Hello and welcome to the Middletown Baptist Church Podcast,
where we are proclaiming the truth to the world.
My name is Pastor Josh, and I want to thank you for listening to
this podcast.
I hope that this podcast can be a blessing to you and strengthen
you in the word of God.
Now, come along.
Let's look into the Bible and see what God has for us here today,
we will be studying Romans chapter 10.
So if you have.
Man, they're excited to get back there, that's a good thing.
It's better than the alternative that they're not excited
about getting back to church, but.
Amen.
Romans, chapter 10.
We're going to start in verse number 13 here.
This morning, we're going to pick up where we left off.
It has been a few weeks.
March 29, which was Palm Sunday, Brother Ethan preached.
And then last week we looked at the resurrection in First Corinthians
15.
And so we're going to pick up our study in Romans chapter 10.
And the encompassing theme throughout this whole study has been
theology matters.
Theology matters.
There's a lot of things that matter in this world, but what we
would say is that as believers, theology matters.
And what is theology?
Well, theology is what we believe about God.
It's.
It's knowing God in a personal way for the believer.
And so what do we believe about things?
Well, for some people, that might mean that I believe this or
I believe that I believe that God is this way.
But oftentimes our theology comes from the wrong place.
Some people's theology comes from the way that they feel.
You've even heard people say this, well, my God wouldn't be that
way.
The way that I believe God to be.
He wouldn't do this, or he wouldn't judge, or he wouldn't.
He wouldn't extend this type of wrath upon somebody.
And the reality is, is that sometimes people find their theology
through their feelings.
That isn't a place to be because the Bible says that our feelings
can lie to us, our heart can deceive us, and so we can't find
our theology through our feelings.
Some people find theology through Hollywood or entertainment,
the newest Christian movie.
And though there are some good Christian media sources out there,
I would say that we have to be very careful of having our theology
based in a portrayal through some type of dramatic experience,
whether it be through a movie or a show or a play.
So there's a lot of sources to people's theology.
But what we're going to see in this passage, and I think that what
we've seen throughout the Book of Romans is that our theology must
come from the truth of God.
And we find the truth of God here in his Word and what we call
Scripture, the Bible.
And so In Romans chapter 10, we're seeing what it means to believe
in the Lord.
We're seeing what it means to have salvation.
And by way of context, Paul is speaking about his people, the nation
of Israel, as they have rejected Christ.
He says, oh, they're religious, they're devout, but what
they're missing in their faith is a faith in the Messiah, the faith
in Jesus, the faith in not only Jesus coming to this earth and
living a perfect life, but then dying on the cross for their
sins and conquering death through the resurrection.
He says, that's the gospel.
That's what matters.
That's what saves.
And so here Throughout Romans chapter 10, Paul has been discussing
this idea of what truly saves an individual.
And what truly saves an individual is faith in Jesus alone.
But then he goes on to say that there are people searching for
righteousness.
And what brings us righteousness?
Well, it's not our hard work.
I mean, because we could say, I, I'm a righteous person because
I work really hard.
But then the problem with that is that sometimes what happens is
that we could find someone who works harder than us and they're
more righteous than we are.
And so the comparison of man is this.
Well, I'm more righteous than that person.
But the Bible really mentions that the true test of righteousness
is not other people.
The true test of righteousness is God's holiness, and none of us
match up to that.
And so we can't find righteousness by our works, by our
effort.
We find righteousness through, you guessed it, faith in Jesus Christ.
And God then imputes or gives his righteousness to us so that,
yes, we can live righteous lives, but not in our own strength.
And so he's explained that through Romans chapter 10.
And he gets down to verse number nine, and he says that if
thou shalt confess, and that word confess has so much wrapped
up in it, it's a Greek word that means to say the same thing,
to agree upon.
And so he says here in verse nine, that if thou shalt confess
with thy mouth, the Lord Jesus.
And so there's a proclamation, there's.
There's a mental ascent to believe that God is saying the truth
and that Jesus did come and that Jesus did die and that Jesus
did resurrect.
And so he says, if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus
and believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the
dead.
Thou shalt be saved.
And so really, the proclamation is this.
The way that we are saved is not just by agreeing that God exists,
not just agreeing that he is good, not just understanding that
he came, but that it says there that we confess with our mouth
and we believe in our heart.
That's faith.
Not just that Jesus died, but that God hath raised him from the
dead.
So it's a complete mention of the gospel.
We looked at that in 1 Corinthians, chapter 15.
A great definition of the Gospel is given there by Paul.
And it's essentially this, that Jesus came and he lived, he
died, he was buried, and he rose again.
And so that's the Gospel message.
And so, yes, we have to understand it mentally, that's important.
What we think about does matter, but also what we believe
in our hearts.
And that word there in verse nine, believe, is something that
we're going to see over and over again in this passage.
And it's not just a belief in the existence of.
It's a belief in something for salvation.
We're going to see it said again later on in this passage.
And really, the word is faith.
It's the same Greek word, faith, believing in something that
we don't see.
Now, it doesn't mean that there's zero proof.
There is proof that God exists.
There is proof that he came, there is proof that Jesus died.
There is proof that he conquered death through the resurrection.
But what we see here is that ultimately it is faith that saves.
And then he goes to verse number 13.
For whosoever, this is an open invitation to all.
God's message of the Gospel is inclusive.
Now, some people hear that word inclusive.
We talked about this a few weeks ago, and they go, wait, wait,
wait, wait.
I'm not all about that inclusivity.
Well, it's not inclusive in that everyone is saved.
It's inclusive that everyone can be saved.
The Gospel message is for all, for the rich, for the poor, for the
people from across the ocean, the people in this country.
There is a message of the Gospel that's inclusive to all.
So it's open in that regard, but it's narrow in how someone comes
to faith.
And it says, Verse 13, for whosoever shall call upon the name
of the Lord shall be saved.
Now call upon the name.
Well, does that mean just anyone who says Lord is saved?
No, because what we're going to see in verse number 14 is that
there's something connected to that calling.
There is a substance to the call it says in verse 14.
And, and what Paul is basically going to do here is he's
going to ask some questions.
He's wanting the reader to think about the point that he is
making here.
And by the way, again, remember in context, he's speaking
about the people of Israel, the people that he loves, the people
that he has a burden for, and they're not believing.
And so really the, the underlying message here is that there
are people out there that need the message of the Gospel.
There are people that need to be saved.
And he says in verse 14, question, how then shall they call?
There's that word call.
So we're going to get some indication about what that call is.
He says, how then shall they call on him, talking about Jesus
in whom they have not believed?
So the idea would be this, to call, there must be belief.
And that word belief is the same word that's used later on in
verse 17 when we see the word faith.
It's, it's a Greek word that means to believe in, to trust in,
to put all of our weight upon.
And so he says it's those who believe who call.
And so it's not just a verbal hey, I. I need you, God.
It's.
It's a belief in the whole message of the gospel.
So he says they can't call unless they believe.
Verse 14.
He says, how can they call on him whom they have not believed?
And so what we see here is, is that what we're compelled to do is
preach about faith, preach about belief, not just about action,
even though the church should preach about action.
Because what we believe does indicate what we do in our life,
but it starts with action.
Because we do know that people can act, people can put on a face,
people can display a certain spirituality publicly, but in their
hearts not truly believe.
So it starts with belief.
And so he says here, how can they call if they don't believe?
And then another question is this.
And how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard?
So we ask a really pointy question here.
He says, how can people believe in something that they haven't
heard about?
Really, what Paul is getting to here is the need for the preaching
of the Gospel, the need for proclaiming the truth.
So he says, they all need Jesus.
They all need to call out to Him.
They all need to believe.
But how can they believe if they have not heard?
I think that's a good question to ask.
How.
How can someone believe in something that they don't know about?
And then he says, and how shall they hear.
How can they hear without a preacher?
And so he's giving a line of thinking here.
He's basically saying this, There is a need in this world.
And I think we all agree with Paul's proclamation here that there
is a need for salvation.
There's a lot of problems that we see in this world today.
There's a lot of division.
There's a lot of pain, There's a lot of dangerous actions and thoughts.
And actually what we see is evil actions and thoughts that are
being played out today.
And a lot of people have their understanding or their theory about
what would fix all of that.
There's a lot of people that think that if we just do certain
laws, then it'll fix all of these problems.
Or there are some people that think that if we just have a certain
way of doing things here, or throw money this way or do things
programs in this regard, that all the problems of this world will
be solved.
But the Bible says clearly that there is one solution to all
of our problems of sin, and that is salvation in Jesus Christ.
It's what changes the heart.
It's the Holy Spirit that changes us from the inside out.
And so what Paul is saying is that the answer to all of the problems
is Jesus and the message of the Gospel.
Therefore, he says, we need to have those people that need the salvation
to believe.
And what do they believe in?
Will they believe in what they hear?
And how can they hear unless they have a preacher?
And so he's posing a question, but really he's challenging the reader
to understand the importance of preaching the gospel.
Now, all of you here this morning to some degree agree that
preaching the gospel is important.
Why do I know that?
Well, you're here.
You're here to not only hear the preaching of the Word, but hopefully
have fellowship.
But really the reality is, is that if you're in church, you understand
to some degree that preaching is important.
But oftentimes we think about preaching only from behind the pulpit.
And so someone might come to church and they say, well, yeah,
preacher, you better get your message straight, because that's
important.
But really, the Bible doesn't isolate from preaching to the pastor
of the church, even though the pastor should be a preacher.
But the Bible actually says, as we read this morning in Matthew
chapter 28, that the great Commission is that all believers
go into the world and preach the gospel.
And so the question might be asked, well, how could I be a preacher?
Not all of us are called to be pastors, but all of us are called
to be preachers.
And so the Bible says that we should preach the truth to the world,
the ones that need Jesus.
Now, what does that word preach mean?
It just means to proclaim, to announce, to explain.
And the Bible tells us that there's many ways in which we can
preach the gospel.
We preach by the way that we live.
We preach by the way that we respond.
We preach by the way that we love.
We preach by the way that we give a testimony.
We preach by the way that we work.
We preach through every element of our life.
The Bible says, whether therefore ye eat or drink or whatsoever
you do, do, all to the glory of God.
And so the Bible tells us that in every element of our life, we
can proclaim the truth of God to other people around us.
And so it's not just from behind a pulpit that the message
of the gospel is preached, but it's in the workplace, it's in the
home, it's on the ball field, it's everywhere that we are, that
we as Christians should be taking the gospel with us.
And so what he's really saying here is this, there are so many people
that need the gospel.
What are we going to do about it?
And then he says in verse 15, how shall they preach except they
be sent?
And so he actually asked another question here, and it's an
interesting question to ponder because what he's basically said
so far is this.
We should go, and then we should send.
So.
So individually, as a believer, I should go to wherever
my mission field is.
For some people's mission field, it's local.
For some people's mission field, it's.
It's a little bit broader.
We see that in Acts, chapter one, verse eight, that we should
start in Jerusalem and spread to Judea and then into Samaria, which
are places that we're uncomfortable with, and then to the
uttermost part of the earth.
And so he says, yes, there is a call for all of us to go.
We've.
We've seen that.
Even Last year, in 2025, our theme was to go, to go for the gospel.
So all of us are to go, but corporately, as a church, we are
also to send.
And so there's something more to that.
There's something more to sending.
And that is, yes, I individually go, but I also prepare
and equip others so that we can send others out into the community.
So it is my goal at Middletown Baptist Church, not just to go myself
and preach on Sunday mornings, but it's also to prepare and disciple
and pray for and train others so that We.
We can send people into the Middletown community, the Odessa
community, the Townsend community, the.
The New Castle county area, the Delaware state.
The farther, farther we think we can actually send people across,
as the Bible says, to the uttermost part of the earth.
And so what we see here is not only a challenge to go ourselves,
but also we see a challenge to send.
And one of the things that we're seeing in the world today is
a lack of.
Of individuals that are being sent to do the ministry.
There are so many churches in America looking for pastors.
There's so many places in.
In areas that are not church, that need a good church, that need
a missionary, that need a lay person who's going to preach the
gospel.
And one of the goals of Middletown Baptist Church should
be not just to go ourselves individually, but also to find avenues
in which we can send people to do missions, to.
To do evangelism, to do church, to do all these different
things that God has called us to do.
And so he says, how shall they preach except they be sent?
It is my heart, and I believe God's heart, that we see people sent
from Middletown Baptist Church to the local community to present
the gospel in areas that possibly are not reached yet.
You know, there.
There are going to be people that come to our facilities here
and maybe even come into our building and hear the preaching on
Sunday mornings, maybe Sunday nights, Wednesday nights, and that's
a fantastic ministry.
There's going to be some people that watch on the live stream.
There's going to be people that watch either on YouTube or Facebook
or listen to a podcast, and that's a great ministry.
But there are places in this local community that cannot be reached
in those avenues.
But the reality is, is that some of you are able to reach those
areas.
And so as Middletown Baptist Church, we're equipping, we're sending
ambassadors into the local environment for the gospel to be
presented.
And even on a further sense that if some of you, as God works
in your heart, might challenge you to go further.
But the truth is, is that we as Christians must be sending.
And part of that sending is equipping.
So often in churches, we want to just maintain the disciples that
are already here.
What do I mean by that?
Well, sometimes what happens is the church grows by more Christians
that have already gone saved and already been a part of a church
move.
And they just come to a church and we say, okay, we're going to
maintain a disciple, meaning we need to make sure that they're
reading their Bible.
We need to make sure that they're not struggling.
We need to make sure that everything in their life is going
well.
But oftentimes one of the elements of the church that we forget
about is making new disciples.
We try to only maintain the ones that we have.
But the Bible doesn't ever speak of just maintaining.
The Bible always speaks of multiplication.
Look at the early church in the book of Acts didn't just stay
with one group, it multiplied, it grew.
It became something so exponential that it spread across
the whole world at the time.
So we think about what Matthew chapter 28 says.
I want you to go back to Matthew 28 with me.
We're going to get to Romans 10 again.
But I want you to see the Great Commission because I want you
to understand what Jesus is really saying when he says for us
to go into the world and teach all nations.
Because I, I know that oftentimes we get short sighted and
we think about the ministry that's here at the church today.
And I think we should maintain the ministries that we have.
But I believe that we're incomplete in the work of the church.
We're incomplete as believers if we think about only ourselves
and say, you know what?
It's just about the ones that we have here.
Even though we should maintain, we should disciple the
ones that are here.
The Bible says In Matthew, chapter 28, verse number 19, he says,
Go ye therefore and teach all nations.
Now in the English it says teach all nations.
But in the Greek, if, if you understand the Greek and you might
say, oh, I don't understand the Greek, I'm going to say like,
I don't understand it either.
I don't speak Greek, I know how to look at a book.
And it tells me what the Greek says.
And I understand that part of it.
But what I will say is that the Greek, the Koine Greek says this,
make disciples.
It says make disciples.
It doesn't just say teach, because if it was just about teaching,
then why does he say in verse number 20 go teach and then teach?
Well, you could argue that he just means teach double.
But what he's really saying here is he says, your goal as a church,
your goal as a Christian is to make a other disciples.
And then he tells us what that looks like.
He says, make other disciples.
Go ye make disciples.
Baptizing them, that's that first step of obedience, baptizing
them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.
And then he says, this is what it looks like.
Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever.
I've commanded you and lo, I'm with you always, even to the end
of the world.
So he essentially says this.
We should lead them to Christ in way of salvation, and we should
teach them what it means to walk in sanctification.
And so it's this idea of being sent.
It's the idea of training.
We don't just take someone who gets saved and says, great, fantastic,
you're a believer now sit there and become the best Christian
that you can be, but figure it out on your own.
We don't do that.
You guys understand this principle?
I've said this before.
Our, our most recent son, Silas, it's already been two years
now that, that he was born, but he's the most recent one in our
house.
And he was born and he was a newborn baby.
And some of you might even know that he had a few extra complications.
But the truth is, is that we didn't just take him as a baby and
say, okay, now he's in the house.
He's got to figure it out for himself.
We, we, you know, feed yourself now, buddy.
No, we, we fed him, we gave him the milk.
We understood the need for nurturing in that very vulnerable
state.
That's what a new Christian is.
A new Christian, as the Bible says.
It's not my opinion.
The Bible says a new Christian is a baby in Christ, and a baby not
tended to will be stunted in growth.
And we see a lot of Christians in this world today who were not
discipled at that infancy stage and therefore stunted in spiritual
growth.
And a baby's not going to be able to take care of another baby.
And the truth is, is that even Paul condemns some in Scripture that
says, hey, you guys should be on the meat and teaching and discipling,
but yet you're still on the milk.
And I can't give you these tasks that God wants you to follow.
And so the challenge for us as a church to send, if we want to see
people sent from Middletown Baptist Church, we have to take responsibility
upon ourselves to say, I must be a discipler.
I must be able to take someone and show them what it means to be
a disciple.
And if you say that that's not where I'm at, I cannot do that, then
that would mean that you as a believer need to grow in discipleship
in your own life to understand the basics, to understand what Scripture
says about these topics that we're dealing with in our world today.
So we go back to Romans, chapter 10 with the understanding
that all of us are called to live out the Great Commission, that's
not just for pastors, that's not just for deacons.
The great commission is for all believers.
And so we're all called to send a others out.
And so he says in verse number 15 of Romans 10, and how shall they
preach except they be sent, except they be trained, except they
be prepared.
And then he says something so interesting, and if you read it just
in its literal sense, you might think that this is a very confusing
verse.
He says as it is written.
So he's referring to something in the Old Testament which we're
going to go to here in a few moments.
But he says, as it is written, how beautiful are the feet of them
that preach the gospel of peace and bring glad tidings of good
things.
You would say.
So what is he saying?
That all preachers have beautiful feet?
No, he's not saying that even though that's what he's literally
saying.
But the, the figurative sense of this would be that the feet or
the actions or the movement, the, the, the ministry of preaching,
as it says, is a beautiful thing and it's a blessing to have
the ministry of preaching.
God could have chosen any which type of medium in which to
bring forth his truth to the world, but he decided to bring it
through preaching, proclaiming.
And what we see here is he says how beautiful or how blessed
are the feet or the action of the ministry of them that preach
the gospel of peace.
He says that there's a blessing, that there is a, what we
would consider to be a miraculous work that's happening
through the preaching of the gospel, not just through pastors,
but through all those believers who preach as it says,
they're the gospel of peace.
Now how could it be a gospel of peace?
How, how could the message of Jesus coming to this earth, dying
on the cross for our sins, rising again on the third day and
ruling and reigning.
How was that a message of peace?
I, some people might say that I think Christianity is not a message
of peace, it's actually a message of hate.
It's a message of division, it's a message of intolerance.
It's a message of being narrow minded.
But I want you to see the Old Testament reference to what Paul
is talking about here because he says how beautiful are the feet
of them which preach the gospel of peace.
And so what we're preaching, what you're preaching, the message
of the true gospel is a message of peace.
And I want you to go back to Isaiah 52.
Paul is actually quoting a verse in Isaiah 52.
It's Isaiah 52.
7.
And we really see, again, it's an exact representation of what he's
saying here.
And he says the idea would be that as we're preaching, we're preaching
not just judgment, even though there is an element of judgment with
the gospel.
We're not just preaching forgiveness, even though there's
an element of forgiveness.
He says here that the message of the gospel is a message of what
we would consider to be peace and joy.
Look at verse number seven with me.
Isaiah 52.
He says, how beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him
that bringeth good tidings.
So he's talking about good news.
Good, good.
The gospel.
Good news that publisheth peace, meaning it's a proclamation
of peace that bringeth good tidings of good, that publish salvation,
that saith unto Zion thy God reigneth.
And so really, what we see through understanding Paul's reference
there in Romans and Isaiah's reference in verse 7 of Isaiah 52
is that the reason why it can be a message of peace is because
the Bible says that the message of the gospel is all about
Jesus.
And the Bible says that Jesus is the prince of peace.
It's not just about physical peace, because some of you might
say, well, Pastor, you follow me around in my life, there's not
a lot of peace.
I'm at work, I'm running around.
I've got kids in my house, folks I understand.
I've got three kids in my house, too.
There's not a lot of peace and quiet that happens.
Okay.
He's not necessarily talking about circumstantial peace, even
though circumstantial peace is a great thing to have.
Not condemning circumstantial peace, but the type of peace that
is mentioned here is a peace that, as Philippians chapter four
says, a peace that passeth all understanding.
It's something called the peace of God.
The peace of God is something that rules and reigns in our life,
no matter what the circumstances might be.
There might be chaos around me, but it's the peace of God that
rests within me that gives me the inner tranquility and the inner
confidence to know that God has got me.
And really what it is, it's the eternal focus.
It's the eternal focus that no matter what goes on right now, I
have something greater in my relationship with God.
Now, we do have something mentioned in Romans chapter 5.
If you go back to Romans chapter 5, we see that to have the
peace of God, as Philippians chapter four says, and the peace
of God which passeth all understanding.
To have the peace of God, we must come to a knowledge of a peace
with God.
Peace with God is different than peace of God.
There's a lot of people that want the peace of God in their life,
but they're not willing to come to the place where they find
the peace with God.
And In Romans chapter 5, it says, Therefore.
This is verse 1.
Therefore, being justified or declared righteous by faith, we have
peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Peace of God means this.
Before I came to Christ, I was not at peace with God.
The Bible actually says in Ephesians chapter two, that I was
an enemy of God, that I was bound in my sin, that I was declared
guilty in my sin.
But because of, as it says, their faith, justification by faith.
I now longer am now no longer in that law.
I am no longer in that sin.
I'm no longer in that judgment and condemnation.
But now I have something called the peace with God.
I'm restored to God.
I am now part of his family, as even Romans 8 says.
I can cry abba, Father, that I can have that peace, personal relationship
with him.
And so in the peace with God, I find the peace of God.
So I'm able to call this message the gospel of peace.
Why?
Because it's a gospel message that brings us to peace with God
and peace of God in our lives.
That's the idea.
So it's not peace all over the world.
If, if, if, if now, one day God will bring peace.
But not right now.
Okay, we know that there is a lot of conflict in this world today.
The answer to that is Jesus Christ.
And ultimately Jesus will come, as we sang this morning, that
every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ
is Lord.
We know that.
But in the moment now, it can still be a gospel of peace.
Why?
Because it brings me to peace with God and it brings me to the
peace of God.
And so back In Romans chapter 10, he says, how beautiful, how blessed
are the feet or the actions of those that preach the gospel of peace
and bring glad tidings of good things.
Glad tidings, Good news, happy news.
Joy.
So what the Bible tells us is that the gospel brings peace and
it brings us joy.
Joy doesn't mean circumstantial happiness.
Because in certain parts of our life, we might have a time for
mourning.
There might be a time for sadness.
The Bible mentions that very clearly.
There's a time and a place to go through those circumstantial sadness
moments that we all have to go through.
But what we See here is that we can find gladness and joy above
and beyond the circumstances of life.
Therefore, we can say that God brings us good things.
Now, this is not a message of what we would consider prosperity,
at least in the sense of material prosperity.
You know that that has gained a lot of traction in our world today,
prosperity gospel.
And what we would see is that there are some people that say, if
you believe in Jesus, if you put your faith in him and you put
enough faith in him, you know what?
Everything is going to be great in your life.
You're not going to have any problems.
You're going to have everything that you ever wanted.
You're going to just declare unto him all those things that you
want in your life.
And that is not what it's saying here.
It's not saying that the glad tidings comes from me getting things.
The glad tidings come from the fact that we can tell people the
good news is that you are dead in your sins.
That the good news about salvation is not getting all these
material things.
The good news about salvation is God is bringing us from death
to life, that he's taking us from hopelessness to hope.
He's taking us from eternal death to eternal life in him, in
salvation.
That's the good news.
Now, does God give us blessings in our life?
Certainly.
Is God a healer?
Certainly.
Does God see fit for some people to have physical means that
give them opportunity to serve Him?
Certainly.
But at the end of the day, that is, that does not equate God's
love.
What equates God's love, as Romans 5, verse 8 says, is that God
commended His love toward us or demonstrated his love towards
us in that while we were at sinners, he healed all of our sicknesses.
Well, not necessarily.
Not in this lifetime.
He will heal all sicknesses by the way one day when we're reunited
with him in heaven.
But no, the proof of his love is Jesus dying on the cross for our
sins.
But God commanded this love toward us in that while we are yet
sinners, Christ died for us.
That's the proof of his love.
That's the proof of the joy that we can have.
That's the proof of peace that we can have.
And so he says here, we can preach the message of the good news.
We can preach the message of peace.
We can preach the message of joy.
In the midst of difficulty, I'm going to tell you, folks, most
Sundays I get up here and I'm walking on air.
I love coming to church on Sundays.
I love preaching the message of the gospel.
But if I can be transparent with you, there's been Sunday mornings
where I am broken and I get up here and part of me just wants to
say, just close your Bibles.
Let's go to lunch early, because I'm hurting.
You say, pastor.
You're not allowed to do that.
You're a pastor.
We're human.
And I think all of you understand the same thing.
You've come into church and you've been hurting, and you might
be confused, and you might not feel the joy or feel the peace.
But, folks, we can't go off of our feelings.
Feel.
Feelings don't dictate our faith.
What dictates our faith is our foundation in the truth of Jesus
Christ.
Remember, where do we get our theology?
Not from our feelings, not from the world, not from our friends,
not from anybody else other than the Word of God.
And so therefore, in those times where we are hurting, in those
times where we don't feel the joy and peace, we must push forward
with the joy and peace that we find in Jesus Christ alone and what
his Word says.
And so he says in verse number 15, he quotes Isaiah 52.
He says, how beautiful is that message?
How beautiful are those that preach that message?
It's the most beautiful message we could ever preach.
I love giving good news.
I just was able to preach on Easter Sunday and talk about the
resurrection.
That's good news.
But even this week, I've heard some bad news.
Even throughout your life, you might have a time and place where
you have to give some bad news to somebody.
But as Christians, even though we have physical bad news in our
life, we have the greatest news that has ever been given through
the fact that people can know Jesus, that they can have a relationship
with him, and that ultimately there can be hope and life.
And so he goes to verse number 16, and again he quotes Isaiah.
He goes over one more chapter to Isaiah 53.
And if you know Isaiah 53, Isaiah 53 is that great passage of
Scripture that prophesies about the sacrifice of Jesus Christ
hundreds and hundreds of years before he comes.
And it actually is a passage of Scripture that many people avoid
because it shows who Jesus is, even back in the Old Testament.
But in Isaiah 53, there is a statement that says, who hath believed
our report?
Paul says the same thing in verse 16.
He says in Romans 10, but they have not all obeyed the Gospel.
He gets done saying how great the Gospel is.
He gets done saying that there are people out preaching the gospel.
He says, there's power in the Gospel.
He says all these things about the gospel.
Then he says in verse 16, but the truth is, is that not everybody
believes the gospel.
Not everyone has trusted in the message.
Not everyone is willing to sacrifice and say, I'm giving up
my life to believe in what Jesus Christ did for me.
And he says, for Isaiah saith, or Isaiah saith, lord, who hath believed
our report?
And so he brings out the fact that even when we preach the message
of the gospel, there are some people who still do not trust.
And he's been essentially explaining here the simplicity of
the gospel.
It's just believing.
It's believing and trusting in what God has done.
So even if salvation is so simple and it's available to everyone
who hears, why do some people reject?
And in this context, why does Paul's own people, the people that
saw Jesus, the people that witnessed Jesus on the cross, the
people that saw all these things, why do they reject?
It really isn't a matter of evidence.
It's a matter of relinquishing control, really.
Because oftentimes we think there's people in this world that
say, well, if I just saw Jesus right before me, I would believe.
But let's go back to Scripture.
Let's see what the Bible has to say.
There were people that watched Jesus right before them.
There were people that watched Jesus heal people.
There were people that watched Jesus bring people back to life.
There were people that watched Jesus feed the 5,000.
There was people that watched Jesus walk on water.
All of these miraculous things that we would think everyone would
believe if they saw that there were still people that saw all of
that that did not believe.
So it's not a matter of seeing necessarily.
It's a matter of trusting and relinquishing and saying, lord, I
want you to be my master, Lord.
That's what that word, Lord means.
It means master.
And so many people reject the gospel, not necessarily because there's
a lack of evidence, but because they are not willing to come
to Christ in faith and to submit themselves to his plan and
his purpose in their life.
It's a matter of pride.
And pride's a very interesting thing because to get rid of pride,
you have to get rid of pride.
I learned about this yesterday.
It was a really interesting concept to think about.
We were at a session at our men's conference and it was mentioned,
right?
So if I have the sin of pride, I've got to humble myself to deal
with the sin of pride.
But if I have pride, and I don't, we want my pride.
It's just going to be a pride cycle.
It's the same thing with a lot of sins in our life.
And a lot of times what people do is they say, yeah, I've got, maybe
they don't say pride, but they'll say whatever word but essentially
is encapsulated with this idea that I've got it under control.
I, I, I can handle this.
I can worship God the way that I want to worship.
I can go to church the way that I want to worship.
I can do my penance with God.
I can make an agreement with God on my terms.
But the Bible says that there were so many people trying to do
that and that did not work.
And ultimately that brings hopelessness.
And so he says what happens is this.
We all must come to the sense of believing and trusting.
And so we see that saving faith comes through what Saving faith
comes through an understanding of who God is and what he has done.
Verse number 17, he says, so then faith, that's that word that
we talked about before, belief in something.
It's what we've seen in verses 14 and others already in this chapter.
He says, so then faith cometh by hearing.
Hearing what?
And hearing by the word of God says it right there.
It's the object of our faith that matters.
Everybody has faith.
I, I know that I've probably said this before recently, but everyone
to some degree has faith in something.
Faith in their finances or faith in their health or faith in
whatever.
Faith in the government or faith in, you know, their job, what,
what, whatever it is.
There are people that have faith.
We are created to have faith.
The question is, is what are we going to place our faith in for
the believer?
We are putting our faith in what the word of God tells us about
Jesus Christ.
So it says there faith comes by hearing and hearing what?
Hearing the word of God.
We can't know what Jesus Christ did for us unless we hear
the word of God.
That's why it's so important for us to preach now.
A lot of people are trying to do church without the Bible.
A lot of people are trying to do religion and the gospel without
the Bible, without the word of God.
We're missing the point.
What if I got up here this morning and said this, all right,
guys, we're going to learn about the Lord today, but close your
Bibles and just look up here at me.
I'm going to tell you some things that's the exact opposite
of what we should be doing.
We should get in this so much more.
The preaching shouldn't come from witty sayings and stories and
analogies, this is the source of our faith.
Now.
Not.
We don't worship the Bible.
Don't get me wrong.
I'm not.
I'm not a person who sits here and worships the Bible because the
Bible is not God.
It's the word of God.
We worship the one who gave us this word, but this word is the only
way that we can know the One who saves us.
And so we don't find.
Like, for example, some people might say, well, you know, I just
went out into nature and saw whatever, whatever you like, a rainbow
or a tree or a river, you know, and, and.
And that just gave me an experience with God.
So I believe, well, God's nature doesn't save us.
God's nature is what we call general revelation, which means it
reveals to us that there is a higher being, that there is a God
out there, that there is a Creator.
But the beauty of a tree does not save us.
The beauty, the beauty of a.
A sunset across the water does not save us.
That brings us to an understanding that there is a God
who created that.
But what it says is that truly we must believe in what the Bible
says about Jesus, the person and work of, of his sacrifice.
That's what it comes to.
So if I got up here and preached a message like this, don't
clip this as a, As a short on our YouTube channel, because this
is not theologically correct.
But the reality would be this, if I got up here and said, trust
in Jesus.
He'll make your life better.
He doesn't want you to sacrifice anything.
He just wants you to come to him and he won't change you.
He'll just accept you for who you are, and you just keep on doing
what you feel is right.
Now, that sounds.
To a person who is not educated in the word of God, that
sounds kind of warm and fuzzy, like, man, he just loves me.
He just wants to do anything for me.
He agrees with me.
He wants me just not to do anything, just.
Just to say that I love Him.
Well, just saying that I love something doesn't mean anything.
But the reality is, is that type of preaching is not based in
this.
What's it based in?
It's based in modern thinking.
It's based in my feelings.
It's based in our culture.
Any preaching that's not based in this is not preaching.
What is preaching.
But it's not gospel preaching.
It's not Bible preaching.
It's.
It's person on their hobby horse preaching something that is
not in the Word of God.
And so what does he say in verse 17?
He says, Faith, true saving faith comes from hearing the preaching
of the Word of God.
That's why, unapologetically, Middletown Baptist Church will preach
the word of God.
We can't go off of anything else.
I could sit up here and tell you all my experiences, but my experiences
really, in the grand scheme of everything, mean nothing.
Okay.
It might just point us to a point that we see in scripture.
I could tell you about my feelings, but my feelings mean absolutely
zero to your eternal standing in heaven.
What matters is this right here.
And everything that we do, whether it be from our Sunday school
kids class all the way up to every single ministry that we have
at the church, is it must be based in the Word of God.
So he says.
So then faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the Word of
God.
Now, faith is not just for salvation, even though faith is what
saves us.
But we are supposed to have faith every single day of our life
because we not only are saved by our faith, but we are also sanctified
by our faith.
We only grow through trusting in the Lord.
So what does that mean?
That means this.
Every single day.
We need the Word of God to drive us in what we believe about
Him.
Folks, spiritual growth is not just trying harder.
Spiritual growth is trusting in the grace of our Lord and Savior
and believing in faith that he will do what he says he will do.
And the only way that we will know that is by knowing his Word.
You can't trust in promises that you don't know.
The promises are still there.
Well, what if, what if, what if someone left my family?
They said, you know, they wrote in their will that we're leaving
the Massaro family.
You know, a 200 acre farm out in the middle of the countryside,
and it's all theirs.
I would be like, amen, that's great.
But we didn't know that that was promised to us.
Would that promise be still for us?
Sure.
All we would have to do is receive it and take it.
But if we were not aware, if no one told us, if no one who read
that will reported it to us, we would never know that that was
a promise for us.
It's the same thing with our Christian faith.
There are promises of God, full in the word of God, that give
us confidence, that give us hope, that give us security.
But if I don't know what the promises are, I'm never going to
be able to live in that.
I'm never going to be able to personalize it and attribute it to
my life.
And that's what many Christians are doing.
They're just walking with a very shallow faith and not understanding
how much God has said, how much God has promised in His Word.
And Therefore that verse 17 is so important because, yes, so salvation
comes through faith in the Word of God and knowing what the
Word of God has to say, but also sanctification, spiritual growth,
and spiritual hope that follows.
Salvation is found in the Word of God as well.
And so what I would encourage you to do and what to think about
here this morning is this.
What are you placing your faith in?
Well, really, it should only be in the Lord Jesus Christ.
That's the only place, that's the only object of faith that is
sustainable.
But then also what we should also understand as a believer is
the way that we can grow in that.
The way that we can understand that is through the Word of God.
And so, yes, the medium in which that happens is through the
preaching.
If you're hearing a preacher and he's not bringing forth the Word
of God, then that is a.
That is something that's going to mislead.
But what I will also say is that not only can you hear preaching,
hopefully on Sunday mornings and other times throughout your week,
but also the Word of God speaks for itself.
And I would encourage you to get into the Word of God yourself,
to get into the Bible to study the promises of God.
And someone says, where do I start?
Well, I would say there's no bad place to start.
There's probably places that are a little bit more clear when
it comes to certain aspects of the promises of God.
But where to start?
I would say read through the Gospel of John.
The Gospel of John is a great place to start to look at what we
have in Jesus Christ.
But then breaking off of that, if you trust in Jesus Christ as your
Savior, I would say the book of Ephesians is a wonderful book
of the Bible that speaks to the blessings and the riches that
we have in Jesus Christ.
Certainly many, many, many other places that you could read.
But if you're just totally lost in saying, where do I start
when it comes to knowing the blessings that God has given me in
my life, go to those passages and read through them and read through
them over and over again and allow that to permeate your thinking,
because that's where we come to the idea of what we believe about
God.
What we believe about God matters.
Theology matters, because what we believe and think about God will
ultimately affect the way that we live in our life.
It'll ultimately affect the way that we share our faith with
other people.
If I.
What if.
What if I went to somebody and said, well, I'm supposed to tell
you to be a Christian, but my life's pretty miserable, so I don't
know if you want to be miserable with me.
Guys, don't evangelize that way.
That's not a good way to evangelize.
The way to tell other people about Jesus is by telling them the
joy and the peace and the satisfaction and the salvation that
you find in him.
And sometimes it's just giving your testimony.
The greatest preaching could be someone's testimony.
Because some people say, I, I don't know if I could get up and
preach a.
A sermon for 30 minutes.
I don't know if I could get up and.
And outline something.
Well, folks, you don't have to do that.
That's not mandatory.
What's mandatory is proclaiming the truth of God and
what he has done for you.
So the greatest preaching possibly could be through your testimony,
what God has done for you.
And I would encourage you to break that down.
I would encourage you to come up if, if anything, your first sermon
should be your testimony.
You say, what are you talking about, Pastor?
You're going off the rails here.
We're supposed to have a sermon.
Every one of you should have at least one sermon in your back
pocket.
And that sermon should be your testimony about what Jesus Christ
has done for you.
And I would break it down in three different areas.
I would explain to somebody your experience.
Everyone's experience is a little bit different.
I wouldn't stop at the experience.
Many people stop their testimony at the experience.
Well, I felt that this happened to me, and that's where
it ends.
The reality is, is that all of us perceive certain things that God
does for us in our life.
So start with the experience.
But then I would also say, get to an explanation.
Explain to someone what God has done for you.
Explain that.
Explain what it means when you say to someone that isn't a Christian.
Well, I just felt like God was leading me to this place.
Well, for a person who is not a Christian, that sounds like a really
foreign concept.
What was God like in the sky with a sword and leading you?
Or, you know, there are some things that some people don't understand
when we talk in our Christian language.
I just felt really, you know, compelled that the Lord was leading
me to this church and that he was bringing me here.
There's a lot of people that might not understand what that's
all about.
So explain it.
But then I would also say to keep the analogy of the.
The E's going, the alliteration of the E's.
So you have the experience, you have the explanation, then you
have something called the exposition.
Exposition would be teaching what that means specifically according
to Scripture.
So let me just give you a brief example.
When our son was born, Silas was born, there was a lot of uncertainty
with his birth.
And I definitely struggle with that.
And I didn't understand why that had to happen at that very moment.
But at the same time, through that time, we were able to rely on
the Lord more and we were able to see his strength in our life.
And now we can look back and I can explain it very clearly why we
went through certain things at that time.
And so the exposition would be that through that God taught us that
he will never leave us nor forsake us.
Right there.
It was a 30 second analogy there.
But what I'm saying is, is this.
We have to explain what God is doing in our life to other people.
That's a proclamation of the truth.
So how can you preach?
You can preach through your testimony, you can preach through
your actions, you can preach through a lesson, you can preach
through a sermon, you can preach through the way that you work,
you can preach through the way that you parent, you can preach to
the way that you live broadly, as we've already mentioned.
And so what I would encourage you to do is think about where your
role is in that ministry of preaching.
You say, well, Pastor, you got the preaching ministry of the church.
Well, I've got the corporate preaching ministry.
Okay, I love it.
I will do that.
I will take, take that mantle and gladly.
But what I also am saying is I can't preach to everyone that you're
preaching to think about.
If all of us get out and see that impact, where's your preaching
ministry?
Actually, Second Corinthians tells us that we're all supposed
to have a ministry of reconciliation, which means this,
all of us should have a ministry of bringing people that
are lost into the fold.
Now, ultimately it's God who's doing it, but we're the ones that
are introducing the message of the gospel to people.
So there's a lot of lessons here this morning that we could think
about.
But the greatest lesson is this.
There is a need in the world today and there's a need of salvation
there.
There is a method in which God has called us to present the gospel
to people.
He says, how can they believe if they have not heard the method
of Getting the gospel to people is through preaching.
But then he says, how can they, how can they hear, how can
they believe if they aren't sent?
How can they preach if they're not sent?
And so really the idea would be this and think about it.
If you could just think about two different words, you can just
take two words with you.
Go and send God yourself and find someone or some people to train
to send.
For some of you that have children in your home, you have a
built in classroom right there, okay?
That's your mission field.
For my three kids, my.
I want my kids to be successful in school.
I want my kids to be successful in sports and music and
all the things that they endeavor to do.
But my greatest prayer for my home is that they become three disciples
that they can go and send and pass that on to the next generation.
That's the first mission field.
Some of you say, well, there was that mission field is gone.
That ship has sailed.
Even if you have adult children, by the way, you can still
be a disciple to them.
I'm going to tell you, my dad, I'm a pastor, but my dad ministers
to me.
He's not a pastor, but, but his influence in my life, even as
an adult has, has affected and shaped the way that I pastor.
So who knows what your influence in your adult children's
life will be, or your grandchildren or your nieces and
nephews, or your co workers, whatever it is.
But think about the opportunity for you to be the one
who, as it says, makes disciples.
And so we come to that passage there in Romans chapter 10, and I'm
going to close with this.
He says, so faith come by hearing and hearing by the word of
God.
How is the word of God?
How is the Bible affecting your belief?
What is affecting your belief?
What are you putting your faith in?
Are you putting your faith on how you feel today?
That's going to lie to you.
Don't be like the people in the movies that say, trust your heart,
trust your heart.
Your heart will never fail you.
It's not biblical, okay?
Trust the Holy Spirit, trust the word.
But.
But your heart will tell you things that will make you believe
certain things about God and about his work for you that are not
true.
There's mornings that I wake up and my heart tells me, just don't
do it anymore.
It's not worth it.
You're not even that effective anyway.
Maybe some of you have had that, maybe, maybe in a different
way, but you've had that reminder from your feelings.
Then maybe you can't do what God has called you to do.
Don't go to that.
Go to what the Word says.
Go to the word that he's not going to leave you nor forsake you,
that he's being confident of this very thing, that he which started
a good work and you will complete it, will finish it.
Think about those things that the Word of God says and that what
drives, that's what should drive our focus and our faith.
So there's so much more to be said, but we're going to come back
next week and we're going to look at the fact that, yes, there
are people that do not believe, even though they hear, they
don't believe.
What do we do with that?
What's.
What's the understanding?
Is God limited in his power because some people don't believe?
Well, we're going to see more about that when we come back next
week.
But the true question that I'd like to ask everyone, starting out
here in this time of invitation, it would be this, number
one, do you have faith?
Have you done what the verse nine says?
It says, if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and
shall believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the
dead, thou shalt be saved.
Have you called upon the name of the Lord?
Have you believed as it says there in verse 14?
If that's the case, praise God for that.
But secondarily, are you the one going?
Are you the one preaching?
Well, that's not my job.
No, it's all of our jobs.
All of us have different spiritual gifts in which we preach.
But really, essentially, we're all preachers of the gospel.
And the Bible says here how beautiful are the feet of them which
preach the gospel of peace and bring glad tidings of good things.
Do you see the opportunity to preach the gospel or proclaim the
gospel or to share the gospel of blessing?
Or is it something that is foreign to you?
Question would be, maybe, where can I go?
What can I do to share my faith?
But then the second question is, maybe you're sharing your faith,
but also I would say this.
Who are you training to do that?
Coming up.
Who's.
Who's the next person up?
Who's your apprentice?
Who's that person who you can say, I'm looking to, and I'm giving
them the clarity and understanding of what I was given
in my life.
That's that level of discipleship.
And then lastly here it says, so faith comes by hearing, cometh
by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
What's your relationship with the Word of God?
You say, I love the Lord.
He's.
He's my everything.
But I don't really need his word.
I don't really like to study the Bible.
I don't like to hear anything about the Bible.
I just love God with all my heart.
Folks.
Do you understand the.
The mistake in that thinking?
What if I told you guys I love my wife so much?
She's my heart, she's my world, she's my everything.
But I'm not going to listen to her when she talks to me.
I don't need to talk to her.
We're just.
I love her from a distance.
Some of you would say, well, that's Pastor, that's a big problem.
Okay?
You don't really love your wife if you're like that.
We have a lot of Christians who say, I love Jesus so much.
He's my everything.
But I don't need to hear what he's saying to me.
It's just not that important.
I don't need to talk to him through prayer.
That's just not important.
Folks, we got to connect the dots.
We got to connect to what we're saying and what we believe
to be what the Bible says that we should love this thing because
this is God's love letter to us.
We should strive to be with him in those moments.
So where's your faith come from?
Well, it comes from hearing the truth of who Jesus is.
Where's your theology based in?
Is it based in the Word or is it based in the world?
Easy.
Easy answer.
For many people, it's.
Well, it's the world.
It's whatever is around me.
I don't know, just the way I feel.
And so the question might be here this morning.
Are you willing to say my faith comes from the Word and not
the world?
And so for the next few moments, I'm going to have the music
playing.
I'm asking if you're able to stand with me.
Every head bowed, hearts bowed, eyes closed, no one looking
around.
I really just don't want this to be a time of performance.
But if you want to respond to the Word here this morning in some
capacity, I'm going to give everyone an opportunity to come.
Either kneel here at the steps or find a pew where you can just
place yourself and come to a place of reflection and understanding
about what we've talked about here this morning.
Do you need Jesus as your savior?
Come forward.
We've got a few people up here that will show you in the Word of
God, what it means to trust in Jesus.
Do you need more faith?
Maybe you've been struggling, Maybe you've been doubting.
It's okay to admit that there was a fellow in the New Testament
said, lord, I believe, but help my unbelief.
It's okay to recognize that you're struggling with faith, but
push forward.
Push forward with trusting in the Lord and ask him to give you
more strength when it comes to understanding what the Word of God
says.
But maybe it's just that idea of discipleship.
Maybe you've been challenged this morning to see where God's place
is for you in that process.
May this be a time of reflection, response and ultimately
repentance and renewal in Jesus Christ.
Lord, I pray that you be in this time of invitation, working
hearts and lives.
We ask all these things in Jesus name.
Amen.
As the music plays, follow as the Lord leads.
Here this morning.
It.
Thank you again for listening to the Middletown Baptist Church
Podcast.
I hope that this sermon has been a blessing for you.
You if you would like to find out more information about our church
or this sermon, you can find us at middletownbaptistchurch.org
or find us on Facebook or YouTube.
You can also email me directly at Josh Massaro Middletown BaptistChurch.com
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