The God(ness) of God: The God of Gospel - Week 5
June 22, 2008 4:48 pm Chapter 10, Romans, Sermon-Texts
This sermon is week 5 of The God of Gospel section of our “The God(ness) of God” sermon series. It is an exegetical treatment of Romans 10:16-21, addressing the challenges of people coming to believe in the gospel and what God’s design is for how they will be persuaded. This sermon was originally preached June 22nd, 2008 at The Resolved Church in San Diego, CA.
The Resolved Church | www.theresolved.com
(619) 393-1990 | contact@theresolved.com
All Rights Reserved © The Resolved Church
Permissions: you are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material provided you not alter the wording in any way and you do not charge a fee. For web posting a link to this document is preferred.
June 22nd, 2008
Pastor Duane M. Smets
Series: The God(ness) of God | Romans 9-11
I. The God of Glory 9:1-29
II. The God of Gospel 9:30-10:21
III. The God of Future 11:1-36
II. The God of Gospel 9:30-10:21
Week 5 - Romans 10:16-21
Introduction
Good morning everyone. It is ridiculous hot. The city has announced there are official “cool zones” with air conditioning…so you can go to the libraries or schools if you need a place to cool off.
I’d like to start today out with a question, “What has been to date the most disappointing thing you have ever experienced?” Just stop for a second and think about your life and all bad stuff that has happened to you. If you’re like me I know that’s a lot to sift through. You got it in your head? Ok.
Now the reason is not to get you all depressed today…but I had you do that because that feeling you feel when you think of that disappointment is the feeling of the last six verses Romans 10 from the human author, the Apostle Paul. At the beginning of chapter 9, he said get gets great sorrow and unceasing anguish in his heart when he shares about the greatness and goodness of Jesus Christ and people immediately fall in love with him and become Christians (Rom 9:2).
I split my sermon in half from last week, because the previous two verses were all about the Bible’s call unto us as Christian to become missionaries. Because of where we are at as a church and what we are trying to accomplish here in San Diego, I thought it was important to give a whole sermon to those verses and do my best job at trying to stir all of us up with a passion to try and reach non-Christians with the gospel here in our city as a church plant.
This week is the harder week. The idea is that as you get closer to God and understand what he is like and what he is passionate about, you start catching or adopting his passion. Have you ever met a guy who gets super hyped about something? I have a couple friends who always has some new thing he’s excited about. First it was surfing, then riding motorcycles, fishing, then paragliding…each time would get into this new thing he wanted to bring me a long and was all psyched. I couldn’t help but get psyched being around him. I started looking at all the magazines and checking craigslist wanting equipment and thinking about going and doing that stuff all the time. That’s the way it works.
So when you become friends with God you start finding that he has a lot of passion for lost people and you catch that and you start gaining a heart and a passion for people too. That’s good. That’s why I’m here in San Diego. Because I love this city and not just it’s amazing surf, but I love the people who live here too and I long for them to see and know and love the wonder of Jesus.
So, last week was exciting, inspiring and invigorating. This week is somewhat heartbreaking and frustrating. But that’s the way the Bible is and that’s the way life is, the Bible deals with real life and part of maturing and growing as a Christian is learning how to deal with the different seasons and challenges of life. So let’s read the verses for today and pray over them.
Lord God, being Christians and being Christians with your heart and love and passion is not always very easy. I pray today that you would work in us so that our response and willingness to be your missionaries in this city would not wane even when it gets hard. Open our eyes and understandings today so that we might learn from your book and know better what kind of great and compassionate God you are. In the name of Jesus our Lord, Amen.
So we are going to work through each of the words of our text today and what is here can really be pared down to two main points, “The Gospel Challenge” and the “The Gospel Persuasion.”
Last week we learned God has committed himself to certain means or steps which take place before anyone ever “calls upon the name” of Jesus. For many Jesus is a just a name. For some he’s the name of a friend or a relative who is from the country just south of us. There’s a man who does all the printing for The Resolved Church who has a little shop over in Pacific Beach and I’ve developed a friendship with him over the last couple years. I love going in to see him. Whenever I go see him I’m excited and I walk in the door and say “Hey, what’s up Jesus?!” And he laughs and smiles at me everytime because he knows I am a Pastor and he loves talking to me about the Bible.
But for some “Jesus” is not just a name…he is so much more than that…he is the one person in the universe that they look to and bank and build their lives upon and they do so by calling out to him for salvation. They are constantly dependent upon him, for everything…so that everything in life comes down to the need for Jesus. Last week we dealt with verses 14-15 and how a person comes to that point where they see Jesus that way and learned that there is a process involved before that happens.
Here’s the process: First God sends Christians to go tell people who are not Christians about Jesus, that’s the catching of God’s heart and passion thing. Second those Christians then go to those people and figure out how to best share the gospel so that they get it and understand, we call that contextualization. Third, a person has to hear, not just listen but gain true perception of Jesus, who he is and what he has done. Fourth, a person must be given the gift of faith from God and believe who Jesus is and what he has done is sufficient and relative to their own personal life and situation…it’s where you come to really think that Jesus can in fact actually meet your need. And then fifth, once that happens, it produces a call, the call where one ends up crying out, “Lord, Save me!”
“The Gospel Challenge”
This week we deal with these last verses of Romans 10 which deal with the questions, What’s going on when that doesn’t work? And how do we deal with that? That’s “The Gospel Challenge.” And the second, what if anything does God do about it? Does he have any purpose or design in it when the gospel means seemingly do not work? That’s “The Gospel Persuasion.”
So let’s begin and first look at verse 16 as we talk about The Gospel Challenge. “But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, ‘Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?’”
The first thing that strikes me about this verse is how he changes up the words he uses. Notice it doesn’t say, “not all have believed the gospel.” That is what we would expect. But if you have the ESV it says, “obeyed.” Other translations will say “accepted” or “heed.” Heed is probably the best because it gets at the idea here of hearing, it’s a form of the word hearing. The idea is like when you hear someone knock at the door but you don’t just hear the sound of their knock but you hear the knock, walk to the door and open it.
Now Paul switches back to the word believe in the next line, “Lord, who has believed?” But this word “obeyed” points at the human response in which the gospel calls for. He used the same word all the way back in the beginning, when he started out the book of Romans. In Romans 1:5 he says whole reason he wrote the book was for the sake of Jesus name among all the nations brought about by an “obedience of faith.”
I just want to pause for a second and see how that hits you. That there is an obedience to the gospel. That God calls us here to obey the gospel. What does that do in you? If you are rebellious and a sinner like me you don’t like that. I don’t like being told, “you need to obey.” Even if I know I should. Why is that? I think it is because in that there is massive humbling which takes place, where I am admitting and saying I know I was wrong and am in the wrong and I will do what you say because you God have said it, and deep down I know you’re right.
I mean Paul’s concern here is for non-Christians. Jesus has become so good and so beautiful to him that it becomes difficult and frustrating when you give you whole heart and life to trying to tell and show someone how great Jesus is and they just don’t see it and believe it…and then you’re like what the heck is going on with that person. Here’s some of what’s going on according to this verse…disobedience, unwillingness, defiance, a refusal to be humble, lay down pride and submit and follow. It is rebelliousness and it is in all of us. And more than that it is a lack of belief, not just in Jesus doing what he did and being who he was but a disbelief in our need of him…we think we’re fine.
Do you guys see that and feel that? It’s true. Look that the verse. “But not all have obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?”
So then comes the next set up. People sometimes don’t respond to the gospel very well when you share it with them. Sometimes that may be because you did a really bad job at sharing it or you just didn’t build a good platform to share it from or your life just totally sucks to and so Jesus doesn’t look like he’s much of help to those you’re sharing with…it might be any of those things…but none of that is what gets brought up here.
Here is what does get brought up. He reaffirms the process. Verse 17 “So faith comes by hearing and hearing through the word of Christ.” That’s the hearing hearing. Where you hear with your ears and then you transition and start to really listen and respond and that happens when the word of Christ pricks you and it becomes real and alive to you. The hearing hearing. You must hear about Jesus and then you must hear Jesus. Faith comes by hearing and hearing through the word of Christ.
But not all people become Christians when you do things the right way in love and share Jesus with someone right? Some don’t become Chrsitians even then. So verse 18 he begins to postulate why, “I ask, have they not heard?” It’s a natural question. Well, maybe they didn’t hear because if they did they would surely become Christians right? Because the gospel is so good and so true, right?
What’s Paul’s answer? Look, he says no, “Indeed they have (heard), for’ ‘Their voice has gone out to all the earth and their words to the ends of the world.’” Here he does something unique. Now obviously he didn’t mean that every person in the world had heard the message of the gospel at that time, because he himself says at the end of this letter that he has plans to go to Spain and share the gospel with the people there.
What he does that is unique is quote Psalm 19. That little sentence, “Their voice has gone out to all the earth and their words to the ends of the world” comes from Psalm 19, which is this beautiful Psalm talking about how everything in all the world reflects a great and beautiful God who exists and designed and made it all.
Let me read for you what comes right before this phrase Paul picks up from Psalm 19. “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours out speech and night to night reveals knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words, whose voice is not heard (Ps 19:1-3).”
So maybe you get it now? This is the point, creation itself testifies to the gospel of Jesus Christ! This beautiful world we live in…the sky, the ocean, the sun, the trees, the flowers, the animals…all of it is speaking, it is all saying something, it is all telling or declaring the glory of God! That God is and that he is wonderful and beautiful.
Now, here’s how it relates to Jesus and the gospel. Just as plain and evident as creation itself is, so is the gospel of Jesus Christ. Nothing makes more sense. There is something wrong with us all, us humans, we know it, we don’t like to admit it…but we all know we are broken and detached from our creator and we need a mediator, someone to do something about it for us. When you hear the gospel story that God became a man and entered into this world in order to die for us in our place so that we might be changed and redeemed and brought into fellowship with him…when we hear that it is like seeing the stars or the ocean and you know there is a God.
The Gospel Persuasion
But even then, some people still don’t become Christians. Some people still don’t believe there is a God even though it is so evident all around us. Some people still don’t believe Jesus is really that good and can really save, even though he has made it so plain. So Paul moves on and what he does in this next step is back up a little bit and try to see a bigger picture.
Up to this point he has been zeroing in on the human experience. In chapter 9, he was looking at everything from way back, up high, looking down, from God’s perspective at the big scheme of things. But in chapter 10 he zeroed in his focus and shifted gears and began looking at how the gospel works in the human experience. Now in these last three verses of chapter 10 he backs up again to look through the big lens again to try and find an answer to what God is doing and how that is or could be persuasive for the gospel. So this my second and final main point for today looking at gospel persuasion.
So let’s read verse 19 and see how is presented as God’s design for when some people still don’t believe after hearing the gospel message. Verse 19, “I ask, did Israel not understand?” Hold on a second, “Israel?” He hasn’t mentioned Israel by name since the end of chapter 9 and the whole focus of this chapter has been everyone everywhere…everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. So Israel, what’s up with that?
Now it would be easy to make a bigger deal about this and come up with a lot of various theories and many do…but I’m just going to simplify it all. I heard that at Theology on Tap the other week there was some discussion about this section of Scripture but that those who were there just decided to avoid these verse because, as I heard it, “Jews are confusing.”
So let me try and unconfuse Jews and Israel a little bit for you. We’ll dive into the confusion in a couple weeks with chapter 11…but for now let me just simplify it. It’s about people groups. The Jews, Israel, Gentiles, Mexicans, Asians, Indians, African Americans, Anglo Saxons…there’s all kinds of people groups. My neighbor yesterday was telling me about the Star Trek convention going on in town. Star Trek people are a people group…and we are a people group as Christians, we are the people of God. That becomes our primary identity. We are not so much, US Citizens, not so much San Diegans, we are Christians.
Now, with that said, let me read the rest of verse 19 and verse 20. “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.’ 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.’
Now, I know when you read words like jealousy, and anger…many of us might have some pretty bad associations come to mind. But here they have a positive end or purpose. Let me show you by going through it backward.
“I have been found by those who did not seek me; I have shown myself to those who did not ask for me.” That speaks of who God is, he loves and goes after those who are not even interested in him at the time. He goes after all kinds of other people groups. What happens then with a people group like Israel, who was interested in God and did know and experience him in many ways throughout the course of their history?
What happens is jealousy and anger. Jealous, for what? For God! That’s a good thing, no matter where it comes from to want God. Anger is a passion and causes you to do some dumb things sometimes, sometimes it puts a fire in you to do something good to. So here is the design. When a people group, like Israel, sees how another people group really comes to know and love God, then a passionate desire to know and love God like that can or ought to occur.
This is the way missions often work. God is our focus here at church. We do church for God. When we invite others into our lives or even to our service, what we are really asking is come and see how much we love worshipping our God. And the hope is that when others seek how much we love God, they will be moved and want to worship him along with us to. That’s what’s going on here with this verse. It is mission. “Missions exists because worship doesn’t” as John Piper likes to say…so the mission of God, the persuasion of the gospel is to move people with a godly jealousy and passion to want him.
You see I think there is something here about an honesty of the gospel from us in our mission that others need to see. Have any of you bought the new Coldplay album? We got it a couple days ago and have been enjoying that. Maybe you’ve heard the song on the radio, “Viva La Vida”? Any of you paid attention to the chorus, “I hear Jerusalem bells a ringing, Roman calvary choirs are singing, be my mirror, my sword, my shield, be my missionaries in a foreign field, for some reason I cannot explain, once you go there was never, never an honest word.”
I think Chris Martin from Coldplay is on to something there, whether known to him or not. Non-christian can see through fakeness, when you are just trying to manipulate force some belief system on them…they see through that, what they really need is some honesty, to hear and see how we really do love and live for Jesus. When that happens then they’ll be desire, because it is real and true and not dishonest.
Okay let’s move on, in the last verse for today, verse 21, we get this amazing picture of God. It is true of the people group Israel and really it is true of everyone of us. “All day long I have held out my hands to a disobedient and contrary people.” This is the picture of a Father. It is the picture of a dad, hold out his hands toward his little child and the child does not want to and will not come to him.
Now my little daughter Adina is about 8 months old. Just the other day I walked in to her room and she was sitting in her crib and I reached down my hands toward her and said, “”Come to DaDa sweetie.” And she lifted up her little arms and I picked her up and gave her a big hug.
Now she is too small right now. But can you imagine a Dad, filled with so much love for his kid and want to love them and pick them up…and the kid just folds their arms, turns their head, and is disinterested and defiant…and the Dad just keeps standing there, saying I love you, come here, I love you.
That is God with everyone of us. This is the gospel message. This is the gospel call which goes out. This is the gospel persuasion. God created you and loves you and reaches out his arms to you and says come here, I know all about your disobedience and sins and faults, so I sent my son to die for all of that so that you can come here and be with me. Come home.
For many of us we have come. And God, through Jesus, has become our dad and we love him. That’s why we live the way we do, why we worship the way we do, why we come here each week together to worship, why we get together in the week to talk about him, and why we are on a mission here in San Diego for him. It is all because God has reached out his hand to us and changed our disobedient and contrary hearts and given us faith in his son Jesus.
And that is God’s design, that we would always be a mix of people. People who have come and those who have not yet…so that a godly jealousy would grow, and the word of Christ would reach a point when it is no longer just words we hear but words we love.
Conclusion
Well, let me conclude this sermon. I’ll conclude this way today. Last week I said we must see ourselves as missionaries here in San Diego. We are people who are chosen and sent by God through his word, into this city to show and share the gospel message of Jesus with people who are not yet Christians.