Faith Comes from Hearing the Gospel

Romans 10:14-17 Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.  Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved!  What good news this is!  What hope there is in this promise that the Holy Spirit inspired the Apostle Paul to write in Romans 10:  Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved! 

These words of promise and hope are just like the words of St. Peter to the Philippian jailer who fell at his feet, asking him what he must do to be saved.  And the response of Peter was this:  believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved, you and your household.

That we are saved from the holy wrath of God through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ is the central teaching of Holy Scripture and the central teaching of our Lutheran Church and the central teaching of Romans.  It is our hope and peace and confidence in the courtroom of a a holy, righteous God! 

We confess, along with the Apostle Paul and Martin Luther:  that one is justified by faith apart from deeds of the Law:  declared right in God’s sight.

That is how important faith in Jesus is!  Faith in Jesus is our salvation.  Faith in Jesus is our justification.  Faith in Jesus is our peace in time and for eternity.  And… 

Everything that Paul has written in his letter to the Romans up to this point has been written so that we would know and understand that most important teaching that is faith in Jesus that saves.

In our text today there is a necessary transition from the absolute importance of saving faith in Jesus, to the way in which we come to possess that saving faith in the first place. 

And Paul asks us three rhetorical questions to help us understand how faith in Jesus has come to reside in our heart.  Since everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved:

How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?

            And the answer to each of those rhetorical questions is:  they can’t!  How can people call on Jesus if they do not believe in him?  They can’t!  How can people believe in Jesus if they have never heard of him or his saving works?  They can’t!  How can people hear about Jesus if no one preaches to them?  They can’t!

    Do you understand the point that Paul is making about the importance of the Gospel ministry of Word and sacrament?  It is that ministry and those gifts that connect us to Jesus by faith.

Our Lord Jesus Christ took upon himself our flesh and became man, born of a woman, born under the Law to redeem those under the Law at a particular moment in history. 

He lived a holy life, died a terrible death on the cross, rose again and ascended into heaven on particular days in history some two thousand years ago.  A real historical person.  A real historical life.  All of it to redeem the world from the curse of sin and death and the power of the devil.

And here we are on June 2, 2019 living our own lives at a particular in moment in history, two thousand years separating us from the historical person and work of our Lord Jesus Christ.  We ask…    

What is there that connects us to Christ?  What is there that bridges that span of time and place so that we can come to faith in Christ?  It is the Word of God! 

It is the Gospel that is preached and taught in this church!  It is the Good News that in Holy Baptism we died with Christ and were raised in Christ and that in Holy Communion what was offered up for the salvation of the world upon the cross in Christ’s body and blood is given to us to eat and drink for the forgiveness of sins. 

The promise of Holy Scripture is that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved and the Good News for us is that:  we can call upon Jesus because we believe in him-- and we believe in Jesus because we have heard of him -and we have heard of Jesus because someone has preached to us. 

That is just how important the Office of the Holy Ministry is to our life of faith and our salvation!  Our saving faith in Jesus has come from preaching!  The Lutheran reformers understood this and confessed this biblical teaching. 

In the Augsburg Confession, after confessing that we are “justified as a gift on account of Christ’s sake through faith when we believe that Christ suffered for us” they immediately go on to say that to obtain such faith “God instituted the office of preaching, giving the gospel and the sacraments”, that through these means, “God gives the Holy Spirit who produces faith where and when he wills, in those who hear the gospel”. 

  Saving faith in Jesus comes to us personally and individually through the Gospel and sacraments that are given to us in the Office of the Holy Ministry.  How thankful to God we ought to be that, through the church, the Lord calls and sends men into the gospel ministry of Word and Sacrament so that we can hear the Good News about Jesus and receive his gifts and be saved.  That is what Paul is reminding us of when he asks us one more rhetorical question:

How can anyone preach unless they are sent? As it is written: “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!”

            How can anyone preach unless they are sent?  Again the answer is, they can’t!  It is Jesus who gives gifts to the church of pastors and teachers.  It is the Holy Spirit who continues to direct men to particular places and fields of services.  It is the Lord of the Harvest who graciously and generously answers the prayers of his people when they ask for workers.

Nearly 60 years ago the Holy Spirit called the Rev. Thomas Sorensen to be the pastor of Grace Lutheran Church in Brownwood.  I will be forever grateful that he did because on November 4, 1962 Pastor Sorensen took me in his arms and baptized me in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Thirteen years later at Zion, Ft Worth the Lord called Pastor Socha to lay his hands on me and confirm me in the Christian faith and another 7 years after that Pastor Wuensche united me in marriage to Caroline and a decade after that Pastor Franke ordained me into the Holy Ministry.

Here is my point:  my life of faith is told in the names of the pastors who have been sent into my life by the Holy Spirit to serve me with God’s good gifts-- and so is your life of faith told in exactly the same way—through those who have served as your pastors.  And so then…

As of today the next chapter in your faith story will be told with the name of Pastor Middelstadt attached.  Just like all the faithful pastors who have come before him in this place, pastors who have served you with God’s good gifts of Word and Sacraments, now the Holy Spirit has sent Pastor Middlestadt.  The Holy Spirit has sent him! 

He is your God-given pastor.  He is the God-given Shepherd of your soul.  He is God’s own man in this place who has been sent to give you all the gifts of forgiveness, life and salvation that Jesus has won for you in his death and resurrection. 

What a precious gift this pastor is!  This scene right here is what led Paul to exclaim:  How beautiful are the feet of those who bring Good News!

Now Pastor Middelstadt, I have not seen your feet nor do I want to!  Much can be said of men’s feet but beautiful does not ordinarily come to mind—especially in the ancient world! 

But that is the very word that the Holy Spirit caused St. Paul to write about the feet of those who come to us bearing the Gospel because they bring us salvation itself.  And yet, that still does not mean that everything will always go smoothly.  Paul wrote that:

…not all the Israelites accepted the good news. For Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed our message?”

            Until the return of our Lord Jesus Christ we will continue to live in a broken and dying world and the work of the church will go forward under the cross.  There will always be sorrows along with the joys as we are about the Lord’s work.

The very people of God (including those in this place!) are not magically immune from the temptations of the world and the assaults of the devil and the burden of their own flesh.

And so there has never been a preacher who ever lived who at one time or the other did not wonder and worry with Isaiah, “Lord, is there anyone who is listening and believing what we say?” 

But there is a wonderful  promise that God makes to you Pastor Middlestadt and to the members of this congregation that sustains us and keeps us from losing heart:  Faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word about Christ.

Faith comes from hearing the message of Christ!  What a comfort and encouragement that promise is!  As you conduct your ministry in this place, preaching Christ and giving his gift—faith will come to those who hear it and receive it.  As you do the work of an evangelist in this community, preaching Christ and giving his gifts—faith will come to those who hear it and receive it. It is a promise of the Lord of the Church!

And so then, as you begin your life together as pastor and people, I pray especially that the Lord will richly bless the message of Christ in this congregation and community!  Amen.