Gospel Responsibility in the Face of Gospel Rejection
Sermon Notes
Good morning, so glad you came to worship with us and that I get to open up the Word for us. We’ll take a second to dismiss our elementary school students to children’s ministry. You can still sign your child in if you didn’t get a chance to do so before the service. Today, we’re continuing our walk through Paul’s letter to the Roman church. Now it seems like Paul had a lot of papyrus or velum handy when it came time to write the book of Romans, because it is quite a long book. And Paul uses that space to fully articulate and flesh out many theological truths. So often we find ourselves preaching for multiple weeks covering the many facets of a single idea, and today is no different.
The last few weeks have seen us wrestle with the concepts of God’s sovereignty and control and humanity’s free will and personal responsibly. I would encourage you to listen back to those sermons if you missed them. We’ve seen that God’s and man’s wills don’t contradict each other but actually work in concert with each other. Today, we are going to look at Romans 10:14-21 to focus on a negative phenomenon that happens in this interplay, Rejection. We know from experience and from our past few weeks in Romans that people reject God and the Gospel. Many of you can contest that even people who eventually come to faith walk through a time of rejecting the Gospel and this can go on for years. Everyone in here knows what it feels like to be rejected by someone or for an opportunity. But think about how crazy it is that the perfect and all-powerful God of the universe deals with rejection as well. Today’s Sermon is titled “Gospel Responsibility in the Face of Gospel Rejection” and we are going to look at why many end up rejecting the Gospel but that that doesn’t negate our responsibility to share the Gospel.
Context
Just to make sure we understand that context of Paul’s argument here. He’s been focusing on the Jewish people of Israel to help make his point. We learn in the OT that Israel are God’s chosen people. God gave them the law and protected the lineage of Jesus through Jewish history. But many people in Israel, both in the OT and during Paul’s life, rejected God. In the OT they started worshipping foreign gods and idols and in Paul’s day they rejected Jesus as the Messiah that the OT promised. And in the first half of chapter 10 Paul lays out how a person responds to the Gospel and acts out their human responsibility. He says in verse 13, “For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” So God doesn’t choose that someone is saved and sneak salvation into their life in secret. We need to call upon God with the truth of the Gospel to be saved and some people choose not to do so. This brings us to our text in verse 14.
Sermon Body
14 How, then, can they call on him they have not believed in? And how can they believe without hearing about him? And how can they hear without a preacher? 15 And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written: How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news.
As we’ve seen a bunch so far in Romans, Paul hits us with a bunch of rhetorical questions. What he’s trying to get us to understand is if everyone who calls on the Lord will be saved, what needs to happen to get people to call on Him. They need to believe the truth about themselves and God, which means someone has to teach them that, which means their have to be teachers prepared and willing to be sent out to teach this good news.
This leads us to our first Reason for Rejection of the Gospel: The Ignorance Reason. Many people reject God because they do not know the specific information about Jesus as the perfect and only sacrifice for our sins. Now if you’ve been with us for the whole series, you may be thinking of Romans 1:20-22 where we talked about God’s revelation of himself in Creation leaving everyone without excuse. We call that general revelation and what it is sufficient to do is provide proof of the existence of God to all mankind. No one can appear before God and have an excuse for not knowing that there is a God. But look back even within Romans 10 and you can see that some specific details are needed in order to be saved. 10:9 tells us that we need to confess that Jesus is Lord and believe that he was raised from the dead to be saved. You don’t learn that from nature, but from reading or being taught the Word of God.
This should give you a burden for what missionary organizations call unreached people groups. People that have little to no written Scripture in their language and little to no access to foreign missionaries or native Christian believers. These verses are essential when we talk about sending out missionaries or when we talk about evangelism, taking the Gospel to those that need it whether that is across oceans or the street. Now we will circle back to that at the end of the message when we talk about what we are called to do in light of this passage. But for now let’s see a couple other Rejection reasons by following the argument Paul is making and how it ties into his use of Israel as an example.
16 But not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, Lord, who has believed our message?
This is the second Reason for Rejection today: The Disobedience Reason
Here we see the rejection of God that we’ve been talking about the last few weeks on display. The sequence that Paul lays out in verses 14 and 15 isn’t some kind of deterministic, fool-proof formula. Christians can be faithful to bring the Gospel to someone who is lost, we may present it perfectly. But they can still reject it. You’ve probably experienced this in your life. Maybe it’s a close friend or even a member of your immediate family. You’ve presented the Gospel numerous times and loved them for years only for them to still reject it. It’s heartbreaking.
The quote from Isaiah is one of many OT quotes that Paul will use to illustrate these points. He does this to show that this isn’t some new theological concept that he just came up with, but one that God, in his sovereignty has been teaching from the beginning. This quote is especially chilling because it comes from Isaiah 53, which is the most detailed and clear prophecies of the eventual death of Jesus on the cross. But even with that kind of clarity and foretelling, most of the Jews in Paul’s day rejected Jesus. So, we learn that for many, they aren’t lost because of a lack of information but lack of obedience. Let’s explore this more.
17 So faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes through the message about Christ. 18 But I ask, “Did they not hear?” Yes, they did: Their voice has gone out to the whole earth,
and their words to the ends of the world.
Verse 17 is simply the process described by the questions in vs. 14-15 simplified. Then Paul jumps back into his questions about Israel. He shows that they really did hear from God over and over again. The end of verse 18 is a quote from Psalm 19. That psalm is talking about the general revelation of God, similar to what we talked about in Romans 1. God has made himself known enough in Creation to remove the excuse of ignorance from all people. But Paul is using it to say that Israel has the same lack of excuse when it comes to the Special revelation of God to them through the Law and prophets. They heard over and over that God would be their Lord and Redeemer and many still rejected him. God was faithful and sovereign to have them hear, they were responsible for rejecting him.
You can see that Paul is walking backwards through his opening rhetorical questions when it comes to the salvation or rejection of the Jewish people. Were there preachers and teachers sent to Israel with the message of how to follow God? Emphatically, yes. Did those messengers and their message reach the people so that they could hear it. Again, yes. Paul’s got one more rhetorical question to round out his argument here and give us our third Reason for Rejection. Let’s take a look.
19 But I ask, “Did Israel not understand?”
So Paul throws out one more lifeline, one more question as to why Israel and others who hear and know the Gospel might reject it. Maybe it’s hard to understand. Maybe accepting the Gospel is something that requires a long process, and they didn’t get enough time. Maybe those that rejected God had life experiences/traumas or were just wired a certain way that made them less susceptible to believe. Maybe they just had a few more questions or a feeling of reluctance that they couldn’t explain. They could see some of the benefits of following God but still weren’t sure it was worth the commitment to accept him fully. This spirituality thing is so complex that maybe they just needed more time and then they could make the informed choice to call out to Jesus as Lord. If you came to faith later in life, you probably recognize some of these excuses as things you said and thought before you became a Christian. Or maybe you’re listening to me right now, and you’re the one saying these things.
I’m gonna call this Reason for Rejection: The Failure to Submit Reason.
Many people who hear the Gospel end up rejecting don’t do it out of straight up defiance like we talked about in the Disobedience section. It’s a softer rejection. They just never get to the point where they feel like they truly need to call on God. They just keep finding reasons to stay on the outside of full faith in God. It can be questions (they won’t intellectually submit to the truths of Scripture), gut feelings, or simply some apathy. They don’t want or see the need to fully submit that they are sinners in need of God’s grace. They enjoy some the social and emotional benefits of the faith but not all the implications. Jesus warned about this kind of thinking when he said that we needed to approach him with a childlike faith. This doesn’t mean that we have to shut our brains off to follow Jesus. But it does mean that we should at least have the humility to admit that God knows more than we do and is greater than us.
Let’s see what Paul says about this question of understanding.
19 But I ask, “Did Israel not understand?” First, Moses said,
I will make you jealous
of those who are not a nation;
I will make you angry by a nation
that lacks understanding.
We get another OT quote here. This time from Deuteronomy 32. This is Moses telling the history of Israel’s salvation from slavery in Egypt only for a generation of them to reject God and turn to false idols before even reaching the Promised Land. And God’s response to this is the inspiration for countless teen movies and tv shows. If she doesn’t like me, I’ll date one of her friends to make her jealous. But God isn’t a selfish teenager, He’s the only true God of the universe. So, who does he bring in to spark Israel’s jealousy? The Gentile nations of course, for most of us in the room, that’s us. All the way back in the time of Moses and the Israelites, God promised that even people that lacked understanding could follow Him. The Jewish nation of Israel had hundreds of years of history of God working on their behalf to lean back on. They had the stories of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, their growth into a large nation in Egypt after they escaped famine, the plagues and deliverance out of Egypt, the giving of the law at Mt. Sinai. But many still chose to reject God.
Early Gentile believers didn’t have all that stored up history and religious teaching. They didn’t have generations of stories and evidence to go by. They simply saw what God was doing and who he was and started following him. This kind of jealousy even played out in the early church. You can see this in the book of Acts. Jewish Christians had issues with Gentile Christians joining in. “They don’t understand our customs or food laws or when the holidays are…ugh, they aren’t circumcised. How can they possibly follow Jesus?” The early church had to hold a council to decree that Gentiles didn’t have to become Jewish before they could be Christian. They didn’t need to know the all the information to start following, just the most important information about the person and work of Jesus.
Paul shows us another example of this from the OT.
20 And Isaiah says boldly,
I was found
by those who were not looking for me;
I revealed myself
to those who were not asking for me.
21 But to Israel he says, All day long I have held out my hands to a disobedient and defiant people.
Your understanding of all aspects of the Gospel is not what brings salvation, it’s your obedience in light of it. There are people that can write dissertations on the Bible that are as lost they can be (and many would tell you so) [Bart Ehrman vs Rosaria Butterfield], and there are people that can only misquote half a Bible verse and become Christians on fire for God. (Disclaimer: we aren’t supposed to stay that way, but it’s a fine starting place)
The final verse truly encapsulates the dynamic between God’s sovereign will and our free will. God holds his hands out to all people. He gives us the Word, he reveals himself in Creation, he sends out his people to make himself known. But many people respond with disobedience and defiance.
Lots of rejection of God in these verses. As Christians, how do we fit into all this? I told you we would circle back to verses 14 and 15, which leads us to the Big Idea for today’s message. The Big Idea is: Be Faithful to bring the Gospel to the Lost, then let them and God work it out.
All Christians are called to be the preachers with beautiful feet as Paul describes them. Don’t let the word preach trick you into thinking that’s for pastors or specially called missionaries. Everyone can and should be doing this. That is our calling as a church is to be a specific group of Christians that is constantly sending out people to spread the Gospel. We don’t end each sermon with “You are Sent” to be cool and edgy, it’s a reminder that what we do during this time is supposed to equip and fuel us for how we interact with lostness in the world around us.
And we certainly face challenges in this responsibility, even here at home. Over the last 10-20 years, polls and census data show that the fastest growing (and sometimes only positive growing) religious groups in the US is called the “Nones” or Not Affiliated. These are people that are un or de-churched and don’t claim membership to any religion. We have truly moved into a post-Christian society. Basic biblical beliefs that used to be pillars of our culture are now seen as regressive, phobic, and things that need to be deconstructed. We used to be able to assume that even non-Christians in America operated under essentially a Christian worldview, but that is not a good assumption to make anymore.
Oddly enough we even see this starting to permeate the church itself. Lifeway Research conducted an evangelism study in 2022 asking self-identifying Christians a lot of questions about evangelism and church attendance. It had some interesting findings that show the cognitive dissonance that many in the church feel when it comes to sharing their faith.
· 69% still agree that it is the responsibility of Christians to encourage non-Christians to trust in Christ as their savior. (A majority but still lower than you’d hope)
· (However) 52% of identifying Christians agree that encouraging someone to change their religious beliefs is offensive and disrespectful
· When asked to describe how they feel about evangelism, 62% had a negative response such as indifference, reluctance, neutrality, or not sure.
So while most Christians still think evangelism should be done, there is this growing negativity about it. Since our culture so highly values individualism and doing what feels right, anything that may cause someone to subject that will to another standard is offensive or even oppressive.
All of this may have you feeling discouraged and that evangelism is an impossible burden to bear. But that strain is ease when you recognize that we aren’t called to bear the entire burden. It’s like if someone plopped you in a warehouse and told you to build an entire car from scratch. That would be a daunting and impossible task. But if they told you that there was an assembly line for building cars and your job was to simply fill the tires with air, that’s totally doable, you can handle that. Evangelism is the same way. It is not our job to solve every possible reason that someone may use to reject God. We are called to cover the Ignorance Reason. We are simply called to tell people the truth about who Jesus is and what He has done. We should do this in a loving way and we should certainly try to find an effective way to do it depending on who we are sharing with. But that is where our power and responsibility end.
You do not have the power to soften a hardened heart, so don’t strain as if you do. You may not have the answer to every question that someone might have, that’s ok be faithful with what you can answer. You cannot do not have access to everyone all around the world, so be faithful to share with the people you do have access to and pray and give to the effort of reaching other people across the world. When you rightly understand what you are supposed to do, you’ll find that you are more than capable to do it.
If you are not a Christian today, I urge you make today the day that stop rejecting God and instead call upon him as Lord and Savior. No one is on neutral ground when it comes to this. We are either submitted to God with Jesus as our Savior or we are in active rebellion against God. But that can change. I don’t know the specifics of why you are rejecting God, but I do know for sure that God is loving and powerful enough and we as a church are willing enough to help you walk through those difficulties if you were to begin to walk with Jesus.