Romans 10:5-15
“Heart, Mouth, and Feet”
August 28, 2011 - Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost

         You empty your pockets or dump out your purse. You pull the cushions off the couch and rummage through the garbage. You root around under the car seats and walk up and down your driveway. Your car keys are lost and you just can’t find them. Then your teenager walks in, picks up the mail to sort through it, and there they are, right there on the kitchen counter all along, right where you left them and then dropped a pile of junk mail.

         As Paul worries about salvation for his own people, for the nation of Israel, he comes to the conclusion that what he’s looking for has been there all along. God has been faithful to the Jewish people all along. Their opportunity to receive righteousness and salvation is right where they left it, right where God promised it would be. What’s more, it’s not just there for them, it’s there for everyone as God always planned.

         Verses 5 and 6 might suggest Paul is saying that Jewish people were looking in the wrong place for righteousness and salvation, like you digging around in the car for your keys when you should have looked in the kitchen. Verse 5 talks about “the righteousness that comes from law,” while verse 6 talks about “the righteousness that comes by faith.” So you might think that instead of messing around in the room of law, trying to live according to God’s commandments, they should have searched harder in the room of faith.

         In fact, you could get the impression that Paul blames the righteousness that comes from law on Moses, because verse 5 explicitly quotes him, while it’s Jesus who produces the righteousness which comes by faith because verses 6 and 7 mention Christ. It’s that too simplistic understanding of Paul’s theology again: “Law bad. Faith good.”

         We’ve seen over and over that Paul never means to reject or criticize the law God gave to Israel. He understands that God would never tell you to look for your car keys in the bedroom when they are actually in the kitchen. God didn’t tell the Jews to look for salvation in the law, when it was actually all along a matter of faith. It’s much more subtle and complex than that. God was working through the law to bring His people to faith, to a deep and living trust in Him.

         It’s not Moses in verse 5 versus Paul in verses 6 and 7. Yes, verse 5 quotes what Moses says in Leviticus 18:5, but the next two verses quote what Moses says in Deuteronomy 30, verses 12 and 13. In other words, Paul is saying what he said in Romans 4 about Abraham. Salvation and righteousness by faith has been there all along. It’s what the law was all about, what the law was aiming at. Living by faith in God is not a new idea that just popped up when Jesus came. It’s been God’s plan since the beginning.

         Reading Deuteronomy 30, as we did this morning, really helps make sense of verses 6 and 7 and that business of bring Christ down from heaven or bringing Christ up from the dead. It’s Paul’s application of the same idea Moses shared about the law. What you need is not far away and difficult to find. It’s right here, near you and with you.

         In Deuteronomy Moses’ point is that God’s commandment, God’s way into life and righteousness, is not some impossible dream. No one needs to go up to heaven to get it. No one needs to cross the ocean to find it. What God is asking of His people is simple, is understandable, is doable. Love God and love your neighbor and you will live. It’s a way of life, it’s a faith that is available right here and now. Do it and live.

         Exactly the same thing is true of faith in Jesus Christ, says Paul. No one needs to go up to heaven and bring Christ down. He’s already come down! He was born in Bethlehem. He grew up in Nazareth. He taught in Jerusalem. He came down and lived among us. Paul doesn’t talk about crossing the ocean, but going down into it, into the abyss. No one needs to go down to get Christ, because Jesus already rose up out of the grave. Jesus came down and even though He died, He rose again. He’s right here. He’s alive. He’s present in our world and in our lives. Anyone who believes in Him will discover it’s true.

         So in verse 8 Paul tells us that what Moses said about the word of the law is true about the word of Jesus, the Gospel Good News that Jesus came and died and rose. “The word is near you, on your lips and in your heart.”

         This is part of Paul’s answer to all his worries about the Jewish people. God did not leave them searching in the wrong room for something they’d never find. The law showed them where to look. Now it’s even clearer in Jesus. It’s not some long spiritual journey or some arduous spiritual task. It’s God drawing near to them, so they can trust Him in faith.

         There are so many spiritual ideas and offerings on the market. We need this lesson now. Righteousness and salvation are not the product of some huge spiritual undertaking. You don’t have to meditate until you separate your soul from this world and rise up into some heavenly nirvana. You don’t have to dive deep into the abyss of your own mind and heart to dredge up some secret wisdom buried there. Instead, what you’re looking for is right out in the open, on your lips and in your heart, the gift of salvation in Jesus Christ.

         Appropriating Moses’ saying “The word is near you, on your lips and in your heart,” is how Paul arrives at one of his more famous verses, Romans 10:9. My pastor assigned it to me as memory work long ago and I always recall it in the King James Version, “That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.”

         On your lips and in your heart, confess with your mouth and believe in your heart. That’s the incredibly simple, incredibly precious formula for responding to the Good News that Jesus came and died and rose again… for everyone.

         Verse 10 puts those two components of response to Jesus in the more logical order that first one believes with the heart and receives righteousness. Then you confess with your mouth and receive salvation. Faith in Christ begins as our guest preacher Mike Fargo said spiritual life begins, with a change inside us. Then it becomes a matter of public profession and action.

         Yet it’s important to hear what Paul said about that belief in verse 9. It’s not just belief or faith in the abstract. It’s specific. It’s “believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead.” There is some content to our faith, to what we believe.

         I don’t know how many times we’ve seen and heard a movie or television character say something like “Just believe,” or “You’ve just gotta have faith.” A lover lies sick and dying. An injustice cries out to be made right. The answer is just “believe,” just “have faith.” That’s all they say is necessary, some nebulous belief, some undefined faith. I think that single word, “Believe,” was a Nike slogan recently. But whenever Beth or I hear a line like that we want to yell out the question, “Believe in what?” “Faith in whom?” You probably don’t want to go to the movies with us. We’ll embarrass you.

         Christians don’t just believe. We don’t just believe in ourselves or have faith in faith. We believe in Jesus Christ. We have faith in the Son of God who came from heaven as one of us, who lived a sinless life, who worked amazing miracles, who died on the Cross for our sins and then rose again to show that He had conquered sin and death. That’s what we believe in. That’s who we believe in.

         It’s to that specific faith, that faith with content, that faith in Jesus Christ who died and rose again, that Paul adds the expectation that we profess it with our mouths, say it aloud, announce it in public. You see, that’s another wrong assumption our culture makes about faith. Not only are you to have faith that doesn’t name anything specific, belief that’s empty of any actual content, you are to keep it to yourself. “Believe whatever you like,” we’re told, but don’t bother anyone else with it. Keep it private. Keep it just in your heart. Don’t bring it out in the open. Don’t bring to school. Don’t bring it to work. Don’t write it on your ballot. Don’t say anything about it to your friends. Just believe in your heart and that’s it.

         That may be why Paul put it first in Moses’ order: “On your lips,” then “in your heart…” “Confess with your mouth…” and “believe in your heart…” It was just as hard or harder then to make a public confession, to say Christian faith out loud. It was just: “Jesus is Lord.” That’s the very first Christian creed. Three words in English, two in Greek. “Jesus is Lord.” And it was a public statement. It was a political statement.

         Everyone in Paul’s world was expected to say was, “Caesar is lord.” “Caesar is the one who rules my world, rules my own country, rules my life. Caesar is lord.” And Christians came along and stood up publicly against the politics of the day and said out loud for everyone to hear, “No, we won’t say that Caesar is lord. Jesus is Lord.”

         The only solid Christian faith is a public faith, a faith spoken out loud and acted out where everyone can see it. I was thumbing through our September Book of the Month. It’s called Christians Are Hate-Filled Hypocrites …and Other Lies You’ve Been Told. It’s actually a book about statistics. It’s by Bradley Wright, a Christian sociologist who looks at the data and challenges some things both Christians and non-Christians say about us.

         One of the lies we’ve been told even by other Christians is that you can be a perfectly good, strong Christian in private. Public worship and church are superfluous to individual Christian faith. You don’t need church to be a good follower of Jesus. But Wright cites a study showing it’s not true. Christians who regularly go to church are “more likely to look to God for strength, believe that God is watching over them, carry their religious beliefs into other dealings, feel God’s presence every day, find comfort in religion, desire closeness to God, consider themselves to be very religious and spiritual, and have had a life-changing religious experience.”[1] In your heart and in your mouth. Public faith is better and deeper.

         I’ve strayed a little bit to bring out some of the implications of verses 9 and 10, but the basic thing is what I was taught when I was first asked to memorize them, that this is just what both Moses and Paul say it is. Believing in and professing Jesus as Lord is the way to truly live. It’s the way to salvation. It’s the way to real spirituality, to hope and joy and peace. It’s the only way, and it’s open to anyone. It’s open to you.

         That’s the theme Paul returns to in verses 11 to 13. It’s one of the great themes of the letter to the Romans. He starts by repeating a quotation from Isaiah 28:16 that was also in last week’s text, “Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.” He repeats that word for everyone or “all,” in the next two verses, twice in verse 12. As he’s been saying all along, it doesn’t matter if you are Jewish or Gentile, “the same Lord is Lord of all and is generous to all who call on him.”

         It’s a political statement again. It’s what they said about Caesar. “The same lord is lord of all.” Caesar was the lord and emperor of a diverse empire of many nations and races. But Paul stakes that claim as true of only one Lord, and that’s Jesus. Then in verses 13 he quotes the promise from Joel 2:32 that Peter quoted at Pentecost, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”

         Look at what Paul is doing here. He’s quoting the Old Testament right and left over and over, all to show that what Christians say about Jesus is what the Hebrew scriptures were saying all along. All the promises God made to His people in Israel are fulfilled and completed through the people who believe in Jesus Christ. There’s no distinction between Jew and Gentile now. In Christ the God of Israel has become the God of everyone. All anyone needs to be included in that is to believe with your heart and confess with your mouth the risen Lord Jesus Christ.

         As always, my prayer is that everyone here has already or will soon take that double step of faith, to believe in Jesus and say it aloud. Let Jesus become the inner Lord of your heart and the public Lord of your life. That’s the way to righteousness. That’s the way to salvation. Don’t wait. Don’t procrastinate. Put a heart and mouth faith in Jesus.

         Heart and mouth. Paul called for faith in the upper part of our bodies, but in the last two verses of our text he invites us to see it at the other extreme, in our feet. Verses 14 and 15 are a series of questions aimed at proving in reverse a point Paul wants to make in the verses after our text, that the problem for Israel is not God. God has faithfully sent messengers to share the good news of Jesus Christ with them. In fact, they heard it first!

         So Paul asks about his own salvation formula, “how are they to call on one in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in one of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone to proclaim him? And how are they to proclaim him unless they are sent?” But that’s the point. They were sent. The very word “apostle,” means “one who is sent.” God sent Peter and Andrew and Philip and James and John, and all the other apostles, including Paul, to preach the good news. So he simply concludes, “How beautiful are the feet of them who bring good news!”

         Years ago when I was thinking about whether God was calling and sending me to be a pastor, my own pastor asked me to memorize these verses. And I was struck by the sense that it would mean that verse would apply to me. I would have beautiful feet!

         But that verse is not just about professional preachers. It’s about anyone who brings the Good News of Jesus Christ where it can be heard and believed and professed. It’s about over a thousand Christians who cleaned and raked and weeded and painted at public schools in our community yesterday. You can bet the feet of our own crew were dirty, hot, sweaty and smelly yesterday after cutting brush and stomping it down to haul away. But those feet were beautiful.

         This past May the news carried the story about a woman found stranded but alive in the wilderness near the Idaho-Nevada border. She had been missing seven weeks when she was found by two hunters. Her van was stuck in the mud. You can be sure the hunters’ boots were wet and muddy and not pretty at all, but to her they would have been beautiful. That’s how it is when we share Jesus with those who need to hear.

         That’s why Shelley is starting a children’s choir this fall. That’s why we’re going to invite the neighborhood to a barbecue next month. That’s why we’re going to start Sunday School again and hold small groups again and keep coming here every Sunday to worship. We want to have beautiful feet, more beautiful than any pedicure or podiatrist could ever produce. We want the beautiful feet of those who bring Good News.

         Heart, mouth, and feet. That’s where our faith is meant to be. We believe in Jesus with every part of us. He’s Lord of our lives from head to foot. Let’s worship and honor him with all that we are.

         Amen.

Valley Covenant Church
Eugene/Springfield, Oregon
Copyright © 2011 by Stephen S. Bilynskyj