Cheap Grace?

Read Romans 10:8-17

We continue our exploration of faith, so let’s begin with what should be a very familiar defining verse from the King James Version.

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

I don’t do much hell fire and damnation.  Jesus talked about heaven, hell, the kingdom of God, love and many other things, but scaring someone into believing in a God who is love was not his modus operandi. 

It’s also not very effective.  People scared in to confessing Jesus is Lord think they have reached the finish line an are ill prepared for the race of faith ahead of them.  They are not ready to step out from the starting line of discipleship.

Therefore, fear is the least used item in my repertoire. The proverbs says that the fear of the Lord is a good starting point, but surely not our destination.

So many preachers today focus on the condemnation of sin.  Would my brethren really mock God in this way?  God condemned sin on a hill named Golgotha two millennia ago.  Did he not do a good enough job?

Most of my messages are targeted to the saints, hoping to spur them on to acts of love and discipleship. 

While most of the time we have a hymn of initiation near the end of the service, I know that I am talking mainly to people who have already responded.  We know grace.

That said, consider the words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer.  He lived in the time of Adolf Hitler and all of the atrocities that accompanied this age.  Not quite 75 years ago he was killed in a Nazi Concentration camp.

Here is his provocation for us today.  He uses a term that might and perhaps should get under your skin.  It should be a might prickly for all of us.

Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.

Cheap grace is perhaps the number one selling item on the Christian Shopping Network.  Who doesn’t want grace?  Who doesn’t want all of their sin washed away?    Right now for three easy payments of zero dollars, you may receive grace.  You are forgiven.

The question is, are we preaching God’s grace as it came to us?  Are we preaching the truth?  Have we maintained fidelity with the truth?

Should we first proclaim to the world, “Repent for the Kingdom of God is at hand?”  Should repentance not precede grace?

Is grace available for the one who will not turn away from the world?  Can you have grace and still not seek God and his kingdom and his righteousness first?  Can the unrepentant heart still receive grace?

The truth is that Christ died for all, but some will desire the world more.  Some chose to continue in rebellion.

Is that our burden to carry?  No.  Ever since God has been sending messages and messengers, people have ignored what God has to say. 

Some heard.  Some responded.  Some are blessed.  Some are redeemed but many reject the truth.  Many make a pact with death.

Many reject the cornerstone that is Christ Jesus our Lord.

But these rejections are not your burden.  You are to proclaim the truth in season and out of season, and when you think about that, truth is always in season for the disciple of Christ Jesus.

We speak the truth and in that truth is good news.  God does not want to condemn anyone but he will not tolerate rebellion. 

God has forgiveness that we did not and do not deserve.  That’s called grace.

God did it all.  The blood of Jesus took away our sin.  Jesus paid it all.  All to him I owe…

We receive this gift of grace by faith.  We receive it by faith not works, not our own righteousness, and religion.

Up to the point where we repent of our sin and profess Jesus as Lord, we are under a death sentence.  The wages of sin is death.

Once we have received grace, sin has no power over our eternal destination.  It can sure mess up our abundant life in the here and now but it does not impact where we spend eternity.

If we who have received grace sin, we confess, and we receive the promised pardon.  We understand that we are a regenerated, redeemed, and eternally loved by our God.

In this state of favor and grace, confession is our new first nature when it comes to sin. It’s not guilt.  It’s confession. Repentance is a real thing and we don’t want anything to do with that which is not pleasing to God.

Having received grace and now living in God’s grace, confession is our first nature when it comes to sin.

Our history tells us that we were a sinner saved by grace.  That is our history.  It is a true story but do not confuse our story with our identity.  Our story is that we were a sinner saved by grace but our identity is as a child of God and a brother or sister to Christ Jesus.  We are set apart by God’s truth.  Our identity is that we are wholly owned by the God of love.

So, what do we do with this incredible disposition?

We respond in love.  We love God.  This love is manifested mostly in obedience to him—known to us personally mainly by his Spirit—and know to us by his word, some of which is in black print and some in red.  This love is manifested in three words we know so well, love one another.

How does this response of love and obedience relate to the saints—those gathered here who have repented of the ungodly patterns of the world and received the gift of grace that we know in Christ Jesus?

Our example for sure.

Our kindness.

Our patience.

Our trust.

Our obedience.

More.

How do we respond?  How about in what we share with others?

Do we speak the truth?  Perhaps we speak Mary Poppins truth.  Do we sugar coat it just a little so it is easier to swallow?  A spoon full of sugar, helps the medicine go down…

So many won’t get the Mary Poppins reference because the sugar is already in the medicine these days.

Do we preach to itching ears?

There are a whole bunch of people in today’s world that don’t want to know what God thinks or has to say about anything.  Putting your head in the sand is considered a viable course of action today. 

But we are called to preach the truth.  We are called to speak the truth in love, which is an indication of our Christian maturity.  We are called to share the truth.

So how do we reach the world with good news that what God has in store for us is so much better than the world’s offer?  How can the world—this temporal, temporary world make an offer that so many cling so tightly to?  How do we reach people who only want cheap grace?

How do we connect with people who want to be saved from death but don’t want to turn away from their sin?

With love.  Our motivation is love, not hate or condemnation or self-righteousness.  We must speak the truth in love.  Some mistake sugar coating for love but love will not allow itself to be sugar coated. If you can sugar coat it, your motivation is not love.  Love must be our central motivation.

What does that look like?

There are a whole bunch of things that God has told us that people don’t want to hear these days.

We could make signs and cite chapter and verse.

We could yell at them. 

We could ignore them.

We could just feel superior to them.  A little self-righteousness can’t be that bad can it?

We could post more “You’re going to hell Facebook Memes.”

Here’s a short rabbit trail.  Where do you think that most of America is learning its theology?  Seminary?  Study groups?  Individual Bible studies?

I have no documented research on this but I can post it online and make it true.  It seems that most of America is learning its theology through Facebook memes. 

Why not?  You don’t have to consider sourcing or context.  The full biblical witness meant actual study time.  A couple zingers and a cool picture and you have a theology.  If you can make it appealing to what people want to hear, then you’ve got something.

It has the depth of Granny’s Pimento Cheese recipe on Pinterest or the video of Squirrels Playing Banjos on Instagram, but it will get a lot of likes and a couple hundred hearts.

Maybe the meme approach isn’t the best for those who have truly repented and want to reach the lost.

Here’s something.  We could speak the truth in love.  We can preach the truth in season and out of season.  We can be the feet of those who bring good news.

But here’s the thing.  The truth and good news that we deliver must be God’s truth, not some sugar coated, twenty-first century friendly, itching ears brand of the truth which is just another form of deception.

Faith comes through hearing the message and the message is heard through the word of Christ.

If you are thinking about sugar coating or watering down the message, ask yourself this simple question.

Who would you cheat out of grace by sugar coating the message?  Who would you tell that this thing is that God says is sin is not sin?  That makes the conversation much easier but the repentance and transformation so much more difficult.

Would you be like Jonah who did not want to go to Ninevah because the people might actually repent and God forgive them?  Who do you not want to repent and receive a message of life?

How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?  And how can anyone preach unless they are sent? As it is written: “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!”

You are sent!  You are sent with the truth.  You are sent into a world that doesn’t want to listen.  You are sent out as sheep among wolves.  You are sent and counseled to be as innocent as doves and as shrewd as snakes.

None of us are alive in this rebellious age by accident. We may not understand what God is thinking, but he did not make a mistake with us. We belong to Christ Jesus.  We are God’s messengers.  We have received the truth.  We are commissioned to deliver it.

So many talk about how bad things are getting.  Hell in a handbasket and end of days are phrases used more and more but have we stepped up our game?

If this were a baseball game, we would have our rally caps on, be shaking the fence, getting the fans fired up, and doing whatever it took to get on base.  There is nothing like a ninth inning rally.  But, sometimes it seems we are still in our pregame warmup.

We are charged and commissioned to take the truth—the good news of salvation in the one name given to us—to this rebellious generation.

God did not make a mistake.  You are alive in this time and place on purpose.  In a time when apathy and ambivalence generate more interest than the truth, you are to take the truth, speaking it not in condemnation but in love, to people who don’t really want to hear it but need it more than they can imagine.

On occasion, I have been asked to speak to the teachers and faculty in our school system at the beginning or end of the school year.  There’s a challenge for any speaker.  Everyone there wants to be somewhere else, doing something else, and the last thing that they really want to hear is another That will fill an hour guy when they don’t want to be there in the first place.  They have others things to do!

I know what it’s like to talk to people who didn’t come to hear me on purpose.  I do my best to make it worthwhile whenever I’m invited.  But you have a message from God.

People may not want to hear that message.  They may not want the truth, but they need it.

Don’t water it down.  Don’t sugar coat it.  Don’t twist it to suit anyone’s comfort zone.  Speak the truth.  We  are told that the truth will set your free.

What is it exactly that I am to say?

Repent and believe the good news.

Repent and believe the good news.

Repent and believe the good news.

This is our message.  Can we do this?

How can we respond in faith if we have not repented?  How can we not respond in faith when our repentance is genuine?  Take this world and give me Jesus.

How can we truly forgive our brother or sister without a genuine response of love?  The unrepentant heart still wants vengeance.

How can I forgive twice, seven times, seventy times if my unrepentant heart still wants to get even?  My words say, “I forgive you.”  My heart says, “I’m doubling down on karma.  You will get what’s coming to you.”

How can love fulfil the law if we still desire religion—rules and regulations for right living over the Spirit of the living God living within us?  We must surrender all in our repentance.  I surrender all.

How can I love those who don’t love me, if I have not repented—turned away and left behind for good the ways of this world?

Dietrich Bonhoeffer coined the phrase cheap grace.  It’s a good provocation.  I think it’s good because it really is an oxymoron.  There is no such thing as cheap grace.  Grace was very costly and it cannot be cheapened.

I think what we have today is cheap or pseudo-repentance. 

People don’t really want to let go of who they are in the world.  Their response to the truth is on them but our delivery of the truth is on us.

We must speak the truth when people just want their ears tickled.

We must speak the truth without making it look like something less than it is.

We must speak the truth not in condemnation but in love .  Love must govern our delivery of the truth.

The truth is that God loves you so very much and wants all to repent of their loyalty to the gods of this age and return to him.

The truth is that those who have not received Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior stand condemned already.  God wants them to change their status from CONDEMNED to In a Relationship.

The truth is that what God has in store for us is so much better than anything this world can produce.

Repent and believe the good news.

Repent—turn away from the garbage this world has sold you.  Make a wholesale exchange—mind, body, soul, and spirit—for the ways of the Lord.  Come home to God whom we have come to know in Christ Jesus and who continues to dwell within us in his Holy Spirit.

Let’s deliver this message as people who have genuinely repented, received God’s grace and favor, and can’t keep this good news to ourselves.

We cannot contain the good news within us.

How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!

Amen.

The strongest force in the universe

Read or listen to Romans 10

The 10^th chapter of Romans is a continuation of a discussion that boarded this particular train of thought two chapters earlier with the words foreknew and predestined.  They continued with the election of Israel to bless the world.  The last chapter ended on a somewhat depressing note for God’s Chosen People.

To Paul’s credit, he did not know where later translators would break his letter into chapters.

His hope and prayer is that Israel is saved.  They are a people with a zeal for God but they got tripped up in prescribing their own brand of righteousness and gave up submitting to the righteousness of God.

Then Paul makes a statement that as Peter said in his second letter, many have distorted.  Paul said, For Christ is the end of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes.

Jesus said that he was not doing away with the slightest pen stroke of the law and Paul says Jesus is the end of the law, and many pit Paul against Jesus.

But there is no dichotomy.

Paul is not saying that Jesus annulled the law.  He is not saying that he did away with the law.  He is not saying that God’s law given as a gift to his own chosen people was flawed.

He is saying that the law was incomplete without Jesus. 

He is saying that the law does have a destination and that is Jesus.

He is saying that Jesus would not do away with the very thing by which we would know the grace of God through Jesus.

Christ completes the law.

Christ ends all other means of attempted justification.

Christ is the terminal point for all of human history up to that point.

Christ is the beginning of all that forever more proceeds.

Christ truly is the alpha and the omega, and where do we find him at work?

In the innermost part of the human heart.  In the place where our humanness would like to know what must we do to get to heaven or how do we stay out of hell; but Christ alone is the key to our salvation.

The word is near you, on your lips and in your heart, because if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.  For one believes with the heart and so is justified and one confesses with the mouth and so is saved.

These are salvation scriptures.  In other discussions, I have pointed out that some verses that Christians like to sling around as salvation scriptures have been taken way out of context.  These two verses are definitely salvation scriptures.

But we have not fully understood them.

This is partially because of how we interpret another set of verses in another one of Paul’s letters.

Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
   and gave him the name that is above every name,
¹⁰ that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
   in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
¹¹ and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,
   to the glory of God the Father.

Philippians 2:9-11

And so many believe and proclaim with satisfaction that one day God will by brute force bend every knee and exact the words Jesus is Lord from every who has ever lived.  And our human nature—yes especially among believers—says, and I hope it hurts.  You are getting what you deserve.  And sometimes we feel good in that self-righteous moment.

Our standard interpretation of these scriptures is that God will do what he has not done in all of history and extract our free will from us.  He will use the force that created the universe to bring us to our knees and say the words, Jesus is Lord.

That’s sort of accurate.

The key word here is confess. It is an interesting word.  It is a word with which we have attached some undue baggage that probably started accumulating during the crusades and the inquisition of the middle ages.

The Greek word is Homologeo (omologeo) in Romans 10 and Exomologeo  (xomologeo) in Philippians 2.  The main difference is that as it is used in the latter case, it calls the reader to consider all that has preceded it with the meaning. 

And what is the definition of this root word?

To agree

To say the same as another

Not to refuse

To promise

Not to deny

To confess

To declare

To admit what one is accused of

To profess

To praise

To celebrate

Those are hardly words that sound like an almighty being distributing so much pain to the rebellious until they say uncle, or in this case Jesus is Lord.

The newest revisions of the New International Version  use the word profess instead of confess.  The words are not so far apart, except in the meanings we have attached over the last century or so.  When we join the church, we profess our faith.  If you join the Cumberland Presbyterian Church we also give you our Confession of Faith.  It’s not a confession made at gunpoint.

Consider even our flawed legal system in this country.  Don’t get me wrong, for all of our flaws, I will take it above all others in this world.  But consider in what has become the most common outcome in criminal cases—the plea bargain—there is still an allocution.  The judge in the case must hear enough of the facts from the defendant to satisfy him that the offense occurred and that no defense should be pursued.

Realize that in these cases the defendant sometimes lies.  Who’d a thunk it—criminals sometimes don’t tell the truth.  Many judges will just accept whatever the defendant has to say just to clear the docket.

Would God accept a false confession?  Would it be OK for someone to bear false witness against themselves.  The words, Jesus are Lord, are absolutely true but would God accept them as a confession if the one who said them still rejected God?

Would God accept a forced confession?  Even our legal system still rejects these.  Words elicited by thumbscrews, water boarding, or some time on the rack generally don’t fly as a real confession.

Let’s consider one more aspect of this confession or profession of faith that is articulated in the words, Jesus is Lord.  This comes from another one of Paul’s letters.  This one is to the church in Corinth.

Therefore I tell you that no one who is speaking by the Spirit of God says, "Jesus be cursed," and no one can say, "Jesus is Lord," except by the Holy Spirit.

1 Corinthians 12:3

Let’s see if we can muster a coherent though from these parallel messages from the same author.

If I confess with my spoken words that Jesus is Lord and truly believe in my heart that God raised him from the dead, I will be saved.

Yes!

One day every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.

Yes!

No one can say Jesus is Lord without the Holy Spirit.

Yes!

Does that mean that one day everyone will call upon the name of the Lord and be saved?  Does it mean that one day everyone speaking by the Holy Spirit will confess or profess or proclaim or celebrate with the words, Jesus is Lord?

That sounds really good, but there is a whole bunch of other stuff that sounds like hell, and a lake of fire, and a garbage dump, and just really terrible consequences for those who do not profess or confess Jesus as Lord and Savior.  Do I just ignore these parts of the Bible?

I don’t recommend it, but we must not ignore what we read today either.

No one can say Jesus is Lord  without the Holy Spirit.  One day every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord.  The one who confesses Jesus as Lord believing he is who he said he is—the One that God raised from the dead—will be saved.

I asked earlier if that when we read the words every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord, if that meant that God will do what he has not done in all of history and extract our free will from us.  He will use the force that created the universe to bring us to our knees and say the words, Jesus is Lord.

And I said, that’s sort of accurate.

For the words that Paul wrote in all three letters to be true and consistent with who we know God to be from what he has revealed to us, the force that created the universe and the same force that will bring us to our knees and give us no choice but to say, Jesus is Lord, must be love.

Could it be that love will shatter every hardened heart on earth, above the earth, and below the earth?

Could love be the most powerful force that ever existed?

Could love be on the same level as God?

You think if God is love, somebody would have told us about it.

I can’t make the difficult passages in the Bible go away and be faithful to God.  And there are significant consequences to rejecting God.

But my fidelity to God is no less compromised by ignoring these words that we considered today.

So I must consider all that has been revealed to me, excluding none to make my understanding easier.

And it could be that many, very many must go through hell to get to good news.

For some that hell exists right now.

For others, it may be an age beyond this one.

We are not diving into another word study right now, but consider that the words from which we derive eternal also mean age.

Paul tells us not to try to ascent to heaven or descend to hell but to believe in your heart the words desiring to come out of your lips.

Everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved.  But we have believed these words.  We are assured of our salvation. 

But many have not heard and have no assurance or comfort.  They are adrift in a meaningless life.

How are they to call on One in whom they have not believed?

How are they to believe in one whom they have not heard?

How are they to hear without someone to preach to them?

How are they to proclaim him unless they are sent?

Faith comes from what is heard and what is heard comes through the word of Christ.

Heaven and hell are difficult to fully understand.  Jesus gave us parables and figures of speech to help, and with the mind of Christ we grow closer to understanding them.  And we too often consider them faraway places or  even ultimate destinations, which surely they are.

But they are also here and now.

Jesus said the Kingdom of God is within you, it is breaking out all around you.

And if we would look around us, we would also see people going through hell right now.

I don’t believe that any marriage that maintained Christ in the center has ever failed.  I’m not talking just a church wedding, but those cases where Christ is truly Lord of both lives in the marriage.

But so many people have gone through divorce in this country, and some of them lived in hell during that time.

We have a heart for the children in this church, but too many children in this country and even in our community have been physically and sexually abused by a parent or relative or a stranger.  Too many have known hurt that no human should ever experience.  Have they not lived in hell?

Many over the past few decades have seen a full life atrophy to a miserable existence with an addiction to drugs.  This has touched every community in this nation, perhaps every extended family.  Is there a better word for this state of existence than hell?

How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!

We live in a time when people need good news.

They need news so good that it goes beyond the tragedy of their life experience.

They need news that transcends the temporary situation.

They need news that says they are not a slave to their past mistakes.

They need news that says they can be born anew.

They need news that they can be a new creation in this very moment.

How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!

This is wonderful news for the world but as this 10^th chapter of Romans concludes—though the discussion does not—we are left with the question, “Did Israel not understand?”

Paul concludes the chapter with God’s displeasure of Israel.  “All day long I have held out my hands to a disobedient and contrary people.”

Once again we conclude with a wonderful promise of salvation for all and a chosen people who have rejected it.  And once again, this extended discussion by Paul is not finished.

Let’s not write off Israel just yet.  Paul has more to say and its in the next chapter so you don’t have to hunt for it if you can’t wait.

As we break briefly in this discussion, consider this one thought this week.

The strongest force in all of creation is love.

Lord, did they not hear our message?

Read Isaiah 53

Read Romans 10

My program director—Dr. Tom Campbell—was also my preaching instructor while I was in school to be a Cumberland Presbyterian minister or Word and Sacrament.  He told a story once of a small congregation that he ministered for a few years.  At the end of each service, one member would always shake his hand and say, “Warm sermon.”

When it was time for Tom Campbell to move on and pastor another congregation, he asked the man what he meant by “warm sermon.”

With emotion, he replied, “Not so hot.”

For those of you who want something more in your sermon, I will include 3 P’s that you can take with this week. 

Just in case you need something small and manageable to take with for your drive to work or as you walk the hallways at school or if you get lost trying to remember what you came into Walmart for in the first place, there are 3 P’s at the end.  You probably won’t pick them up along the way, so just know that there will be a take-away at the end even if you think you are imprisoned in a warm sermon.

Many of us have lost something that I don’t think we can get back.  We may try but I don’t think we will ever regain it, not that we want to.  What exactly have we lost?

The ability to understand what it was like to be lost, to be without Christ.  Some who may have come to Christ recently may still have clear memories but many of us who have been living in this gift of salvation have forgotten what it was like before.

Yes, we have testimonies.  Yes, we have memories of times past, but the state of being lost or forsaken or true hopelessness is foreign to us.  We are no longer fluent in hopelessness.  It is a dead language to us.

We only distantly relate to blindness to the truth.  We know that Jesus is Lord.  We have professed it with our lips and we believe in our hearts that God raised him from the dead.  We believe!

We may struggle to stay the course as we follow Jesus, still have a bazillion unanswered questions, and often wonder when God will answer some of our prayers; but we believe.

We believe!

We believe that God loved us so much that he came in the flesh to live and die as a man.  He came to teach and to heal.  He came to bring the mighty acts of God into whatever situation he was in. 

He came to die as an atoning sacrifice for our sin.  He did all of these things and we believe.

He made us right with God and we believe.

The prophet Isaiah said that all of these things would come to pass but most of us before we believed were not very familiar with Isaiah.  If it wasn’t required for a book report or in today’s generation didn’t fit into the size of a text message, we probably didn’t read it before we believed.

So here we sit safely in our salvation, thankful and blessed and loving the peace and divine connection that we know; and sometimes wonder about everyone else.  What about them?  Will God’s message reach them?

Paul was still sharing his pain with his readers as we enter into the 10^th chapter.  We should be able to feel how he longed for his people to come to know Christ.  It’s not that they were an ungodly people or too apathetic to care.

They were zealous about their God.  They knew he was the one true God.  They knew that all righteousness comes from God; yet, they drifted into a righteousness of their own and were blind to the truth.

Were we to read ahead to the next chapter we would see that these chosen people were in a stupor.  They were not sensitive to what was happening around them.  It was if they were drunk while Christ walked the earth and missed the whole thing.

Paul still has a heart for his people and has more to say about them later, but for now he counsels his readers that faith once again is central to receiving this gift of salvation, with which comes being right with God. 

He used words that many of us know so well.  They are words of salvation and life.  These are from the New Living Bible.

If you openly declare that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.  For it is by believing in your heart that you are made right with God, and it is by openly declaring your faith that you are saved.

This invitation is for Jew and gentile alike.  Everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved.

Israel heard.  Some responded.  Most did not.  In the words of Isaiah: “Lord, did they not hear our message?”

We are going to step out of Romans chapter 10 and step into the 21^st century church, specifically this body of believers for the moment.

Have you ever felt like Isaiah?  Have you even felt like Paul?  “Lord, did they not hear our message?”

Think of the many ways that we connect.

·     Walk a block for Jesus

·     Trunk or Treat

·     Easter Egg Hunt

·     Vacation Bible School

·     Feed the Players

·     5^th Quarter

·     Backpack Ministry

·     Chewy Tuesdays

·     Pop Tarts and Peanut Butter

·     Food baskets

All of these things are laced with messages of God’s love and invitations to know Jesus as Lord.  These things are accomplished by ministers hoping to share God’s love and salvation.  I don’t mean the guy in the robe who preaches twice on Sunday.  This is the body of believers connecting.

Did they not hear our message?  Most of these conversations begin with God loves you.  We don’t put people in headlocks or even thump them with a Bible. A wrist band might get them from God loves you to love one another.  If we haven’t scared them off by then, we might actually get to talk about how great God’s love for us is.  That ultimately leads to Jesus.

“Lord, did they not hear our message?”

On top of that some people have even come into the church building on a Sunday for a service to check it out.  Some have even heard me preach.  How could that not have been enough?  Yes, my tongue might be stuck in my cheek on that one.

“Lord, did they not hear our message?”

Some have heard and have come and are seeking the Lord, but many have heard and have not.  “Lord, did they not hear our message?”

Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?

Paul was heartbroken about his own people.  He addressed what is in store for them in the next chapter.  But what about us?

What do we do when we continue to follow Jesus and help so many who are lost or are disconnected from the body and they will not hear?  What do we do?  Consider Paul’s words in the New Living Translation.

But how can they call on him to save them unless they believe in him? And how can they believe in him if they have never heard about him? And how can they hear about him unless someone tells them?  And how will anyone go and tell them without being sent? That is why the Scriptures say, “How beautiful are the feet of messengers who bring good news!”

This is our message to share.  Jesus Christ is Lord.  In him alone comes salvation.  We are commissioned to take this message into the world.  Remember that a commission is more than a command.  A command tells you what to do or what not to do.  A commission comes with some authority attached.

Think to the end of Matthew’s gospel.  Jesus states that all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to him.  He is not bragging or boasting about his status because the next word that we encounter is the word “therefore.”

Jesus makes a connection between his authority and our commission.  We are to go into all of the world making disciples, baptizing, and teaching people to follow what he taught us.

We have a mission.  The Lord has commanded this and he has also given us the authority to take his message into the world.

How much authority did Jesus have?  All authority!

God’s message of love to the world is now our message of love to the world as well. It is our message.  We are like Isaiah in this regard.  We can say: “Lord, did they not hear our message?”

We can say it and know that we have not overstepped our authority.  We have the authority to fulfill our mission.  We take this good news to the world.  We are sent by our Lord and Master into the world with this incredible news of God’s love for us.  We are very much in this divine work together.

We have been called out of the world, set apart from the world to be made ready for a special work, and now we are sent back into the world commissioned to do that work.

And so many do not respond.  What are we to do?

Go into the world and proclaim the gospel of peace and salvation and love everlasting unburdened by the response.  The response lies in the domain of those who hear and God’s own Spirit.

The response of those who hear the gospel is not part of our yoke that our Master has given us.

We continue to go where we are sent.  People must hear.  They need to hear it in person.  Webcasts are great.  Television preachers are fine.  Facebooks posts surely are compelling, but this message is best delivered in person.

“How beautiful are the feet of messengers who bring good news!”

We are those messengers and we continue our deliveries.  Some might be thinking, “Hold your holy horses one minute.  Isn’t that why we hired a preacher?”

There is an interesting dynamic here.  The pastor or shepherd tends the flock and when that analogy is used, people often say: “I don’t like being compared to sheep.  Sheep are stupid.  Don’t compare me to a sheep.”

But when the topic of taking the good news to the world comes up, the same people sometimes say, “Hey, I’m just a sheep.  Send the shepherd out into the world with that message.  Isn’t that what he is there for?”

We are commissioned.  When it comes to taking the good news of life in Jesus Christ to the world we need to accept, perhaps even embrace our role as the commissioned.  That is who we are.  We deliver good news!

We deliver!

But the yoke of our Master has not placed the response of those who hear on our shoulders.  We could not bear it and we should give thanks that we don’t; but we continue to proclaim the good news of life in Jesus Christ.

We don’t own the response but we continue in our commission.  It has not been revoked.

The Apostle Paul wrote the church in Corinth noting that he had become all things to all people so that some might be saved.

Some?  God’s desire is that all be saved.  How could Paul write so that some might be saved?

For as zealous as Paul was to take the gospel to the world, he knew that his commission was to deliver this good news.  For those who came, the work continued in baptism, teaching, and discipleship; but even zealous, zealous Paul knew that not all would respond even though they heard.

Paul so longed for his own people to know true joy in the Lord and we will find in the next chapter what the plan for that is, but he knew that he was one man, set apart by God for a special work.  He would do great things for the Lord and many would come.

But many would not.  “Lord, did they not hear our message?”

My message to you this day is this:  Do not be discouraged.  Your commission remains in effect.  It has not been revoked and some will hear and some will respond and some will know the joy of the Lord when they call upon him.

“How beautiful are the feet of messengers who bring good news!”

The work that you have been called to do, commissioned to do, is still a blessed work that will produce good fruit.  Share the good news.  Live in response to the good news.  Know that some will call upon the name of the Lord because they have heard the good news of Jesus Christ.

Some will be saved!

Now to the promised P’s.

We are people who have PEACE.  It is peace that goes beyond human understanding.  It is a connection that we often know in the way the psalmist charges us—be still.  Know that he is God.

We have PURPOSE.  We are called out of the world, set apart from the world to be prepared for the work of the Lord, then we are sent back into the world to be God’s love and deliver his good news.

We are PROTECTED from a burden that is not ours to bear.  God’s Spirit is with us always and the response of those who hear our message rests with them and God’s Spirit.  Their response is not part of the easy yoke that our Master has given us.

We who know peace in God also have been given purpose by God and are protected by God as we go into the world to be his love and proclaim life in Jesus Christ.

Some will be saved!

Amen!