Our Mission is Clear

Romans - What's Going on Here?

Pastor Dale Sutherland

17 August 2025

Um, you know, sometimes what we've studied here in Romans and as you read the book of Romans, it's it's very dense. You know, it can even be a little bit confusing uh at times. I used to have I had this guy I met in Ethiopia. He's a pastor. He does a lot of pastor training. And he explained to me his theory for teaching. Uh he said that the first half of the day, if he has a one-day training, the first half of the day he spends all on confusing the students. I said, "Why would you take half the day to confuse?" He says, 'Because when they come back in the afternoon, they really listen because they got to know the answer. They got to get and then I unconfuse them. He said, "For the last four hours." Sometimes you feel like when you're reading Romans, maybe Paul was doing a little confusing for us. Uh but today in Romans 10, especially Romans 9 and 10, we're going to study today. We're going to get clarity on uh maybe summarizing a lot of what you've heard, but then also putting it into action. Okay? So, we're going to go very uh quickly uh and uh and get you to be able to see some practical ways that you can engage in the book of Romans daily. So, let's open to chapter 9. >> Let's go. There you go. Chapter 9, verse 30. And we're going to read through to chapter 10:3. Here we go. What shall we say then? The Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness have attained it. That is a righteousness that is by faith. He's comparing here to the Gentiles have just recently come to faith all through the early church. And they're saying they came to faith. How is that? And then Israel has missed it. So they came to and he emphasizes they came by faith. But that Israel who pursued the law. They tried to obey the Torah and and and what they were taught that would lead to righteousness did not succeed in reaching that law. Why? Why? Because they did not pursue it by faith but as if it were based on works. So the reason the Jews were lost at this point uh was because they had tried to pursue salvation by works quite clearly here. And then he says, "They have stumbled over the stumbling stone, but as it is written, behold, I am laying in Zion a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense, and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame." He's quoting from Isaiah here. So, these are one of those times it gets kind of confusing for the uh current reader. Uh the cornerstone was an imagery that that God used all through the Old Testament to try to say when Messiah came, he would be like the cornerstone. We're going to explain a little bit more in a minute. Now, chapter 10, verse one. Brother, my heart's desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be >> saved. For I bear witness. He wasn't giving up on Israel. He was saying, "My heart's desire, my prayer to God for them, they may be saved." He didn't pray that prayer as though it was just a ritual. He really believed to petition God this way. For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. Uh many uh in churches this morning, many in synagogues this yesterday uh may have a zeal for God, but maybe not according to knowledge. For being ignorant of the righteousness of God and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God's righteousness. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes. For Moses writes about the righteous that is based on the law and that the uh person who does the commandments shall live by them. But the righteousness based on faith says do not say in your heart who will ascend to heaven, that is to bring Christ down or who who uh descend into the abyss. let us bring Christ up from the dead. He was saying those things are impossible. He's not saying that. But what does it say? He says the word is near you in your mouth and in your heart. That is the word of faith we proclaim. Because if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with one heart, one believes and is justified. With the heart, sorry, one believes and is justified and with the mouth one confesses and is for the scriptures says, "Everyone who believes in the name in him will not be put to shame. For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches, bestowing his riches on all who call on him. For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved." Amen. What a wonderful thought. First thing we want to talk about is the clear gift. The clear gift. Now, at this point, there was a lot of confusion in the Jewish um mindset. Uh because what had happened was there was the Hebrew Torah. So, that was in Hebrew. They like us didn't speak Hebrew. They spoke Aramaic by this point. So, uh, these scribes, they were, uh, ones that studied and, uh, they wrote commentary and then translated it from the Hebrew to the Aramaic, but they used also their own commentary. All that commentary also the Jew believe they had to obey. And the scribe taught that. So, it wasn't just what God said, it was also what they said. And together, they made an impossible uh, way to reach God. And they did not emphasize they did not require faith by grace to salvation which is what the Bible always uh always has has pushed the it is a um a meritbased system where salvation was about performance instead of promise. Now Paul dismantles their thinking. Righteousness has never come by human effort. Kenneth Wu says this. It's very helpful. Eternal life is a gift both in the Old Testament and the New Testament and it is never earned. Never. Now the second thing we get is a clear foundation. Clear foundation is Jesus. Paul calls Jesus the cornerstone. Verse 9, excuse me, chapter 9:33. His hearers instantly understood the passage. Let me explain to you why. If I were to say to you that uh the foundation of this church is what uh Christ is to you. He is the foundation. That's the same thing they meant when they said cornerstone. So when they built buildings there, they didn't have footers. They didn't have uh steel frames. Instead, what they did was they had uh one uh big stone that would be kind of the basis, the foundation that they would build on. And that foundation in like a um a commercial or larger building, maybe the synagogue was filled with these. It might be thousands of tons. Uh a matter of fact, some of the Herodian stones that have been found uh were 39 ft long, 9 ft high, 13 ft deep. So you kind of getting this picture and Jesus is that that's what he's saying for you in your life. Jesus is the cornerstone. And what did the cornerstone do? The cornerstone was how they aligned the whole structure then was based on that cornerstone. It was the first stone laid. It was carefully chosen because they cut it. They didn't even use mortar. A lot of the time all it was was cut in the perfect shape and it had to be just right. It aligned. It could be called the strength stone because it buried the weight for the weight. It could be called the identity stone because sometimes they even put the building dedication on that cornerstone. You see it here in our church. If you walk out, you'll see uh right out there on the right, they put the name of the church and what year it was built right there. That's the idea. That's the idea. So when he says to them, if I'd have said today, hey, Jesus Christ to this building is like that stone is what he is to you, you'd have followed me. But Paul says the builders, the Jewish leaders, they rejected this stone and that they have now tried to build a a church without a foundation. Every Jew followed this. And then he took it one step uh farther and he said like um they're walking in darkness. They don't know what they're stumbling over. Sometimes when the cornerstone was cracked or uh wasn't just right, they would set it aside and work on this. And if you picture every Jew who came in counting with Jesus, they either had the chance to put their weight, they align their life, they give their heart to him, or they stumble over that same stone and fall. The scriptures say in Proverbs, the way of the wicked is like darkness. And tell me, you don't see this in in in those who don't know Christ. They know not at what they stumble. These Jewish leaders were not obsessed with the fact that they had ignored and rejected the cornerstone. They were thinking of a hundred other things that were wrong with them. They had never thought about how they had just stumbled over the stone God had given them. Number three, the clear road. The clear road. Now, um I went to uh England uh a few months ago. Uh we were going to visit I visited with some churches there. We were wondering about Citylight and being over there in uh in in this one part of outside of London. And so when I got to the airport, I uh went to the Renaar place and you know, it's funny cuz they drive on the wrong side of the road. Uh talk funny too over there. We need to learn they need to learn English. They need to come here for a while. Maybe an immersion program for them could help. But but anyway, this clear So I get to the rental car place and the guy is very nice. you know, he's saying cheerio and all the things they say. And and uh he's he's talking to me. Very nice. And he says, "I'm going to upgrade you." I said, "Oh, wonderful." Uh and he gives me this keys. Well, what he gave me was the biggest SUV on the lot. And so, um I'm driving in the wrong seat on the wrong side. And that is much harder than you think it is. And I was going to say try it this afternoon, but that probably wouldn't be the best. So, so anyway, I'm I'm trying to do this thing and I'm driving this thing. Man, I'm hitting curbs. I'm doing everything. So, I follow my GPS. I'm supposed to go to this place. I follow my GPS and it takes me to a neighborhood with these very narrow roads. Um, you know, I couldn't drive a motorcycle there, let alone an SUV. And and I'm I'm there in this little rural area and and there's there's no hotel. There's not the place I'm supposed to be. So, I leave and I go back to the little town and I put it in again. Leads me right back. I said, I must be missing it somehow. So, I drive back there again. You know, being lost really stinks. Being lost really, really stinks. So, you know what I did? And it's very humiliating and it's humbling. So, I get back to I drive and I saw it was one of these churches. It was a partner churches and uh so I just drove back to that church and uh walked inside and and tried to find one of the pastors that I was going to meet when I was there. Uh, now out came one of the young pastors and he said, "Hey, uh, I'll take you to where you got to go." Boy, was that nice to hear. And one step more, he said, "You can drive yourself and follow me or you can get in with me." Guess what I did? Shoot. I said, "Man, get out that seat. I'm right here on the pastor seat." So I'm there riding and imagine the difference of being lost, being lost and now feeling confident and assured I'm in the car with the right person and I'm going to the right place. Hence the picture of salvation. Confess, believe, be saved. That's what you're going to hear. Romans 10:9 says, explains the way of salvation with breathtaking clarity. Like the guy riding me the right direction. He was riding. He had clarity on where to go. What to say? This is exactly what the Bible does for us here in this verse. Confess. I'm going to break down the words for you. Okay. Confess. This means to openly greg agree to declare publicly to acknowledge truth without shame. So to confess him as savior with your mouth an outward verbal testimony, not hidden faith. This isn't some secret. I made a secret decision that I No, no. It's to confess with your mouth. And here's the big one. Jesus is Lord. Now, why was this such a big deal? Here's why. Picture you got in the audience, the Jew and the Roman. For the Jew, they knew what he was saying. He was using the term Yahweh, the real God, the one that they weren't even able to speak the name. They didn't think it was it was too holy of a name to repeat. And he is saying Jesus Christ is that. So for them to start their life over and say I confess you as Lord. Oh, it meant something. It meant something. They knew he was saying something big. So when these Jews came to faith, it was a big deal. It wasn't some easy thing where they just kind of continued. No, no, no. Once they determined that, it was a big deal. And then for the for the Roman, it was the same problem. except different. They're they were commanded in their law that only Caesar was Lord. They could call no one else Lord. They could have a bunch of other gods. That was no problem. Caesar didn't mind that. But he was the Lord. And now these guys are going to stand up and they're going to say, "But Jesus Christ is Lord." Oh boy, that's a big deal. So when he called this out, it was a big deal. And brothers and sisters, it's still a big deal. It's still a big deal to say to him, "You are the Lord." I was talking to a group of uh sisters yesterday and explaining this idea to them and I picture it as taking the keys to your car and giving them to him to drive. It's uh he is your leader, he is your your boss, he is your ruler. Um we are committed to him. And then it says believe and what believe means is to entrust yourself not just mentally agree but to ri rely fully from the heart. The heart is key here because then he says in your heart. And this is maybe the best gauge of a true believer. The heart. Do you believe with your heart? For me to walk over to that car I had to sit down in that seat. Not just mechanically, but I had to I had to make a choice. Do I trust myself driving or do I trust that guy driving? And when I sat down in that seat with my heart with I felt calm because I trusted this other one. This is what it is to believe from the heart. It changes what you love when you believe from your heart. It changes what you love. So that uh you know how this is uh you suddenly start having an interest in the Bible. Suddenly you start having an interest in these songs we sing. Uh suddenly uh God begins to change that and you start seeing it and you will be he says at the end that God raised him from the dead to believe in the bodily resurrection. Then he says the end of this verse four most wonderful words ever written down and you will be saved. Now, the last thing I want to give you is the clear mission. The clear mission. I saw this. I I thought it was good. Rescued people. Rescue people. Well, that's good. Now, there's a problem here. I'm about to talk about the clear mission. We say it every week. Go be the light of the world. Now, I want to be honest with you here. There is a big part of us as Christians that say, "Nate, go be the light of the world. You got a full-time job doing that. Me, I got stuff to do." Uh, it's very difficult. Even those of you that are uh willing to talk to people about any subject, it's still difficult when it comes to Jesus. Man, I could talk to him about every conflict, everything going on, but when I get that word out of my mouth, it's just nerve-wracking. And so sometimes sometimes uh when he uh gives us that command or when we hear it from scripture um we kind of disconnect because we don't really think we can do it. Let me give you an example. I want to play uh for the Baltimore Orioles baseball team and uh now I'm 62 and I don't think I can do it. They've got a second baseman that is better than me. I have to I have to admit he's 20. I'm 62. Uh I'm just not as good. Now, when I decided that I could no longer compete in the major leagues, when I com when I decided this was an impossibility for me to do, guess what? I stopped fielding grounders and taking batting practice. Right? Why? Because I can't do it. What's the use of doing that when I can't do it? And so when you hear a sermon about sharing your faith, you're just like me in the Orioles, you kind of disconnect because you say, "I know me. I've been around a long time. I I know how I am not going to do that. That's kind of left for others." So I wanted to really challenge that. Here's what I mean. One of the things we hear a lot about is fear in our faith. We love Christ. We love people just like Paul. Listen to that in verse one there. his love, his intense desire and belief that God would answer his prayer that every Jew would get saved. He really meant this. And this brother prayed for this as you do for your children, for your family, for your neighborhood, for your country, for the world. This is the desire of every Christian's heart. And yet, we feel a little disconnected from the ability to get engaged in that work. Now, I wanted to try to provide for you a list of ways that maybe every single one of you could get engaged in gospel preaching, gospel uh sharing, uh, and gospel work as you were created to be. So, here I've got you a a long list here. Maybe one or two will stand out to you. I want to walk you through this. First one is email the gospel. Email the gospel. So, what are you talking about? Listen, take a uh one minute clip on YouTube. How many of you How many of you received either an Instagram uh forward, a YouTube clip today from I mean this week from somebody? How many? Come on. Somebody sent you saw someone everybody, right? Okay. So, all I'm saying is it is perfectly appropriate for you to go online. There's a there's a lot of great ones. Look for the one minute gospel. It's a one minute thing. A short explanation of the gospel. take that link, forward it over to friends, and say, "Hey, I like this. Let me know what you think." And by doing that, you're getting the gospel complete to them in just one minute. So, what you want to find is the exact right ones, the exact clear ones. We can help you to do that, but you can email the gospel straight to somebody's inbox. So, uh, one guy said to me, "Oh, that's just an easy way, a copout." I don't think it's a copout at all. Let me explain to you why. When I share the gospel with an Uber driver, when I share the gospel with a friend, even sometimes I don't know if they're really in the moment to really think about it and listen. When I get a clip, I get to have them be able to hear the whole gospel in one minute. Uh when I can pass on the whole gospel in just one minute to somebody, maybe they'll actually get a better chance to sit and look at it and think about it and read it. I don't know. This is one way. Email the gospel. The second one is an easy one. Preach on the street in front of your house. I just had to throw that in there. Sorry. I just I thought that'd be fun. Anybody want to do that? Yeah. Okay. So, what I was thinking is you'd all walk out. We'd we'd use soap boxes like that and you could all stand in front of your driveway and preach the gospel. So, there you go. Okay. That's a little fun. All right. Third one. How about this one? Share with your own kids weekly. My daughter teach me all kinds of things. my wife teach me even more. I'm learning all the time. And one of the things he shared with me was that the that the uh gospel if you share the gospel with your own children every week for their 18 years in your house or whatever by doing that you will have shared the gospel many many many times. The reason I don't want to minimize that is because I want you to understand in all of Christianity, if you look at the future of Christianity, you know what the number one way to grow Christianity into the future is, and that is to keep Christians Christian. What I mean by that is only 1 million a year or so are saved from Islam into Christianity. We're growing at a rate of a 100red million a year. How is that? because of the families of Christians. So families of Christians must stay Christian for Christianity to continue. You see what I mean? There is no I don't know that there is anything more important thing you can do than preach the gospel to your own children. Help to make sure they understand it. And let me say this as a parent with adult children. I was just with parents yesterday and and and one of the moms was saying, "My kids went here, went left with it, but I know I preached the gospel to them while they were with me. that much I can do. You can't control every path, but you as moms, you as dads, share the gospel with your own kids weekly, you say, "Oh, they're going to get bored with it. How could they get bored?" Because you're going to be creative. You're going to help them think of it all kinds of different ways. You're going to do it all different ways, but you're going to do with your own kids weekly. Think about it. How many weeks you can do that? How about third one, fourth one? Praying for waiter. Now, a lot of people like this. I don't really like this one, but it's a way you can do when you have a waiter. You can say to him, "Hey, uh, what's your name?" You could say, "Uh, when you're at a restaurant or whatever, is there anything I can pray for you with?" Now, the only thing I would say is the goal is to get them into a conversation. We actually get to explain the gospel. Otherwise, what it could be is you just look like uh you're a wonderful soul who cares for people, which is great, but I really think it's critical if that can turn into a conversation about uh the gospel. Everybody with me so far? >> All right, good. Here we go. How about a mission trip with City Light? You say, "Come on now. I'm supposed to be doing the gospel uh every day." And you're saying, "No, what is wrong with saying I'm not so good at doing it, sharing it all the time every day, but I would take a miss trip with Citylight so I'd get a chance for 7 days every year or 8 days or 10 days every year to just share the gospel every day. I want to go to one of our citylight centers. You all take vacations. Do a City Light Center and then three days vacation and spend those three days with your kids sharing the gospel. Go on a mission trip to Citylight. Next one. Next one. Write your testimony out. Put it on paper how God has changed you. Let me explain to you. A guy in my Bible study did this. I I was I went through the same list sharing to the guys. What he did was very good. He sat down and he wrote an email. Just wrote an email explaining his own personal salvation, how he came to Christ. But he was quite clear in this. And then at the end he said to because he was going to send this to all his friends, all of his family, he said, and I want you to know that this is uh for eternal life. He was very clear as to what they had to do and everything because you can put it on paper. Now, here's the beauty. Remember this. In our culture, your truth is always okay. It's fine. You can, the atheist will gladly listen to an alcoholic who says he quit alcohol because God helped him. No problem. You in doing this, you are getting an opportunity to put your own on paper the clear gospel and leveraging that relationship to make sure it's in front of every child, every family, every friend, so on. And I I love the idea of doing this. So do this. All of you should do it. Another one, pray. You you say pray. Yes. If you want to j join in the gospel work, pray. Plead with God to draw hearts to himself today here and around the world. Join God with his sovereign work. I can never go to Somalia to share the gospel. I will never go to Somalia or Yemen. Um and and frankly won't go to a lot of the place I could go to because it's it's not my job. I have another So what am I going to do? Do I just let that go? No, no, no, no, no. I'm going to join with Jesus by praying for those who are in Somalia to hear the gospel. You see what I mean? This is a way we can join with him in his work. How about this one? Drop and run tracks. I like this one. Drop and run. For those of you that are terribly scared of this interaction with human beings, you could still be faithful. You could still be a good witness. You know how is you take these little tracks and and Nate has a bunch of them here. uh and you take them and you put them in your wallet and when you get ready to pay the bill, make sure you're completely done because you don't want to see the person after you give them this track. So, make sure you're completely done and then when you look around and make sure you tip, by the way, uh then don't make the track your tip or something, you know, that isn't the idea. So, you put that track under the bill so that nobody sees you and walk away and then take off. All right, drop and run. Now, listen, I don't care how you do it, but brothers and sisters, I'm joking with you, but of course, tracks are a wonderful way to share the gospel. Somebody could say there again, oh, you're doing the easy way, brother. There's nothing easy about sharing Jesus Christ with the world, whether it be by track or by talk. There's nothing easy in the power of God. Let me just tell you one story. Hudson Taylor, greatest one of the greatest most formative missionaries ever, ever, ever in in Christian history. He went to China. He started the China mission. Literally, I believe there are 100 million Christians because of this guy going and you know he came to Christ a leaflet he found on the ground. Don't you minimize the power of God through that. Don't you minimize what God can do with the written word, with any one of these things. You're just unleashing the power of God in a place where maybe the waiter's too busy or or you're at a place where you can't stay and talk to every person, but you could leave a track there. So, so do this. And then the last one, video testimonies. One of our brothers, Doug, here goes to church. He's done this. I like it a lot. Um, what he did was he took his phone and he did uh testimonies to his kids. Um he recorded just testimonies and what he did was he did apologetics. So he he just did one minute videos and then he sends those one minute videos because again everybody will accept it when it's you. How about this one? Support evangelists. Empower those who proclaim Christ around the world. If I'm not so good at something, I hire somebody who is. That's what I do. That's what I do. Why not hire an evangelist around the world in one of our citylight centers? we can grow exponentially to those of you who commit $400 or $500 every single month to expanding the gospel around all of our citylight centers and plant more. How about uh here's one. Teach children in Sunday school. Look, look, look, look. You say, "Oh, Dale, you're going easy." No, I'm not. That's not easy at all. Those little suckers will tie you up. You'll end up with a black eye. You'll walk out of there like this. And what happened? I'm telling you, it's not easy to go down there and teach those kids. But if you go down there and teach those kids, you get an opportunity to obey this commission. And I get to tell those little ones because they're a captive audience. And I get to tell them creatively. I get to tell them, but clearly I'm going to be part of obeying God's command to me. We ought to have a list for uh sign up for children and youth and junior high. We ought to have a list so long of volunteers because we all want to do this as the Lord has asked us to. And there's a great forum. And then the last one is join the school of mission. So you could come out any day of the week, four days a week, I believe. They're on the streets doing this. You may go out and do other things. They uh give away food. They do other things. And as they share the gospel, you could be a part of that. Now, we've talked a lot about clarity. I'm going to tell you some of the clearest vision that God has ever given anyone was through a blind woman named Fanny Crosby. She was at the Bowery Mission and um she uh uh was there. She had played the piano. She was a pianist. She was a himwriter. She wrote Blessed Assurance. Um and a guy walked up to her and said, "I've been wandering away from my mother's God. Please ask him to forgive me." And that night she couldn't forget the encounter. And so she wrote this hymn. It's called Rescue the Perishing. He says, she says, the words say, "Rescue the perishing. Care for the dying. Jesus is merciful. Jesus will save. Rescue the perishing. Care for the dying. Snatch them in pity from sin in the grave. Weep or the airing one. Lift up the fallen. Tell them of Jesus the mighty to save. Rescue the perishing. care for the dying. Jesus is merciful. Jesus will save. Lord Jesus, we look to you, oh Lord, because you're going to do the work. We just get to be the ambassador, Lord. We just get to obey what you have given us to obey in the scriptures. Lord Jesus, may we all be launched into gospel work so that we might powerfully and take part with you in this eternal work, the most important work that any human being could ever, ever, ever do. Oh Lord Jesus, guide us each one of us. Help us, Lord Jesus, to obey this great commission and to truly go be the light of the world. Take a minute between you and Jesus. Just say Jesus, there must be one on that list you could do. There must be something you could do here. [Music] Maybe others of you here, you heard this all this about the gospel, but you don't really know him. You've never confessed with your mouth and believed in your heart. You've never made him Lord of your life. You do that now. You are on your way to the judgment of God to hell forever. If you do not repent, you must do it. Please do it. Don't play with God. It's not next week or anything else. Right now, you get right with Jesus. Say, "Lord, I'm going to obey Romans 10:9." [Music] So, wherever you are spiritually, whatever's going on, you got a minute now to talk to God about it. Go to the Lord Jesus now. [Music] Lord Jesus, may we have testimonies throughout our church, people in the neighborhood, people in our family, people at work coming to faith, Lord, hearing the gospel, hearing this great truth in Jesus name we pray. Amen.