13th Sunday after Pentecost (August 10, 2008)
“Mouth, Heart, & Foot Faith”
Romans 10:5-17
INI
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
There is an impression that exists today in the Christian church on earth that there are different kinds of faith. You especially see the reality of this when you walk into a Christian bookstore. These books will tell you how to refine certain qualities of your faith. For example, there are books that will tell you how to have a vibrant faith. There are books that will tell you how to have a living faith. There are books that will tell you how to have a purpose-driven faith. Now all of these adjectives used to describe faith suggest that you can have faith…but it might not be the right kind of faith. So you can have faith…but it might not be a vibrant faith. You can have faith…but it might not be a living faith. You can have faith...but it might not be a purpose-driven faith.
This is really a fallacy that exists today…that there are all kinds of different brands of faith…and that they’re like cars that you trade in for a newer model. “Time to get rid of that stagnant faith and upgrade to a dynamic faith!” The truth is that the Bible never talks about faith in such a way. Now it will use words like active and living to describe faith…but it uses those words to describe the faith God gives to all Christians, and never suggests that a person might not have the right kind of faith. In today’s Epistle from Romans 10, St. Paul gives us a very good picture of faith…and of what faith does. And what St. Paul says about the one Christian faith, can be said of the faith that lives within each and every one of you here today. That faith is the one that St. Paul says gives us righteousness. It means that when God looks at a person with faith…he sees that person as righteous…as perfect…he sees a person without sin. And furthermore, he says that this faith is not something that you and I get for ourselves. Faith is something that God gives to each and every one of us. “Do not say in your heart, ‘Who will ascend into heaven?’ (that is, to bring Christ down) or ‘Who will descend into the abyss’ (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead).” In other words, don’t think that faith and the righteousness it gives is something you get for yourself. On the contrary, it’s something that God gives to you. He’s responsible for your faith…and he doesn’t give some people an active faith…and to some people a vibrant faith…and to others a living faith. The faith he gives to each and every one of us gives us righteousness…a right standing with God our Father.
But not a single one of us should think then that faith does nothing…in fact, to quite the contrary, the faith that God gives us is something connected to different parts of our body. St. Paul tells us in our text that faith is something that is believed with the heart. It’s also something that is confessed with the mouth. And then it is delivered with the feet. Therefore, the faith that God gives each and every one of us is (as I’ve called it in the sermon), “heart, mouth, and foot faith.” What that means is that God does not give us a faith which just sits there…it’s not just a quality in each of us…like our hair color or eye color. It is something that is indeed vibrant and living and active…and that is the case within each and every one of us.
The first peace of “body language” we’ll examine from St. Paul is the heart. And it is the heart where Paul tells us belief takes place. Within our heart, God through the power of the Holy Spirit creates faith. The unique thing about the heart is that there is nothing you can really do yourself to impact what’s in your heart. Think about how people try to recapture feelings from an earlier point in their lives. Couples who go through marriage problems try to recreate the emotions they felt when they first met. You know some of those feelings…the first time you kissed your spouse…the first time you looked at a child after it was born…maybe the way you felt when the Vikings won the Super Bowl (oh, wait…that’s never happened before). The point is, those feelings really can’t be recreated…we can’t control the heart. But God can put faith in our hearts and that is how we come to trust in God and Jesus Christ…God gives it to us. God puts it there. Righteousness is not trying to reach up and grab hold of Jesus…righteousness is not reaching down into some unknown depths to locate him. God takes hold of you…in your baptism, as he’s done for Kahli and Hannah this morning…and he gives you his righteousness.
Paul also tells us that the faith in our heart is confessed with our mouths. “With the mouth one confesses and is saved.” The faith that you have in your hearts naturally comes out of your mouth. And you and I confessed that faith when we said the Creed right before the sermon. I read an author some time ago who talked about “confessing” as being a better word than “witnessing.” Many people talk about the importance of “witnessing” to Christ to other people. Well, the problem with “witnessing” is that not a one of us saw Jesus’ death firsthand…we did not see his resurrection first hand…we did not hear his teaching firsthand…so we didn’t really witness it! In fact, the Bible only uses the word “witness” to refer to Jesus’ disciples and those who saw his earthly ministry. A better word for you and I to think about is confessing. When you confess your faith, you speak about the object of your faith. What comes out of your mouth reveals what is in your heart. Think about a married couple…think about the importance of telling your spouse, “I love you.” When a spouse doesn’t say, “I love you,” there’s very good reason to suspect if that love really exists. But when there really is love in the heart, you can’t help but talk about it. That’s confessing. That’s what happens when you have faith in your heart.
Faith in the heart…confessed with the mouth…moved with the feet. Paul writes, “”How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!” There’s a bit of humor in what Paul says about feet being beautiful. Actually, many people are repulsed by feet! I’ll bet for many people…if there is one part of your body you want to stay covered up the most, it’s probably your feet…feet get blisters…callouses…bunions…ingrown toenails…fungus…admit it, they are absolutely disgusting. Now imagine Paul’s day when people wore sandals and walked everywhere! Paul didn’t have Dr. Scholl’s or Nike running shoes. And yet he calls the feet of one who proclaims the Gospel, “beautiful.” Not only is faith planted in the heart…and then confessed with the mouth…but the Holy Spirit moves us to go and share it with people, and that doesn’t happen if a person sits at home, with faith in the heart and confessing coming out of the mouth. By the power of the Holy Spirit, God sends people…pastors…missionaries…and each of you to speak the faith in your hearts out of your mouth…by going with your feet.
This faith is in the heart of every single Christian. Each and every one of you, who has received the faith in baptism...through the Gospel…has a faith in your heart that comes out of your mouth and is delivered with your feet. The problem is not with your faith. And yet, let’s be honest. You and I both know that our hearts don’t always seem to trust in God but have wicked thoughts and intentions. You and I both know that our mouths don’t always confess the faith and speak about Christ…they speak evil things…gossip…slander…foul language. You and I both know that our feet don’t always go…we’re not always on the move talking about Christ with our neighbors in this world. The problem is not the faith. God gave us all the faith we need, in fact you probably remember the parable from Matthew 13 where faith as “small as a mustard seed” can move a mountain.
The answer to things in your heart that seem to stifle faith…it’s not some sort of dynamic program to give you a “vibrant faith.” The answer to sharing the Gospel and doing evangelism is not some sort of fancy mission program or creating a dynamic worship atmosphere. The problem that all of us have is not our faith…the problem is our sin. So what do you and I do with sin? We put sin to death, just as God did for Hannah and Kahli this morning. We drown sin in the waters of baptism where we are joined to our Lord Jesus Christ and his death on the cross. We lay our sins before the cross and hear the good news of Jesus Christ’s victory over sin. We receive the body and blood of Jesus at the altar. Jesus puts sin to death. Jesus is the source of faith. If nothing else is clear in the course of this sermon, let it be this. God does it all through his Son Jesus Christ. It’s all taken care of in the cross. The cross does the job. The cross takes away the sin. Through the cross, there is faith in our hearts. Through Jesus’ work on the cross, our mouths confess that cross. Through Jesus’ work on the cross, we have the Holy Spirit that moves our feet to share those words.
You have faith—it is God’s work. You have the Gospel good news of Jesus on the cross that puts sin to death which stifles the work of faith in our hearts, mouths, and feet. God uses you to grow his church. Every one of us wants to see the church grow…wants to see Shepherd of the Lake grow and prosper. Well, here’s how that will happen. Come here on Sundays and hear the Gospel. Have your sins forgiven. Eat Christ’s body and drink his blood. And then, having your faith fed and nourished through that Word and Sacrament, you will go out on your feet and confess the faith in your heart with the words of your mouth. People will hear that Word and be moved to faith themselves. Paul lays it all out very clearly in the text: “How are they to call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have not heard? 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?”
I heard a pastor recently say that the primary place of evangelism is not the hour you spend in church—it’s the 6 days and 23 hours a week you spend out in the world with your faith, living in your vocation, going about by foot and confessing your faith with you mouth. That faith lives in each and every one of you. God is behind our “heart, mouth, and foot faith.” As you and I gather to receive the Word and Sacraments, God is carrying out that faith, and through each and every one of us, growing his Church. In Jesus’ name…Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
