Faith Comes by Hearing

We were talking, you will recall last Sunday morning about the importance of calling
on the name of the Lord.
Verse 13 of Romans chapter 10 says, "Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved."
We saw that time that calling on the name of the Lord really means crying out to him
with an awareness of our need in the full expectation that God cares and is interested
in meeting that need.
That's called faith.
The Bible says in the book of Hebrews that if we draw near to God, we must not only believe
that he exists, but that he rewards those who seek him.
Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.
And the big question in many of our hearts and lives, I'm sure much of the time, is how
do I lay hold of that kind of faith?
The kind of faith that not only believes there is a God out there whom I cannot see.
But a God who understands my needs, a God who has committed himself to becoming involved
in my life and in my world and who will answer me when I call on his name.
That's the kind of thing that we want to talk about a little bit this morning as we prepare
for the celebration of communion because that's really the theme that Paul now develops
in these concluding verses in Romans chapter 10, and he best summarizes his argument in
that passage by verse 17 that we read earlier.
So faith comes from what is heard and what is heard comes by the preaching of Christ.
Faith he says comes from what is heard and what is heard comes by the preaching of Christ.
Two things this morning, and that's short verse that I want for us to notice.
Number one, faith comes by hearing.
Faith comes from what is heard, says Paul.
That is to say long before anybody can ever call on God and long before anybody can have
any expectation that God cares about the needs of his or her heart or life, that person
has to have a knowledge, a knowledge of there is a God, a knowledge that he is the kind
of person the Bible says that he is, and that if you call on him, he will meet you in
the deepest needs of your life.
That's why Paul begins this passage with these rhetorical questions, how are men to call
upon 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 a preacher?
And the implied answer in each of these questions is they cannot.
And that's why throughout the history of biblical redemption, God has sent messengers among
the peoples of the world proclaiming his character, his nature, and his saving purposes.
That's why Paul goes on to say as it is written, how beautiful are the feet of those who
preach good news.
The word gospel means good news.
It's coming to people who are dying in sin and in sorrow and in death and in anguish
and declaring there is an escape, there is a way out because God has given his son.
That's why it's so important too that you and I, if we profess to follow Jesus, are
able to articulate and to speak the message of salvation, because all around us and all
over the world there are people who have not really heard and who have not really understood
faith comes from what is heard, but it goes on to say what is heard comes by the preaching
of Christ.
And here's the second thing I want us to notice in this particular verse, faith not only
comes by hearing, but the focal point of the message which people hear needs to be the
person of Jesus Christ.
What is heard comes by the preaching of Christ.
What is heard comes by the preaching of Christ.
That word preaching is the Greek word arrayma, R-H-E-M-A.
It means literally the thing that is said or that which is said.
In the context of this particular passage, it can mean two different things.
It can mean first of all the message, that is the message about Christ.
We'll talk more about that in just a moment.
It can also refer in the context of this passage to this speaking of Christ Himself.
In other words, it can refer to the message about Christ, but the preaching of Christ can
also be Christ speaking, and I believe in the context of the passage, it's a combination
of the two.
It certainly starts out being primarily the message.
How can people hear Paul says earlier without a preacher?
How does somebody come to faith?
How does somebody come to know the reality of the power of Jesus?
Will they need to hear the message?
They need to hear the story.
That story's got at least two components.
They need to hear the historical happenings surrounding the person of Jesus Christ.
People need to understand, I believe, at least in a vague sense that God created the world
and that He made it good.
People need to understand that the tragedy and the brokenness in the world is not the result
of God, but the result of man's disobedience.
People need to understand that from the very beginning of time God has promised that He
would intervene in the course of history, that He would raise up an individual who would
cause justice to flow like a mighty river who would destroy sin and set all captives free.
People need to understand how almost 2,000 years ago in a humble stable, a little baby was
born to a young woman who had conceived that child not by the natural act of sexual relations,
but by the divine working of the Holy Spirit.
People need to understand that that little boy grew up to be a man.
That he was perfect without sin and that he was like us in all things except sin, that
he faced all of our temptations, experienced all of our difficulties, that he died a tragic
death in the cross because the light came to shine within the darkness, the darkness
tried to overcome it, but thank God did not succeed.
Now on the third day God raised him from the dead as an indication of his favor with God,
how he ascended on high and how one day he is coming again in the glory of his father
and he's going to destroy all sin and all rebellion and all the pride of humanity and
he's going to establish God's kingdom forever and ever and he will reign to the praise of
God's glory. People need to understand the facts of biblical salvation history, but they
need to do more than that. They need to understand the significance of those biblical facts of
salvation history. They need to understand why God made the world so that we could be
in His image and share His glory. They need to understand why it is that Jesus left
the glories of the Father and came to live among us as a human being like us as I said
earlier in all things sin accepted. They need to understand that it's our sin that
has caused separation between God and ourselves and that Jesus Christ in His anguish and
Gethsemane and in His terrible death and Calvary's cross took all of that sin, nailed it to
the cross so that those who look to Him in faith can be delivered and can be restored
to be the children of God. They need to understand the theological significance of the resurrection
of Jesus Christ that He overcame death and hell and that He now lives and reigns to wash
her in the glorious kingdom of God. That's of course the difference that you see and the
gospels between the gospel according to Matthew, Mark and Luke, which are known as the
synoptic gospels and the gospel of John. Matthew, Mark and Luke relate primarily the story
of the happenings and the teachings of the life of Jesus. John's gospel does some of
that but John's gospel goes on to elaborate on the theology as to why it is the Jesus cable
and what it is that He did in the beginning was the word and the word was made flesh and
well among us and we have beheld His glory, the glory as the only begotten of the Father.
It's also the difference between the synoptic gospels and the letters of Paul and the
epistles that you find later on in the New Testament. If those gospels talk about the
historical happenings of Jesus and Paul primarily in His letters, He works out the theological
implications of that and He helps us to look beyond the baby and the manger and beyond
all the historical happenings, pointing out to us that this Jesus is God's gift to humanity
so that we can be restored to God and we can be restored to His favor, faith comes from
what is heard and what is heard comes by the message of Christ. People need to hear
the message of salvation and as we speak that word of salvation, as we do that in the power
of the Holy Spirit, then Christ speaks through us and that message that we bring now comes
to life and is literally the preaching of Christ. That's how that word means both things
as both the message of Christ and Christ using that message spoken in human words and
giving it power, cutting through the defenses into people's hearts, intersecting with
their lives and creating faith within. It's a mystery how God does that. One of our hymns
puts it this way, number 378, "I know not how" was saving faith to me, he didn't part,
nor how believing in his word, "rawed peace within my heart," but I know whom I have
believed and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him
against that day. Faith comes from what is heard and what is heard comes by the preaching
of Christ, that's again why it's so important for us to be able to articulate our faith.
Because as we point to Jesus, Jesus by His Spirit intersects the lives of those who don't
know Him and His Spirit creates faith within human hearts so that people will know who
He is, they will be able to call on Him expectantly and they will experience His power and they
will experience His salvation. Many of you have heard me tell the story of how quite
some years ago in out 10, 11, 12, I don't recall exactly. My wife and I had opportunity to
lead a young woman to Christ who since that time has gone on to become a strong believer
and a great testimony to faith in Jesus Christ. When we first met her, she had one of the
coldest hearts of anybody that we've ever met. She was raised in a dysfunctional alcoholic
home very early as a child. I made a vow that she wasn't going to give her heart and her
love to anybody because it was just too dangerous and she closed everything in on herself and
in the process of doing that to a very large degree lost her own soul and lost her own
identity. She was incapable of developing intimate relationships with anybody and started
living with a boyfriend because it was easier just to go along with that, ended up marrying
Him, had a child, but it was unhappy in the relationship and was within days of breaking
up in that relationship when she got to know one of the young men in her church and he
didn't know what to do with her and he introduced her to my wife and I and we shared over a number
of weeks with her the story of the salvation of Jesus. Woman raised in North American culture.
Here's all the same Christmas songs in the radio that we did but didn't know who Jesus
was and we shared with her the story of Jesus. Very simple and non-condemnatory tones we
just shared with her God's love and God's power and God's grace. The misery of her life
was not God's doing because everybody always wants to blame God. How it's the result of
our own sin and how God and His love it sent His Son into the world and how if we turn
to Him in obedience and faith He will meet us, He will transform our lives and He will change
us and the Lord took those words by the power of His Spirit and began knocking on the
door of our heart and it wasn't very long before she bend her knee before Jesus and she
said Jesus I've tried everything and everybody else I need you she called on the name of
the Lord. I'll never forget that day because she told us many months later that the reason
she did it was number once she had nothing to lose number two she had no reason to believe
that we lied to her but our testimony to Jesus was a testimony that was true for the first
three weeks I think it was nothing much happened. She walked by faith to one night in the middle
of the night the Lord God met her in a very dramatic way touched her heart changed her
life set her on that journey from which she has not turned back to this day. Faith comes
from what is heard what is heard comes by the preaching of Christ. It is the declaration
of who Jesus is that produces faith in the hearts and the lives of men and women. Now all
of that has some very practical implications for your life and for my life because you
see it isn't only people out in the world that struggle with issues of faith is it. I mean
if truth be known how many of us struggle with the reality of faith how many of us wonder
if God's really there how many of us wonder if I cry out to God in the need of my heart
that he cares at all about the needs of my life or the needs of my soul what are the dangers
of living in Christian community is that we become sort of cynical we profess all the
orthodox beliefs with our heads but deep in our hearts we've turned off because you
see part of the struggle of faith is there are those times when the heavens are like brass
and when we cry out to God and call on him and nothing much ever seems to happen and
some of us we've been doing it for years and then we hear the stories of other people
how God touches their lives and sometimes we could jealous and other times we just
get angry because it doesn't intersect with our own lives and we say how can I get faith
that will turn my life upside down how can I believe that God exists and that he cares
for me many answers to that question but Paul here says faith comes from what is heard
and what is heard comes by the preaching of Christ you know how faith arises within your
heart it's by laying hold and remembering and celebrating of this story of who Jesus
is there is something about hearing the truth about Jesus and laying at hold laying hold
of it with our hearts and with our lives that God uses by his Holy Spirit to generate
faith in our unbelieving hearts so that again and again we can get up and we can keep
on moving knowing that God is faithful and he will bring us to where it is that he wants
us to get how do we do that well one of the ways of course is by reading the scriptures
because the scriptures bear witness to Jesus the Pharisees were hung up on the scriptures
and Jesus is to them you don't understand that it's the scriptures that point to me and
they are a testimony to my saving power that means we need to be acquainted with the
scriptures not only certain select portions of it not just the sort of pieces that we like
and that we understand but all of that from Genesis 1 to Revelation the concluding chapter
we have many of us I think the habit and the custom and I think it's a good one to read
these daily devotionals that one of the meals are for part of our devotions and that's
a good thing but if we don't go beyond that into the very scriptures themselves then we
ought not to be surprised that we lose faith because you see we live in a world that is
against faith all the time and we live in a world you watch the news and you listen to
other people and you value the things the rest of the world values and faith just sort of
flows out of you I love this story somebody asked Dwight Elmoody many years ago he said why
do you preach all the time about being filled with the Holy Spirit Dwight Elmoody said it's
really simple he said I discovered a long time ago I leak it isn't that the truth for each one of us
we leak and you can come out of church and they're giving Sunday morning and you can be
full of fire and full of determination to follow the Lord and by the time you meet the first pagan
and Monday morning your faith's gone out to window because how do you live Sunday morning's
reality in a world that doesn't believe what you believe we need to build on the scriptures
and lay them up within our hearts and folks nobody's going to do it for you you're going to have to
do it yourself it's also the reason we gather together for worship it's also why in the context of
worship we not only try to praise the Lord but we study the word because the focus of a proclamation
of the word is not to fill our minds with all kinds of nice theories and speculate on
and the impossibilities of the future but the whole before our eyes the person of Jesus
and his power and his glory and his redemption Paul says we preach Christ crucified
foolishness to those who perish a stumbling block to the Greeks folly to the Jews with the power
of God to salvation to those who believe so why we need to be here when we gather for worship
I often say to people especially new members when I talk to them the time when you least feel like
being present is usually the time you most need to be there because that's the time you most
need an infusion of God's grace that's why it's also important for God's people to share together the
stories of redemption there's a principle in the scriptures about the word becoming flesh
that we often lose sight of because you see a lot of us we can't hold on to vague abstractions
it needs to be lived out in reality and we not only need to marvel for one another the story
of God's redemption but we need to share with each other the stories of what has God has done
within our hearts and within our lives ever notice that when your faith is law
you wonder if God's there or you wonder if God cares somebody comes along and they
they share what God has done in their heart and what God has done in their life and faith begins
to rise up within you and your life gets encouraged and you can move forward because faith is flowing
like a river so one of the reasons I recommend it encourage for people to listen to Christian music
it's also why I encourage people to read good read good Christian books
especially stories of how God was at work in the lives of others so that the word becomes
flesh and we can lay hold of it and we can say hey that man that woman's not a whole lot
different from what I am but look at what God did in their lives if God can do it for them he can
do it for me the writer to the Hebrew says remember your leaders and consider the outcome of their
lives and imitate their faith and then it adds the words for Jesus Christ is the same yesterday
and today and forever one of the books that I had a chance to read over the summer holidays was
was a thick one by Edith Schaefer called the tapestry it's the story of
the Francis Schaefer family and of their ministry in Lebrie if you're familiar with that
a unique ministry to searching intellectuals from all over the world that would come to to their
chalets in Switzerland and talk about issues of faith and how that whole faith ministry was founded
and how God used it and now God brought together all these interwoven strands of the tapestry
at different times and the lines merged and and I read that book and I came away from there just
encouraged all over again that God is in heaven and he's in control and he is fulfilling his purpose
and his kingdom we need to hear the word of Christ living among his people faith comes from what
it's heard and what is heard comes by the preaching of Christ that's why this morning we celebrate
communion because the celebration of communion is the proclamation of the person of Jesus
because when in a few moments we take that bread and we break it and we take the wine and we pour it
we're testifying that there was a person called Jesus who was born as a baby 2000 years ago
and that he was no ordinary child but rather that he was the son of God
and that he was God's answer to all of the problems of humanity and when we take the bread and we
pour the wine we testify that that Jesus not only lived her life but that he died our death
it really happened he really allowed sinners to nail him to the cross and he really experienced
all the hellish torment of God so that by faith in him we can be delivered from the curse
and we can be restored to God and we can know the reality of God's love and God's power for our own
eyes and when we break the bread and we pour out the wine and we partake of the elements were
also testifying that the same Jesus who was nailed to the cross by the glorious power of God
was raised on the third day that he ascended on high that he sat down at the right hand of God
on high and that he lives and he reigns today forever that he makes intercession for us at the right
hand of God and we testify that when we come to him and humble faith and repentance
he will take all our sin he will nail it to the cross so we bear it no more
and he will give us his forgiveness and he will give us his Holy Spirit and his Holy Spirit will
work within our hearts cutting through all the confusion of our minds cutting through all the
hardness of our hearts generating hope generating faith generating expectancy
so that when I face financial problems
when I face emotional difficulties one life looks so bleak that I don't want to get up in the
morning but I want to throw in the towel and no longer serve Jesus there is a renewed determination
within me that he was begun a good work in me will also bring it to completion
we can call on his name in faith and in expectancy confessing that Jesus is Lord
and in that confession we discover that he's with us in our deepest pain our deepest sorrow
our greatest need and as we call on him and he reaches down to us he takes us out of that proverbial
myri clay he puts our feet on a solid rock and then we have a message to bear to people all around us
it may come out in flowing words it may come out in stumbling expressions
but there will be a power to our witness to Jesus we'll be able to take other people by the hand
and we'll be able to point them to the one who can transform hearts and lives and he was
promised to change the whole world so that in a world of gloom and a world of darkness
and in a world of so much pain people may know there is a God who cares
and he demonstrated that care in the gift of his son faith comes from what is heard
what is heard comes by the preaching of Christ let us pray
Father we confess this morning that sometimes our faith grows deep all it's not hard to believe
in you in sort of in an intellectual fashion and not hard to believe that you're probably there
somewhere in that sort of in a general fashion you care for us and you care for the rest of the world
Lord we might even have very little trouble believing that you really care about a lot of other
people and that if they will call on you you'll hear them but Lord I suspect that if we're honest
with you this morning then there are at least those times in our own lives when we aren't really
so sure that you really understand us that you really love us and that you're really there for us
in the confusions and in the perplexities of our own hearts and of our own lives
this morning we confess that as unbelief we confess Lord that while that's very natural to us
it is sin in your sight and we thank you that faith is not something that we can just
drum up in our own hearts but that you work it in our hearts with the power of the Holy Spirit
as we are exposed to the message of Christ and Lord this morning we lift up Jesus
we thank you that he came into the world as a little baby we thank you that he lived the life of
sinless perfection always dedicated to your purposes and to your plan we thank you Father
that he died in the cross and that he was raised from the dead that he has seen it at the right
hand of God that he is coming again in glory that he gives us the spirit and that he has promised to
be with us always even in our darkest night and our greatest pain and we pray this morning as we
reach out to you in the sacrament of communion as we meditate upon his accomplishments and upon
his life and upon his death oh Lord God grant us your spirit and may your spirit refresh our hearts
and courage our faith build our lives and Lord then send us out into the world to proclaim
that there is an answer in no one but Jesus alone and help us to live an eager
expectations until that day when he comes in the clouds of heaven and takes this world and makes
it fully his own whenever he shall bow and every tongue welcome fast that Jesus Christ is Lord
to the glory of God the Father and Lord when we face the hour of our own death
may we do it in the expectation led by faith in Jesus
we shall see you and know you and share your everlasting glory thank you Lord
for hearing us in Jesus name amen