TEXT: ROMANS 9:1-4a
TITLE: “DO YOU REALLY CARE?”
INTRODUCTION: A. The abbot of a monastery called a novice into his office and
instructed him to give the sermon at the next morning’s chapel.
The novice was struck with fear. The next morning, chapel came.
He stood in the pulpit. The brothers were there. His hands were
trembling. His knees were knocking. His voice was quivering. There
was a long pause before he first spoke, and then he asked a question.
"Do you know what I’m going to say?"
They had no idea, so all of their heads went back and forth almost in
unison, as if it were choreographed. He said, "Neither do I. Let’s stand
for the benediction."
The abbot was angry. He told the young novice that since he didn’t
do what he was supposed to do, he was going to give the sermon the
next morning at chapel. The abbot warned the young man that he’d
better do a proper job or face the consequences.
The next day was almost an exact repeat of the day before. All the
brothers sat there before him. His hands shook. His knees knocked. His
voice trembled. Long pause. "Do you know what I’m going to say?" he
asked.
Well, after the previous day’s experience, they had a pretty good
idea. So all of their heads nodded yes.
"Then there’s no need for me to tell you. Let’s stand for the
benediction."
The abbot was angry beyond description. He brought the young man
into his office and said, "If you do that again, you are going to be in
solitary confinement, eat bread and water for thirty days, and receive
any other punishment I can think of. Tomorrow morning give the
homily; do it right."
The third day, chapel attendance hit an all-time high. Everyone was
there to see what he would say, and it was almost an exact repeat. He
stood, trembling, voice quivering, and after a long silence asked, "Do
you know what I’m going to say?"
After three days of this, about half of them had a pretty good idea
and they nodded their heads yes. The other half noticed the switch from
day to day, and they weren’t sure what to expect, and so they shook
their heads no.
The novice observed the confusion and said, "Let those who know
tell those who don’t. Let us stand for the benediction."
B. Samuel Wilberforce: Christianity can be condensed into four words:
admit, submit, commit, and transmit.
1. Admit – we recognize that we’re sinners and lost eternally.
2. Submit – we surrender ourselves to Jesus Christ as our Lord and
Savior.
3. Commit – we entrust leadership of our lives to follow Him.
4. Transmit – we communicate the gospel message to others who are
lost.
C. Do we really care that there are lost people in our area?
1. What are we doing to let them know that Jesus loves them and wants
a relationship with them?
2. How much time out of our week do we spend trying to let others
hear about this wonderful Jesus that we say we love and serve?
3. When will we decide that outside of loving God with all of our heart,
soul, mind and strength that this task is the first priority of the
church?
--And the second is like unto it: once we get them to surrender to
Jesus that we need to spend great amounts of time teaching them
what God would have them do now that they’re Christians?
D. I know what’s going through some of your minds. Your thinking:
“Isn’t that what we pay you for?”
1. There isn’t hardly a day goes by that I don’t talk to someone about
their relationship with Jesus Christ.
2. The Bible makes it clear that everyone of us is a royal priesthood
who are called to make disciples of Jesus Christ. NO
EXCEPTIONS!
3. Statistics prove that using the preacher as the sole evangelist in the
local congregation is one of the least effective methods of bringing
others to know Jesus Christ.
--Institute for American Church Growth asked 10,000 people about
their pilgrimage. What got them into church? How did they come
to know Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior? Answers were:
Special need, 2 percent; Walk-in, 3 percent; Pastor, 6 percent;
Visitation, 1 percent; Sunday school, 5 percent; Evangelistic
crusade, 5 percent; Special Programs, 3 percent; Friend/relative,
79 percent.
E. If we’re serious about what Christ wants us to do; if we’re really
committed to being the Body of Christ where we’re at, we need to pay
attention to what the Bible says we need to be people who make an
emphasis of being a church that serves a great Savior who has given us
a Great Commission.
--Our passage this morning gives us three important qualities of people
who really care what happens to those around us who are lost.
I. A BROKEN HEART
--v. 2 – “I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart…”
A. The following is a dialogue from the once-popular sitcom, Seinfield, between Elaine
and her boyfriend.
Elaine asks, "Do you believe in God?"
"Yes," her boyfriend replies.
Elaine asks, "Is it a problem that I’m not religious?"
"Not for me," her boyfriend answers.
"How’s that?" she asks.
Her boyfriend says, "I’m not the one going to hell."
B. Do we really care that people are going to die and go to hell?!?!? Do we really care about
the fate of the lost?
--The Bible is very clear concerning what happens to those who die outside of Christ:
1. John 3:36 "He that believes on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believes not the
Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abides on him."
2. Revelation 20:15 "And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast
into the lake of fire."
C. William Temple: “The church is the only cooperative society in the world that exists for
the benefit of its nonmembers.”
1. Who do we exist for? Do we meet each week to do what we want or do we meet each
week to grow as Christians to bring a message of hope and salvation to a lost and dying
world?
2. Sad to say, but I know that some of you are here only to keep the “cult of the past”
alive.
a. You don’t care about lost souls and you don’t care that people are dying every day
and going to Hell. You’ve shown it in your words and actions.
b. If you did, you’d quit your whining and complaining that things aren’t going to suit
you and get on the ball about doing all we can to bring the gospel message to those
who are lost!
c. You ought to be complaining that we’re not doing what we ought to do: bringing
people into a saving relationship with Jesus Christ.
II. A BURNING DESIRE
--v. 3 & 4a – “For I wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my
brothers, those of my own race, the people of Israel.”
A. That is truly a burning desire!
1. Paul says there is nothing more important to me than the salvation of others. I’d even
give up my salvation so that they might be saved.
2. What are you willing to give up that others might be saved?
B. Some people thought he was a nut. He was just a shoemaker, after all, and an average
one at that. But in the evenings, after work, he studied Greek, Hebrew, and a variety of
modern languages. He devoured Captain Cook’s Voyages to expand his horizons, which,
because of his poverty, kept him bound to a small, forgotten English village. Some people
said his time would have been better spent getting a second job to support his growing
family.
But the young man’s passion wasn’t a curious, self-satisfying hobby. Early in life he had
become concerned about the millions of unbelievers outside of Europe, and he was trying
to
figure out what could be done to bring them the gospel. With God’s help, he slowly figured
it out.
He ended up going to India to serve as the first Protestant missionary in the modern era.
His passion inspired a generation of men and women—the likes of Adoniram Judson,
Hudson Taylor, and David Livingstone (among others)—to take up the cause of missions
as well.
Because one impoverished shoemaker named William Carey followed his God-given
passion, large parts of the world that had little or no access to the gospel have large
populations of people today who confess Christ as Lord.
1. Do you have that burning desire in your heart to see people saved?
--Jesus did. Paul did. We should.
2. Rom. 1:16 – “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God
unto salvation to every one that believes; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek."
III. A BOLD FAITH
A. Valerie O’Connor, a high school student in Britton, Michigan, isn’t in the habit of
shoving her 63-year-old grandfather out the door into the snow. But her grandpa, Okey
Howard, is glad she did. He was on fire at the time.
A February 2002 ice storm left many Michigan residents without power, so Valerie’s
grandfather had borrowed a kerosene heater from a friend to keep pipes and family
members from freezing.
Unfortunately someone must have put something other than kerosene in the heater.
When Mr. Howard lit the heater, it exploded, spewing burning fuel onto his arms, hands,
and upper body.
Valerie saw her grandfather completely engulfed, so she pushed him out the door into
some snow and rolled on top of him to smother the flames. She suffered minor burns on
her legs.
"I knew something had to be done," Valerie said later. "After a moment of shock, I
just reacted."
Though badly burned, Mr. Howard had the presence of mind to stumble back into the
house, where he used a large extinguisher to put out the house fire.
Valerie rode with her screaming grandfather in the ambulance to the hospital. Mr.
Howard said later, "I thought I was going to die. It was like hell."
If a teenager is willing to risk her own life to save her grandfather from a fiery death
on earth, how much more should we be willing to risk sharing the good news so others
can avoid a fiery eternity. Because of her great love for her grandfather, Valerie put her
fears aside and dove into action so he could be saved.
B. Do you really believe what you say you believe?
1. If you do, your faith must be put into ACTION,
2. James tells us: “Faith without works is dead.”
3. For some us, our mouths are spouting the words but our actions and attitudes say
different.
C. In his book Led by the Carpenter, D. James Kennedy writes:
A man walked into a little mom-and-pop grocery store and asked, "Do you sell salt?"
“Ha!" said Pop the proprietor. "Do we sell salt! Just look!" And Pop showed the customer
one entire wall of shelves stocked with nothing but salt—Morton salt, iodized salt, kosher
salt, sea salt, rock salt, garlic salt, seasoning salt, Epsom salts—every kind of salt
imaginable.
"Wow!" said the customer.
"You think that’s something?" said Pop with a wave of his hand. "That’s nothing!
Come look." And Pop led the customer to a back room filled with shelves and bins and
cartons and barrels and boxes of salt. "Do we sell salt!" he said.
"Unbelievable!" said the customer.
"You think that’s something?" said Pop. "Come! I’ll show you salt!" And Pop led the
customer down some steps into a huge basement, five times as large as the previous
room, filled wall, floor, to ceiling, with every imaginable form and size and shape of
salt—even huge ten-pound salt licks for the cow pasture.
"Incredible!" said the customer. "You really do sell salt!"
"No!" said Pop. "That’s just the problem! We never sell salt! But that salt salesman—
Hoo-boy! Does he sell salt!"
Kennedy ends the story with this statement: “Salt that stays on the shelf doesn’t do any
good at all.”
CONCLUSION: A. Do you really care?
--Do you really care that people are lost and bound for eternal
punishment?
B. Do you really care that Jesus came from heaven to earth to give his life to
pay for your sin-debt and to show his love for you?
