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.
Yet believing, somehow, doesn’t become real until we know the freedom of speaking aloud to other people what we believe!!!
Encasing Christ in our own private little world makes Him available when we need Him without the joy of sharing Him.
Is this not very, very selfish?
According to Scripture, real faith or authentic faith always becomes public.
Believing in the heart always leads to profession from our lips and our lives.
Christian faith is never a private matter!!!
It is the Good News which is meant to be shared by all—to all!!!
We are now, most definitely, living in the post-Christian era!
Regular church attendance is no longer something that the majority of folks are involved in…
…therefore, there are many, many people who have not heard this Good News of Jesus Christ!!!
A few weeks ago, I stopped at the drug store after church. Still dressed in my suit and tie, the woman at the cash register remarked: “It’s good to see that some people still go to church.”
In a recent movie called “Super-Size Me”, which is about the fast-food industry a group of children were shown a picture of Mickey Mouse.
Most of them were able to recognize the most prominent of Walt Disney’s cartoon characters.
Then they were shown a picture of Ronald McDonald.
All the children knew who he was.
Last, they were shown the typical picture of “Jesus” that hangs in most Sunday school rooms across the country.
None of them recognized Him.
I’m telling you, my friends, hamburgers and cartoon mouses will not save any of us!!!
So it comes down to us.
I don’t know if we will ever again have a man like John Wesley to begin another “Great Awakening.”
I have no idea if Billy Graham is replaceable.
What I do know is that we are the ones who are given charge over, are given the responsibility of spreading the Good News of Jesus Christ!
If we don’t do it, who will?
Paul tells us in our Epistle Lesson, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
“How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in?”
“And how can they have believe in the one of whom they have not heard?”
“And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?”
“And how can they preach unless they are sent?
“As it is written, ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!”
How many of us have ever thought of feet as being beautiful?
Most of us try and hide our feet…
…just like many try and hide their faith.
But this is a vivid metaphor!
No one is going to examine the actual feet of those of us who share the love of Christ.
But even if they did; who cares?
The point is, that the news about God is so good, so welcome, that those who receive it are like people who want to kiss the person delivering the mail for bringing them such a wonderful message!
We can imagine someone, so overjoyed with good news, feeling that even the wheels on the mail truck are special!
All of us in this room this morning are called each week to come together here for worship.
And all of us in this room are sent from this place, each week, back into the world to tell others about the Good News of Jesus and God’s love made manifest through Him!
Are we doing this?
We live in a dying world.
And if we care at all about our dying world, we will tell those with whom we come in contact with about the Savior Who can make us live!!!
And not just that, we will go out of our way to tell others about the Good News of Jesus Christ.
I am so impressed by East Ridge United Methodist Church!
We are doing these awesome evangelism projects each month.
This Saturday we will meet here at the Church at 11 a.m. to go out into the world and hand cold and flu packets to our neighbors.
This is one of the most simple and non-threatening ways to share the Good News of Christ with others.
And its fun!
It is also great practice, and increases our faith.
Next month we will be handing out plastic Easter Eggs with candy and invitations to come join us in worshiping Christ.
If you have not been involved in these endeavors, I pray you will give it a try!!!
We only spend an hour or so doing it.
It is our feet that Paul is talking about in Romans Chapter 10.
Are our feet beautiful because they bring the Good News to a world overwhelmed by bad news?
Are our feet beautiful because we proclaim the Good News of Jesus Christ?
We often think that the only people who can bring the Good News are those who are ordained, who preach on Sunday mornings, those especially called pastors.
This is not true!!!
Everyone who knows the Truth is accountable to be witnesses on every day of the week!!!
We are all called to show how the Good News is working itself out, by showing itself forth in our lives.
Did not Jesus say to us all in Matthew Chapter 5: “You are the salt of the earth…
…You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl.
Instead they put it on a stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house.
In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.”
Is my light, is your light shining?
When we get down to the end of things, to the bare bones of life…
…this is really all that matters!!!
Jesus has told us that the harvest of the world’s souls is great, but the workers in the harvest field are few!
God works through ordinary folks.
People like you and me.
God uses ordinary feet, and makes them extraordinary—even beautiful when we use them for the purpose of spreading the Good News!!!
Just think of what God has done with one of the most cruel and ugly things in the world—a Cross!!!
A tool created to execute criminals in the most demeaning and painful of ways.
God has transformed that Cross into the most beautiful symbol of love known to human kind!!!
If God can do that with a bloody Cross, just think what God can do with feet---yours and even mine!!!
Amen.
