Good News in a Bad News World
Pastor: Allen Snapp Series: The Summit Of Our Salvation Topic: Hope Passage: Romans 10:11–17
The Summit of Our Salvation
Allen Snapp
Grace Community Church
Dec. 1, 2024
Good News in a Bad News World
11 For the Scripture says, “Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.” 12 For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him. 13 For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
14 How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? 15 And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!” 16 But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?” 17 So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.
The Bible says Jesus came preaching the good news of the kingdom. Good news of healing for the sick and blind and the lame. Good news of deliverance for the demon possessed. Good news for the dead and their bereaved loved ones. One day it says Jesus was walking into a village just as a funeral procession was coming out. A widow had lost her only son. This woman had already buried her husband and now she’s burying her only child. She’s grieving as only a mother can as she finds herself alone in this world.
The Bible says Jesus’ heart went out to her and he told her, “don’t cry.” Good news heals broken hearts and wipes the tears away. I don’t know if this woman stopped crying right then or not but Jesus spoke to her dead son, “young man, I say to you, get up!” And he got up! I don’t think we can imagine the whiplash this widow felt as her heart went from broken to joyful in less than a minute!
The only thing better than good news is bad news turning into good news!
All three synoptic gospels say that Jesus began his ministry by preaching the good news of the kingdom. The good news was that he was making a way into the kingdom for sinful men and women. The good news was that we can be cleansed of our sin. We can be freed from our guilt. We can be reconciled to our heavenly Father. We can be assured that eternal life is ours after we die.
In the verses before this passage Moses said the bad news is that anyone who wants to make heaven by keeping the law – anyone who wants to earn enough points by their own righteousness that God says, “come on in” needs to live a perfect life. We need to keep the law perfectly inside and out, 24/7, every day of our life.
The bad news is that’s impossible. But Moses says there is a way to be righteous enough to enter heaven. And it’s not impossible…it’s easy! Paul says it’s easy!
You don’t have to climb great heights. You don’t have to descend to deep depths. Imagine that God said the only way we can get to heaven is to climb Mt. Everest. Or be a free-diver and descend to 700 feet on one breath. If heaven and hell were at stake we’d all try. It would be incredibly difficult to make it to the summit of Mt. Everest but not impossible. It might be even harder to swim to a depth of 700 feet on one breath. Few could do it but it’s been done so it’s not impossible.
But Paul says the only way someone can be righteous enough is to ascend all the way to heaven and touch the righteousness of God and then descend all the way to death and experience the penalty of sin. Jesus did that! That’s the good news! God’s righteousness isn’t impossible for us, it’s easy, because it’s based on faith in Christ.
The word is near us, in our heart and in our mouth. If we confess with our mouth that Jesus is the ascended Lord and believe with our heart that God raised Jesus from the dead, we will be saved.
Everyone who calls upon the Lord will be saved. Anyone can be an everyone. You don’t have to make a certain amount of money or be a certain age or have so much education. The only thing you need to be an everyone is to be an anyone. Anyone who calls on the Lord Jesus to save them will find that Jesus saves everyone who calls on him. Not just with words, it has to be from the heart, that’s why it’s for those who believe in their hearts and confess with their mouths.
This is good news. Call on the Lord and you will be saved. So simple! Easy! But before someone can call on Jesus they need to believe in him. And before they can believe in him they need to hear about him. And the only way they will hear about Jesus is if someone proclaims him. And for that to happen someone has to be sent to proclaim the good news of Jesus and salvation.
And church, that’s us. The Great Commission is Jesus sending his church out to the whole world with the good news of the gospel. How beautiful are the feet of those who proclaim good news!
That quote comes from both Isaiah and Nahum. During Isaiah’s time Israel is being oppressed by the Assyrians and he prophesies a time when God will rise up and stop their cruelty and violence against Israel. Nahum, writing a few decades later, also speaks to the Assyrians and specifically to Ninevah, who 150 years after Jonah had long forgotten their repentance and was actively plotting evil against the Lord’s people. God sends His prophets with good news – those who oppress you will be destroyed! Their plots of evil will be turned back on them. You will have peace! You will know good times again! The prophets were sent to proclaim this good news to them and God said the feet of those who bring good news are beautiful.
This might seem like a strange saying to us. We don’t tend to think of feet as beautiful. How beautiful can a foot be?
An old friend of mine, Phil Cappuccio, told me about the first wedding he ever performed. It was an emergency wedding called at the last minute in the middle of a weekday- literally thrown together - and he was the new assistant pastor of the church so the pastor told him he needed to officiate. Phil was nervous because he had never done a wedding before but it was a good place to start because there was just the bride and groom and two witnesses. He said the groom looked like he spent the night in O’Malley’s pub. His hair was wild, his clothes all wrinkled and disheveled. He was a mess!
So Phil comes to the vows and he decides to improvise and tells the groom to look into his bride’s eyes as he repeats the vows. Then he turns to the bride and tells her to look into “the big, beautiful eyes” of the groom. He’s telling me this story and he’s like, “why in the world did I say ‘big beautiful eyes?’ You don’t say that about guys. Just don’t. If anything he should have said that about the bride’s eyes. But to make matters worse, this guy’s eyes were bleary and bloodshot. And yet Phil proclaimed them beautiful.
I don’t care what your feet look like! You might have the best looking feet in the world. You could be a foot model for a TV ad. Or you might have the ugliest feet in the world. Bigfoot could have nicer looking feet than you.
If you use your feet to bring the good news of Jesus to the world, God says you have beautiful feet. The feet are beautiful because of the news they carry!
Both Isaiah and Nahum write how beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news. I think that implies that they start on the mountain but come down into the valley where the people are who need to hear good news. If our feet stay on the mountain, the only ones that hear the good news are the other ones living on the mountain. Jesus came down from the mountain of heaven so he could walk where people walked. So he could preach the good news of the kingdom to people who would never, ever hear it any other way.
When Jesus became our Savior, he put us on a mountain of grace and love. There are times we walk through valleys, but Jesus walks with us in the valley and that makes the deepest valley a mountaintop. Some of our greatest mountaintop experiences happen in the valley.
But there are people who feel alone in the valley. Who feel hopeless in the valley. Who need good news. Jesus wants to send us to them. Who has God put in your life? Who is in your relational circle right now that seems to be in special need of good news? Think of one person, maybe two people, and commit to pray for them every day. And pray that God gives you an opening to share Jesus with them.
Remember, it’s not about your feet. It’s not about how eloquent you are, or how polished your presentation is, or that you can answer every question they have. You might stumble and bumble your way through sharing what God has done in your life and how Jesus set you free from sin and guilt. If God is working on them, their hearts will be ready to hear the good news.
Don’t be disappointed if they don’t receive it at first. A lot of us didn’t come to Jesus the first time we heard the gospel either. You may not even be the one to pray for them to receive Jesus, someone else will have that privilege. Our job is to share the good news and pray that God opens their hearts to believe it.
Let me close with this: it says faith comes from hearing and hearing through the word of Christ. Faith is activated by hearing. Hearing is activated by the word of Christ. This is supernatural – when the good news of Christ is proclaimed, people find their ears open to really hear what God is saying and that activates faith.
Proclaiming the word of Christ is more than saying words. Preaching at people. It means entering their lives with the love of Christ. It means them seeing the heart of Christ through our actions. It means we are good news to them more than blare good news at them.
Jesus said the field is ripe and ready to be harvested – the problem is the laborers are few. There are more than plenty of ears that long to hear good news. That long to hear the burden they carry can be lifted off of them. Long to hear that the emptiness inside them can be filled. Long to hear that they are more loved than they know. Long to hear that the mistakes and failures and sins of their past can be totally cleansed and forgiven.
Let’s recommit to being a laborer. It’s the mission of the church. Think of a few people in your life who don’t know Jesus or aren’t currently walking with him and pray for them. Call upon God for them. Pray with tears, pray with confidence, pray with boldness.
Then be good news in their life. Share how Jesus saved you. Tell them he is ready to do the same for them. Encourage and urge them to believe in their heart and confess with their mouth that Jesus is Lord.
Proclaim that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. That is good news!
other sermons in this series
Dec 7
2024
God Never Gives Up on His People!
Pastor: Allen Snapp Passage: Romans 11:1–23 Series: The Summit Of Our Salvation
Nov 24
2024
Everyone Who Calls On the Name of the Lord Will Be Saved
Pastor: Allen Snapp Passage: Romans 10:1–3 Series: The Summit Of Our Salvation
Nov 17
2024
God's Sovereignty and Man's Response-ability in Salvation - Part Two
Pastor: Allen Snapp Passage: Romans 9:14–33 Series: The Summit Of Our Salvation