Why We Need to Share the Gospel (Rom. 10.8-17)

Scripture: Romans 10.8-17

Translation: ⁸Instead, what does [righteousness by faith] say? “The message is near you, in your mouth and in your heart,” that is the message of faith, which we are preaching: ⁹namely that, if you would confess with your mouth “Jesus is Lord/Yahweh” and believe with your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved! ¹⁰Afterall, with the heart a person believes resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth a person confesses resulting in salvation. ¹¹Because the Scripture says, “Everyone who believes on Him will not be put to shamed, ¹²because there’s no difference between both Jew and Greek, because the Same Lord is over all, being rich enough for all the people who call on Him. ¹³because whoever all on the Name of the Lord/Yahweh will be saved. ¹⁴How then can they call on whom they haven’t believed in? And how can they believe whom they haven’t heard of? And how can they hear with someone proclaiming? ¹⁵And how can they proclaim, if they haven’t been sent? Just like it really is written, “Like things coming just in the nick of time are the feet of the people telling the Good News!” ¹⁶Yet, not all people obey the Good News. After all, Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed our report?” ¹⁷So, the faith is from hearing, and the hearing through the spoken-message of the Messiah.

Interpretation

1.      Structure

a.       Context: Romans 9-11

                                                              i.      Rom. 9.1-29

                                                            ii.      Rom. 9.30-10.21

1.      Rom. 9.30-33

2.      Rom. 10.1-4

3.      Rom. 10.5-13

4.      Rom. 10.14-21

                                                          iii.      Rom. 11.1-36

2.      Themes

a.       Faith/believing

b.      Hearing

c.       Telling the good news/announcing/proclaiming/preaching/Good News/Gospel/spoken words

d.      Saved/salvation

e.       Righteousness

f.       Confession

g.      No difference

h.      Calling on

i.        Jesus is Lord/Yahweh

j.        Jesus has been raised from the dead

3.      Doctrines

a.       Jesus is Yahweh; He is Lord; He is the One True God

b.      Jesus is alive, raised from the dead by God

c.       Salvation is by faith alone

d.      God saves, but He works through people telling other people the Good News (the doctrine of compatibilism: i.e. that God works through our actions to achieve many of His aims, so that our actions and choices are the means He has chosen to achieve His ends)

e.       People have to hear the Gospel to be saved, which means people have to tell the Good News

f.       God usually will not personally tell someone the Good News, because He wants to work through us

Applications

1.      Outline

a.       Why We tell people the Good News: Because it is Good News for everybody

                                                              i.      It is good news, because they don’t have to do anything, just believe and ask God to save them

                                                            ii.      It’s good news, because it’s not a complicated message to believe

1.      Jesus is the Only True God, their God/Lord

2.      Jesus was raised from the dead by God the Father, their Savior

                                                          iii.      It’s good news, because believing in Jesus for salvation guarantees salvation

                                                          iv.      It’s good news, because all kinds of people can get saved: Jews, Greeks, Koreans, Africans, Hindus, Muslims, Satan-worshippers, Catholics, atheists, agnostics

1.      As far as God is concerned, there’s no difference, they’re all in the same category: dead, lost, and doomed

2.      God is rich enough in mercy and grace and Christ’s blood to save all the people who ask Him to save them

b.      Why We tell people the Good News: Because if we won’t tell, they won’t believe

                                                              i.      People have to hear and accept the Gospel to be saved, so we have to tell them

                                                            ii.      God wants to work through us to bring people to Him, so we have to tell them

                                                          iii.      Does that mean if I tell someone, they will for sure get saved? No, they have to hear and believe. But we can’t know who will or won’t hear and believe, so we have to tell them

                                                          iv.      But to tell them, we need to be sent to tell them? But the truth is that we all have been sent by Jesus, but soon we will have a special time/service to send you, and that time starts now with the next song, moreover, this is part of why we are going to start getting out of this building and into this world at least once a month, and over the summer, we may do it even more than that, because we really have been sent.

2.      Questions

a.       If you had 2 minutes to tell someone the Good News about Jesus, what would you say?

b.      When does someone become a Christian? How do you know?

c.       How does it make you feel to know that God wants to work through you to save people? Do you think that will make it easier or harder to tell people about Jesus?

d.      When you pray and talk with God, or when you read His Word, do you sense that He has called you to share Him with the world?

e.       Who do you know that needs Jesus? Have you had an opportunity to tell them? If you did, did you take it? If not, what held you back?

f.       Pray for 5 people that you know need to trust in Jesus. Pray for them every day this week and ask for an opportunity to talk to them this week.