Audio Transcript:

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Today we are continuing this long but lively journey in the Book of Romans. We're going to read Romans 10:16-21. Romans 10:16-21. Open that up in your Bibles if you have one. On the surface, as we read it, it might be a little confusing as to what it's about. There's a lot of Old Testament quotations. There's a lot of terminology. Ultimately, there is one clear message.

The title of the sermon is the Heart of Unbelief. We'll get to the heart of an unbeliever, flesh out what that actually looks like. It'll really inform us about how to engage people in evangelism. There will be many other asides that we can take away through this piece of scripture.

Please hear the reading of God's word, Romans 10:16-21, "But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, 'Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?' So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the Word of Christ, but I ask, have they not heard? Indeed, they have, for their voice has gone out to all the earth and their words to the ends of the world.

But I ask, did Israel not understand? First, Moses says, 'I will make you jealous of those who are not a nation. With a foolish nation, I will make you angry.' Then Isaiah is so bold as to say, 'I've been found by those who did not seek me. I've shown myself to those who did not ask for me.' But of Israel, he says, 'All day long, I've held out my hands to a disobedient and contrary people.'" This is the reading of God's holy Word. Let's pray.

Heavenly Father, we praise you for who you are. You are a majestic, glorious, all-powerful, holy creator and king, and we are but lowly creatures. Lord, you created us to walk with you day to day in the garden, in the comfort of your care, your shield, your oversight, your embrace, your Word.

Lord, as your Word says, we are disobedient and contrary people. Time and time again, the story of history shows that you offer your grace. You offer esteemed position before you out of the sheer love of your heart. We people, your people, turn and rebel. Holy Spirit, we pray today that you would guide our hearts to understand just how openhanded our God, our Savior, is to us in the offering of His love.

Lord, let it be a sermon that draws us in closer to you. For those who already know you, help us to fight our hardheartedness as we step forward in the ministry field. Lord, we pray right now, use this sermon to call home your children. Give them ears to hear. Give them the ability to understand your Word. Let it come alive in their hearts. Let them leave here new in Jesus Christ. We pray these things in Jesus precious name. Amen.

Throughout Romans, we've been learning many things, but, primarily, we've been learning about the nature of salvation that God gives to His children. God is the author of salvation. He saw man in his sin, and He gave His son, Jesus, to die on the cross for our sins. What we've been learning the past couple weeks, especially in Romans 9 and into Romans 10, last week, is that God's work does not stop there. We learned that, last week, God is the one who sovereignly sends the message of the gospel to His children to call them home.

In verse 12 to 15, we read, "For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing His riches on all who call on Him. For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. How then will they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in Him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, 'How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!'"

These verses teach God is sovereign over salvation. He sovereignly calls His children home through the preaching of the gospel. What is the gospel? We have to say this. We're going to revisit it and rehash it over and over. The gospel... It's an incredible and yet simple message. It's profound. It's changed the world, but it can just be consolidated into a few short words.

Jesus says, "I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall not thirst." All you have to do to eat and drink to your delight, to be filled with never-ending streams of love from Christ that are the deepest longings of your soul is to believe that God is holy and righteous.

You are sinful and, therefore, unrighteous, but Jesus who is sinless and righteous paid the penalty for you on the cross. Whoever believes in Jesus Christ can be granted righteousness in Jesus name sake before the Father. That's the gospel we've been discussing for a few weeks all throughout Romans.

Today we turn to think about, what are the results of God's sovereign sending of preachers, of heralds, particularly to the Jews up to this point in history when Paul wrote Romans? Have all who have heard the gospel believed? What can we learn from Paul about his ministry to the Jews?

Very quickly, what does Paul say? He's preached the gospel. Heralds have been sent from God. What does he say? Verse 16, "But they have not all obeyed the gospel." The short answer is, no, not everybody who has heard the gospel has believed the gospel.

This is just a teaching point to start off. Did you know that not everybody who you share the gospel with is going to believe it, hear it, believe it, place their faith in it? Do you really know this? It's okay for a Christian to read this and actually get relief from it.

The Apostle Paul, person who the Lord used more than anybody in the history of the world to spread the gospel, was rejected, denied, and even beaten time and time again for preaching the gospel. He knew how to take a loss.

I've been playing pickup soccer recently for the first time. Just played four or five times since 2020 after not playing, really, any sports since my son was born six years ago. My first few weeks of pickup soccer, I treated it like the World Cup. I went home, bragged about it to my wife.

Week four, my team took an L for the first time. I was heartbroken. It was just like a child. I wanted to just train more, forsake all of my home responsibilities, work responsibilities, dig in, and find the method that's going to make me win.

A lot of us, as Christians, we don't know how to take an L. We are really frightened when people don't receive us well. I want to emphasize this point because the Apostle Paul... It seems, scripture tells us, he had a solid ministry to the Gentiles.

Pretty good success rate, maybe a 300, even 400 hitter, if we're talking batting average in terms of percentage of Gentiles that probably received him over the years. To the Jews, he was probably a 100 to 200 hitter, like a Minor Leaguer. We get the sense from this text, they have not obeyed the gospel.
In the previous chapters, we get the sense that very few Jews have believed the gospel at this point. We have to emphasize this because too many Christians are shocked when they go out there. They preach the gospel, and they're not heard.

Scripture makes it clear that it's going to happen. It tells us that sometimes when we share the gospel, it's going to be a fragrance of life that draws people in closer to God. For other people, it's going to be a fragrance, a stench of death that hardens people's hearts further against God. Hopefully, it's not. We want everyone to come and know the grace of our Lord and Savior.

When we don't receive positive results, we should check our message and methods but, ultimately, rest in the fact that the Word of God does not return void. It always accomplishes its purpose according to God's will. Some of you, I just want to really harp on this to start off.

Some of you have shared the gospel to a sample size of one to five people. Upon mixed results, you're staggering for... How do I change things? Do I change the message that God has given us for years and years? Do I make it more palatable?

Hold tight. Keep putting your hand to the plow. Trust that the Lord is using you in the weakness when you share the gospel, and His spirit will do the work that, ultimately, God has foreordained to happen.

Now this is important. Don't get discouraged. Keep putting it forward. Keep scattering seed. Now back to the text. Now it's really sad. From verse 16, we find that not all people who hear the gospel believe the gospel.

This is no surprise because Paul teaches that Isaiah the prophet taught this 700-plus years before the birth of Christ. He says at the end of verse 16, "For Isaiah says, 'Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?'"

This comes from chapter 53 of Isaiah, the chapter of the suffering servant by the one through whose stripes, we are healed. Isaiah teaches that in his day, in his time, there would be those who would not believe his call to repentance and faith in the Lord and that in future times, this time of Paul's ministry, that there would be many who would not hear and believe.

The Apostle Paul knew that people would raise questions. Was the ministry to the Jews sufficient? Did they hear it? Right now, he's going into why have they... Yes, they've heard it. Why have they not believed?

He's going to explore this question with two points. If they've not believed, is it because they have not heard? one. Two, though they have heard, did only a few obey the gospel because they did not understand?

Let's start with number one. Why have only few Jews believed the gospel? Let's start reading verse 17, "So faith comes from hearing and hearing through the Word of Christ." Paul's leading with this premise, building off of verses 14 and 15 that I read. To have faith, you need to first hear the Word of God, particularly that which highlights Jesus Christ the Son of God as crucified and risen Savior.

Paul asks, "Have the Jews heard this, the Word of Christ?" He says, "Indeed, they have." How can you say that they have heard? Paul... He's exploring this right now. In a confusing manner, he quotes Psalm 19:4 from the Old Testament. He says, "Their voice has gone out to all the earth and their words to the ends of the earth."

Right here, we have another aside teaching point about the method that Paul uses in his evangelism. Notice that when he answers, anticipates questions from people in this text, he answers with scripture. He doesn't add to scripture anything that doesn't need to be said or take anything out of it to make it more palatable to his audience.

Have the Jews heard? Indeed, they have. How do we know that? Because in Psalm 14, God tells us, 'Their voice has gone out to all the earth and their words to the ends of the world." "That's the answer," says Paul, because thus saith the Lord.

This is a method. When you don't know, you have to rely on the wisdom of God. Simply standing on His Word is sufficient. Scripture says about God, "Oh, the depth of the riches, and wisdom, and knowledge of God. How unsearchable are His judgements and how inscrutable His ways. For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been His counselor, or who has given a gift to Him that He might be repaid? For from Him, and through Him, and to Him are all things. To Him be glory forever."

When we don't understand something from our creaturely standpoint, we have to be careful not to mislead our own hearts or others. We have to practice caution. Simply take scripture as our word and accept what limited information that we have. We have to believe it and restate it as God has given it to us.

The past few weeks, I've heard about a lot of debates about this discussion of God's sovereign election versus man's responsibility. We've advocated at Mosaic that they're not versus. Essentially, they're antimonies. They're seemingly contradictory, just statements from God, that do run parallel to each other but in a way that we, by our creaturely... Cannot understand it.

How do you engage this topic? What I'm saying, engage it as the Apostle Paul has. For some, God has decided to show mercy. He will give mercy to whom He will have mercy, and He will give wrath and justice to whom He will give wrath and justice. That's how we can handle some of these hard topics while we're sharing the gospel.

Going back to the beginning of Romans, what's Paul say? "For I'm not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God unto salvation, to the Jew first and also the Greek. For in it, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith."

When we stand on God's Word, we are not relying in our own power. When we don't try to explain away and make the message more palatable but stand on it as it is, that's when the power of the gospel goes out. We need to stand firm on the Word in these engagements where it's just not clear. In the same way that the Apostle Paul... He just quotes Psalm 19:4 here. It says, "Thus saith the Word."

There's a humility in doing this. It's the mark of true salvation. In submitting to God's Word as in this manner, standing on it, quoting it, not trying to take away from it or add to it, we're placing ourselves at the feet of our creator. It's a good and healthy restoration to the position that we are created to thrive in when we let God be God of our lives. We let God be God of the gospel. We let God be God of the doctrines that are blatantly clear in scripture.

That's what Paul does here with Psalm 19. It's kind of a weird quotation because it's... Psalm 19. It's a text that tells of how the whole creation shouts out that God is real, and He is reigning. Psalm 19 starts... It starts, "The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims His handiwork. Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge."

Psalm 19... It's a psalm that says, when you look at creation, it's shouts. There's a mighty and glorious God. Why do we take vacations to nature? Why are we amazed when we study the natural world, the body? Why does observation of these things take us to praise, and awe, and wonder? Because God communicates about Himself to us in it. It's His natural revelation. It's all around us, and it blatantly shouts, God is real and glorious.

This is affirmed in Romans 1, which we've touched thoroughly a couple months ago. Verse 19, "For what can be known about God is plain to them because God has shown it to them. For His invisible attributes, namely, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. People are without excuse to acknowledge Him as God."

Paul... He's quoting scripture to engage the question, have the Jews heard the gospel? The thing is is that he takes a passage described natural revelation of God, and he applies it to God's special revelation. His special revelation is his specific Word of the gospel that tells us that God is a just and holy God. He can't be in the position of sin. He cannot be in the presence of sin. No one with sin can approach Him.

His special revelation tells us that those who are saved through faith by the works of Jesus Christ in His life, death, and resurrection can approach him. Paul's doing this imagery of blending natural revelation with special revelation with this quotation.

What essentially is he doing? He's saying it's not that the Jews have not heard. In fact, what he's saying is that the gospel is as readily available to the Jews as is God's natural revelation.

He's saying, did the Jews hear? Yes, they did. There's sufficient evidence that they have heard. The gospel was spread, particularly in the Roman Empire at that point where Jews would've been dispersed. Think Pentecost. Christ, before He ascends, He says, "You will receive power and be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and Judea, and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth."

Pentecost... When the disciples preach God's word, the Holy Spirit comes upon the crowds, and they start speaking in tongues of the nations. We're to believe that that Pentecost moment was the broad dispersion of the gospel to the Jewish population.

Did the Jews hear? Yes, they can't claim that they haven't heard the gospel of Jesus Christ. Is their unbelief problem one of the ear? No. Okay. What is it next? Paul goes on. Maybe the Jews didn't believe because it's a problem of intellect. Did they not understand?

Verse 19, "But I ask, 'Did Israel not understand?'" Again, where does Paul get his answer? Scripture. He says in a quote, from Deuteronomy, "I'll make you jealous of those who are not a nation. With a foolish nation, I will make you angry."

The question is, do few Jews believe because they didn't understand? The answer is no. With this quote from Deuteronomy 32, what he is really saying is because even the Gentiles in our day, the people who Paul mainly got positive results from in his preaching... Because they understand, certainly, the Jews who have had the oracles, the promises of God for centuries, for millennia... They certainly can understand.

Paul's saying, "Have the Jews heard?" Yes, certainly, they have. Did they understand? Yes. Even the lowly Gentiles understand the gospel and are believing it. The Jews are without excuse.

I just want to do another aside here. Pause and think about what's happening here, what Paul's saying. With this quote from Deuteronomy, the fifth book of the Bible, one of the earliest written pieces of scripture, God's doing something quite profound. He's declaring that Israel... Very early on in history, he's declaring, God's chosen nation will one day reject their Messiah, and God will offer salvation to those who are not a people, not a nation, the Gentiles, to make them jealous.

When you pause and think about this, this is a really convincing point for the divine inspiration of scripture. We're talking about the fifth book of the Bible. Couple thousand years before Christ's life, you have this prophetic statement that God's chosen people would reject the Messiah, the Savior, the one whom all the law, and the prophets, the scriptures were about. Who comes up with that stuff?

If you're trying to form a fake religion, why would that be a part of the plan? It's not very convincing, but it's believable because it's real, and it did happen.

Now, back to the scripture, Paul establishes that it's not a problem of the ear for the Jews, that they did not believe. It's not a problem of the head, the brain. They understood it.

Before I go on, I want to just do another aside. An interesting thing from the quotation from Deuteronomy is... It says, "I will make you jealous of those who are not a nation." What God's saying... He's doing at this moment in history with the Gentiles receiving the gospel, and cherishing it, and believing it, while the Jews are only doing so on a very tiny scale, he's offering salvation to the Gentiles as a means of making Israel jealous. It's all a ploy to get Israel jealous and to come back to Him.

This is what we will delve into next week as we go into Romans 11. Some of you might read this as, I don't like this move by God. It seems twisted, seems conniving. He seems a little needy to be demanding this love, this worship from anybody. If He is God, He's worthy of that worship. This neediness to have someone, a people, always following him and trying to make the Jews feel jealous... It doesn't sit right with you.

I assure you, as a father, this tactic works. Holding my two-year-old daughter, Clara, is the best feeling to have in life right now. Her name's Clara Joy. She was born in July of 2020 when everything was depressing. She's a bundle of warm joy.

If you can get her to come, and hug you, and squeeze you, and just look you in the eye, she'll melt you. The thing about Clara is she's a little stubborn. Multiple times a day, I'm sitting on the floor, and I'm just saying, "Clara, I want a hug. I want your embrace." She just turns to me and says, "No," but there's a way of getting Clara to hug me.

When she rejects me, when she denies me, do you know what I do? I walk over, and I pick up my three-month-old daughter, Audrey. I give her some snuggles and kisses. Immediately, Clara comes running over seeking that embrace.

Is it wrong of me in that? Is it twisted of me in that to want Clara's embrace? No. Is it twisted of me to give my other child love at the moment, which is genuine and sincere, because there's nothing better than holding that baby? No.

God... What He is doing, it's not twisted. It's not wrong. He wants Israel to be saved. We're going to just flesh that out, what that looks like, what His hope for the nation of Israel is, next week.

Paul... He makes clear, the Jews have heard. They didn't understand. They did understand. Going forward, as if the quote from the law, first, the law from Moses wasn't enough, Paul quotes from Isaiah the prophet. It's as if in this whole text, it's kind of an interrogation of the Jews.

It's, say, have they heard? Yes, they heard it from the gospel. The gospel's dispersed enough. Has it been made clear to them? Yes, it was made clear to them in the gospel. It's made clear to them in, first, the law, as the text says, through Moses. First, Moses, then, Isaiah. It's saying the Jews had enough information to have understanding of the gospel through the Old Testament scriptures.

That was Paul's Bible. That was the Bible of the Jews that led Paul to understand Jesus as the Messiah. As if quoting from the law were not enough, to make it clear that it wasn't an issue of understanding, Paul quotes from Isaiah the prophet. He's the prince of prophets, the prophet of prophets. That's why he can be representative of the prophets, when I say the law and the prophets.

Verse 20, "Then Isaiah is so bold as to say, 'I have been found by those who did not seek me. I have shown myself to those who did not ask for me.'" Paul... He's saying again, even the Gentiles can understand and believe. So the Jews can understand and believe. They are without excuse. It's not a problem of hearing. It's not a problem of the ear. It's not a problem of understanding, a problem of the head.

We're left to, what is it? What's the root of the disbelief of the Jews? Where does it come from? Ultimately, it's the heart. The Apostle Paul says in verse 21, "But of Israel, he says, 'All day long, I have held out my hands to a disobedient and contrary people.'" Other translations say, "Disobedient and obstinate." Others say, "Disobedient and gainsaying."

Why have the Jews not believed on a large scale, not just collectively, but individually, to make up the collective lack of belief? They have an issue of the heart. They won't believe because they aren't willing to believe. They don't want to believe. They won't be persuaded.

They are disobedient and contrary. They can have all the evidence before them as convincing as can be, and they will not turn and trust the Lord. In the face of obvious gospel realities, they will not be persuaded. Whatever you say, God, this is the heart. We are not going to do that. This disobedient, this contrary. We're going to go and do the opposite.

An example of this is just my son, six years old. He can be eating pizza one day, and then the next day... and just loving it. He can have that memory fresh in his head. A week later, you can offer him the same exact pizza, and he will say that he does not want it.

Why is he doing that? Simply because he doesn't want it. He is in a moment where he doesn't want to listen to anyone. He wants to do his own thing. That's the position of the Jews throughout the history of scripture. The Jews were just hardhearted. They did not want to follow God because they didn't want to follow God.

This is their history. They saw God part the waters while leaving Egypt and essentially rebelled in the wilderness. He appeared to them at Sinai. He gave them the law. They questioned him. They built the idol of the bull around that time. He gave them the victory after victory by his power as they were entering the Promised Land.

Establishing the kingdom, the prophets proved to be right over and over again in their foretelling and their forthtelling. He established His presence in Jerusalem. How could they just not see that God had a special hand of favor on their life, rejoice in that, and give Him their trust? The Jews had a heart problem.

Christ says of them, Matthew 15:6-9, "And he said to them, 'Well, did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites?" He's talking to the Jewish leaders, scribes, and Pharisees. "As it is written, this people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. In vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men."

You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men. He said to them, "You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition." The Jews had the law of God. They had the prophets, and they're always twisting it and tweaking it to give them temporal benefit in the short run.

God's word, God's promises, God's law didn't seem to provide them convenience and joy in the short run, so they're constantly contriving it to work for them as history went on, to the point that when Christ came, they could not recognize Him. They could not see Him. They were the ones that eventually put Him on the cross because they did not recognize Him.

Acts 7 says... Stephen says, "You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart." This is the great deacon of the church as he was on his way to being martyred. He says of the Jews, "You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit. As your fathers did, so do you. Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? And they killed those who announced beforehand the coming of the Righteous One, whom you have now betrayed and murdered. You received the laws delivered by angels and did not keep it."

It's not that the Jews could not hear, but that they did not want to hear. It's not that they couldn't see the light, but they chose darkness. That's the reason why very few believed. It's for the same reasons today that people, Jew and Gentile, do not believe. They have foolish, hardened hearts.

All true Christians who've heard and believe the gospel know that at some point, they had a hard heart that was contrary to God and that when they turned from such hardness, the gospel appeared to them as a source of light and salvation.

I remember... I grew up in the church. When I was 12, I understood the gospel enough, 12 or 13 when I took confirmation class in the church that I grew up in. We had to write a 100-word essay, which sounded like the hardest task, to explain why we wanted to get confirmed, essentially follow Jesus for the rest of our lives.

I wrote this 100, probably 100 to 105-word essay, explaining just... I believe it because this story sounds too good to be true. Why would I not take God up on this offer to trust Him, to believe that all I have to do to be saved is to place my faith in Jesus. I remember I was shocked when, on confirmation Sunday, among a class of 15 people, the pastor went up there and said, "Wow, we have youth who understand the gospel so well."

What he did was the whole time, he talked about my 101-word essay. Really, the reality of it was was that I understood it. I could write it. I could state it and explain it to people, but I did not truly admit that I was a stubborn and contrary person before God for another 10 years of my life.

You see, we can understand the gospel. We can hear it. We can understand it. We can state it to other people, but if it doesn't hit our heart, we're not going to really understand Christianity. We're not going to know the experience of receiving God's grace. We're not going to be able to truly tell others of the joy of salvation. We're not really going to want to see the gospel go forward in our own hearts and in the world.

This text... It's a check for those who are Christian, who are in the church, because the Jews where the people in the church. The Pharisees would've been great religious neighbors who kept the neighborhood tidy, people that were respectable, but they didn't get it.

This text... It's a check for those who are in the church. Have you repented of having a hard and contrary heart toward God, or is this just your culture? Are you here only because the church aligns with some of your political preferences? Are you here because it aligns with some of your personal preferences, your marriage preferences? You're here to get someone to go on a date, whatever it is.

No, we're here. The church is the assembly of all true believers that have faith in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior who see themselves as helpless, just condemned to a place called hell, free from the, just, loving existence and presence of God the Father for all of eternity. The church is the people who get that. It's always a gift that God would offer His hands, just open-handed.

How many of you have ever wanted a benefactor to come into your life and just take care of all of your needs? The gospel is so much more. I had friends in college. There's this guy who would sponsor an international student on the college soccer team every year.

I was a hardworking, vocal boy doing multiple work-study jobs. Well, he gifted these guys who came from other countries that went to the best schools in their other countries and were wealthy in their other countries. I said I wanted someone to come into my life and just throw me a bone, just meet my greatest, deepest needs.

I didn't get that in college. I'm glad God kept me humble. My life really wasn't that bad. How many of you are just looking for that thing that's going to satisfy your deepest needs? What scripture says... That thing is not a thing. It's a person. It's God Himself. We're called to submit to him as Lord. That's the way it was in the garden before Adam and Eve got this message of God's offering His hands.

What did God do with Adam in the garden? He walked with Adam in the garden. You get this imagery of maybe they held hands, naming the animals and the plants. How many of you just want someone to hold your hand through life and just give you the comfort that they love you because they love you, because they love you? They know everything about you, but they choose to offer you love. That's what God offered Israel throughout their history. They never receive that. That's what we as Christians need to believe.

The greatest friendships in life, a good marriage... All the single people or married people obsessed with sex... The greatest thing of marriage is just having that friend to hold your hands with as you go through life. When you have that bliss in a marriage or you have that bliss in a brother or sister in Christ as a single in the church, just, you have that unity, that's all to direct us to the ultimate walk that we take with God our Father through this life and, ultimately, when we live in the fullness of His presence when He comes back and makes all things new.

Christians, have you really repented of your heart condition? If you don't know what grace is, that's the real test. Do you know what grace is? It's, really, just someone gives you courtesy that you don't deserve. It's not Chick-fil-A. Walk in, they say hi to you. They're paid to do that. They make you feel like the best person in the world, but they pay you to do that.

What God's grace is saying, everyone deserves wrath for their sin against me, but I am choosing to extend mercy and grace, unmerited favor, just because. When you know that love, you know that grace, that gives you the freedom, the security of identity to function and be who you were really created to be.

Christians, do you know this? Non-Christians, if you think you have to clean yourself up to come into this relationship, you have it all wrong. It's just something you receive. You hear the call.

You say, "Yes, Lord. I need you. I am a stubborn and contrary person. I see that that is rebellion against your law, your command. You are king, and I have rebelled against you. I see that you offer me forgiveness in Jesus Christ. Take me. Welcome me into your family as a child. I want to submit my whole life to you."

When you do that, that's where true life... That's where true freedom begins. Have you done that? I just want to close with a point of when you share the gospel, you're fighting hardheartedness. In Boston, people want to over-intellectualize it. People want to take you, "Oh, well, it doesn't make sense: God's sovereignty and man's responsibility. It just doesn't make logical, earthly sense."

You're right, it doesn't. You don't get caught in the theological, the philosophical, the distracting conversations. What this text teach us is the heart of non-belief is hardheartedness, a contrary heart. If you're having these conversations with people and not going for the jugular, saying, do you believe you're a sinner? and pressing on that... Do you really think that you are perfect? Does your heart sit right with that?

If you're not going for that jugular and you're just kind of having palatable conversations with everybody, you're not sharing the gospel. Romans says, "For I'm not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God unto salvation." This message, calling people out of their hardheartedness... That's what just gives people true salvation.

Try to bring them in through the real deal. Don't make it palatable. The Lord moves. There's power behind the message when it's faithful. Let me just close and say, God is not a judge waiting to condemn his people. Verse 21, "All the day long, I've held out my hands."

He's a father waiting to receive His children at the door of His house after they've run away in rebellion. He's waiting, calling, offering us restored relationship into the family. Take up His offer. Let's pray.

Heavenly Father, we praise you that in the gospel, we have the opportunity of restored relationship with you. All of nature, all over the world, the majesty of your creation, the complexities of small things, like the human body, the eye, the heart... Lord, all of these things direct us to the fact that there is a creator. He is good, and He is powerful.

Lord, we just want to deny that. So often, we want to contrive a reality such that you do not exist. Even those of us who are in Christ, we're caught functioning in the habits of the old man, just living life according to our own principles, our own ways at the cost of submitting to your lordship overall.

Holy Spirit, we pray, give us hearts to just see life for what it is. We are children with a Father who is sitting down, offering us His hand, offering us hugs, offering us to be our redeemer, our shield, our protector, to just give us a spot in His glorious kingdom forever. Lord, we continue to go on just choosing our own way.

We pray, Holy Spirit, help us to repent of living for our own glory, our own momentary satisfaction, and to live a life of faith pursuing heavenly glory, pursuing heavenly, just, thriving. We pray, give us hearts of joy to share the gospel. Give us boldness to go after the heart as we engage people in the world around us. In Jesus name I pray, amen.