April 27, 2008
Pastor David Kuhnle

       Christ is risen! He is risen, indeed!
       Do you have beautiful feet? My feet are ugly. Eileen says my feet should never be seen in public. She is right about that; but really, feet are not usually the part of the human anatomy that people talk of as beautiful. God says we have beautiful feet. These are the feet who bring the good news of salvation in Jesus. So maybe I do have beautiful feet, and maybe you do, too, because beautiful are the feet that bring good news.
       People need good news. The news of today is full of war and high prices for gas; everything else is going up, too. Science and politicians make dire predictions of what will happen if things don't change. People need good news because the age old problems of mankind, the problem of evil and death, have not gone away but more than ever stalk us like a wild animal. People need good news.
       Anyone who can give us good news has beautiful feet. The idea of this verse is that of a runner or a herald with a message from the king. He brings a message of hope to the beleaguered citizens - a message of victory and peace. Such a person is welcomed because his news is welcomed; his feet are beautiful because his message is beautiful.
       The message we have from the king is a beautiful message as Paul says in Romans 10 verse 9: "If you confess with your mouth 'Jesus is Lord,' and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved." We have the message of God's unchanging love which is expressed through Jesus Christ. That message is that God is for us; and if God is for us, who can be against us? For he who did not spare his own son but gave him up for us all, how will he not along with him give us all things. He freely forgives our sins, gives us abundant life and fills our lives with the fruit of the Spirit which is love, joy, and peace.
       We are the heralds of that message. In 2 Kings we read of a time when Samaria (the capital of the Northern Kingdom) Jerusalem was surrounded by the armies of Aram. The siege went on for more than a year and conditions in the city grew desperate. Starvation set in and people were eating things people should never eat. Then God intervened and the Arameans fled in the middle of the night. Three lepers, not knowing the Arameans had left, snuck out of the city thinking, "Let's go and surrender to the enemy. They will either kill us or feed us. Either way, we are better off." They came to the enemy camp and found it to be abandoned. The enemy had left in such a hurry that they left all their food. The lepers ate and then said "We've got to go tell the people in the city." So they came back to Jerusalem with the good news. These lepers had beautiful feet. But imagine if they'd kept this to themselves. Imagine if they would have just stayed out there gorging themselves but not telling any of the starving about the food? Someone once said that evangelism is nothing more than one beggar telling the other beggars where to get bread.
       We are called to have beautiful feet. All people need the Gospel. This is the only way people can be saved. There is no other way of salvation. We look at the teeming billions of lost souls on the earth and ask, "What about them? What about the people who never heard of Christ?" Do they go to hell or do they have a chance of getting into heaven without him?
       One part of the answer is in Romans 1:18-20: "The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities - his eternal power and divine nature - have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse." God does reveal himself to all people; there is a natural knowledge of God which all people have access to. No one has an excuse on Judgment Day - even those who never heard of Jesus. What was available through natural revelation, "his eternal power and divine nature, has been clearly seen." God isn't hiding from anyone. He is clearly seen but rejected. They are, as Paul says, "without excuse." So all who perish can only blame themselves. No one on Judgment Day is going to be able to stand before God and say, "I didn't know."
       But that is not the whole answer. The other half of the answer is that if they cannot be saved without faith in Jesus Christ and they cannot have faith in Jesus unless someone tells them about Jesus, people who don't know Jesus Christ will go to hell. This should tear us up inside. Too many of us are content with that. Paul wasn't. In Romans 9:1-5 he expresses his concern over his own countrymen, the Jews. He says, "I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. For I could 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." Do you hear that? Paul's burden for his fellow Jews is so great the he would be willing to be damned if he could save some of them. Again in Romans 10:1 he says, "My heart's desire and prayer to God for the Israelites is that they may be saved." How far are you willing to go to save someone? Is there anyone whom you would say, "My heart's desire and prayer is that (name) would be saved."
       YOU are the solution! We are all called to have beautiful feet. We are called to bring good news. I want you to take this personally. What are YOU doing about it? You see, God has given us the Gospel to share with others. Sadly, our natural inclination is to sit on it. The late Sam Shoemaker, an Episcopalian bishop, summed up the situation this way: "In the Great Commission, the Lord has called us to be - like Peter - fishers of men. We've turned the commission around so that we have become merely keepers of the aquarium. We are to be fishers of men not maintainers of the aquarium."
       The Gospel alone saves. The Gospel is God's salvation for mankind. There is no other way. Through the Gospel God calls and assures sinful people of his great love for them. He forgives our sins and saves us from eternal death. The Gospel is the power of God for salvation (Romans 1:16). The message itself has the power to release us from bondage and to make us new people.
       Paul asks the question: "How can they be saved if they don't hear the Gospel?" What can you do? Again, take it personally. There are people in our life that God has placed there and if you don't tell them, no one else will. There are missionaries that if you don't support them, no one else will. Take it personally.
       Pray for the people God has given you. Pray and understand that you are not doing this on your own, but God is at work through you. Pray also for missionaries and support them financially. If we don't go ourselves, maybe we can encourage a friend or relative who has a heart for missions to go.
       Tell others. Even if we are too shy to tell our neighbor about Christ, we can at least invite them to church. God is calling us to have beautiful feet.