Committed to His Mission • Romans 10:9-17
By Becky Brown
As we have progressed through this unit of lessons, I have prayed that these scribblings of my soul have urgently encouraged you to renew your commitment to the Lord. God has always been “all in” where we are concerned. Daily, moment by moment, heartbeat by heartbeat, breath by breath, we need to renew our commitment to Him.
We have reaffirmed our need to be committed to Christ, to His Word, to His church and to a sincere prayer relationship with Him. This final lesson for the quarter speaks to our commitment to His mission.
One God-ordained firebrand of the New Testament would certainly be Paul the Apostle. He was raised as a “good little Jewish boy” from the tribe of Benjamin. He was named after King Saul, the first king of Israel, also descended from the tribe of Benjamin.
Paul learned the Scriptures at the feet of Gamaliel, one of the most notable teachers in Jerusalem. He achieved the status of Pharisee, one of many great teachers of The Law. Paul was a member of the Sanhedrin, the ruling council of the Jews. His goal in life was to destroy the believers of Jesus, people of The Way. He considered Jesus and His followers to be enemies of the Jewish way of life and worship.
Paul’s Jewish heritage gave him roots. His dramatic salvation experience and his deeply personal relationship with Jesus Christ would give him wings. On his way to Damascus to capture and destroy Christians, Paul met Jesus. His life was completely transformed. During three days of blindness, Paul began to connect the dots of all of his studies in Old Testament Scripture.
As the dots were traced, revealing a completed picture, Paul saw the face of Jesus, the Messiah. He would surrender the remaining days of his life to following Jesus and leading others to know Him as well. Paul was committed to the mission.
Paul would be used of God to pen half of what we now know as the New Testament. In the tenth chapter of the book of Romans, we find evidence of Paul’s commitment to the mission of Jesus Christ. He was committed to the message. True confession begins with one who is willing to declare that Jesus is Lord.
This declaration must be coupled with belief that Jesus is no longer in the grave. People on mission with Jesus base their salvation and life on the fact that God raised His Son from the dead after He was crucified for the sins of the whole world. Such a declaration begins with personal belief in the heart and proceeds with word-expressed, faith-filled confession of the mouth.
Those who are committed to the mission are willing to share this Good News with others who need to hear about Jesus. Paul was a Jew. God had plans for him to also become a light of direction for Gentiles or non-Jews. This Good News was not just for Jews. This Good News was for everyone. In verse 13, Paul would write under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit that “whoever will call upon the name of the Lord will be saved.” This is the mission: sharing the Good News which provides the opportunity for people to know Jesus.
In a series of rhetorically convicting questions, Paul calls out to his readers to join in this Gospel-sharing mission. “How can they call upon Him in whom they have not believed? How shall they believe in Him whom they have not heard? How shall they hear without a preacher? How shall they preach unless they are sent?”
This word, “preacher,” does not mean simply and singularly the one who stands in your Sunday pulpit. The Greek word is “kerusso,” which means “proclaimer.” Every believer is to be a proclaimer of this Good News. Every believer must be committed to this Gospel-sharing mission. Had I been standing there in Rome hearing this letter read to me for the first time, I pray that I would have said, “Sign me up!” Verse 17 states that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of (concerning) Christ. In 2 Corinthians 4:5, Paul writes: “We do not preach ourselves but Christ Jesus as Lord and ourselves as bond-servants for Jesus’ sake.” Are you committed to His mission? First, we confess and believe. Then, we care to share.
Brown is staff evangelist at First Church, Richland.
