God's Plan to Reach the World // Romans 10:5-15

Two cities church, we love our missionaries, you just saw a bunch of missionaries that by the grace of God, because of your generosity, we've been able to send out from our own church. Now here's the thing, we use the word missionary in a lot of different ways today, like one level it is true, okay? Everybody here in and all of our campuses, every Christian is a missionary, okay? 'Cause you're supposed to live sent where you live, learn, work, and play, you're always supposed to live like a missionary. And Charles Spurgeon said every Christian is either, every person is either a missionary or an imposter, right? And you can think about yourself, you're either a missionary or a mission field, okay? But at the same time, there is something special about the cross-cultural missionary, right? Those who learn a language and cross and ocean and say goodbye to family and friends, and we're gonna honor them today, particularly because it's send Sunday, okay? Not send Sunday, that's a little different Sunday. Send Sunday, okay, SCND. Turn in your Bibles to Romans 10, let me tell you why we're doing this, okay? The Bible does not necessitate a special day you set aside to call send Sunday. We're doing send Sunday in the middle of multiply month partly 'cause we love alliteration,

so yeah, there you go. But because it shows up in Romans chapter 10, so here's what I want you to know, okay? If you're a Christian, you've been with us for a long time, maybe you just stumbled into one of our campuses. How do I wanna say this? Global spiritual lostness is the greatest problem on Earth. You know, I mean, your life is full of problems. I mean, that's for sure. And you'll spend the rest of your life solving a lot of problems, but I'm telling you, there is no greater problem according to God and his word than global spiritual lostness. In other words, I'm not saying these aren't problems, let me tell you, the greatest problem is not the economy. The greatest problem is lack of health care and lack of education. The greatest problem is not the environment. The greatest problem is not wars going on. It's the problem underneath all of the other problems which we're gonna talk about today. It's such a big problem, okay? It's gonna blow some of your minds. The problem is global spiritual lostness. And here's what you know, it's the greatest problem and it's the problem given to the local church to solve, okay? So nobody else, if you haven't noticed, nobody else cares about this problem, nobody. Like, people might look at the Middle East and they think it's got a lot of problems,

they're not worried about spiritual losses. And they may look at China as an economic competitor, but they're not thinking about the spiritual losses of China, right? But they may think about Indian, what do they think? They think about an untapped economy for Amazon. It's like, that's what we think about. The greatest problem is spiritual losses. And here's what I'm gonna do, I'm gonna tell you now, okay? In about 42 minutes, I'm going to invite you to help us solve this problem. And that's, by the way, what we just call being a Christian. I'm gonna call a bunch of us today to move from being spectators and being on the sidelines to being participants and being on the front lines, okay? And it's a big deal. And so what I'm gonna do is I'm actually gonna read us Romans chapter 10, verses five to 15. And I'm gonna do something, I didn't even do this in the first service, but we're just gonna, every service is different, okay? Like a little personality. I never do this, but in light of how serious that what we're talking about today is, I wanna call everyone to attention. So would you please stand across all of our campuses? We're gonna read Romans 10, verses five through 15. Stand if you can, okay? Here we go. This is gonna be great, here it is.

For Moses writes about the righteousness that is based on the law that the person who does the commandment shall live by them. But the righteousness based on faith says, do not say in your heart who will ascend into heaven, that is to bring Christ down. Or say, who will ascend into the abyss? That is to bring Christ up from the dead. But what does it say the word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart. That is the word of faith that we proclaim. Because 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. Why? For with the heart, one believes and is justified and with the mouth, one confesses and is saved. For the scripture says, everyone, the same guy who Romans nine wrote this. Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame for there is no distinction between the Jew and the Greek. For the same Lord is Lord of all bestowing his riches on all who call on him. For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved and then Paul gives us a strategy to solve this problem. How then will they call on him whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have not heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching?

How are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, how beautiful are the feet of those who preach goodness? You may be seated. Part of it is we are so overwhelmed with our own lives that our soul has shrunk to the problems in our kids' classrooms or the problems at work, and they're real problems, or even more serious problems, the problems of health. And Lord, would you open up our eyes to do the work that only the Holy Spirit can open up our eyes to care about something that the physical eyes can't see, which is spiritual lostness. We can see the effects of it, Lord, but would you give us a heart, Lord? Would you give us a heart for people all over the world who have no access to the gospel? They could have nowhere to go to hear the gospel if they wanted to. They have no Bible to read in their language. And would you first and foremost break our hearts for that? Make us care about that and then show us the divine design and strategy that you have to solve. We pray this in Christ's name. Amen. Well, have you ever heard of the bystander effect? Right? I like sociological and psychological ideas. The bystander effect is a sociological phenomenon that's proven as anything else. Okay? And here's the bystander effect. We're going to do a little technical thinking before we get to the text again. The bystander effect. Let me just tell you what it is. It's the whole idea that the more people there are when there's an emergency, the less likely anyone will do anything about it.

So there was a famous story a long time ago. People tried to refute it, but it was about this lady and she was stabbed and basically finally at the end of the day, 38 people saw it. Some people say no one calls. Some people said two called it. At best, 36 people saw it and did not call why because they thought somebody else was going to call it. So underneath the bystander effect, and this is going to be, I'm telling you this. You would probably already get it. I'm telling you this because this is our problem with mission. The bystander effect says there's so many people, somebody else will do it. That's called the diffusion of responsibility, okay? But then there's another part. You can break down the bystander effect and like why does it happen? There's the diffusion of responsibility. I don't need to take care of this because there's so many people, someone will take care of this. And then there's what's called pluralistic ignorance, I know another big phrase. And it basically means if nobody else is worried about this, I don't need to be worried about this. So they've done the bystander effect where they say, "Hey, we want you to be a part of a study." And they bring these people in and they tell the people, "Here's what you're doing for the study. You're filling out the survey." Well, that's not really why they're there. While they're in the room, they fill the room from a vent with smoke. And it's harmless, but it looks like it might not be harmless. And here's what they said, "If the person was by themselves, almost all the time they left the room and told somebody.

But if they would place five or six or seven people in the room and those people, they were part of the props, they acted like they didn't care about the smoke." Guess what? The person almost never got up and reported it. I want to tell you that we live in a time where the Great Commission, which ends every gospel as the Father has sent me. So I send you going to all the world and preach the gospel, make disciples of all nations. Guys, if we could just be honest and I know we're in church and it's hard to be honest in church. But for most of us, the Great Commission has become the Great Omission. It's become the Great Suggestion. It's become what, like we hope, a few people from our church who are really committed will take it seriously. Okay? Let me tell you what I want to do. I'm going to show you, Paul tells us four things, four truths to motivate mission, okay? And I'm going to take a real short time in the first one and then we're going to drill down into the next three, okay? So these four things, and they're like a logical argument, okay? Here's the first thing Paul wants you to know, you can, you cannot save yourself. Nobody can save themselves. Now I'm not going to talk about this for long, even though it's super important. But the whole reason that I'm not going to talk about it for a long time is because Paul talks about it for a long time in Romans 1 through 3 and I kind of, I'm ready to preach a sentence Sunday, you know, and I read this and I'm like, Paul's talking about how the law can't save us again. I'm like, he's always repeating himself. So I guess if he repeats himself, I should repeat myself, okay? So basically, I'm only repeating what Paul decided was underneath the inspiration of Holy Spirit was important enough to repeat.

So let's just read it quickly. Here's what he says, verse 5. For Moses, you know who that is, okay? He wrote this book called Deuteronomy and in Deuteronomy 30, Paul's quoting, writes about the righteousness that is based on the law that the person who does the commandment shall live by them. Okay? So he's like, hey, Moses wrote this whole idea that, you know, about the righteousness that comes from the law, the problem is basically Paul's like, listen, the problem is you can't obey the law. We talked about that and you can't do enough good works and you can't do enough religious activity. And so look what he says here, but the righteousness that is based on faith says, do not say in your heart who will ascend into heaven. So don't have ladder theology. He goes, that's to bring Christ down. In other words, you don't need to bring Christ down. You can't bring Christ down. Christ came down voluntarily. You don't get to go to him, he comes to you. That's what he's saying. But then he says, if that's not clear enough, or don't say, who will ascend into the abyss? That is to bring Christ up from the dead. So basically, Paul goes, and this is, you know this, right? You know, this is some of your coworkers, your classmates. So be honest with you, with some of you at our campuses and here, the hard thing is not getting you saved. The hard thing is getting you lost. Because you gotta basically tell people,

listen, you can't be a good enough person. You can't be religiously good enough. Like, you can't go to church enough, you can't pray enough, you can't read your Bible enough to earn God's salvation, right? And then you have to go over to the world and be like, you can't be a good enough person. I don't care how much organic food you eat. And I know you use a reusable water bottle and you drive your bike and you know what I mean? And you were voted for the right candidate. You're still not a good enough person. But listen, this is really important to know. There's nothing you can do to be good enough. And then the other thing that says, Paul says, there's nothing you can do to feel bad enough that God's gonna do something about it. So in other words, like you can't punish yourself enough. You can't cry enough. You can't like make up for your, here's what people think all the time. I can make up for my past with more good deeds in my present future. Like, just so you know, every time I meet somebody on the golf course, you know, I have to introduce myself that I'm a pastor and then they do the same thing. They apologize for swearing or warn me that they will swear. They tell me about the one religious person in their life. And then, not always, but a lot of guys will tell me basically this, I think this is a North Carolina story,

which maybe a South Carolina story too or a Southeast story. It's, man, I used to live a crazy life. But then I met this Southern girl. And basically, she really has kind of rehabilitated me. You know what I mean? And she's really got me on the right path. I'm like, that's a lot of testimony. (audience laughs) That's like a dysfunctional marriage or something like that. It's not a testimony. But okay, so here's what he says. Look at verse eight, this is the key. This is what I wanna focus on. But what does it say? The word is near you. This is what Paul, so this is Paul, this is it guys. The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart, that is the word of faith that we proclaim. So, in verse eight, I already read this to you, but in verse eight, you can see your mouth and your heart are talked about. And then if you go to verse nine, your mouth and your heart are talked about. And then if you go to verse 10, your mouth and your heart are talked about, okay? So what's repeated is important. And so I'm thinking to myself this week, why is Paul talking about our mouth and our heart? Well, by the way, because Jesus says they're connected, that whatever is in your heart will come out of your mouth.

Out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks. Now here's what I want you to know. He's saying, the word is so near that when you believe the word of God and Christ come into your heart and then come out of your mouth. Now I thought about this. Think about this with me for a second. What if you tried to divide them? Let's play this game for a minute. What if Christ is on our mouth, but Christ is not in our heart? You're like, there's the Bible, talk about that. It actually does, unbelievably so. It says, God quotes in the Old Testament. He says, this people, what does he say? They praise me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. So think about it this way. If he's in your mouth, but not in your heart, you're a hypocrite. And nobody wants to be a hypocrite, right? No one wants to say I'm a hypocrite. And the harder thing is, and I worry about this because if you grew up with our kids ministry and our student ministry and a great Christian family, and you're gonna know the right answer to everything, you're gonna know all the Christianies, you're gonna be able to say you're struggling with sin when you're not, you're gonna be able to say you're praying about something when you're only thinking

about it, you're gonna, but then what's interesting is I look through the whole Bible. And I could not find one instance of it talking about Christ being in our heart and not in our mouth. And if I want to be generous, and we want to be as generous or gracious as possible, we might say there could be a season in a real Christian's life where Christ is in the heart and not on the mouth. That person would not be a hypocrite, they would be hiding. And then you think, well, what hinders mission? Hypocrisy and hiding? How many people go, you know what I could never believe because my dad or my mom or my co-worker, that family in my neighborhood or that, that Christian family at my school, whatever it is, and it's like it's the hypocrisy that hinders the mission, and then it's the hiding. We don't ever bring out of our heart, out of our mouth, it's in our heart. So basically Paul just wants to go at first, listen guys, you can't save yourself. He's like, is this so old, Moses wrote about it, don't try to bring Christ down, he already came down. Then he says this, let me now tell you how anyone can be saved. Look, this week says, and this is maybe the most famous and well known part of Romans 10. Because if you can fast hear it again, with your mouth at Jesus's Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead,

you will be saved, there's the mouth and the heart again, right? Then look at verse 10, he's like, And with the mouth one confesses and is saved. So he tells us how faith works. Faith is when we entrust ourselves to the person and work of Christ. So you think about it two ways. There's two things you need, a heart and a mouth. And there's two things you need to know, the person of Christ and the work of Christ. Let's talk about the person of Christ first. He basically takes the entire, this is not easy to do. He takes the entire Christian belief confession and he summarizes and simplifies it down to three words. Jesus is Lord. Now that is, can we just say, that is the easiest thing in the world to say. And the hardest thing in the world to mean. Jesus is Lord. Think about it this way. First of all, it's a cosmic claim. So any time you hear someone say, Jesus is Lord. They're not saying he's a tribal deity over the triad. It's like, no, Jesus is Lord over every particle. Think about it this way. This kind of gives you a big view of God. If we could shrink the galaxy so that it could scale and fit in this room, just our galaxy. Okay. If we could shrink the galaxy so it would fit in this room, you couldn't find earth. It's very humbling. Like it would be smaller than a speck of dust. You could look for days and you couldn't find earth if the galaxy was the size of this room. So it's this, you know, in fact, a good thing, so I know what people mean.

Every once in a while someone says something like, you know, I made Jesus Lord when I was 18 years old. I made Jesus the Lord of my life. And I don't correct people because, you know, I do have social skills and manners and somewhat self-awareness and all that kind of stuff. But the correct way to say it would be, I recognize the Lordship of Jesus Christ when I was 18 or 15 or ever. The second is Jesus is Lord. So I want you to know every time this statement is said, whether you realize it or not, it's a cosmic claim, it's a political claim. And if that makes you uncomfortable, you can at least say it this way. It's a claim with political implications. And if you don't know that, North Korea knows that. And every totalitarian dictator government ever has known that. And Caesar do that because on all of the coins, when Jesus is walking around and when Paul's writing this, guess what it says on all of the Roman coins? Caesar is Lord. So I wonder if Caesar would think it's interesting if people started to say Jesus. So interesting, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was a complex character, but one of my heroes, he was against Hitler in the 1930s when nobody was. And he said the problem in Germany in the 1930s is German Christians and German churches tried to say this. Jesus is Lord of my heart and Hitler is Lord of the nation. And how many Christians try to do, it's not that, we wouldn't do that. We do Jesus is Lord of my heart and I am Lord of my sexuality. Jesus is Lord of my heart and I am Lord of my finances. Jesus is Lord of my heart and I am Lord over my kid's future. Which leads to the third one, it's a personal claim. So you can think about every time someone says it, they're making a cosmic claim, a political claim, and a personal claim at the same time, even if they don't know it. And the personal claim is I'm no longer in charge. This is why you can't, you can say it, but it's an oxymoron. You can't say no Lord. And Jesus is Lord not consultant, right? We live in this time where, I mean everybody wants to be a consultant. And consultants can make a ton of money and you know, and consultants, all these young guys, MIT grads, everything else, and you bring them in and they think they're smart and all this. And basically what they do though is, here's what I consultant does. You pay them an enormous amount of money because they're an expert in an area and you get their advice and then you decide afterwards whether or not you're going to do it.

And Jesus is not interested in being your life coach and you know, you're consultants. And so, by the way, let me just encourage you, Jesus is Lord is actually a really freeing statement. You know, I wonder if some of the issues of anxiety and depression are issues of you're trying to be Lord. And it's like the pressures off, the results belong to Jesus. When someone, when you say he's Lord, here's what you're saying, responsibility ultimately flows to him. So we're told, Jesus is Lord, that's a big statement. And then we're supposed to confess that with our mouth and then believe in our heart, God rose in from the dead really quickly at the center of our faith is not just the person of Christ, it's the work of Christ, which you can't untangle them. But it's the life, death and resurrection of Christ. And here's what's important. When a person becomes a believer, they understand that what Jesus did 2,000 years ago, counted for them. So I told you this, I'm a... When you're a casual Catholic, you know, maybe it's like being a casual Protestant. You just go to church a little bit and less as you get older 'cause you've got sports and then you go to college and you don't go to church anymore. And I remember when, so when you're Catholic, they don't have a cross, they have a crucifix. And the difference between a cross and a crucifix is that Jesus is still on the crucifix. So it's been interesting for me to like go back to like 14-year-old me and be like, I went to church probably once a month and saw an image that's the center of Christianity and didn't understand it. It wasn't until I was in 10th grade that someone said, wait, not just Jesus lived a sinless life. He lived a sinless life because you needed a perfect record. And not just Jesus died for sinners. I'd heard that, but Jesus died for you

to pay the punishment for your sin. And God wants to have a relationship with you. And that's when Christianity became personal. And he's saying, when you realize Jesus is Lord and Jesus lived, died and rose on my behalf. And if I trust him, if I transfer trust to him and I give him my best and my worst, my sin and myself, I can be saved. So if you think about it so far, the first three parts of this message are really great, which is you can't save yourself, but don't worry about it because Jesus will save you. And being a Christian is hard, but becoming a Christian is fairly simple. It's not easy, but it's simple. I confess and I believe. So you go, well, this is a great message. Well, and then he says, and it gets even better. And anybody can believe. So the first three things he says is really good. You're like, okay, well, look at what he says next. He says, guys, anyone can believe verse 11, "For the scripture says everyone who believes in him "will not be put to shame. "For there's no distinction between Jew and Greek "for the same Lord is Lord of all." So everyone and all, bestowing his riches on all, who call on him and everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. Okay, so Christianity is at the same time

the most inclusive religion in the world and the most exclusive religion in the world. So if you say it's the most inclusive religion in the world, everyone's encouraged. You're like, look, no matter where you live, no matter what you've done, no matter what's been done to you, no matter what your parents believe, no matter what you grew up believing, no matter your race or your ethnicity or your culture, anybody, anywhere can believe in Jesus. And that's encouraging 'cause by the way, every other world religion, you can look this up, 80% of the people who believe that world religion live in one location. 'Cause there's so many other requirements of what you have to have to believe that it only happens in that one location. But the part that people don't like, so that's the inclusivity, is the exclusivity of Christ. The exclusivity of Christ says that every person, everywhere can believe on Jesus Christ, or sorry, it can be saved, but they must have conscious saving faith in the person and work of Christ, that there is one name under salvation by which you can be saved Jesus Christ. That Jesus himself said, you know, I am the way and I am the truth and I am the life. And so here's where the text and the message turns. Up until like right now, it's all been good news.

It's like, listen, you can't save yourself, stop trying. The word is near, just repent and believe in anyone can. So this is where we're gonna go deep together for a little bit. Here's the problem. Many people have never, so yes, the word is near. Here's the problem. Most people haven't heard the word. Like most, let me show you a picture. You may have seen this 4K. We're gonna learn something new to go. This is the 1040 window, okay? The 1040 window is where basically all of the global missions work is left to be done. It's where all of the spiritual lostness is. Now, if you look at that window, we'll take it down a minute, but if you look at that window, none of you are looking to go on fall break or spring break there, right? Like these are not cool areas that are on your bucket list trip, most of you, okay? You can take it down. And here's why unreached people are unreached for a reason. Let me say that again. Unreached people are unreached for a living. I had a buddy who lived in Northern India, and I talked to him and I said, "Northern India, man, it's so hot there." If you don't mind me asking, did you have air conditioning when you,

he was there for seven years in Northern India as a mission. I said, "Did you have air conditioning?" He said, "Oh yeah, we had air conditioning." I said, "Oh, that's great." He said, "The problem was most times the electricity didn't work." These are really, really, really hard places to live. They're really hard, and the unreached people don't want us coming to them, lots of them, especially not their political leaders. They do not want us coming. And so, we're gonna think about something for a minute that basically no one wants to think about. You wanna think about which lunch place you're going to, and you've got enough problems of your own, But basically, they're 43% of people in the world live in a place where there is no access to the gospel. I wanna explain that to you for a second. There's a difference between being lost and being unreached. And it's just, try to follow this, it's not that hard. Anybody who doesn't know Christ is lost. And it's not, by the way, that it's not a negative indictment on them, but you know why that we call them lost? 'Cause they're far from home. 'Cause they need to come home, they're lost. But see, in Winston and Davy, in Lexington, at Butner, it doesn't even matter. In San Francisco, think about the area you like, "That's the darkest area ever, Portland, you just choose it."

Guess what? People there are lost, but they're not unreached. Why? Because if they wanted to hear about the gospel, they could. If they wanted to read the Bible, there would be one in their language. But there are roughly 3.6 billion people on earth who are part of what's called UPGs, unreached people groups, which means, here's a simple way to think about it. They have no believers who live anywhere near them, and they have no Bible in their language. And we need to, so there was a famous lady, she went around and she was a missionary's husband, and she was a missionary too. She was a husband of a guy that was on the field. She came back to try to raise money for him, and she said she would go to these churches, and she would say, I don't know how to help you feel the misery of the heathen world. There's just so many places where there's just no access to the gospel. You know this because you know that I'm guessing in your dorm room, or maybe your 12-year-old asked a question about this in the back of a car, or maybe, and they come with different motives, or maybe your snarky, cynical, co-worker asked about this. Have you ever heard of the question about, well, what about the innocent man on the island who's never heard about Jesus and dies?

'Cause as soon as you teach on the exclusivity of Christ, you're gonna get that question. Let me repeat it again. What about the innocent man who's on an island never hears about Jesus and dies? Well, by the way, this guy must be the most famous guy in all of apologetics, right? We don't know his name. We don't know his island, okay? We don't have an address. I wonder if he's on the island going, what about the person in North Carolina who has five versions of the Bible? Because part of the question is, you know what's interesting? Almost everybody who's, actually, no. Everybody who's asking that question doesn't have that problem. They need to be responsible for the revelation that they're given. But here's what I can confidently say, the innocent man who's never heard about Jesus and dies, the innocent man who's never heard about Jesus and dies, he goes to heaven. The problem is he doesn't exist. Paul just spent Romans one through three telling us that there is no one innocent, not even one, and that people need to hear about Jesus to be saved and they will be condemned and sent to hell, not because no one is sent to hell

for not receiving a Jesus they've never heard about, or rejecting a Jesus they've never heard about. They're sent to hell because they're sinners under the wrath of God. Now you understand why people don't want to think about this, because it's very, very complex and it requires a lot of us, particularly it's going to require a lot of suffering if we're going to reach these people. But what's, so here's the other thing, guys. If this isn't true, just think about this. You know, you guys are logical most of the time, okay? Think about this with me. If people are okay in their ignorance, so let's imagine there's a place in India where no one's ever heard about Jesus ever. Well, if they're okay, we better not send anyone there. Because as soon as you send somebody there and they share about Jesus and they go, nah, uh-oh, now they're in trouble. See what I'm saying? So the load-bearing wall for world missions is the exclusivity of Christ. If there's other ways to get to heaven, if there's anonymous Christians, if everybody just dies and gets to go to heaven, then like, we don't need to send Sunday. We certainly don't need to meet every week and unfortunately I need to find another job. Okay, this is what we got to do, okay?

So with our time left, what I want to show you is Paul basically says, you can't save yourself, but anyone can be saved by believing and trusting in Jesus. The problem is everybody hasn't heard and so Paul's gonna tell us the divine, the divinely designed strategy to get the gospel to the world. And I heard, I didn't get the fact check this, but someone told me that Harvard University used to use Paul's argument here It's a logical argument, starting with the end in mind, and going back to the beginning. Let's read it together and we'll talk about it. Here's what it says, "How, it's for house. "How, then, will they call on him "who they have not believed? "And how are they to believe in him "who they have never heard? "And how are they to hear without someone preaching? "And how are they to preach unless they are sent "as it is written, how beautiful are the feet "of those who preach good news?" In marketing, they talk about a funnel. Some of you are in marketing and know more about this to me, but the classic funnel. So I want to describe every post that you've ever, sponsored post that you've ever seen has a funnel connected to it. Here's how the funnel works. Know, like, trust, try, buy.

So the first thing they want, oh no, you gotta see it, no, okay, no, okay. Then I like it, then I trust it, then I try it. That's why they're always trying to get you to do it. Then I try, then I buy. What's interesting is people are, if you know anything about marketing, they're obsessed with it. They're obsessed with the funnel and we have to move here and we have to move here and once they do this, they do this and then I get them on the email list and then they sign up for this and I send them this at half price. And it's a shame that the world is so much better at thinking about how to reach people than we are. Paul gives a different strategy, right? If you reverse it, it's send, preach here, believe, call in the name of the Lord. I want to talk about each of these. The first, let's read it. The first, Paul says, how then will they call on him who they have not believed, okay? So no one can confess with their mouth and believe in their heart, Jesus is Lord, okay? They can't make the call if they don't believe in the first place. And then Paul says this. And how are they to believe in him, of whom they've never heard?

Now this is interesting, okay, this is super simple, but we live in a very interesting time, right? We live in a time where you can FaceTime somebody who lives on the other side of the world. I mean, since Alexander Graham Bell and you know, that guy was interesting because he had the idea that you could talk to somebody who wasn't there, very strange. What if I could talk to somebody and they lived somebody else, but we could, I mean, we live in a time where, and even what I'm doing right now, like I've got this little mic on and they're saying, and so we're on campus, and so this is very new. Basically when people, when you hearing, this is what I'm trying to say, hearing has historically been a proximity problem. If I can't hear, it's 'cause I'm not close enough. And so somebody needs to get close enough to me so that I can hear. So when, and yes, we can send online videos to people somewhere else, but nothing is as powerful as a person that they know that loves them. Here's the other thing. Hearing requires hearing something in your heart language. So there was a guy named Cameron Townsend. He was a missionary, and while he's evangelizing one day to this new people group that never heard of Jesus, don't know much about Jesus, a true story.

A guy that he's evangelizing says to him, "If your God is so smart, "why doesn't he speak my language?" Wow, it's a fair question. If your God is so smart, why can't I understand him? And why doesn't he speak my language? Well, Cameron Townsend took that to heart, spent 10 years, 10 years. This is before AI, okay? 10 years translating, first learning that language, and then translating just the New Testament into their language so that they could have an understanding of the Word of God in their heart language. He would go on to start what became Wycliffe Bible translators. First, they have to be able to hear, which means they need someone in their life who knows the gospel who can speak it in their own language. Second, look what it says. And how are they to hear without someone preaching? Now, it doesn't say a sermon. Now, there is something powerful. We know the stories of George Whitfield preaching, right? George Whitfield was such an awesome guy. You know, they told him not to leave the church and preach. They told him, you can only preach inside the church. So I learned this in seminary. He built his own little stand, and he took this little stand with him outside,

and he'd go take it, and he would go out to the coal miners. They said, "Don't go to the coal miners." He said, he would go out to these coal miners. And he said he couldn't, they'd have all the coal on their faces, and he couldn't even see what, when he's preaching them, he couldn't see what they look like, until he got about halfway through his message. He said, "I could start to see what the men look like We think of stories of Billy Graham and others that you might know, but when it says preaching, here's what it just means. It means talking about Jesus out loudly, confidently. And that's all we, like literally guys, God uniquely does use gathered preaching, but almost every time it might be the final thing or one of many things, God is going to use you talking to your friends about Jesus. Here's the truth. We all preach about what we're most passionate about. So you're always preaching to your friends. It might be about your new pickleball paddle, you know, or whatever. Here's a really common one. Watch this. See how often a conversation does not devolve into this. Have you seen that show? Have you listened to this podcast? That Americans have become evangelists

for podcast and streaming services. And so if it's not already sports. And so basically what you'll see is, I would encourage you though, in one sense, you already are an evangelist and you're good at following up. I know some of you are. Did you start episode two yet? It gets really good at the end of episode two. It's like, we are so good about telling people about what we love seeing if they love it and following up and asking them if they do love it. Now we just, it's like, oh, we already know how to do that 'cause that's natural 'cause we're humans and we're worshipers. We didn't even do that about Jesus. But then here's where we're gonna spend the rest of our time before we close. He goes all the way back to the beginning. He says this. And how are they to preach unless they are sent? So if the goal, Paul goes, let me take you all the way to the end. It's an individual, more than that, it's millions and millions and millions of people who are going to believe in Jesus Christ and call on the name of the Lord and you go, all right, that's our North Star. And he goes, it actually doesn't start with hearing and it doesn't start with preaching.

It starts with being sent. So that's why we end every service with two city shirts. You are sent, that's why we're having a send on it 'cause individuals preach the gospel but individuals do not send themselves. And we're kind of at a moment as a church and we're in the growing pains, guys. We've got to decide are we going to be a reservoir, just a nice body of water that gathers or are we going to be a river that's going to send people? And it's going to be unbelievably painful if we're going to send. First of all, it's going to mean we're going to call people out, okay? And I'm going to do this at the end, call people up, I swear to God, I mean not out as much, to say, is God calling you? Is God calling you to go with one of our church plants, you know, it's one of those three cities? Is God calling you to go to the world mission field, you know, whether short term, mid term, long term? It requires training. But I'll tell you just practically and functionally, one of the things, if we are genuinely going to be ascending churches, let me say it this way, stingy churches can't be sending churches. And the truth is, and we have a very, as a general rule, we have a very, very generous church. And I thank God, way above the national average for generous churches.

But here's what I want you to know. The average American professing Christian gives 2%, 2.5% of their income to the kingdom of Christ. Our great grandparents during the Great Depression, while they were standing in bread lines, gave 3.3% to the kingdom. So there's many people's great depression, great grandparents who are out giving the abundance of America today. Here's a question just to ask, okay. Here's, and by the way, why am I talking about this? I'm talking about this, and people who don't like me to talk about money, it's always because money is their God, you know? It's like, I don't like when people talk about Jesus in ways that are kind of attack. Yeah, you don't like when I talk about money, in ways that are attacking you. But here's why I have to talk about this. God cares about the two things money is attached to, your heart and his mission. And I was told, when I first got here, I was told years ago, you cannot disciple people if you don't talk to them about money, 'cause everybody thinks sex is their big problem, it's not. It's just their most obvious problem that they feel most guilty about. Money is the big issue. Here's a question, if everybody gave like you how many people could we send to the mission field?

And some of you, you could do the math very, very easily. Zero, because you give nothing. And here's the thing, 70% of the people who call to City Church Home who come around here, 70%, give. But that means that 30, I'm trying to figure it out. But 30 that means that 30 that means that what you can do basic math that means that one out of every three people Who shows up to our church gives nothing These are the same people that drop their kids off and their kids are getting ministered our kids ministry These are same people who drop in their kids off on Wednesday nights Some of these people are the same people are going on a short it's strange going on a short-term mission trip these are the same people who are tearing up and telling us how their community their community groups save their marriage and There's something broken in there and We are not going to be able to be the sending drip part of what you'll need to do at the end Some of you will need to come down and repent because you have not Prioritize the King Kingdom of God in your life in general, but it's been most obvious through your finances Paul says this. He says guys if we're going to do this if we're going to be a sending church He says here's going to be the description and this is where we're going to end when you see this He says ascending church His verse 15 as it is written how beautiful are the feet of those who preach the goodness now This should be confusing to us For many reasons one is like well, why are you talking about their feet because you know feet aren't beautiful and that's Paul's point Right. I don't care how you ladies put lotions and potions on them and you paint them. They're still creaturely feet Okay, there's still the basement of your body. Okay, they still are the place that touches the earth It's the most creaturely part of all of us. It's the part that back then everyone wore sandals everyone walked everywhere It collected dung and dust and only the lowest servants wash feet. That's why Jesus washing feet is such a big deal But why wouldn't he say how beautiful are the faces of those who bring goodness you could still get your point across and That is the most beautiful part of us or how beautiful are the voices because that's actually the part of them That's going to proclaim the life-saving message. Why would you talk about their feet? Here's why this is important to get because Paul praises the part that experiences the most pain Because if you're going to take the gospel like they did by foot hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of miles

Then the part of your body that is going to experience the most pain the most blisters is Going to be your feet and see here's what we're going to talk about There is that we cannot do this like I just I just did this in the nine o'clock service, and you know, and I'm I'm thinking to myself there is There is so much suffering that is associated with completing finishing obeying the Great Commission that it's it's it's honestly overwhelming and I don't want you to get overwhelmed, okay, because You ever heard the story of the the starfish? It's a little cheesy, but I'll just tell it to you real quick There's a story of the starfish where this kid that you know There's a storm and all the starfish are on the shore you heard this and in this young kid He's I don't attend 12 he's throwing that running down the beach He's throwing the starfish back into the water and this grumpy old guy says what are you doing? There's thousands of starfish. You can't get them all it doesn't matter and The kid goes it matters to this one And that's where we got to get we got to go you know what am I willing? to suffer from my co-worker and Am I am I willing to be am I willing for thanks given to be a little bit more awkward? See I spent the week reading the story of out in our own Judson You want to go out in our own Judson you want to hear a life of suffering out in our own Judson very famous missionary and He's about to this is true story. He's about to head on a boat To be a missionary and the boat ride. He's about to go on is going to be I don't know if he knows this for sure, but the boat rides gonna end up being 114 days, but a few months before he Goes to the mission field. He falls in love with a young lady named Anne And he wants her to be a missionary with him But he knows there's a lot of suffering going on and so he talks to her about it and she says you've got to ask my dad Now most guys when they talk to their father-in-law, you know, they want to put their best foot forward

You know, I'm gonna try to make a lot of money. I'm gonna take care of her I'm gonna give her the house and you know, yes, sir And I'd like it if she didn't have to work and I'll just I just I'll be you know Let me show you. Let me show you the I'm gonna read you the letter out an iron Judson wrote his father-in-law Here's what it says I Have now to ask whether you can consent to part with your daughter early next spring To see her no more in this world "and her subjection to the hardships "and sufferings of a missionary life? "Whether you can consent to her exposure "to the danger of the ocean, "to the fatal influence of the southern climate of India, "to every kind of want and distress, "to degradation, insult, persecution, "and perhaps a violent death. "Can you consent to all this?" Look at his motivation. "For the sake of him who left his heavenly home "and died for her and for you. "For the sake of the perishing, the immortal souls, "for the sake of Zion and the glory of God, "can you consent to all this in hope "of soon meeting your daughter in the world of glory "with a crown of righteousness, "brightened by the acclamations of praise, "which shall were down to her Savior "from the heathens saved through her means "from eternal woe and despair."

Anne went with him. And if you read the story, there's so much glory. There's lots of people who came to Christ. There's a thriving church in that location today. But it did not come apart from immense suffering, guys. There is no shortcut in getting the gospel to people. There's no way to do it without suffering. And that's why I wanna show you a video of a couple that's deeply connected to our church. It's actually gonna show you a video of the suffering that they've gone to bring the gospel to people who are not just far from God and close to them, but who were far from God and far from them so they had to get close to them. When after I show you the story, the temptation will be to clap, but I wanna call us to respond. So if you'll stay silent after the video, I'll call us to respond. Thank you. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) You You