Why Didn’t You Tell Me?

Series: Romans - What’s Going on Here?

Pastor Nate Crew

24 August 2025

Amen. Good morning. How we doing? Good morning. It's back to school time. All the parents said, "Amen." Amen. My name is Nate, one of the pastors here. Excited to be with you this morning as we continue our series in Romans. I want to start our time with two questions that I want you to answer in your head and then remember. All right. Question number one on a scale of 1 to 10. 10 being very certain and 10 and one being not sure at all. I want you to answer this question. On a scale of 1 to 10, how certain are you that if you died today, you would go to heaven? >> 100. That's great. Praise the Lord. Okay, I want you to keep that number in your head. I want you to be honest with yourself. This not a I'm in church so it's a 10. No, really, really, really, really. Okay, what would your answer be? What number? All right, that's one. Number two, if you stood before God and he asked you, "Hey, why should I let you into heaven, say you're standing before God, he gives you a chance to speak for yourself and he says, "Hey, hey, hey, why should I let you in?" What would you say? What would your answer be? I want you to think about it honestly. What would you say? Okay. Now, I want you to keep those answers in your head. All right. And as we walk through today, I want you to consider what would it be like or what does it mean to know for certain and to understand the gospel that provides the assurance it should for your soul to leave this room or turn off your stream with absolute confidence. You are a child of God. How do you do that? But then secondly, to use these as tools for many of you to go out into the world and to lead others to Jesus and to initiate spiritual conversations. Today's message is called, "Why didn't you tell me?" Turn to your neighbor and say, "Hey, why didn't you tell me?" All right. Now, every wife, you should mean this to your husband, probably. Why didn't you tell me? Why didn't you tell me? Husbands are notorious at not telling things. Uh, not secrets. I'm just saying forgetfulness. Forggetfulness. I do this a lot. I should give my wife a clear pass. If you guys have ever asked her something that you thought she would know something and she didn't, that's cuz I didn't tell her. You know, that was my fault. She says this to me a lot. Why didn't you tell me? Because, you know, we're in a lot of people's lives. I'm hanging out at church. I'm here. Whatever. People tell us things, important things about their lives, you know, like, "Hey, we're pregnant." And stuff like that. And I'll just, you know, hear four or five of those things and and go about my day. I'll go home. I won't think about it. I'll forget about it. Uh, and then somebody will mention it to my wife the next week and they'll bring something up and she'll obviously be like, uh, she have to like be like, "What?" You know, or you know, one of those things where you kind of act like you sort of know, you don't really know, you know, and they'll say, "Wait, he didn't tell you." You know, so then she'll come home and say, "Hey, hey, hey, hey, why didn't you tell me?" You know, this is big news. This is important. It'd be great to know. You know, so that happens. That happens a lot. I've tried to learn in our marriage to communicate more clearly, to remember things that she probably needs to know. But just as a heads up, if you tell me and you want my wife to know, you should tell her yourself. All right? Just so you know, okay? So, uh, you should just include that in there. All right? Don't assume any of the information has been passed on, you know? Uh, as soon as I get home and we're juggling seven kids, I forget everything else that happened, you know, throughout the day. So, they say, "Why didn't you tell me?" Now, this can be true in life of so many things. Uh, this phrase has maybe broken some of your hearts. Then why didn't you tell me? Uh, something that should have been told, should have been shared that wasn't shared. I want to give you this phrase, especially for those of you who know God, and make it a little bit like a pebble in your shoe, you know, like something got through the hole in your croc, you know, and it's bothering you. To think about how there are probably likely people in your life that would have this question for you about your relationship to Jesus. And if they got to the end of their life or god forbid they stand before God without Christ, it could pass through their minds, man, I knew this person, man, why didn't you tell me if this was so important? And if the stakes were this high, man, you let a little awkwardness get in the way. The stakes are too high. Why didn't you tell me? I hope to motivate and to challenge many of you to live a more evangelistic, missional, bold, fearless life. I also want to invite many of you, you say, you may have been a Christian for two weeks or maybe you're trying to figure all this out. Man, God is inviting you in to the most exciting adventure of all time. And it includes some fear and it includes some awkwardness and it includes some difficulty and it includes some rejection and it includes some trials, but it's a way to live that connects you to the very purpose of your existence. And you know the fun thing about God is he trains you as you on board, right? So he allows you to be a part of things right away. So you don't have to be a pastor or some experienced Christian to go live the life God's called you to live. You can believe in Jesus today and go share Jesus when you leave from this church this afternoon. There's not a distance between your maturity and faith and God's ability to use you. So I know there are variety of people in the room. There's like those of you who don't know God yet. your answer would be like I'm a two on the spiritual certainty scale. I hope to help you grow in that and to believe upon Jesus today. There's some of you who uh are new to the faith and maybe aren't sure how to go live what God wants you to do or particularly how to help other people know about Jesus. And I hope to help you with that today. And there also though a category of those of you who are being absolutely totally and completely disobedient to God. And I want to hopefully challenge and encourage you today to go live the life God has called you to live. So with that in mind, we're going to talk about feet today. All right. So to those who understand, it's time to let the dogs out. All right. There's 10 of you. Okay. Okay. I'm seeing how h how hip you guys are. Your pastor's cool. Don't forget it. Okay. All right. Go ahead and open your Bible to Romans chapter 10. >> Let's go. We're going to read from the scriptures. Pastor Dale did a great sermon last week ending on 13. So we'll pick it up right there. Verse 14. So Paul says, "How then will they call on him whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent as it is written?" How beautiful are the what's the word? feet of those who preached the good news, but they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, "Lord, who has believed what he heard from us." So faith comes from what? >> Hearing and hearing? Hearing what? The >> word. >> Word of Christ. Okay. But I ask, have they not heard? He's talking about the Jewish people right now. He says, indeed they have heard. The voice has gone out to the earth to the words to the ends of the world. So then I asked, did they not under did Israel not understand? First Moses says, I will make you jealous of those who are not a nation with a foolish nation. I will make you angry. Th Isaiah is so bold to say, I've been found by those who did not seek me. Which is the testimony of many of you in the room this morning. And I have shown myself to those who did not ask for me. but of Israel, the chosen people. He says, "All day long, I have held out my hands to a disobedient and contrary people." So, we're going to stop there. We already see, you know, as we talked about so often, so long throughout Romans, that uh being a part of the people of God, calling yourself a Christian, going to church, and doing all those things means absolutely nothing unless you have a relationship with Jesus through repentance and faith. The Jews, the people of God, had actually rejected God totally. And the Gentiles who didn't know anything about God are the ones who receive and hear the gospel. And so, it's a challenge to us that going to church to save nobody. But believing and trusting in Jesus does, and anybody can do that. Now, three simple things from this passage. It's a very simple sermon. Hopefully, it's deep in its application, but it's not hard to understand. Three things. Number one, people need to hear the gospel or everyone needs to hear the gospel. Say it that way. Number two, you need to preach the gospel. And number three, you need to receive the gospel. That's it. Simple. Everyone needs to hear the gospel. You need to preach the gospel. And some of you need to receive the gospel. All right? Those are the three things. So, what is the gospel? Well, the gospel is everything Paul's been talking about from Romans chapter 1 to Romans chapter 9. Now, we're in Romans chapter 10. So, he's talking about what you do with it. And the rest of Romans, he's going to be explaining this to us. But the first half of Romans is, hey, look, the gospel is you and I, we're sinners. Our sin has separated us from God. God sent Jesus, the son of God, into the world to live the life we could never live to die the death that we deserve. He rose on the third day. And to anyone who believes and trusts in Jesus, that person receives eternal life. This is the gospel, the good news of the gospel that God wants and desires to be merciful. God wants and desires to give grace. God wants and desires to forgive sin. God wants to include you in his family. He wants to call you a child. These are things God makes available to the entire world through Jesus Christ. But the gospel is only that, through Jesus Christ. And so Paul's been explaining all the different aspects of this. And what does it mean to be a sinner? And what does it mean for Jesus to be perfect? And what does it mean to have Jesus's righteousness? What does it mean to be justified or made right with God in the courtroom of heaven? What does it mean to receive grace? These are things Paul's been explaining in depth that we've been walking through together. And so now Paul says, well, what what do we do with all that wonderful information? And the first and most obvious one is if this is so great, then everyone needs to hear about it. So that's number one. Everyone needs to hear the gospel. You should say amen. Okay. Okay. Okay. You got to be with me on this. All right. I don't need to make it rhyme for you to like it. All right. We got to be on this. Okay. Everyone needs to hear the gospel. Everyone. So verse 13, which we finished last week, says, "Hey, look. Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved." Which is wonderful news. Everyone, anyone from any place, any country, any language, any sin struggle, any background, no matter what you've done, no hoops to jump through, no practices to implement, no steps to take. Everyone who hears the gospel and believes upon Jesus and turns from their sin and trusts Christ, that person without doing any works receives eternal life. That's amazing. And some of you need to be involved in that today because the gospel is for everyone but for some reason you still refuse it. And so God is inviting you again today. And maybe this is the hundth time and maybe you'll get a thousand times or maybe this is the last time. But God is inviting you today to hear the gospel to turn from your sin and to trust Christ. Now everyone needs to hear the gospel. If everyone who calls on the name of the Lord is saved, then it's really important that everyone gets a chance to do that. You'd think, "Wow, you don't have to like prove yourself or do nothing crazy. You have to believe upon Jesus. Turn your life over to him. Surrender to him." Okay, then everyone needs to hear it. If it's that wonderful and that simple and all it is is they got to hear it, then it certainly should be a priority of ours to make sure as much people can hear it as possible. He says here that calling upon Jesus requires believing upon him and believing upon him requires hearing about him. So this is important for us to understand and to remember the most basic but profound aspects of the gospel. You need faith to believe upon Jesus. You can't be saved without putting your faith in Jesus. And the Bible here says that faith comes by hearing. Hearing what? Hearing the Joe Rogan podcast. No, hearing the word of Christ. So faith which is essential for salvation comes by hearing. And the thing everyone on earth needs to hear is the gospel of Jesus, the word of God. So this is so important and it's the only way. There is nothing else you can hear. There is no other good news, no other religious system, no other philosophy of life, no other name under heaven the Bible says by which man may be saved. It's the only way. So if this is so important and if the stakes are so high and the offer is so great but the way is so narrow then it must be told. That's what he's saying. Now what we have to understand about this is important because it's the gospel proclamation that provokes faith in us. We often talk about us putting faith in the gospel. But I want you to think the other way around. You could write it this way. We don't just put faith in the gospel. The gospel puts faith in us. So what happens is someone and you know this by experience if you're in Christ someone has proclaimed to you the gospel either over time or maybe in a moment and the gospel provokes belief. You hear it and then at some point you believe you trust. And the gospel it's not just that you are putting your faith in the gospel. It's that the gospel proclamation has put faith in you. It's given you the capacity and the ability to believe upon Jesus and to be saved. This is so important for us to understand in our life that as we present the gospel, the only possible way someone can be saved is to present the gospel. The gospel dramatically affects their inner being. It provokes faith which they put in Jesus. Now this is true not only for the unbeliever but it's true for those of us in Christ that the gospel we don't just put our faith in the gospel the gospel puts faith in us and so the question then becomes how much of the gospel we can we think about how much of the gospel we meditate on how much of the gospel we consider now I want to challenge you those of you who are in Christ my brothers and sisters today the Bible here says faith comes from hearing and hearing the word of God now let me tell you something the reason why your faith is so little is because you're receiving so little of the word of God. Faith comes by hearing hearing the word of God. So the only way to increase my faith to make it strong and useful in my life is to increase my hearing of the word. And if my hearing of the word is small, my faith will be small. If my hearing of the word is apathetic, my faith will be apathetic. If the hearing of the word, I had little devotion to the hearing of the word, I will have little devotion to my faith. You see what happens? Faith comes by hearing, hearing the word of God, hearing the gospel, hearing what God has said in his word. And so, let me explain something to you. The reason why your faith is so small and it produces so little effect in your life and it overcomes so little of your fears and it doesn't produce boldness. Let me explain something to you. The reason why you struggle with boldness, the reason why you're struggling to fight certain sinful temptations, the reason why you might be overcome with anxiety and worry, there's a lot of things going on. But the Bible here says faith comes by hearing. And so the reason you have so little faith and what God's able to do is because you do so little hearing of what God's already done. The reason you have so little assurance of God's love for you, faith, that God really does love you. 10 out of 10. The reason is not because of your personality. It's because you're doing so little hearing and meditating on what the word has to say about how God loves you. Do you see what I'm saying? Your faith, it's a math equation. Your faith will be in proportion to the word that gets in your life. And so, this is a challenge to say the reason why you're overcoming so little in life and your faith is not producing a radical life change is probably because though you may believe in Jesus, you input so little of the word of God into your daily life. And you have podcasts that go on for hours and music you listen to on repeat and YouTube videos you watch and scrolling and all those things. I'm not condemning them all. But what I'm saying is those things are not going to input faith into your life. And so if you need faith, you need faith to be bold. You need faith to fight sin. You need faith to pursue God. You need faith to share the gospel. You need faith to believe what God has said. You need faith constantly. And your faith needs to grow and mature and strengthen. And the only way on planet earth that your faith is going to get stronger is for you to hear more of the word of God. For you to be surrounding yourself with people who are talking about the word of God. For you to be reading the word of God for yourself, listening to it, taking it in, learning about it, having other people teach you about it. It's a it's a direct math equation. The more you hear and apply, then the more faith that you will have, the more you will grow. Your faith is in proportion to your hearing. And I want you to live your life with great faith. I'm just telling you. I'm telling you there there is a world in which you turn into a person of radical boldness. There is a world that exists where you completely and totally overcome the sin that is besetting you today. There is a world that exists when your life is totally and radically transformed. That world is possible. Not through you being a better person, reading self-help books, learning to do learning to habit stack, or growing in your productivity. No, no, no, no, no. That world exists to someone who meditates on the word of God day and night. So, it's less of a challenge and more of an encouragement. The key to life, hearing the word of God. The Bible says in Psalm 1 that whoever meditates on the word of God day and night, he shall be like a tree planted by streams of water, who uh produces fruit in its season and whose leaves do not wither. It says, "But the wicked who reject the word of God, those who are like chaff that the wind blows away." So the word of God and hearing the word of God creates a stable, flourishing life. It creates the life you were intended for. So, I just want to encourage you to find ways to hear and to listen, to read, to meditate on, to apply, to think about, and to live out the word of God more often in your life this week. It will only have a positive output in your life. So, everyone needs to hear the gospel and even Christians need to constantly be reminded of the gospel. So, that's number one. Number two, therefore, if everyone needs to hear the gospel, then you need to preach the gospel. This is so important for us to understand and so important for us to live out that the world needs every believer in Christ. I don't care if you've been a believer for a week, you are now empowered by the Holy Spirit. God wants to use your life. How fun. What an awesome thing to think about that God wants to use your life and you don't have to earn any favor with him. Now go, you know, super fun. So, you've been a believer for a week, you've been a believer for 10 years. God is saying, "Hey, look, I have equipped you and sent you on earth to go do this, to go preach the gospel, and I have the same responsibility you do. The majority of my life is not preaching sermons. I do this occasionally. You know, the majority of my life is in the world with normal people like you. And I have the same responsibility that you have. And we have the same responsibility that a hundred million sermons should be being preached across every place in all the world every day. And so the question for those of you who are in Christ is, have you preached your first sermon yet? You know, all preachers want to find a way to preach and learn how to preach. Well, everybody has the opportunity to preach. >> Every Christian is a preacher. Every Christian is a missionary. Every Christian is a teacher of the word of God. Every Christian needs to be out there in the world representing Jesus the best that you can. The Bible here says that those who call on the Lord, look at the process. They call on him because they believed. They believed because they heard. They heard because someone preached. And those people preached because someone sent. So I want to do it backwards and talk about the what I call the missional process, which is a way for you to think about what is church all about. The missional process, the way the kingdom of God moves forward through a local church is this sending, preaching, I left out the word hearing. I don't know why I forgot. Okay, there'd be hearing and then believing, calling, saving. So, this is what happens. Uh God empowers his people through the Holy Spirit. We all go, we send. Maybe some particularly like sending could be fundraising, paying for things for the pastors, missionaries can go preach the gospel in ways they come before. Sending could be me encouraging you to go into your neighborhood and go preach the gospel. Sending could be all of us. We're sending one another. We're raising money to send missionaries. We're sending sending. Sending so people can do some preaching, preaching, preaching because when the preaching happens, people hear the gospel. When people hear the gospel, they believe upon Jesus. When they believe upon Jesus, they call and confess upon his name. To everyone who confesses that Jesus is Lord and believe in his heart God raised him from the dead, that person will be saved. And God has appointed you to be a part of that mission. Man, if you ever wake up and think, "Do I have a purpose in life?" Oh, boy, do you. And I don't care if anyone else thinks you have a purpose or if people recognize your significance, God has a purpose for your life. >> I don't care if anyone else thinks you have some value to bring to the table or important for what they have to do. God thinks you have some value to bring to the table and you are important to what he has to do. You should wake up every day alive, feeling encouraged, equipped, empowered, and ready to go live the life because you have been sent by the King of Kings to go fulfill his mission in the world. Your boss doesn't recognize you. God does. You know what I'm saying? Amen. You are valued and useful and God wants to do something amazing in your life. How fun. So, this is an amazing opportunity. It's also a challenge. It's a challenge to many of us. And those of you who maybe have known Christ for a while, but just to be honest, you're being lacadasical, lazy, and apathetic or you're living by fear or complacency. There might be a reason. And look, I want to go ahead and throw myself into this category with you because if I'm going to challenge you, I want to be vulnerable as well to say, listen, I miss the mark also. Okay? I don't share the gospel sometimes out of fear. Sometimes I'm too complacent and I don't love people enough to take the risk or to to make the effort. There are times when I shy back from opportunities I should have stepped into. There are things I have to repent for to say, "Lord, I'm sorry for my lack of boldness. I'm sorry for my lack of love." Okay? I'm with you in an effort to try to go do the thing God has called me to do, but to fail in it often, but to continue to try to press forward. Okay? So, as I as I challenge you, I don't want you to hear the challenge from like the pastor who's got it together and does this well all the time. No, I want you to say, "I have been wrestling and wrecked constantly by the text this week for God to tell me, hey man, you're not living on the edge like you should be." you know, like you should constantly be out there and I back away often. So, when I think about what God wants to do though in the world, think about this. Okay? So, if it's sending, preaching, believing, calling, saving, which I did want to say too on that side note, this is the lifeblood of a church and as soon as a church starts to care more about the church, it's lost its mission. As soon as we exist for us, now we should certainly be encouraging one another, loving one another, discipling one another, but the Lord has already saved us. And if he was finished with us, he'd bring us home. So the thing he wants is for us to press this message forward into our communities and to the world around us. The reason you still have breath is because he has a mission for you to engage the world around you so that other people can come to know Christ. So the reason a church exists isn't just it's certainly to love one another to build up the body of Christ. Yes, all these things are included unto us reaching the neighborhood, the communities, the cities of the world around us. So, a church should always be on the move. Always. Always sending. This is why when anybody leaves City Light for any reason, we bless them and send them. We say, "Hey, praise the Lord. Go. Go be the light of the world. Wherever it is that you go, we're not trying to build our kingdom. We're not trying to grow our numbers. We're not trying to make Citylight as big as we can. We're trying to train and send. Go into all the world and preach the gospel." This is what we believe. This is why we we have Citylights in other places of the world. This is why we're making an effort to start City Lights and other places in the DMV is to say the mission of the church is to be sending, preaching, hearing, believing, calling, saving. Sending, preaching, believing, hearing, calling, saving. And so, we got to be busy. Got to be about our kingdom, our our our father's business. We got to be active in the life of the of the community around us. And the danger always is as a church grows and gets older, which we're only five, but that's older than one. As a church grows, it loses its missional edge and starts to focus more internally on the people that are already here. And that's not the mission of the church. And so we need to constantly constantly press ourselves to say as the church grows and as we can possibly get comfortable or settle in, we must fight that impulse to stay on the razor's edge of God's work in the world. All right? So that's the heartbeat of what we have to do here. got to stay busy busy about the father's business. So now I want you to think about this this way. So God is doing this crazy thing of rescuing people from hell. You think that's a big thing? That's kind of fun. Like I can't think of anything more important to be a part of than rescuing people from hell. Okay, that's what God is doing. How does God do that? You know what's fun? God could do it any way he wants. But for whatever reason, he has chosen to rescue people from hell by using little humans like you and me. >> As a matter of fact, it's the only way he does it. >> God has appointed that people, broken, sinful, struggling people like you and me, would be the means, the vessels by which he would bring salvation into the world. That's crazy. I mean, think about it. Think about it. that this huge thing is at play and God has chosen one human preaching or sharing, showing, telling the gospel to another human as the primary way. And you know what's fun and even God does he does dreams. He does he interacts with people in all sorts of ways. But uh you hear about all these dreams particularly like let's say in a Muslim context or places that are more persecuted or hard to reach. Uh these kind of things happen more often it seems. But the funny thing is God will send dreams but the dream is almost always incomplete and the dream catalyzes them to go find a church or a person that the dream has pointed them to. So even when God sends a dream, the dream is to get them in front of a person so that person can lead them to Jesus. So think about it. It's just God's way. So think about this. What is God's plan for your family? It's you. What's God's master plan to rescue people from hell in your neighborhood? What amazing strategy has God played out? He's put you there. What's God's master genius plan for saving your co-workers? He put you there. What's his genius, wellthought through, intricate way he's going to reach your friends? Because you're one of their friends. It's you. You're the plan. which should challenge you but also encourage you, man. Wake up with something to live for. Come on. God has appointed you. He's chosen you. He's called you. He's involved you. He wants to use you. But also, it's the challenge that you are God's plan. Now, the preaching of the gospel must be something that is shared. Now, that's why I use the word preach. Okay? Now, what I want to do real quick is get rid of one of the worst phrases I've heard amongst Christian circles that I absolutely despise and I want to throw it in the trash publicly this morning. The phrase is this. Preach the gospel always and if necessary use words. It's the dumbest thing you could ever say about the gospel. Okay? Now the reason for that is like telling you to eat ice cream but you can't use your if necessary use your teeth and your tongue and your throat you know like those are necessary to the eating of the ice cream you know okay the gospel is a message and the only possible way to share the message is to use words >> that's it no one absolutely No one will go to heaven because you are nice. >> You'll step on your toes a little bit now. You say, "Man, >> I represent Jesus at work." Why? By being nice, your Muslim friends nice, too. Some people don't believe in Jesus are nicer than some Christians. As a matter of fact, unfortunately, you talk about it, you say, "Hold up." You say, "I'm super kind." Yeah. Okay. Nobody goes to heaven and is rescued from hell apart from hearing the words Jesus Christ lived the perfect life you could never live. He died the death that you deserve. He was raised on the third day and if you put your faith in him, you will be saved. It's the only way. It's the only way. So stop. This is my look. Okay, part of me, you know, whenever we talk about sharing the gospel, I understand that it's hard and I understand that it's difficult, it's awkward, you know, you're like, you're a teacher. Like, I don't know exactly how to do that work. I understand it's it could be complicated. It could be tricky. All those things, okay? But because pastors understand that, sometimes we want to pull the punch back a little bit and make you feel like, I mean, you know, you're giving your best shot, so you know, you know, just give a shot. Don't feel too bad. Don't feel too guilty. You know, are you trying? I I'm just I felt like the Lord has released me from that this morning to say you need to remove the pillow and to be honest to say some of you are living in active willful disobedience and you should absolutely feel bad and guilty and you should repent and turn to Christ that you have taken this high stakes message. You have taken the souls of the people in contact with you and you have dealt with them with such unconcern. You have not had the heart of Christ. You do not plead with God for them. You do not think about even an opportunity to share the gospel. And you are ashamed of Jesus in public. And God is telling you this morning to repent, to turn from your fear, your shame, your apathy, your unconcern, and turn to Christ and get a vision and a heart that longs for the things that God loves. It is not okay, absolutely not okay, that you call yourself a Christian and put very little effort into leading others to Christ. It is not something you should just feel like you're trying hard enough at. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I was thinking about this in my life because sometimes people in an effort to make you feel better, let's say if I share, man, I really missed it, you know, like I was lazy or I had an opportunity and I backed off from it or, you know, I just didn't care enough and and they'll tell me things like, man, look at all you're doing. You're doing good enough. Don't worry about it. And you know what that does in an effort to make somebody feel good is it creates complacency. No. No. Good enough is never the goal. I certainly am going to fail. I don't accept that I'll ever be perfect at this. But there should be an unceasing, as we talked about last two weeks ago, passion and burden that absolutely drives you to share the gospel or to live with this burden for others at all times. And if that's not there, then that's something to bring to Jesus and to begin to deal with and wrestle through, not to accept. And so I just want to say, you know, the scriptures say, as much as I like there's two sides, right? I want to encourage you like some of you are trying your best and I don't want to like overly guilt you that, you know, you're not leading people to Christ every day. Obviously not. You can't even control the outcomes. But there's also scriptures where Jesus says, "Whoever is ashamed of me and my words, I will be ashamed of him." And I just feel that necessary to share that with you as well that if you don't find it in you any desire to share Christ with others, it's a it's a large likelihood that you don't have Christ at all. If you find yourself most often ashamed, so we all deal with shame. There sometimes I don't share the gospel because I'm afraid. Sure. But that's sometimes if you find yourself just constantly ashamed of being a Christian, ashamed of Jesus, not wanting to talk about it or have that reputation, you should be concerned just because what the scripture says, not because of me, because God said himself, "Whoever's ashamed of me, I'll be ashamed of them." Which means that he'll reject you because you rejected him. So these things are interrelated. You don't earn salvation by doing good things or sharing the gospel. But a person who truly has Christ will talk to him about others. Talk to others about him. And that is a necessary, let's say, overflow or implication of a true Christian. So not that you'll do it every day or do it just right all the time, but that it'll be something on your mind and something you make an effort to do. So to summarize that, you write that write this down so you could take this point away. At least the gospel is a message. And if you have not said it, you have not shared it. All right? You haven't shared the gospel by having good character, living with integrity, not cheating, being nice, not sleeping around, whatever. You haven't shared the gospel by by having good character. You've provided a good base. Now, I'm not saying share the gospel and be a jerk. Obviously not. You know, I'm not saying your character doesn't matter. What I'm saying is no, nothing about you being a nice person will ever lead anybody to Jesus. You have to have to have to use your words. But God wants to empower you with your words. God wants to take you on a journey of excitement, living on the edge, watching people's lives get changed, watching God throw uh come through in crazy situations. I always tell people, if you think the Christian life is boring, it's cuz you're not living it right. It's it's maybe wild, but it's certainly not boring. You know, getting rejected is uncomfortable. It's not boring. You know, it's not boring. Awkward conversations are awkward. They're not boring. You know, nothing's boring about it. So if your Christian life is ho, it's just because you're not doing it. You're not fighting sin, pursuing Jesus, sharing the gospel, taking sacrifices, giving things away, trusting God. You know, it's a wild life, but it's not a boring one. And I want to invite you into something more exciting maybe than the life you're living now. So the Bible here, because this message is so important, it describes those who preach it. Verse 15, it says, "How beautiful are the feet." And so I was thinking about this in terms of our lives. And if it if the people who take the gospel, so to speak, have beautiful feet as a metaphor, then the implication is that the beautiful feet of life are the feet that are worn out, dirty, busted, bruised, broken. Not the pedicured, clean, and comfortable feet. Now, obviously, that's a metaphor. You can get your pedicures, okay? Enjoy your life, right? Whatever. Manny, petty it up. Now, maybe share the gospel with the lady when you're there. You know, shoot your shot. I'm not saying don't get a pedicure and have nasty feet. All right? You know, that's not what I'm saying. But what I am saying therefore is if a beautiful feet are the ones who take the gospel to difficult places, who do so busy and who keep doing it, then those feet are probably not very nice. They're callous. You know, they're broken. They're busted. And so if you take that metaphor to life, you know what? A a beautiful life is actually not the most comfortable one, not the most convenient one, not the safest one, not the most secure one. Actually, the most beautiful life is the most worn out one. It's the one with the most bruises and bust ups. It's the one that has been giving sacrificially over and over and over again. It's the one who's struggling. It's the one who's fighting. That's the beautiful life. And it's ironic that specifically here in America as well, we've been told the opposite story. Obviously, the enemy's strategy is to tell us that your best life is your most comfortable one. when Jesus says, "No, actually your best life is your most beat up one in a sense. You know, take up your cross and follow me." And so I want to give you a a missionary story that kind of gives you a picture of living with beautiful feet. Here's the story. He said there was an evangelist in India who trudged on foot to various villages preaching the gospel. He was a simple man with no education who loved Jesus with all his heart. That's a wonderful line, by the way. Just that's all you got to do. Love Jesus. and he was ready to lay down his life. He came to a village that didn't have the gospel. It was late in the day and he was very tired. But he went into the village. He lifted up his voice. He shared the gospel with those gathered in the square. They mocked him, derided him and drove him out of town. He was so tired. He had no emotional resources left. So he went and laid under a tree, utterly discouraged. He went to sleep not knowing if he would ever wake up. They might come kill him for all he knows. Now suddenly just after dusk he is startled and he wakes up. The whole town seemed to be surrounding him looking at him. He thought he'd probably die. One of the big men of the village said, "We came out to see what kind of man you are. And when we saw your blistered feet, we knew you were a holy man. We want you to tell us why you were willing to get blistered feet to come talk to us." So he preached the gospel and the whole village believed upon Jesus. What a wonderful picture for us today of a life lived with beautiful busted broken feet but in service to Jesus and your sacrificial busted broken busy for the kingdom of God uncomfortable life will be the very thing that gives credence and evidence to the message that you share with others. The question then becomes metaphorically for your life, how blistery are your feet? You know, how busted, how broken, how bruised, how dirty is your feet, your life in an effort to advance the gospel to your neighbors, to your family, to your city, and even to the world around us. So the last thing here, number three, you need to receive the gospel. You need to receive the gospel. The text here tells us that although the gospel has gone forward and even God says in verse 21, I hold out my hands to these people, they are disobedient and contrary. And there are people in the room who have still heard the gospel maybe lots of times. God is holding out his hands to you, but to this point, you have chosen to be disobedient and contrary. You might come to church. You might do Christian things at times. You might have grown up in the faith, I don't know, but you have yet to repent, to turn from your sin, and to trust Christ. And although you may be participating in church activities, you do not have an active relationship with Jesus. You need to receive the gospel. There might be some of you who are way out, way off the path. Maybe you're saying, "Man, I don't have any of those things, and there's no way God would ever accept me." Well, here's the point of the message. Remember in verse 13, everyone, everyone who even did terrible things last night, everyone who is super ashamed of their life, everyone who regrets so many awful things they've done, everyone who's living with guilt and shame, everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. And as God's offering you to this morning, he holds out his hands to you, asking for you to believe and put your faith and trust in him. So, I want you to close your eyes and as we close, I want you to consider the answer to that question again on a scale of 1 to 10, how certain are you? How certain are you that if you went to he that if you died today, you'd go to heaven? God wants you to be absolutely certain. Jesus didn't pay for 50% of your sins, 70% of your sins, 90% of your sins. He's not waiting and trusting in you to pull off the next 10%. The gospel is the good news that Jesus Christ died for all of your sins. If you truly know him, God wants you to be a 10 to have absolute confidence. But maybe some of you in this room don't have a 10 because you don't actually truly know him. You just heard about it. If that's you this morning, I want you to take some time to believe and to trust that Jesus Christ paid for all of your sins. If in your answer to the second question this morning, you considered anything about yourself that God should let you into heaven because you've been a good person, that God should let you into heaven because you go to church, that God should let you into heaven because you've tried not to be really bad. Well, I'm so glad that you've put effort into your life, but sad to say, being good is not good enough. The only people that get into heaven are perfect ones. And the only way to be perfect is to receive Jesus and his perfect life on your behalf. So if that's you today and you answered anything other than complete and total trust in Jesus, if you included yourself in anything you've done at all, I would be concerned that your understanding of the gospel or your belief in it is not totally accurate. and today to choose to say, "I put my faith completely and totally in Jesus Christ who lived and died and rose again for all my sins as my literal only hope of going to heaven." So, I want to give you 30 seconds now and I want you to respond to God if that's you. And those of you who are in the room who are quite confident in your relationship with God, I want you to spend this time praying for those of uh in your life that you know are not right with God. So take this next 30 seconds and respond to whatever it is the Lord's leading in your life. Ask the Lord for boldness to go live the way he's called you to live. [Music] [Music] [Music] So, we take some more time with our eyes closed just to solidify this moment between you and the Lord. If you're here today and you'd say, "Today, I truly understood the gospel and I chose to put my faith totally and completely in Jesus alone." I want you to raise your hand. If you say, "That was me this morning. to say today is the day I choose to completely and totally surrender to God to mark this moment between you and Jesus to give me the opportunity to pray for you in my head. I want you to go ahead and raise your hand. Thank you. Praise the Lord. As we proceed to respond to God, I'm going to pray and then we're going to open up our prayer time down front. We're going to sing. I invite you to come get prayer. I invite you to come kneel at the altar and pray for those you love. I invite you to come intercede to ask God for boldness to repent of your fear. I invite you to turn your life over to Jesus. So, let's pray. Heavenly Father, we love you. Thank you for this time together. Thank you for your word. Thank you for the good news of the gospel. I pray that we would truly cheat it treat it and enjoy it and share it as good news. I pray that you would send us forth from here as your children, your missionaries, your ambassadors to boldly proclaim this message to everyone we know. I pray that we would see mass revival of lives being transformed and coming to Christ because your ordinary regular church decided to go out and be about your business. I pray that every single person here watching online would have a right relationship with you today. We ask this in Jesus' name. Everybody said, "Amen." Amen. Why don't you stand? Please come pray. Come sing and respond to the Lord.