discipling them once they come to faith in Christ and, and there are boundless opportunities for us in this church to be involved in. And assuming various positions and being heralds of your great truth.

We have the vacation Bible school soccer camp coming up in August, Lord, multiple opportunities that you graciously provide for us to be heralds of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

May, may we seize upon such opportunities and many others, Lord. And so many in this congregation are such faithful examples of the very thing we're learning about. Thank you for them. Help us to grow, excel still more, and may you use us in your sovereign plan to make known your grace to those who desperately need to hear it.

Thank you for this opportunity to give of our offerings to you, Lord, receive these funds, do much with them. For the glory of Jesus and the spread of this gospel. We ask all of these things in the name of Jesus, and all God's people said, Amen.