[0:00] Let's pray and ask for God's help as we reflect on his word. Father, we thank you. As we remembered earlier, you've not left us in darkness, but you have shined a light in our path through your word.
[0:14] Acknowledge that some passages are quite familiar to us and some are more obscure, perhaps more difficult, perhaps things we don't often think of.
[0:24] I pray, Father, that as we look at this passage from Romans, Romans 10 today, that you would, by your spirit, speak to our hearts, guide us in your knowledge.
[0:36] Convict us by your spirit, we pray. Show us your way forward. In Jesus' name, amen. About 13 years ago, in the United Kingdom, where I've been living for 31 years, there was a special event that was put on by the UK Evangelical Alliance.
[0:56] They called together 70 Christian leaders throughout the UK, split down the middle, 35 of them very much pro-Israel, I would say, very in favor of all sorts of things to do with the Jewish people and the land of Israel and the people in Israel who were Jewish, and then 35 leaders who were very much sort of pro-Palestinian, pro-Arab, very much concerned with evangelizing Muslims and people who aren't Jewish.
[1:24] And this day was to help these 70 people get together and consider how we reach these people groups who live together, where there's all this conflict.
[1:35] How do we think about what's the strategy for reaching these peoples in the Middle East? How do we evangelize them? And I was asked to be a speaker on the day, and I refused.
[1:47] I wanted to come along, but I didn't want to bring a talk. And so that was great for me. Perhaps I'm lazy. I don't know. But when I showed up on the day, the person who organized it from the Evangelical Alliance came up to me and said, oh, by the way, you're the final speaker today.
[2:04] I said, what do you mean? He said, well, all you have to do is listen to all the talks today. And then at the end, as a Jewish Christian yourself, we'd like you to sort of sum up the day and point us to a way forward.
[2:16] We know that your heart is for evangelism, for mission, so we want you to help us just point a way forward for the day. I thought, oh, dear, okay, I can do that. Got my notepad and my pen out. It was 13 years ago, so, you know, we still use those ancient articles.
[2:31] And I took notes, and I listened. And the way the format of the day was was that first somebody got up. They were very pro-Israel, and they would speak about their love for the Jews and the land and so on.
[2:42] And then after 20 minutes, their time was up, and there would be 10 minutes of debate, discussion, dialogue, mostly fighting. And then the next person would get up very pro-Palestinian, and they would talk about how hard done by the Palestinians were.
[2:56] And then, again, after 20 minutes, they would sit down, and there would be 20 minutes of debate, dialogue, and lots of arguments, anger, fighting. And the day just escalated. And as I watched and as I listened, I grew more and more perplexed and concerned, because I thought, if an unbeliever were to come into this situation with these Christian leaders, what would they think?
[3:16] These people are supposed to be evangelicals. They're just fighting. And so in some ways, I felt kind of relieved as well, because no one was stating the obvious. So it gave me the opportunity at the end of the day to say something that seemed simple, but perhaps brilliant.
[3:32] I don't know. So I took my notes. I wrote out my little talk that I was going to give. I had my 20 minutes. And when I got up, at the end of the day, I addressed everyone.
[3:45] I tried to pull us back together. I tried to refresh our focus. That was the brief that was given to me. And so I said to the gathering, and I have written out here actually what I wrote those years ago.
[3:55] I wrote, surely as evangelicals, there must be one thing we have in common, one thing that we can all agree on. And that is our faith in the transforming power of the gospel, that as we proclaim the good news of Jesus to both sides, both Jew and Arab, will be changed.
[4:15] The middle wall, the partition will be torn down. Indeed, the only hope for peace in the Middle East is found in the Prince of Peace, the Messiah Jesus. Amen? Thank you.
[4:28] That's very kind. Because I can tell you that when I said that, at that gathering of 70 Christian leaders, evangelicals, apparently, people were shaking their head no. People were disagreeing.
[4:40] And in the 10 minutes of discussion, which grew into 20 minutes because it was the last talk of debate and anger, there were people who spoke out strongly and almost violently against me and against what I had just said.
[4:55] And the reason that's so important as we think about Romans 10 is because they were speaking out, in essence, violently against what Paul has written here in this chapter that we just had read to us.
[5:06] But this is the kind of peace, peace with God. That's the kind of peace that Paul's writing about. It's exactly what he's describing in the first verse.
[5:18] Brothers and sisters, my heart's desire and prayer to God for the Israelites, for the Jewish people, is that they may be saved.
[5:29] Paul, his heartfelt desire, his deep longing for his people is that they would be saved, that they would know the forgiveness, the love, the peace of God that comes only through faith in the Messiah, Jesus.
[5:47] Who's Paul writing this to? He's writing this letter to the church in Rome, but he's writing it to the church. He's saying to the church that we must place a priority on sharing Jesus with Jewish people, that Jewish people, like all people, need to be saved.
[6:06] Paul writes in verse two, they have a zeal for God, but it's not based on knowledge. But like at that event, there are Christians who love my Jewish people so much that they misplace that love.
[6:20] They misplace it, and thus they contradict the apostle Paul. And these Christians would say that today God has two covenants in operation. One is for the Jewish people, and the other is for the rest of the world.
[6:34] They would say, of course, we should bring the gospel to the rest of the world, but preaching the gospel to Jewish people, that is entirely wrong. It's absolutely offensive.
[6:45] We should never do it. They would say the Jewish people are the people of the book. The Jewish people have the Old Testament law, and as Jewish people seek to keep that law and maintain a Jewish lifestyle, then they have a covenant relationship with God that saves them.
[7:01] But, you know, if you go and you look and take time to study the Mosaic covenant, you'll quickly see that that Old Covenant could never save. First of all, we could never keep it.
[7:13] As Jewish people, when we had it, we couldn't keep it because no human can keep the law. That wasn't why the law was given. Go back to Romans 4 sometime and have a look. But also, we can't keep it today because the law requires a tabernacle or a temple, and the temple was destroyed in 70 A.D.
[7:31] Therefore, it's impossible to keep the law anyway. In fact, if you look in the book of Hebrews, Hebrews 10.4 says, the blood of bulls and goats could never take away sin.
[7:43] That's why they had to be offered day in and day out, over and over again, because they were not effective means of salvation. They were a type pointing to the once and for all time sacrifice of the Messiah who was to come, who came, the Messiah Jesus.
[7:59] And in fact, the passage that was instrumental in me coming to faith in Jesus from a Jewish background was Jeremiah 31, the promise of a new covenant. Why? Because my people had irreparably broken the original covenant.
[8:12] Even though God was a faithful husband to us, we were an unfaithful wife. But God said, but I love you, and I will make a new covenant with the houses of Israel and Judah. He's eternally committed to us, but his new covenant was coming, and it came.
[8:27] He promised to write his law on our hearts instead of on tablets of stone. And Jesus tells us that in his blood, he has instituted that new covenant, which brings us to verse 4 of Romans 10.
[8:40] This is why Paul says, Christ is the end of the law, so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes. Everyone who believes.
[8:51] So there aren't two covenants in operation. It's actually a lot of people who believe that. Now, I just can't understand it. There's not a covenant for Jewish people and one for the rest of the world.
[9:01] Christ is the end of the law, so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes in Jesus. But people are confused.
[9:14] And on that day when I was speaking at that gathering of evangelical leaders, I'm not talking about people who aren't trained, who aren't aware. I mean, these are people, specialists in this field.
[9:24] But when I spoke even to them about the need to remain committed to gospel proclamation to both Jew and Arab, I was openly and outrageously opposed.
[9:36] And after my address, a church leader, in fact, I'm an ordained Anglican myself, believe it or not. Don't ask me how that happened, but it is true. And, you know, in the UK at the time, Rowan Williamson was the Williams.
[9:51] I forget his name already. Anyway, he was the Archbishop of Canterbury. And his advisor on the Jews and the Holocaust was one of the 35 pro-Jewish attendees. And when I was done speaking, she stood up.
[10:03] And I'll never forget her face and her finger, her anger at me, for saying that we must not neglect bringing the gospel to Jewish people as well as Arab people.
[10:14] She said, we must not offend Jewish people by telling them about Jesus. They have their own way to God. We must not offend them. And when the meeting was over, because I was, as I said, the last speaker, and we were all going towards the door to leave, she made a beeline for me, came right up into my face, was very angry.
[10:33] And she said, you are a Mishimid. And I wouldn't expect you to know what a Mishimid is. You didn't know the translation of El Shaddai. A Mishimid is a word that usually Orthodox Jews use against Jewish believers, Jewish Christians like myself.
[10:49] It means apostate, traitor, you know, because to Jewish people who don't believe, and I've embraced the one person who I shouldn't have embraced, I am a traitor.
[11:01] I'm an apostate. And to them, I wouldn't really expect the advisor to the archbishop, you know, I'm ordained in the Church of England. I just wouldn't expect her to call me an apostate and a traitor.
[11:12] But there you go. That's how strongly she felt. And I just wonder when I read Paul's words here, would she call Paul a Mishimid? Because as he says near the end of the chapter and in the beginning of chapter 11, he says, I'm a Benjamite.
[11:26] I'm a Jewish person who's come. God has not forsaken us, but I'm getting ahead of myself. Paul wants to make sure that we as the Church understand that Jewish people need to hear the Gospel because Jesus is the only means of salvation available to everyone in the world today.
[11:46] And when we think about Jewish people, when we think about Judaism, I want to say this. God does not love Judaism. God does not love the Jewish religion.
[11:56] God loves Jewish people. God loves Jewish individuals. God, as he loves us, loves them. And they need the righteousness that comes only through faith in the Messiah, Jesus.
[12:09] And, you know, this is Paul's heart here. He's sharing. He's bearing his heart. We see it. We see it throughout. But it's also the heart of Jesus. And I'm going to illustrate that, you know, how we know that this is really the passion that Jesus has.
[12:25] Now, I, as we prayed for me, and thank you for that, I travel a lot. In fact, last year I clocked up over 100,000 miles in the air. Don't ask me how I did that, but I did. And I'll tell you why it's a miracle, because I have a fear of flying, actually.
[12:40] And I just don't, it's not that I, I understand the law of physics, and I trust that. I just don't trust the people who make the planes because, well, and now I've been proved right with all that Boeing mess, right?
[12:51] But, you know, sinful, fallen humanity builds planes, and I trust them to get me up in the air at 35,000 feet. I'm not trying to make you afraid of flying. I'm just saying. Every time I get on the plane, I go through my last rites.
[13:04] Because the last thing you say is the most important thing, right? You know, on your deathbed, you want to say something profound and meaningful that people will remember. Not make sure you defrost the fridge every three months, or make sure you check the tire pressure to make the tire rubber last longer, or whatever.
[13:20] You know, you say something profound. You say something that will last. And so I want my children to know that if that plane turns into a burning tube of fire and plummets into the sea, that I love them.
[13:31] And I want my wife to know that. So I have a ritual when I'm on the plane and I'm seated in my seat before I pray. I WhatsApp my kids. I love you so much. Little heart emojis with little hearty eyes and all those things that you do.
[13:43] Kissy face. Kissy face. And then I call my wife. She gets to actually hear my voice. And we speak and we pray together before the plane takes off. And they know that way if the plane goes down, I love them.
[13:54] I will not tell my children off for doing dumb things before a flight. I'll wait till we land and then I'll say something. Okay? So that's how it works. That's my ritual because the last thing you say is the most important thing you say.
[14:07] What about Jesus? He went away for a long time. He knew he was going away for a long time. What was the last thing he said? What was the thing he wanted us to remember?
[14:20] Well, the last thing he said was go and make disciples of all nations. You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria and to the uttermost parts of the earth.
[14:37] So Jesus is saying to his Jewish disciples in the Jewish place in the land of Israel, I want you to go now to, of course, the Jewish people, but beyond, even to the Arabs, the Samaria, and to the uttermost parts of the earth.
[14:50] But we kind of miss the point, you see, because we're not thinking about it from a Jewish perspective. Jesus is speaking to Jewish people who did not mix with Gentiles because there was a temple.
[15:02] And I'm going to tell you that the rituals you had to go through to be made clean, to worship at the temple, they were a real pain. And so you didn't mix with Gentiles in case you became unclean.
[15:14] So they didn't. Gentiles just were not on their radar. They were prejudiced against Gentiles because it was just impractical to hang around them from where they lived.
[15:25] I know that there was a diaspora of Jewish people who lived out there, but they weren't people who were having a regular worship in the temple area. So Jesus is saying to these disciples, go and make disciples now amongst all the peoples.
[15:37] And they didn't. They stayed in Jerusalem and they just sort of stayed in the Jewish areas. God needed them to move. So one day, you know the story, Peter is on his rooftop. It's a hot afternoon.
[15:48] He decides to have a nap. And he has a vision of a sheet that comes down from heaven. And it's full of all sorts of unclean animals. What is God saying there? Well, God isn't just saying that streaky bacon sandwiches taste good and he should try them.
[16:06] Sticky pork ribs, Cumberland sausages, all these things. Peter, you've got to try them. They taste so good. I mean, that might be part of the message. But what God was really saying is that everyone needs the gospel now to be made kosher or clean before God.
[16:22] It's not just a message for Jewish people. The gospel is for everybody now. Stop being so insular and think about the world. And just after the third vision, which is to emphasize the fact God really meant business, then there's a knock at the door.
[16:37] Peter goes downstairs. You know the story. The entourage from Cornelius has come. He goes. He preaches. The same thing happens as it did at Pentecost. Wow. Gentiles can be saved, too. Who would have thought?
[16:48] Right? The church isn't just Jewish. It's also Gentile. Together. One body in Jesus. Jesus, God wants everyone to hear the gospel without prejudice.
[16:59] Now, that's an important point for us today because here we are 2,000 years later. Are we telling Jewish people about Jesus? Are Jewish people on the radar of the church? Because Jesus said all, everyone, all the nations.
[17:13] Right? The roles have been reversed today. And I think that church leaders across the world, especially when there are Jewish communities in our cities, they need a dream from God. One night they need to dream or one afternoon whenever they have their snooze and a sheet comes down from heaven.
[17:27] And it's full of bagels and lox and cream cheese and gefilte fish and beet borscht and all these foods. You probably don't know what I'm talking about except the bagels. I know that you probably have bagels.
[17:40] God is saying get up and eat. Bagels taste good. So does beet borscht, although my wife doesn't like it very much, I do. So the fact is, is God is saying we must remember Jewish people as well because today there is a prejudice against sharing Jesus with Jewish people.
[17:55] And it's bad in two ways, and I've already explained one of them already, and that is people who just love us so much that they think we don't need Jesus. We love the Jews. Oh, they don't need Jesus. The Messiah has come from the Jewish people.
[18:08] They have their own way to God through their own religion. But there is the other side of a coin, and that side is an ugly side as well. And it would say, well, you know, the Jews rejected Jesus.
[18:20] The Jews killed Christ. God has rejected them. Or the church has replaced the Jewish people. And, you know, that Isaiah reading is very appropriate. And also Paul uses that Isaiah reading too because God hasn't rejected us.
[18:36] God hasn't. You know, and when I look at the situation today, sometimes I wonder, you know, what Bible are we reading? You know, because right here in verse 13, Paul quotes the prophet Joel.
[18:50] Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. That's Joel 2.32. Everyone. Everyone doesn't just mean Gentiles. It means the whole world. By the way, the word Gentile is not a bad word.
[19:02] It's just Hebrew. You want to learn some more Hebrew today? It just means the nations, all the people who aren't Jewish, the nations. Everyone, though, including the Jews, needs to call on God's name. We know the name of God.
[19:12] The name that we call on is Jesus. We shouldn't be prejudiced. In fact, Paul says it should be a priority. And that's what brings us here to verses 14 and 15, which most missions, and I've worked for Anglican missions, and now I'm working for a Jewish mission.
[19:28] Everyone uses these two verses to speak about the priority of mission. Ironically, within the biblical context, if you don't want to eisegete your passage but exegete it, that is actually talking about how we need to prioritize bringing the gospel to Jewish people.
[19:44] I'm just saying. I mean, I didn't write it. Paul did. But I'm just letting you know. What are the words? How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard?
[19:55] And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, how beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news.
[20:06] How, how, how, how, how. Five times there, Paul uses that word. How can they hear unless someone preaches to them? He's really emphasizing it. The church has a God-given responsibility to ensure that Jewish people hear the only message that can save them and change them into the people that God wants them to be.
[20:27] They need to be sanctified. They need to be set free. They need to be redeemed just like everyone else. And Paul says that you and I, as followers of Jesus, are responsible for bringing the good news of Jesus back to Jewish people.
[20:40] You know, there's a lot of funding in the world today. Millions of dollars gets poured into the Middle East, and hardly any of it, for the purposes of seeing Jews or Arabs brought to faith in Jesus. Imagine what the world would look like if all the Christian funding that was poured into the Middle East was poured into the land to evangelize Jews and Arabs.
[21:02] Imagine if we thought about P-E-A-C-E, God's peace, over a P-I-E-C-E, peace of land, especially as believers. What kind of world would it be if we focused on the only hope for peace in the Middle East being the Prince of Peace, Jesus who came for everyone, both peoples and all peoples?
[21:22] But there are many who, for some reason or even for no reason, don't like, actively even hate Jewish people. And we see a rise in anti-Semitism in the world today. And others who don't like, hate, and attack Arab peoples.
[21:38] But the problem is when we as Christians are prejudiced against a people, whether we hate them, whether we dislike them, or whether we simply are just ambivalent about them, we just don't really care, we don't think about them, well, then we don't really care whether they hear the gospel.
[21:52] We don't really care whether they're born again, whether they have eternal hope that we have, this God's forgiveness and love in the Messiah, Jesus. And as followers of Jesus, we can't afford to harbor prejudice against any people, whether Jews or Arabs, because God wants everyone to know and experience his boundless love in Jesus, as Jesus said, starting in Jerusalem and going to the very ends of the earth.
[22:16] So we have to commit ourselves to sharing God's love with all people. And when we think about the Jews, I just want to say very briefly about myself. You know, as a Jewish person, I was one of those Jewish people who despised Jesus.
[22:29] My family were forced out of our homes. In Russia, we had to go down and help build the Trans-Siberian Railway and go out through Uzbekistan, because the Cossacks took everything from us. We left with only what we could carry on our back.
[22:41] Those were the stories I was raised with. It was because of the Christians and because of Jesus that our people died. I wanted nothing to do with Jesus. But I thank God for my Christian friend, Mark, who risked my anger to share Jesus with me.
[22:57] He had the love, the faith, and the courage, and he did it. He shared the gospel. And as I observed his experience of a loving relationship with God, I grew more and more envious of his faith.
[23:09] And I came to yearn for the same relationship with God that he had, because I knew I didn't have it. And eventually, as I said earlier, by God's grace, I surrendered my own heart to the Lord.
[23:19] And I wouldn't be here today standing before you if it wasn't for his courage and commitment to love me enough to tell me that I needed Jesus, that I could only find God's salvation in Christ.
[23:32] And when I think about where I'd be today, honestly, without him, it makes me shudder. It really does. When I look at the lives of my family who don't believe in him, it makes me shudder. I have a burden for them and for others who are lost, because I know where I would be without him.
[23:48] And so I am supremely committed to mission, and including my Jewish people, I want them to experience the same liberating freedom that God brought into my life 40 years ago. My friend Mark made me envious of his relationship with the Lord, and that is what Paul is saying in verses 19 and 20 when he quotes Moses and Isaiah here.
[24:09] I will make you envious by those who are not a nation. I will make you angry by a nation that has no understanding. I was found by those who did not seek me. I revealed myself to those who did not ask for me.
[24:21] And he's talking about the nations there. He's not talking about the Jews. But then he says, I will make you envious by these people. That will make the Jewish people envious. Why does God want to make Jewish people envious?
[24:31] Why does God want to make us angry, as this passage says? Because God wants to save us. God wants to save Jewish people. Again, verse 1, my heart's desire and prayer to God for the Israelites is that they might be saved.
[24:47] And Paul is saying in this passage that it's the church's responsibility to make Jewish people envious, jealous of the faith you have. Don't forget, I am a mushymed to my people. I'm a traitor.
[24:57] I'm an apostate. When I go door to door, I get spat on. I get a bucket of water thrown on me. I get threatened. When one of my Chinese missionaries, Sarah Chan from Hong Kong, goes on the doors in London, she gets invited in.
[25:09] She gets bagels. She gets biscuits. She gets tea. Tell me why. Tell me why you, as a Chinese person who should be a Buddhist, believe in Jesus. I don't understand. And she gets to share the gospel.
[25:20] It makes me sick. It's actually wonderful, but I'd like to be treated nice sometime, too. I'm a great evangelist to Gentiles, though. People are like Jewish but believe in Jesus. Tell me why. Tell me why. Besides American living in the UK, tell me why.
[25:33] So there's something about that. You have an opportunity that I don't have. If you have Jewish friends, it works. And there are so many Jewish people like me who come to faith through the sensitive witness of a Christian friend.
[25:48] And when I say sensitive, I don't mean you have to know everything. It's literally, when I say sensitive, sensitive to the Spirit. Share God's love with them. Tell them what they need. It's OK. You're being legitimate. In a postmodern world, you can talk about your faith.
[26:00] It's fine. OK? So I just really want to challenge us to do our bit. In the last verse of this chapter, it says, God speaking.
[26:13] Again, we read this in Isaiah. All day long, I have held out my hands to a disobedient and obstinate people. And I will acknowledge straight up, of course, we Jewish people are not known for embracing Jesus.
[26:27] We are known for rejecting him. I understand that. But then I want to ask a question. Does this mean that we are permanently disqualified from ever receiving God's mercy? Are we beyond hope?
[26:37] And is God's arm too short to be able to save us? Or does God still care about us? Does God still want to reach us? Well, the very first verse of chapter 11, which you haven't heard, actually is the continuation of that thought of the last verse of chapter 10.
[26:55] So I'm just going to read those two verses together for you. All day long, I have held out my hands to a disobedient and obstinate people. So then did God reject his people?
[27:06] God forbid, or in the Greek, may ganoito, which I can translate for you means God forbid, or by no means, never, may it never be. We are not a rejected people.
[27:18] We are not cast off. We are disobedient. We are obstinate because we're human, just like everyone else. Everyone else is obstinate and disobedient too. We need saving, just like everyone else.
[27:29] So share Jesus with us. Make us envious. See God's power. Redeem us in the Messiah Jesus. God saved me. I despised Jesus. Now I love Jesus. God will save his people.
[27:42] But he wants us to work with him to do that. We have to be confident. We have to share Jesus, even with Jewish people. Now I'm going to end with this one last story, which the last service didn't get because we didn't have time.
[27:57] But I'm taking some liberties because I think this is a wonderful story. True. So when I was a missionary, now I'm a CEO. I don't get to do as much evangelism. I try. But when I was a missionary, I did a lot of evangelism in London.
[28:09] That's why I moved to the UK. In 2002, there was the largest gathering in British history of Jewish people in the UK in one place. 30,000 Jewish people gathered in Trafalgar Square.
[28:21] Now approach that story from the front end. I didn't know there were going to be 30,000 Jewish people there. I just knew some Jewish people were coming to Trafalgar Square during an intifada, and they wanted to show support of Israel.
[28:33] And I thought, ooh, Jewish people in one place. Great opportunity for evangelism. So I packed up my tracks and my evangelistic T-shirt, and I put a coat over it so people couldn't see what it said.
[28:44] And I went off on the underground to Trafalgar Square, and I was ready to go. Went up out of the underground, up the stairs. And if you know Trafalgar Square, you look down, and there's those big lions and then Nelson's column.
[28:55] And there was just 30,000 Jewish people there. And I was like, oh my gosh, Lord, should I take my coat off and show this wonderful proclamation of being a Jewish person who's so for Jesus and loves him and hand up my tracks and die today?
[29:11] Or should I show some wisdom and just pray instead and keep my coat on? Well, the fact that I'm here preaching this morning shows you that I exercised wisdom and I kept my coat on. And I didn't hand up my tracks that day.
[29:23] I realized I would probably die otherwise. So I prayed, and I just prayed over this crowd of 30,000 people and said, God, please save these people like you took the blinders from my eyes, take the blinders from their eyes.
[29:34] But as I was praying, I actually began to look and realize that off to the far left of Trafalgar Square, there was scaffolding that had been put up. And on one side of the scaffolding were Israeli flags, but on the other side of the scaffolding, there were Palestinian flags.
[29:48] And I could see, because I was up high, on the other side of the scaffolding, people jumping around. They had their Palestinian flags, and they were singing and chanting. And they were all pro-Palestinian, they're Palestinian people. And I just suddenly, as a Christian, thought, this is amazing.
[30:04] Imagine if that middle wall of partition was torn down, and these two people groups were reconciled. And they were reconciled because of the power of the gospel. And they were here in Trafalgar Square to proclaim to the world that God is a reconciling God, God who restores and repairs relationships, God who brings forgiveness.
[30:23] It would be like life from the dead. And that's exactly what Paul's talking about as we go into chapter 11. He's like, if Jewish unbelief has resulted in the birth of the church, what will their belief be but life from the dead?
[30:37] Because, you know, when people think about Jews and Arabs, all they think about is people who fight, who are selfish, because our identity is in the land, not the Lord. But if we bring the Lord to both people groups, imagine the testimony of reconciliation that that that will bring to the world.
[30:51] May the whole world come to know the Lord Jesus. How? By making Jesus known. Not by withholding the gospel, but by sharing the gospel to all people, Jewish people included.
[31:02] Amen? Let's pray. Father, we thank you that there is hope in the gospel, that you are able to save. Your arm is not too short, that you have a love and a passion for everyone.
[31:13] Jesus demonstrated that, Lord, as we know in the parable of the lost sheep. We are all lost sheep. Thank you for saving us. But we pray, too, Lord, for our community around us here. I pray today is for the Jewish community in Melbourne.
[31:27] And I pray for the people here. You would put Jewish people in our lives, that you would help us to befriend and share the gospel with. Lord, give us a passion and concern, the same one that Paul had, to ensure that all people hear about Jesus.
[31:39] Help us to honor our Lord's command to go and share the gospel from Jerusalem to Judea to Samaria to the uttermost parts of the earth. In Jesus' name, amen.
[31:51] Thank you.