"How Beautiful Are Your Feet?"

Romans 10:8-15

“How Beautiful are Your Feet?”

By: Ken Sauer, Pastor of East Ridge United Methodist Church, Chattanooga, TN

Have you ever walked up to some tough looking person…

…someone who looks hard and callous on the outside…

…perhaps a bit intimidating…

…and a bit sad…

…and struck up a conversation, a conversation about another Way to live…

…a conversation about a God Who loves them…

…a conversation about our common humanity…

…a conversation about a God Who laid down His life for their sins…

…and longs to have a personal relationship with them?

If you have not, give it a try…

…I guarantee it will change your life!!!

For, more often than not, you will quickly see the hard veneer melt into something human and wanting.

You will see the look of hopeless anger transform—before your eyes into a gleam of hope.

You will watch a scowl turn into a warm smile.

And you may just see…a life that is changed, a human being transformed before your very eyes!!!

It is the miracle of miracles!!!

And it happens just about every time we share the Good News of Jesus Christ, in a loving and non-judgmental way, to a lost and broken humanity.

It is also something which proves, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the message of Christ is REAL…

…much more so than reciting creeds and listening to sermons.

Although these things are absolutely crucial if we are to be equipped to be the messengers of Christ at all!!!

More than anything in all the world, our faith needs to be radical!!!

We need to exercise it.

It is the only thing that will make our lives complete and worth the living!!!

The next time you see a person who looks down and out, take the time to speak with them…

…strike up a conversation, and let them know that God loves them!

Invite them to come to your church.

Let them know that you are not judging them, and that Christ came and died for all!!!

Be authentically concerned about their troubles, their hardships.

Let them know that you can relate.

And do this everyday, everywhere you go!!!

This, more than anything in all the world, is what it means to heal the sick, raise the dead, release the captives, and bring good news to the poor!

This is what it means to love God and love neighbor!!!

For we can know about Christ, but we don’t really know Christ until we put our faith into action!!!

And there is nothing that gives more confidence, brings more satisfaction and joy…than bringing the Words of Life and Hope to other persons!!!

If you practice the art of evangelism, you will be free---free at last!!!

We live in a world which can be both beautiful and ugly.

All and all, the news we get from the world is depressing.

We are told about war, terrorism, murder, rape, abductions…things that make us uneasy…

…things which make human life seem very cheap…

…and human beings very evil!

The news we often receive from the reporters and anchors—the evangelists—so to speak, of the world cause us to fear, leave us with less hope than we had before we heard it, and certainly can bring on a certain depression.

When I was in the news business we had a saying: “If it bleeds, it leads.”

Which means that the more awful and shocking the story, the more time we gave to reporting it…

…and sensationalizing it…

…and milking it for all it was worth.

Bad news brings good t-v ratings.

I don’t know why, but it is true.

We get a lot of bad news…

…a lot!

And we have come to expect it, I suppose.

The feet which get a sort of glee out of bringing us down, gossiping, verbally raping us, if you will…

…are not beautiful feet at all…

…the only feet which are beautiful are those feet which bring us a completely different kind of news!!!

Paul tells us in our Epistle Lesson, “The word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart,’ that is, the word of faith we are proclaiming: That if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”

That is the completely different kind of news—that is the Good News!!!

And we aren’t going to get the Good News from CNN, FOX, MSNBC, CBS or ABC…

…the Good News comes from the mouths of those who believe on the Lord Jesus.

The Good News comes from the mouths of those who have been transformed by it!

Many Christians emphasize the importance of believing in the heart about the Lordship of the Risen Christ without stressing the necessity of confessing Christ with our lips and our lives.