Scripture: Romans 10:9-21
Spreading the Love of Christ Outside Our Walls
Jesus said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation.”
Mark 16:15
Introduction
- Welcome back this week to more from Paul’s letter to the Romans.
- Remember the Roman Jews and Roman Christians are back thanks to Nero.
- Paul is trying to inspire in these Roman Christians an outlet for their faith.
- Today we celebrate an outlet for our faith that we got from Operation Christmas Child.
- According to samaritanspurse.org:
In the summer of 1993, Samaritan’s Purse President Franklin Graham received a call from a man in England asking if he’d be willing to fill shoeboxes with gifts for children in Eastern Europe. Franklin agreed, but figured Christmas was months away. He forgot about the promise until he received a call back around Thanksgiving asking about the gifts.
In 1993 Samaritan’s Purse sent 28,000 shoebox gifts to children in the Balkans that Christmas.
Since 1993, more than 232 million children in more than 170 countries and territories have received an Operation Christmas Child shoebox. The project delivers not only the joy of what, for many kids, is their first gift ever, but also gives them a tangible expression of God’s love.
- God wants us to spread the love of Christ outside of our walls.
- 9 If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
- This is a very simple message and the key to eternal life with God in heaven
- Although it is a simple message, it is not an EASY
- We tend to overthink things and try to put divine things into human terms.
- Paul says that it is not about our intelligence or human reasoning,
- 10 For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved.
- It’s about the heart; faith is something deep down inside where we believe.
- This is the message that we need to get outside our walls and into the world
- 11 As Scripture says in Isaiah 28:16, “Anyone who believes in him will never be put to shame.”
- We just can’t go wrong if we truly believe in Him deep down in our hearts.
- 12 Paul said: “For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile.”
- Remember that he is writing to Rome, an outpost of the Christian Way.
- It was a church of believers that sprung up on its own in a very diverse land.
- Rome was home to Roman and Greek pagans, and both Jews who accepted Christ, and those who rejected
- Paul is appealing to all the people who the Roman church might come into contact when he said:
- “the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him,”
- Peter tells us in 2 Peter 3:9:
“The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead, he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.
- The Lord does not discriminate; He wants everyone to be saved.
- 13 Paul quotes Joel 2:32: “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
- If all it takes is to call on the name of the Lord, then how do we know?
- 14 How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in?
- It’s up to us to introduce people to Christ so that they have a chance to believe in Him,
- This is why the Operation Christmas Child program is so important because it introduces children around the world to Jesus Christ.
- Paul asks: “And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard?”
- The Operation Christian Child boxes may be the first or only way that children around the world hear about Christ
- Paul goes on to ask: ”And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?”
- The message that we preach with our boxes is the love of Christ.
- Our message is that we care and want to reach children with toys and gifts in an effort to introduce them to Christ.
- 15 Paul asks: “And how can anyone preach unless they are sent?”
- Today we are sending out hundreds of boxes from our church that will mingle with many thousands more.
- As it is written in Isaiah 52:7: “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!”
- We don’t know where our boxes will go exactly, but God
- Somewhere there is a child who needs to get a box, but mostly needs to hear about the great hope found only in Jesus Christ.
- 16 But not all the Israelites accepted the good news.
- We don’t know what people will do with the knowledge of Christ.
- We do know that some will reject
- For Isaiah asks in 53:1, “Lord, who has believed our message?”
- 17 Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word about Christ.
- It all starts with hearing the truth about Jesus Christ.
- Tell people, as I do, to pick up a bible and FIRST turn to the Gospel of John
- Not Genesis; not the beginning start with John to know who Jesus really is
- 18 But I ask: Did they not hear? Of course they did, Paul quotes Psalm 19:4: “Their voice has gone out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.”
- The Operation Christmas Child program is taking our message to the very ends of the earth, more than 170 countries, but it is only the beginning.
- 19 Again I ask: Did Israel not understand?
- Israel was blind to the truth of Jesus Christ and many did not understand.
- It wasn’t because they didn’t hear the message; Jesus went to them first.
- It wasn’t until Paul came along with his mission and ministry, that the message was deliberately taken outside of the Jews to the Gentiles.
- First, Moses says, “I will make you envious by those who are not a nation; I will make you angry by a nation that has no understanding.”
- Moses is quoting Deuteronomy 32:21 here when he talks about the frustration they will have.
- 20 And Isaiah boldly says in 65.1: “I was found by those who did not seek me; I revealed myself to those who did not ask for me.”
- Again we hear from samaritanspurse.org about how God works:
Seeking to follow Jesus’ command to “make disciples of all the nations” (Matthew 28:19), we have trained over 2.2 million volunteers from these congregations to teach The Greatest Journey, our dynamic follow-up discipleship course for shoebox recipients. Since 2009, 46 million children have enrolled in this 12-lesson program to learn how to follow Christ and share Him with others. More than 24 million of these boys and girls have made a decision to accept Jesus as their Savior during the course.
- 21 But concerning Israel Isaiah says in 65.2: “All day long I have held out my hands to a disobedient and obstinate people.”
- We will experience frustration and discouragement as we step outside our walls and try to reach others for Christ
- Operation Christmas Child is a great first step, but we need to continue to seek out new and different ways to make the truth of the Gospel known outside our walls.
- What else can we do to reach people with the message of the hope of eternal life that comes ONLY from Jesus Christ?
- 24 million children have accepted Christ thanks to Operation Christmas Child one of these boxes could mean eternal salvation for a child.