Ignaz Philipp Semmelweis (July 1, 1818 – August 13, 1865) was a Hungarian physician now known as an early pioneer of antiseptic procedures. He is known as the savior of the mothers. His story was portrayed in a 1938 movie, That Mothers Might Live, that won an Academy Award. Philip was born into a world of dying women. In his day, 1 in 6 women died in childbirth. His desire to know the reason for the high death rate led him to become a physician. He discovered that these women were dying of something called “childbed fever.” Studying the way doctors worked in his day, he discovered something that we would consider appalling. When the doctors began their shift, they often went first to the morgue to do autopsies. Because they did not understand germs and bacteria, they did not wash their hands as they moved to the maternity ward. As they delivered children, they were killing the mothers. Philip began to experiment with washing his hands. He encouraged his colleagues to wash their hands in a chlorine solution. Immediately the maternal death rate dropped from 1 in 6 to 1 in 50 among their patients. Yet, many patients remained skeptical of this simple solution.
Finally, Philip spoke to a convention of his colleagues: “This fever is caused by decomposed material conveyed to a wound. I have shown how it could be prevented. I have proven all I have said. But while we talk, talk, talk gentlemen, women are dying. I’m not asking you to anything world shaking, I’m asking you only to wash. For God’s sake, wash your hands.” But they laughed him to scorn. Philip died insane at the age of 47 with the death rattle of a thousand women in his ears.
We continue our series this morning, Seven Practices of a Healthy Christian, as I want to discuss with you something equally simple as washing your hands. I want to talk about Developing a Passion for Others. This series began with the heart where our greatest pleasure… our greatest satisfaction is found in Jesus Christ. The worship of Him isn’t just a duty; it is a delight. And the practices continue with your feet. It’s with the heart we worship Christ and with our feet that we are sent to commend to others our joy we have found in Christ. Both the heart and the feet demonstrate that Christianity is not to be practiced with listless apathy. The heart and the feet are set on fire for a passion to spread the supremacy of God in our community, in our country, and to the continents.
Today’s Big Idea: We Exist to Spread the Supremacy of Christ to All People.
I have one HUGE assumption I am operating under this morning: There is no Christian faith without Christian conversion. Conversion is turning to God. It’s the process where we turn from our sin in repentance and turn to God through faith in Christ’s death on the cross. Conversion is the only way we can enter the family of God. And this act of change… this conversion… is a supernatural act of God. It’s where God touches deep inside of us and completely changes us and makes him us. The change that a person experiences is solely by the kindness and mercy of God. Consequently, only two categories matter spiritually speaking: you are saved or lost. You are on the inside of God’s grace or you are still on the outside of His grace. You are a believer or non-believer… You are in Christ’s kingdom or in the kingdom of darkness. He does the work of saving and he doesn’t call on us to do anything to add to His grace, mercy, and kindness. The Bible says it this way: “he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit” (Titus 3:5). There’s no need to attempt to assist His grace. God’s grace single-handily accomplishes what He intends it to achieve. Conversion is the doorway to house of the Christian faith. So here again is my assumption: You cannot practice the Christian faith without entering the doorway of conversion. For the next few moments I want to drill down into Romans 10 to best see how we can use our feet to share the Gospel with others.
“For ‘everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.’ 14 How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? 15 And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!’ 16 But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, ‘Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?’ 17 So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ. 18 But I ask, have they not heard? Indeed they have, for ‘Their voice has gone out to all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world.’ 19 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.’
20 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.’ 21 But of Israel he says, “All day long I have held out my hands to a disobedient and contrary people”” (Romans 10:13-21).
Verse thirteen tells us that any person who calls on the name of the Lord will be converted. This relevance of this text is huge for understanding how you are saved from God’s wrath and delivered from your guilt of sin. And it is huge for understanding how your friends, family members, and the unreached people groups around the world will be saved.
1. Pedicures Don’t Make Beautiful Feet
“As it is written, ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news’” (Romans 10:15b)!
Paul gives both a job description for all believers in Christ as well as a definition to what a person must believe in order to be a Christian. The job description is tied up in Paul’s statement about beautiful feet. Preachers of the gospel – bringers of God’s good news – are so precious that we see even their soiled and bloody feet as beautiful. Beautiful feet are not soft, manicured, painted, well-tanned feet. Again, Pedicures Don’t Make Beautiful Feet. Beautiful feet are like the dirty, worn, wrinkled, leathery, scarred feet from many miles of trekking into remote places with good news that could not be heard any other way. Paul quotes Isaiah 52:7 to tell us about beautiful people – people whom the world is not worthy because their bodies are worn out in the service of Jesus their King. And I know of no other text that so clearly lays out the process of salvation as this text does.
“How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? 15 And how are they to preach unless they are sent” (Romans 10:14-15a)? We are given Five Steps toward Faith of in this text. Verses fourteen and fifteen outline the Five Steps toward Faith. These steps outline the necessary progression before anyone can call upon the name of the Lord. Each step is described with a series of rhetorical questions. The culmination of the series of question is expressed first in the list: “How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed” (Romans 10:14a)? While the last question, located at the beginning of verse fifteen, is the foundation of all the questions: “And how are they to preach unless they are sent”(Romans 10:15a)?
Don’t confuse “preach” here with the modern Sunday morning sermon. Instead of thinking about a pulpit when you see this word “preach” here, I want you to think of the news media. The media for the Bible days is town herald. In the fifth century BC when the Greeks were at war with the Persians, three great historic battles occurred. In the Battle of the Plain, so called because it occurred on the Marathon Plain, a man was commissioned as a runner. He took messages from the battlefield back to the city of Athens. He ran the entire distance, twenty-six miles, which is why we call races of that duration marathons. This runner ran all the way from the plain into the city of Athens to bring the gospel, Greek word that simply means good news, of the Greek victory at Marathon. So the herald would tell the townspeople of a military victory and then he would head to the next town to tell them as well. So preaching is journalism – it’s telling good news.
This is at the heart of the word “gospel” in verse sixteen. You can’t see it in the English but there is a link between the words “gospel” and “evangelism” in the original language of the New Testament. They both are linked to the word that literally means good news. Where every other religion tells you good advice of how to act. Only the gospel tells you “good news” of what Jesus Christ did for you. So we have a series of four questions in these two verses that form a logical chain.
And again, THE QUESTIONS FORM A SEQUENCE. Only Paul gives this sequence in reverse order. So the result is given at the beginning while the first step is given last. So if you were to see this sequence fleshed out where a person comes to Christ as His Savior and Lord… it would work this way:
1. A Christian is sent (verse 15a);
2. This Christian is sent to tell the Gospel (verse 14c);
3. People hear the Gospel because of this Gospel-telling Christian (verse 14b);
4. People believe in the message they have heard (verse 14a);
5. The people who believe will then call upon the name of the Lord (verse 13).
If we put the six verbs Paul uses in these verses together in reverse order, we see the Bible’s logic for evangelism and missions: Christ sends evangelists; Evangelists preach; People hear; Hearers believe; Believers call; And in verse thirteen, those who call are saved. Verse seventeen sums up Paul’s argument: “So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ” (Romans 10:17).
Our job description is tied up in this series of four questions. It is impossible for anyone to call upon the name of the Lord until a Christian is sent. They can only call upon the name of Christ, if they have already believed in Him. They can only believe in Him, if they have heard of Him. And they can only hear of Him, if a person proclaims the message. And the message can only be proclaimed, if a Christian is sent. And it is these steps… this logical chain is so highly important if people are going to call upon the name of the Lord. People who bring the good news to you who save you from the flames of an eternal hell are people with beautiful feet. Right here we need to pause and reflect on the kind of beauty the Bible is calling for. There are women who spend time making their lips beautiful… and making their faces beautiful… and making their eyes beautiful… and making their hair beautiful… and they spend time on making their feet beautiful… but they will never be beautiful.
What makes feet beautiful is when they become leathery, dusty, gnarled in taking the Gospel across the street… across the fence post… we must go across our community… across the country… and across the continents.
People must be sent. The Latin word for sent is the word “missa” and it’s where we get the word missionary. Missionaries are people who are sent. The whole idea of evangelism is a topic that causes many of us to push away. Let’s go back for just a minute to the link between the words “gospel” and “evangelism.” A few moments ago I said that essential to the word “gospel” and the word literally means “good news.” It’s not good advice for you to live by but it’s good news, or something that’s been done for you. Again, evangelism is the telling of the gospel where you tell others good news that has already been done for you. If you were to ask someone the following question, “What do you think makes a person a Christian?” Or, “What do you think the essence of Christianity is?”
You might hear someone say, “I think it’s trying to live like Jesus. It’s living by the Golden Rule. It’s loving your neighbor” But this isn’t news. This isn’t the heart of Christianity because it isn’t news. Living like Jesus is not news that has been done for you.
Again, only Christianity is not good advice but good news. And the good news is something done for you to give you life-changing joy so you can love your neighbor and live like Jesus. We need more preachers, more Gospel-tellers. We need more sent people. We are sent to people in our community… in our country… and in our continent.
2. Just Because You Hear, Doesn’t Mean You Obey
“So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ” (Romans 10:16).
Verse sixteen actually interrupts Paul’s sequence. When he describes the sequence of how a person calls upon the name of the Lord to be saved… he recognizes that not everyone who hears the Gospel calls upon the name of the Lord. In fact, his race, the Jews, had largely rejected Jesus. The main theme of these verses stretch back to Paul’s point since the beginning of Romans 9. Paul is concerned with the question of Israel’s rejection of the Gospel in Romans 9-11. Droves of Gentiles (non-Jews) were calling upon the name of the Lord in order to be saved. Yet, God’s people, the Jews, were largely rejecting the Gospel message. Even though Israel had been God’s primary focus throughout all of the Old Testament, they had rejected Jesus Christ as their Messiah. This was bewildering to all who watched the process take shape. Of all people, how could Israel reject the Gospel? Paul addresses an objection in these verses. The objection might be that God has not put in place the prerequisites of salvation.
Maybe Israel hasn’t believed because they don’t have what they need to have to believe. So Paul addresses that objection by spelling out the steps to salvation that apply to the Jews or to anyone else. And he argues that the steps have indeed been put in place for Israel. They have heard the Gospel message (I see this from verse 18).
“But I ask, have they not heard? Indeed they have, for ‘Their voice has gone out to all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world’” (Romans 10:18). The people of Israel had been taught that non-Jews would on day be included in the people of God (I see this from verses 19-20). Yet, Israel remained stubborn much like a mule whose front feet pushed against the very direction God is pulling them (I see this from verse 21). So, we read a first century text that declares that God is doing a new work in their day. God has sent His Son, Jesus Christ, as the long-awaited Messiah to His people. Yet, His people largely rejected Him and have rejected Him in large measure even to our day. In the process of answering this perplexing question to the minds of his first century readers… Paul zeros in on the Jewish people and their rejection of Christ. He wants us to know that even though many hear the Gospel, hearing doesn’t automatically save a person. Faith in Christ is not automatic from everyone who hears the Christian who is sent to proclaim the Gospel. There’s more to salvation that simply hearing the good news that Jesus Christ died for sinners. The point is there is not an intellectual problem here. This isn’t an intellectual problem, the problem is located somewhere else. So you say, “Where is the problem?” He tells you in verse 21. “But of Israel he says, ‘All day long I have held out my hands to a disobedient and contrary people’” (Romans 10:21). The problem is with the heart. The problem is willful, stubborn rebellion. The problem is with the will of Israel, the disobedience and unbelief of Israel is the problem.
Do you notice the correlation between disobedience and unbelief? Because of their obstinacy and moral depravity, they refused to believe. Their moral rebellion leads to a refusal to trust in the only way of salvation. Christ is as close as you calling on Him.
Recognize and Admit the weight of your sin. Trust in the only instrument that can save you from your sin – The Cross of Christ. Faith in Christ means your sin on His shoulders and His righteousness on you. And lastly, confessing Him as Lord and Savior. “…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” (Romans 10:9).
Closing Thoughts
One of the major areas I’ve found where people are obstinate is in the area of sharing their faith. How Do You Get Started? Ask God for a divine appointment. Then open your eyes and your mouth and take advantage of the opportunities around you. Drinking coffee… Getting a haircut… Be Prepared. Having friends or neighbors over to your home for coffee with the purpose of sharing your faith. Do you know the Gospel? Let me show you how you might share the Gospel by using just one verse. A conversation in and around a college class… You might ask, “What do you think makes a person a Christian?” “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21).
The Gospel is much more than having your sins forgiven. Yes, The Gospel is your sins forgiven but it’s more than that. Because Jesus died on the cross, Jesus wiped the slate clean. But Christianity is more than pardon from prison. The cross of Christ is a pardon while you are in prison but it also places a Congressional Medal of Honor on our chest. Dakota Meyers a former Marine who in 2009 made five death-defying forays into a “killing zone” in Afghanistan's Ganjgal Valley to save three dozen American and Afghan troops. He was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. The cross of the Christ is both a negative and a positive. Your sins are forgiven but you’re also give the righteousness of Christ (the Congressional Medal of Honor).
