2026 08 09 - Moving on from WHO to HOW - Popp

Grace, peace and mercy from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

A lot of times when we become comfortable with things, we get a been there, done that attitude. We take it for granted. Happens our jobs sometimes. Our spouses, our friends.

Things that we're so glad to have and thankful for. And yet we get used to it.

My worry as pastor is that sometimes the Bible takes that role. We have it a couple weeks when we hand Bibles to our younger students who don't have them. It'll be third grade in school. I think we got a couple grades here in church where people who have not had their own, we see the joy in their face. But do we have that same joy?

Sometimes I think the church is treated that way. We take it for granted. I see the joy in new people, seeing all these people who are here and the worship and the music. I mean, Mrs. Lyman, great sermon. Him we take it for granted.

She just does it. I think we take God for granted. We've been working through this second half of Paul's letter to all those in Rome who are loved by God and called to be saints since the beginning of July, and we're only halfway there. Pastor Rick and I, over the next five weeks will continue to preach on Romans. Knowing that Luther desires that all God's people have Romans memorized, let us focus today on the who and how as proclaimed by God's word.

You might have chuckled, but sure enough, I went to Luther's Works, Volume 35. There's actually 15 pages on his preface to Romans. I just wanted to read you the last paragraph. I think you'd be surprised, as I was. In this epistle, we find thus most abundantly the things that a Christian ought to know, namely, what is law, gospel, sin, punishment, grace, faith, righteousness, Christ, God, good works, love, hope and the cross.

And also that we're to conduct ourselves toward everyone to be righteous or sinner, whether they are strong or weak, friend or foe, and even toward our own selves. Moreover, this is all ably supported with Scripture and proved by St. Paul's own example and that of the prophets, so that one could not wish for anything more. Therefore, it appears that he wanted in this one epistle to sum up briefly the whole Christian and evangelical doctrine and to prepare an introduction to the entire Old Testament. For without doubt, whoever has this Epistle well in his heart has with him the light and power of the Old Testament. Therefore, let every Christian be familiar with it and exercise himself in it continually.

To this end, may God give us his grace toward the beginning he mentions wanting to memorize it, but it is that important as we get into it. And here, that is exactly what I saw in today's epistle from Romans 10. We're going to jump in first, these two big who's right? You saw them right away. Who will ascend into heaven?

Who will descend into the abyss? Now, unlike pastor's quiz about God and Job, we know these answers. We've been hearing these for years. We know we profess it in the creed. We know who ascended and descended.

We understand where that is. Paul is actually quoting Deuteronomy 30 here, right. He's talking about that importance of who is to ascend to heaven for us. I know in, in there it talks about. Neither is it beyond the sea, which there is a correlation to the abyss.

That's a whole. Another catechetical study. A little bit of a catechist start there. But let us look at certainly this idea of the answer, right? Whoever keeps the commandments, perfect.

That's basically what Paul said at the beginning, right? Who keeps the commandments perfectly here? Well, only God can do that. We know this. So we look at the how, right?

Well, the Bible tells us in that middle section here, this middle section of the reading, it talks specifically about answering with this understanding of the word of God, right? It says the word is near you. I'll reread that. But what does it say? The word is near you in your mouth and in your heart.

That is the word of faith that we proclaim. Because if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart, God raised you from the dead, you will be saved. It is in the mouth and in the heart. And that certainly comes again from being in God's word, memorizing God's word, studying God's word, whether it be church, body, Bible class, daily devotions, Bible studies. I did get a little chuckle, Pastor Rick, when you started right away with the question of what are the measurements?

Because I know the men's study yesterday did Ezekiel measurements of the temple. And you said it was on and on and on about cubics, right?

God's word has so much in there that sometimes we take for granted. It's so great. It has a purpose. It's in our mouth, in our heart, and it means you will be saved. In fact, it doubles down.

For with the heart, one believes and is justified. With the mouth one confesses and is saved. Right? All we have to do is call on the name of the Lord. And again, even though we see it here in verse 13, it also comes from Joel 2.

Man was Paul, an Old Testament scholar. He knew his books.

I think it's important for us to also take a specific look. I want to just look at those verses 11 to 13 four times. I see all or everyone, right? For the Scripture says everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame. For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek.

For the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing the riches on all who call upon him. For everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved. It again is this understanding of the alls and everyone's. Everyone who believes, that is, did Jesus come down, die, and rise again to make sure every single person can spend eternity in heaven? Yes.

Will everybody spend eternity in heaven? No. It's not about Jew and Greek. It's about who believes and who doesn't. Who professes Christ, who denies him.

That's where we get to this idea of the how, the four big hows. Question after question after question. How. I love the way this section goes. They got three of them right away in verse 14, right?

How will they call on him if they have not believed? How do they believe if they have never heard? How do they hear without someone preaching? How do they preach unless they are sent? It's really a neat kind of dialogue of questions.

Anytime I see a bunch of questions together, I'm always reminded of our sixth grade teacher in Davenport, Iowa. I've never seen a man discipline children by only asking questions. Right. Why'd you do that? Do you think that's a good idea?

Do you think you'd do that again? What would you do next? He would just ask them sis questions and they'd be apologizing for everything. Like, I am so sorry I've ever done anything. Please let me go back to class.

Right? There's power in those questions. Hopefully they make you think. I of course, love the way this laid out.

Because again, it reminds us it's not just back then. It's not just what Paul did. It's what we see today.

And of course, the answer points to the word of God. Let's get into that answering from Scripture. What does this look like? Right? I put the four big house verses 14 to 16.

I should have put here. This is verse 17. This is the big finale, Right? So faith comes from hearing, hearing through the word of Christ.

That answer of understanding God's word. I asked the question, I think it was last week. Bible study, maybe the sermon, I don't know. I can't remember. But do the red lettered words in the Bible mean more to you and everybody's quiet like Jesus words.

Yes, but wait, it's the word of God. They're all important, but yes, but. Well, not saying there's right or wrong saying. When we see Jesus speaking, certainly it matters. But we have this word of God given from God, inspired with the writers for us.

Isaiah was proclaiming it 800 years earlier. It was in Isaiah 52:7. How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings the good news.

So many times I think people wait for the pastor, for the missionary, for the worship leader, for the teachers to do this job. Let's talk about God sent proclaimers, right? Who are the heralds of the Gospel. I think this part is so important because again we get so caught up, we grow up learning 39 books of the Old Testament. All of them point to Jesus.

They would not be in the Old Testament if they didn't point to Jesus. So important.

Those Old Testament prophets gave us so much.

I love reading through my Romans 10. But when Pastor Rick said, man, I wish I was preaching on Job, I'm like, okay, go ahead. Right. We learned so much from Job, from Isaiah, throughout the Old Testament. Usually lessons from God's chosen leaders and their faults.

If you ever feel you're not qualified, you're not worthy, how will you ever be saved? Just read the Old Testament. It's a good reminder. We don't have to be perfect, we have to be faithful. We fail.

In fact, today's Bible study with the final one on our summer catechesis, we're going to talk about the duties. And of course the first thing I read is the duties of the overseer, the pastor. Fail, fail, fail. Maybe we don't want to go over this. They might get rid of me today, right?

Sinner, saint, all of us are, we struggle. That should not be keeping you from sharing the gospel. Certainly Jesus came. All those Old Testament prophets pointed to Jesus. Jesus came.

He did exactly what he was sent to do. Not what the disciples thought he was going to do, not what everybody was thinking, but it's exactly what we needed. It is that great reminder when we pray thy will, not my will. Because if we want it our way, it might not be the best way. We trust in God.

And of course, what did he do? He raised up the apostles. When we do Pentecost, we know the Holy Spirit came upon them and sent them to point people to Jesus. In the last 23 books of that New Testament, what do they do? They point to pretty much if I ask you a question, it's going to be Jesus.

All right? You can say it. Jesus. The Old Testament points to Jesus. The New Testament is about Jesus.

The first four books of gospel, the last 23 point back to Jesus, right? What he did for us, hopefully that makes this next part easy. Who? Pastors, missionary teachers, singers. First it gets into this whole idea of worship, of church, of corporately coming together as God's people.

If you're not comfortable worshiping Jesus here, we got trouble. Hopefully this is the most comfortable place you can come.

If you're not comfortable talking about Jesus or shouting his name here, we're going to have to work on our church, Right? But it's not just about that. It's about you. Family, friends, co workers, neighbors. Who brings the good news, the word of God, moving from who to how.

The question really becomes reaching the lost, reaching the ones who have denied, reaching the ones who don't understand. Reaching the ones who we know have pushed back. I heard another great story this week. Young man told me how his girlfriend had lost both her parents. Man, was she angry at God.

I would be too hurtful. This awful world. And I said, so what did you do? And he goes, well, we work through it. She's now making sure I go to church.

God's word is powerful and helps us overcome, yes, the pains of this world where we want to blame God. Why, why, why, why? And yet we all know when that time comes, when he comes back and brings us home, we will have no more pain, no more suffering. Question is, how many more people can we get to go with us, right? Focusing on God's word, not who is proclaiming it.

Told my wife recently I was worried that my voice is becoming too much like Charlie Brown's teacher when I'm up here in the pulpit. You've heard me for too many years. My own wife said you need new stories.

She's right.

It's not about who is up here. It's about what they're saying about Jesus, about what God has done for us, sending his son, how the Holy Spirit continues to come upon us from our baptism on helping us.

I had a great powwow with our principal this week where we were reminded that the Holy Spirit is so good sometimes giving us just the right words or shutting our mouths not to say what we really want to say in that moment. Right? We need to trust. This is why we focus on it. This is what we're called to do.

We're going to continue in this Roman, to continue to see what it is Paul is guiding us to. We know the who, we know the how. We have God's Word as the foundation, power and constant reminder of the faith and assurance of we have received through Christ's death and resurrection. Now we need to proclaim it every day in our daily lives and in our support of other heralds. May the Holy Spirit guide us to live and to share his powerful Word.

I will be praying for you this week looking for those opportunities to bring God's powerful Word to the lost. And again, if you can join us for Bible class, that's what we're going to spend a lot of time talking about today. To God be the glory. Amen.