Message Information
- Key Scriptures: Romans 10:8-17, NASB
- Series: Sent for the Sake of the Gospel (2026), no. 4
- Date: Sunday, June 21, 2026 (Morning)
- Venue: Central Baptist Church — Lawton, Oklahoma
- Speaker: Jared Byrns
- Audio File: Open/Download
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Why Would We Go?
Depending on what church you grew up in, or whether you grew up in church at all, you probably take for granted that we promote missions and evangelism. I grew up from the time I was a little boy having missionaries visit the church and show those three-hour slide shows about the work they were doing. They would set up tables with knickknacks from countries I couldn’t pronounce to show us about the work they were doing. I remember having missions conferences and taking up offerings for the missionaries. We do some of that here, where we promote the work of the International Mission Board. Throughout this year, we’ve been in the process of getting some folks sent out from this church to Alaska for missions.
And we talk about what IMB is doing and what NAMB is doing, and we have speakers come in, and we talk about the importance of sharing the gospel. If you spend time in an environment like that, it’s hard to fathom that there was a time when that was not the case. There was a time not that long ago in the scope of history when churches didn’t promote missions, didn’t really promote evangelism. There was a period of time where the zeal for sharing the gospel to the ends of the earth had been lost.
A man who’s called one of the fathers of modern missions was named William Carey. Nearly 250 years ago, he stood at a meeting of Baptist pastors in England, trying to encourage them to get behind the idea of sending missionaries to India. Based on what he was reading in Scripture, and based on the need to send people to share the gospel, to support that work, and to make sure people all over the world had the opportunity to hear about Jesus Christ, he passionately pled with them to get on board, for their churches to give, and for their churches to send people. He rubbed some people the wrong way in encouraging them to do this. There’s a legend that I haven’t been able to verify 100 percent, either that it happened or that it was said exactly this way.
But even if it wasn’t said exactly this way, it illustrates the kind of opposition he was up against. A man who later became one of his supporters in this, John Ryland, Sr., supposedly said to him at one of these meetings, as Carey was pleading with them to send people to India to share the gospel, “Young man, sit down. If God desires to convert the heathen, He will do it without your help or mine.” Can you imagine a Baptist pastor today saying those words? Thankfully, it sounds like he came around, but that was the attitude of the church, by and large, just 250 years ago.
The idea that we were going to send people to share the gospel in our own country or in other countries was foreign. If God wants people to know the gospel, he’ll make them know the gospel. The reality is what William Carey understood, because what scripture tells us, is that God does desire people to know the gospel. He does desire them to hear the gospel.
He can do it however He chooses, but the way He’s chosen to do it is through us. Romans chapter 10 gives us a passage that explains why we go. Why is it that we would go? Why is it that we would leave the comfort of whatever it is that holds us back?
Maybe God is calling somebody in this room to go to another country. Maybe God is calling somebody to leave the comfort of home and go to a part of Alaska that’s four hours from a Walmart, out in the sticks. Maybe God is calling us to step out into the discomfort of talking to that family member or neighbor we’ve hesitated to approach because we’re not sure how they’ll take it or how the relationship will be. God desires people to know Him, and He’s chosen to use us in that purpose.
Romans chapter 10, we’re going to look at verses 8 through 17 this morning.
He is talking about the Old Testament Scriptures here.
But what does it say? The word is near you and in your mouth and in your heart, that is the word of faith which we are preaching, that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart, a person believes resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth, he confesses resulting in salvation. For the Scripture says, whoever believes in Him will not be disappointed. For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek. For the same Lord is Lord of all, abounding in riches for all who call on Him. For whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved. How then will they call on Him in whom they have not believed? How will they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher? How will they preach unless they are sent, just as it is written, how beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news of good things. However, they did not all heed the good news, for Isaiah said, Lord, who has believed our report? So faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of Christ.
The Question Underneath Our Hesitation
In William Carey’s day, people asked, why would we go? Today, we probably would not say that out loud because we know we’re supposed to go. But we might within ourselves say, Why would I go? Why would I step out and go to another country?
Why would I step out and go to another state? Why would I step across the street? Why would I put myself out? If God wants them to know, He can do that however He wants.
I’m puzzled by what the church was up to for all those hundreds of years while they were saying, “We don’t need to go because God can work this out however He wants.” The reality is that the same things that get in the way now are the same things that got in the way then, and many of the same things got in the way in the early church. Sometimes we’re a little too attached to our comfort. Sometimes we’re too focused, and I know this is true in Carey’s day, we’re a little too focused on the ritual. The ritual becomes the purpose of the church, or the building becomes the purpose of the church, or the prestige that being part of the church brings us is part of the church.
This was a day and age where if you wanted the really good prominent seats in the church so you could look important, you could rent a particular pew. We might start renting out the back pews. I think we could. No shame to those of you who are sitting in the back.
I walk into a room, I normally like to sit in the back. I like being up in the balcony. If I could preach from the balcony, I would do that. I get it.
So there’s no shame, but if we wanted to bring in money, we could rent out the back pews. But these are things that people were attached to. Those of you who were here Sunday night and we talked about what are some good and even necessary things that can become idols in our lives? What are some good and necessary things that can become idols in the life of a church?
Those are the things that were pulling them away from the call of missions in William Carey’s day. Those are the things that pulled them away from the call of missions and evangelism in the early church. Those are the things we have to be on guard against today. If the church is not centered around fulfilling the mission that Christ has given it, there’s no point for us to be here.
We might as well pack up. So the question, why would we go, really ought to be, why would we not go? Why would we not want to fulfill the purpose that God put us here for? Why would we not want to see the lost come to Christ?
Why would we not want to make that our aim. And Paul outlines three main types of reasons in this passage as far as why we go. Are these the only reasons why we would go? Are these the only reasons why we would put aside our concerns, put aside our schedule, put aside our to-do list, our agenda, whatever it is, and go and engage people with the gospel?
These are not the only three reasons, but these are three important ones that Paul outlined for us.
God Has Brought Salvation Near
We go, first of all, because God has brought salvation near to us in Christ. This is something else we take for granted. If you’ve grown up in church hearing the gospel, we take for granted that it’s always been this way. We take for granted that it’s always been possible for us to come to the Lord at any given time.
We forget what an incredible thing it is God did in sending Jesus Christ. Because prior to that, God was distant from people. Our sin had kept us distant. And God’s holiness had made that necessary.
And so the only people that had direct access to God were the priests. And even then, it was very structured. And only at certain times and in certain ways could they enter into the presence of God in the temple and in the tabernacle. And when Jesus breathed His last and died on the cross, the Bible tells us that that curtain in the temple was ripped in two, that curtain that separated the most holy place from the outer parts of the temple, that was ripped in two from top to bottom.
That was God tearing down the wall of separation between Him and man. And so much of what He talks about in the beginning of the passage we read, He’s going back to the Old Testament. He’s going back to Israel because Paul starts out chapter 10 talking about his love for Israel and his desire for his people to come to know Christ. And he’s going back to the book of Deuteronomy and all the things that they were hung up on that were still keeping them away from Christ.
The things that they were trusting in for salvation that were keeping them away from Christ. We go because God has brought salvation near in Christ, and there are still people around us who are holding on to things that are keeping Christ at a distance. He’s been talking about his love for Israel. He refers back to the Old Testament.
How many of his countrymen were still trusting in their own goodness? They were still trusting in the law to find salvation, but Jesus was the real answer. Jesus still is the real answer. Some of your Bibles may have all caps in some of the writing.
Some of them may have footnotes. They’re pointing back to the fact that he’s quoting Deuteronomy and explaining how people misunderstood the purpose of God’s law. It was never to bring us salvation. It was to show us our need for salvation.
We won’t find salvation. That’s why He keeps taking Deuteronomy and quoting it and then explaining it in light of Christ because you and I will never find salvation by working hard. While they emphasize the law, this is why he talks about the heart and the lips, talks about the mouth, that we should believe in our hearts and confess with our mouths. He’s not saying that somehow by the words coming out of our mouth, that’s how we’re saved, and if you don’t say it out loud, you’re not saved.
That’s not what he’s talking about. He’s referring back to Deuteronomy and the fact that it says the law would be on your heart and it would be on your lips. And he says what you really need for salvation, though, is belief in your heart and confess Jesus with your mouth and you’ll be saved. that it’s not about keeping the law. He understood that the point of all of this was Jesus Christ.
And he points to us in verse 10 that Jesus has done everything that’s necessary for us to be right with God. See, the people that he’s talking about, the people that he loves and wants to bring to Christ, they are still hung up on, I’ve got to keep all these rules, I’ve got to perform all these rituals. And he tells us, but with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation. And what all of that ties back to is Jesus.
If we believe in our heart, it’s counted to us as righteousness. Not just believe that Jesus exists, but believe that He is who He says He is, believe that He’s God’s Son, believe that He’s Israel’s Messiah, believe that He’s our Savior, and believe that what He said He accomplished, He accomplished, that He died to pay for our sins and rose again to prove it. If we believe that, if we put our trust in that, it’s counted to us as righteousness. That’s an incredible message for people who look at God and think, I’ve just got to work harder, try harder, be better, and maybe someday I’ll be good enough for God.
It never happens. But Jesus has done away with all of that. Unlike our efforts to keep the law, Jesus never fails. That’s why He pulls in the Scripture in verse 11 from the Old Testament that says whoever believes in Him will not be disappointed.
Some translations will say will not be ashamed. When we stand before God to be judged, If we are believers in Jesus, he looks at us and sees the righteousness of Christ and not our sin. Not only that, he says in verse 12 that God has opened the door for salvation, not just to the Jews, but to the Gentiles as well. Salvation is available no matter what background we’ve come from.
There were people in that day who thought you had to be born into the right bloodline, And then you had to keep the right rules, you had to keep the right culture and religious rituals, and you had to do all of this perfectly. And if you weren’t born into the right bloodline, you could still get there, but you had to work extra hard. He says there’s no distinction between the Jew and the Greek, the Jew and the Gentile. For the same Lord, that’s Jesus, is Lord of all, abounding in riches for all who call on him.
So we see the things that he’s talking about with the law we see his mention of the Jews and the Gentiles here and what we see is no matter what has held us back from god in the past you look at all the things that they were holding on to that were going to keep them from god their own self righteousness their own sense that if I could just perform better if i could just do enough then god will love me that the gospel strips all of that away and all the things that we think hold us back now to the people saying but i i was born a gentile i could never i could never be right with the god of israel for people today who would say but you don’t know where i’ve come from you don’t know what my background is you don’t know what i’ve done who i’ve been the gospel strips all of that away What He has done is he has brought salvation near to us in christ and that gives us something incredible to share with people.
Whoever Calls on the Name of the Lord
That’s why he comes to verse 13 and says, whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved. Whoever will call upon the name of the Lord will be saved. What does it mean to call on the name of the Lord? Does it mean you have to call Him by a particular name?
Does it mean you have to call Him by His Hebrew name? Does it mean you have to shout a particular thing? Calling on the name of the Lord is throwing yourself on His mercy, running to Him. It’s this idea, again, we talked about a few weeks ago in our series on Luke with the prodigal son running back to the Father.
He was throwing Himself on the Father’s mercy. That is what it means for us to call on the name of the Lord. It means to throw ourselves on His mercy, that we’re not trusting in ourselves. We’re not trusting in our church background.
We’re not trusting in our religious rituals. We’re not trusting in anything. We’re calling out to Him because He’s the one who’s near. He’s the one who saves.
He’s the one who has power over life and death. And so we call on His name. We call out to Him. It is throwing yourself on His mercy.
I told somebody this story this week, but it illustrates for me what I’m talking about if I’m not explaining it well enough. A couple of months ago, I was sitting in our living room and heard Abigail scream, a scream I’ve never heard before. The kids were over playing by the side of my workshop, and I hear her scream. I jumped up off the couch.
I didn’t realize I could move that fast anymore. And I met her at the door. And she’s flying across the driveway. That girl is sprinting and leaping, and she’s running, screaming, Daddy, Daddy, at the top of her lungs.
And I grab her. Baby, what’s wrong? She’s like, there’s a dog. It was after me.
And we’ve got some pretty vicious-looking dogs that roam our area. One of them killed a rooster on our front porch, not ours, but we saw it on video. I’m thinking, okay, where is this dog? And I take off walking.
I’ve got her in my arms, and this little corgi comes just trotting up like he’s met his best friend. Why do I tell you that story? She was calling on the name of her father. She was crying out for my mercy and my protection.
That’s the posture that we take toward the Lord. We know we have no other hope of escaping. There’s something worse than a corgi that we’re in danger of. I think everything’s worse than a corgi, but there’s definitely something worse than a corgi that we’re in danger of, and our only hope is our Father.
And so we cry out to Him, and He says, whoever does that will be saved. We take that message no matter what they’ve been trying that hasn’t worked, no matter what in their background makes them think that they’ll never be acceptable to God, we take a message that tells them otherwise because he’s brought salvation near.
They Have No Hope Unless They Hear
Verse 14 shows us the next reason we go: they have no hope unless they hear. This is really key to the whole passage. We go because they have no hope unless they hear.
This section is the heart of the passage. It calls us to go because, as good as the news is that God has brought salvation near, that good news doesn’t do them any good if they don’t have access to it. The gospel is the good news to everyone who believes, but there are millions of people in our world who have never heard the gospel. Verse 14 tells us they can’t call on His mercy if they haven’t believed. How do they know that God has provided salvation? How do they know that He’s provided forgiveness? They can’t believe what they haven’t heard, and so they can’t call out for His mercy if they haven’t heard the gospel. They can’t believe the gospel if they haven’t heard it. They can’t hear the gospel if no one shares it. If nobody tells it to them, they can’t hear it, and then they can’t believe.
We can’t share it unless we’re sent. If for you that’s a sigh of relief—”Oh, good”—no. The implication here is that we’re all sent. That’s not an out for us so that we don’t have to share. We’re all sent. Verse 15 tells us that they can’t go unless they’re sent.
Now, as I read this passage earlier, every translation I’m aware of says preacher, and that’s not wrong, or says preach, and that’s not wrong. That’s what it is. But don’t be confused by those words preach and preacher. So, if you’re also sitting there thinking, oh, good, he’s going to send a preacher.
You’re the preacher. I thought you were the preacher. I’m the pastor, and I also preach. But when he uses this Greek word here for preaching, it doesn’t mean to stand in a pulpit and present a sermon.
That is a form of preaching. But this Greek verb, kerusso, he uses, is used for any time somebody is announcing news. You announce news all the time. If you have a story to tell your spouse, you can’t wait to tell them about what happened in your day, you’re kerusso-ing, you’re preaching that message.
You’ve got good news about something that happened in your family, you’re announcing that message. You’ve got a really good restaurant you want to share with other people, you’re announcing that message. Don’t get confused by that word preach and think we’re all off the hook if we’re not the paid preacher. Every one of us has been called to announce this message.
We’ve all been sent. And by the way, this is a word that they would use for people who would go and announce things on behalf of the king. Probably seen old movies or old cartoons set in the Middle Ages where they’d have the town crier. That’s part of this.
We’ve been sent with his authority to proclaim his message. We do this all the time. We just have to learn to be more comfortable doing it about Jesus. Because there are thousands of people.
You know, I mentioned to you a minute ago, there are millions of people in our world who’ve never heard the gospel. There are millions of people who’ve never heard of Jesus. There are people in our own community who have never heard the gospel. Now, it is really hard to come up with statistics on how many that is.
Different things I’ve seen suggest that in different communities throughout the United States, anywhere from 10 to 60% of the people have never heard the gospel articulated. But there’s a church on every corner. In our community, there’s a church on every corner. People hear about Jesus all the time.
You can hear about Jesus and not understand the gospel, not hear the gospel. Go back to what we’ve talked about the last few weeks. The gospel is the message of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ and the free offer of salvation as a result of what He’s paid for if we will repent and believe. That’s the gospel.
People can hear about Jesus all day long and not hear that message. Again, the best estimates I could find say anywhere, and I realize that is a wide number, 10 to 60% of people in any given community may not have ever heard the gospel. There are something like 120,000 people in Comanche County. If we take the high end of that number, that would mean somewhere around 60,000, 65,000 people have never heard the gospel.
We think, oh, we don’t have to tell anybody because they’ve all heard 65,000 people who’ve never heard the gospel. If we take the low end, well, that’s only 12,000. That’s only 12,000. 12,000 too many. And that doesn’t even take into consideration that everybody who’s heard the gospel has believed it and been saved.
Sometimes it takes multiple times to hear the gospel. How many of you came to Christ but did not come to Christ the first time you heard the gospel? It took a few times. There are thousands of people in our own community who have no hope unless they hear when it comes to the gospel we’re all preachers you’re a preacher it doesn’t mean you have to stand up here and do this That is not everybody’s calling.
Some of you think, oh, good. More people are afraid of public speaking than death. When you look at the statistics of what people fear, it doesn’t mean you have to stand up in front of a group of people. It means you go to somebody and you tell them the good news.
He’s called each of us to do that. So we go because salvation requires them to hear the gospel so they can understand, so they can believe, so they can throw themselves on the mercy of God. And we go because we can’t just wait around for somebody else to do it. We can’t wait around for God to send somebody because He already has, and it’s us.
We Can Do This If We Will
I’m reminded of another quick story from the days when this missions movement was getting started in our churches again hundreds of years ago. A young man named Samuel Mills was a college student, and met with another group of his friends from college, just young kids. And the story, as I’ve heard it, is they were traveling, and they were discussing the need for the gospel in Asia. And as they were traveling, they encountered a storm that caused them to take refuge under a haystack.
They refer to it now as the Haystack Prayer Meeting. This small group of young people under a haystack, praying, came to the realization, “We can do this if we just will.” That doesn’t sound like much, until you realize they’re talking about all of Asia.
They’re saying, “We, this little group, can saturate Asia with the gospel if we’ll just do it.” Now, you can chalk it up to the idealism of college kids, but the movement they started sent out literally thousands of missionaries and mobilized thousands of churches to get the gospel to corners of Asia that had never heard the gospel. And to realize that it started with a group of college kids should remind us not to hold back on the calling God has given us to share the gospel with other people because we’re not pastors, or because we’ve not been to seminary, or because we don’t have the training, or we don’t have the experience, or we’re not so good with our words. Y’all have been around long enough to hear that sometimes I’m not so good with the words either, okay?
And God still uses people. The reality is we can do this if we just will.
God Works Through the Message
And then we go, finally this morning, because God works through the message. We go because God has brought salvation near. We go because they have no hope unless they hear. And we go because God works through the message.
We see God at work through the message. Verse 15 ends by saying, just as it is written, here he’s talking about Isaiah, just as it is written, how beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news of good things. I never want to disagree with Scripture, but I will say that calling someone’s feet beautiful is not the first adjective that springs to mind. I don’t want feet anywhere near me.
Okay? But he describes, Isaiah describes, God describes through Isaiah, and then God, again, describes through Paul, describes the feet of those who carry the gospel as beautiful. God clearly has to be working in that situation. What He really means, though, by describing their feet as beautiful, it means that the message is precious, and the message is welcome, that even the feet of those who would carry the gospel into these villages would be precious.
In that day of wearing sandals and walking everywhere, we know the stories of Jesus washing people’s feet, those grungy, grimy feet, even that would be beautiful because it comes bringing a welcome and precious message. Now, just because He emphasizes the goodness of the message by saying even the feet of those who bear it are beautiful doesn’t mean that it’s going to be welcome with everyone. It doesn’t mean that the message is going to be received by everyone, but to those who do receive it, it’s going to be the best thing that’s ever happened to them. It’s going to be the best news they’ve ever heard.
And you coming into their life with that message, it’s going to be one of the greatest things that anyone’s ever done for them. And verse 16 clarifies, again, quoting Isaiah, or referring back to Isaiah, not everyone is going to receive the message. They did not all heed the good news, for Isaiah says, Lord, who has believed our report? And this is what gets us.
This is what discourages us and makes us think, well, I’m not good at this. This is not for me. Maybe I shouldn’t do this anymore. Because we share the gospel with somebody and they don’t accept it.
We share the gospel and maybe they reject us. And we think, I’m just no good at this. But it’s baked into this. It’s expected not everybody’s going to receive the gospel.
Especially not everybody’s going to receive the gospel on the first presentation. Again, several hands went up around the room. Those of us who either outright rejected the gospel or just didn’t get it the first time and eventually trusted Christ as our Savior. We can’t let it discourage us.
God said this would happen, and He gives us the reminder that even though not everyone will receive the gospel, someone will, and that’s why we go. He tells us in verse 17, faith comes by hearing. Don’t be discouraged that not everyone receives the message because God still works through the message. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of Christ.
This is the method that God has chosen to work through for the proclamation of the gospel. We say, why didn’t God do something simpler like put a big neon sign in the sky? People would find a way to explain away that neon sign. I mean, hello, He raised somebody from the dead, and people still didn’t believe that.
So He’s chosen to use us. And that gospel that we proclaim, that message of His death and burial and His resurrection, and the offer of salvation, the offer of forgiveness that makes us right with God that He brings, Romans 1.16 says that that message is the power of God unto salvation. You and I are not the power of God to salvation. Our ability to say things well enough, our ability to have a slick presentation, that is not the power of God unto salvation.
It’s the gospel itself. So we have his assurance here that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of Christ. We go and share it. If we’re faithful to share the message, as we are faithful to share the message, he’s faithful to work through it.
We have that reassurance. He works through it drawing people to Christ and bringing them to faith. And so we go because we have his promise that he’ll work through the message. He’ll use whatever we put forward.
As flawed as we are, as frequently as we fall short, he is still going to work through us and do what only he can do.
One Faithful Step
Three reasons he outlines for us why we would go. And in response to His call for us to go, this week I would encourage you to ask God to show you one person. That person probably has already run through your mind. You’ve probably seen a face or thought of a name.
If not, ask God to show you one person, pray for them, and take one faithful step toward them for the sake of the gospel. Maybe it’s coming right out and sharing the gospel with them. Maybe it’s an invitation to church, because they will hear the gospel here. That is not a substitute, by the way, for sharing the gospel with people, but sometimes it’s what we have time for in the moment. Maybe it’s reconnecting with them so that you have the opportunity. Whatever it is, God will show you. Ask Him to show you one person, pray for them, pray for His guidance in the situation, and take one faithful step toward them for the sake of the gospel.
Most of us do not need some complicated plan for evangelism. Most of us just need a little bit of awareness of what God’s doing and a little boldness in the moment, the boldness to be uncomfortable for a moment.
But ask God this week, He will show you somebody. And these are reasons for us to go.