How Beautiful Are Your Feet?

 

Sis Melinda Song

Rom. 10:12-15, NIV

12 For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile--the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him,

13 for, "Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved."

14 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? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?

15 And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, "How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!"

Feet may be one of the least interesting parts of the human body but they are very important to our very existence.

Our feet will carry us the equivalent of five times around the earth in an average lifespan. Maybe less nowadays with our sedentary lifestyles.

The foot consists of twenty-six bones, all of which are vital to balancing the body and giving the body the ability to walk. Do you know that if you were to lose just a little toe on one foot, you would have to learn to walk all over again?

Our feet are meant to be functional but have you ever considered that your feet could be beautiful? Go ahead, take a look at your feet. How would you rate them on a scale of 1-10.

Most of us do not see our feet as objects of beauty. Some of us get pedicures and have our toe nails painted, but after years of walking and running, even with shoes, most feet end up rough, cracked and even misshapened. Some feet are also smelly!

In Jesus’ day, one’s feet were the dirtiest part of one’s body.  People either wore open sandals, or they walked on their bare feet.  After walking on unpaved paths and roads, their feet would end up dusty and dirty. A good host would have a servant wash the feet of each guest as a sign of welcome and hospitality into his home.  There were also health risks associated with going barefoot, such as cuts, abrasions, bruises and punctures, as well as getting hookworms, athlete’s foot, etc.

But there was a time in China when feet used to be objects of beauty. For more than a thousand years, women had their feet broken, bound and reduced to 10cm-long stumps – the fabled “golden lily feet” – because they were a marker for beauty. These deformed feet were also a status symbol for the elite. This horrific custom was banned in 1911, after Western missionaries campaigned against it - and yet it continued unofficially for decades, especially in poor, rural areas.

Why did the women subject themselves to such suffering? Because their society dictated what was beautiful just as society does today in other ways.

Do you know that cosmetic foot surgeries are being carried out in the UK, US and Australia today? Popular cosmetic foot surgeries include: foot narrowing in order to fit more comfortably in trendy high heel shoes; toe shortening procedure, typically on second toe (next to the big toe) for greater perceived appearance when wearing open toe shoes; or a toe tuck where the little toe is made skinnier and shorter to accommodate high heel shoes. But the newest thing is "toebesity" surgery, which involves the slimming down of fat toes through liposuction and surgery.

Foot complications such as permanent nerve damage, infection, bleeding, scarring, and chronic pain when walking which could result from such foot surgeries aren't discouraging women (and some men) from getting their feet remade so they’ll look better in their footwear.

But do you know that it is possible for all of us to have beautiful feet without resorting to surgery? At least in God’s eyes.

God is not concerned about how our feet look physically, but He is very concerned with where they go and what they do. And from His point of view, some feet are beautiful while others are not.

It is interesting to note that feet also act as mirrors of our health. Many times, signs of diabetes, arthritis, circulatory or neurological diseases often appear first in your feet. Likewise, they are indicators of our spiritual well-being.

Some feet lead to trouble, strife, and heartache.

·       One of the 7 things the Lord hates are “feet that are quick to rush into evil” (Pro. 6:18).

·       Solomon warns his son not to go along with sinful men whose “feet rush into evil” (Pro. 1:16).

·       The Lord indicted his people saying: “Their feet rush into sin; they are swift to shed innocent blood. They pursue evil schemes; acts of violence mark their ways. (Isa. 59:7)

BUT God loves feet that are yielded to Him (Ps. 17:5, 44:18) and His mission (Eph. 6:15, Rom. 10:15).

In Romans 10:15, Paul was quoting Isaiah 52:7, in which the prophet says: How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings, who proclaim salvation, who say to Zion, “Your God reigns!” 

In ancient times, good news is sent by messengers who ran from one place to another. When an army marched off to war, no one knew for months how the battle had gone. Everything depended on the messenger arriving safely with news from distant lands. The nation would plunge into mourningor resound with rejoicing depending on whether he brought good news bad news.

Isaiah was telling the Jews who were living in captivity and in exile that a messenger was coming to proclaim good news of peace and salvation, that God was going free them from their captivity. 

Thousands of years later, Paul proclaimed the good news of peace and salvation in Jesus Christ when he wrote: “…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” (Rom. 10:9).  But the good news was not just for the Jews. God’s offer of salvation is given to ALL people, to ALL the world.  Paul says, “There is no difference between Jew and Gentile – the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him, for, ‘EVERYONE who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved’.”  

But how does this good news become a reality?  How do all the people of the world get to the point of confessing and believing in Jesus Christ as their Lord? 

Since it is the mouth that proclaims the good news, why is it that it is the feet that are beautiful and not the mouth???

Working backwards, Paul traces the steps of the path of salvation by asking a series of questions. 

a. How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in?

b. And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard?

c. And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?

d. And how can they preach unless they are sent?

The feet must get going first so that the messenger can bring the message to the lost.

Jesus commanded his disciples saying, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. ¹⁹ Therefore GO and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, ²⁰ and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age” (Matthew 28:18-20)

Making disciples, evangelising the lost begins with someone GO-ing.

Let me tell you a story.

ILLUSTRATION: The movie, The Finest Hours, is based on the true story of one of the most dangerous and daring rescue attempts in Coast Guard history.

On the night of February 18, 1952, a powerful winter storm slammed into the hulls of two tankers off the coast of Chatham. Both Second World War-era ships had a fatal flaw in their design. Their welded seams were subject to fractures in rough seas, especially in cold water. Both tankers broke into two within hours of each other.

One, SS Fort Mercer, sent a distress call before she broke up, and rescue ships zeroed in on her from Portland to Nantucket. Earlier the SS Pendleton travelling from New Orleans to Boston, had split in two so fast that an SOS was impossible after radio equipment went down with the bow and eight men, including the captain.

The stern of the Pendleton, carrying 33 men, had a bit more hope. But it still faced extreme peril. Whipped by the wind and angry seas, it drifted closer to shore, but toward a sandbar near the Cape Cod port of Chatham that could have wrecked the rest of the ship.

Fortunately, the vessel’s two pieces were spotted by Chatham Coast Guard’s radar and Boatswain’s Mate First Class Bernie Webber was ordered by Chatham Station commanding officer Cluff to pick a crew for the mission. He got three volunteers: Richard Livesey, Andy “Fitz” Fitzgerald and Ervin Maske.

The four Coast Guardsmen launched their 36-foot wooden motor life boat to rescue the survivors of the sinking 503-foot SS Pendleton oil tanker without any certainty they’d make it back alive. 

Cape Cod Bay was often referred to as “the graveyard of the Atlantic” and had seen some 3,000 shipwrecks over several centuries. One of the most dangerous parts of the rescue mission was getting past the Chatham Bar. Tougias and Sherman, the authors of the book of The Finest Hours, described the bar as “a collection of ever-shifting shoals with flood currents carrying ocean waves that can splinter small boats in a matter of seconds...just in normal weather.”

Cluff told the men to “proceed as directed,” even after hearing Bernie’s report of the 60- to 70-foot waves beyond the bar. As they approached, they sang “Rock of Ages” to comfort themselves.

A 2001 account records that as the lifeboat crossed the bar, the boat was smashed by a mountain of a wave and thrown high in the air. The boat landed on its side between waves. The self-righting boat recovered quickly and was smote again, this time tons of seawater crashed over the boat breaking its windshield, spewing bits of glass and flattening coxswain Webber. In the onslaught, they also lost their compass and radio signal 

Fitzgerald, now 84, said, “The swell was so high and the rains were lashing down, so it was difficult to see anything, but Bernie knew which way to head. We had worked out in our minds how the Pendleton may have drifted and headed as best we could to that point.”

The crew felt compelled to continue in the driving snow, and not just because the station ordered them to. “I could never had lived with myself if we hadn’t tried,” Fitzgerald said.

All they had to assist them to locate the survivors in the dark was their trusty searchlight. They strained to hear anything over the roar of the storm, but were finally drawn to the sound of twisting metal as the Pendleton shifted in stormy seas.

Upon reaching the Pendleton despite a lack of navigational tools, they assumed it was a ghost ship until they saw one man on the deck, followed by dozens more. They quickly realized that the number of men to be rescued far exceeded the capacity of the boat that had been designed to carry only 12 people, but they agreed, “We would all live, or we would all die” because it was too risky to keep crossing the bar.

Bernie and his team rescued 32 crew members from the SS Pendleton. Each one descended a rope ladder with wooden steps (Jacob's ladder) that had been lowered over the tilted hull of the ship. Bernie and his team approached the stern of the floundering tanker more than 30 times, rescuing each sailor one by one. 

Upon their return, more than one hundred locals were waiting to welcome the freezing cold men.

For their heroic efforts, the four-man crew of the motor lifeboat, Bernard Webber, Richard Livesey, Andrew Fitzgerald and Ervin Maske, were each awarded the Coast Guard's Gold Lifesaving Medal. Webber credits the Lord as having a hand on the tiller during the rescue. 

Lessons from the story:

1.      Orders/commands are to be obeyed and so they went. “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore GO…”

Do we go? Or are we still giving excuses? We don’t have to go far. Start with your Jerusalem.

2.      They were the sailors’ only hope. Chatham Station was on its own in the Pendleton rescue because the Boston and Nantucket Coast Guards had dispatched all their crews to the Fort Mercer.

You may be the only Christian in your family, company or class. God has put you there for a purpose. What do you see when you look at your colleagues or classmates? Do you see souls perishing? Every morning you are going forth to your mission field.

3.      They had compassion for the sailors. They volunteered despite knowing it was a suicide mission. They were compelled to continue with the mission under dangerous and life-threatening circumstances. Fitzgerald said, “I could never had lived with myself if we hadn’t tried.”

Do we have compassion for the lost? Can we live with ourselves if we don’t share the gospel with someone who is near and dear to us?

4.      They trusted in God. They sang “Rock of Ages” to comfort themselves, they took on more passengers than the capacity of the boat allowed and Bernie credited the Lord as having a hand on the tiller.

“And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age” Do we believe in God’s promise to be with you when you obey His command?

5.      Those on-shore were involved. In the movie, the town’s power had gone off in the storm. With the whole town in darkness, they had to line up their cars and shine the head-lights to guide the men home.

Everyone has a part to play. You can be a pray-er, pay-er or a play-er!

God is not so concerned about the outward beauty of your feet, but what you do with your feet.  Your feet may be cracked, crooked, calloused and full of corns, but when they go into the world of men and women with the message of good news and peace with God, then in the eyes of God, your feet are beautiful. 

Your feet may make you the fastest man on earth, you may have shoes so big that other people cannot fill them, you may be able to kick the ball farther than anyone else, but that means nothing in eternity.  But if your feet take you to someone in need and with God’s help you enable him or her to walk with God, then your feet are being used for a purpose that matters for all eternity.  Those feet are beautiful.

God has ordained that no one can be saved without the preaching of the gospel. “Preaching” is not limited to what the pastor does on Sunday morning. It is sharing Jesus with the people you meet during the week. It is what you do over a cup of coffee when you share Christ with a friend. It’s what you do when you talk to somebody on the phone or write a letter to a loved one and share the gospel. 

We are grateful for the beautiful feet of those in our congregation who regularly visit the sick to pray for them. How beautiful are the feet of those who will walk the extra mile to offer the love of God and help others in need. 

ILLUSTRATION: Private Desmond Doss walked into the bloodiest battle of World War II’s Pacific theater with nothing to protect himself save for his Bible and his faith in God. A devout Seventh Day Adventist and conscientious objector, Doss had enlisted as a medic and refused to carry a rifle.

The fighting took place on the hellish Maeda Escarpment in April 1945. The battlefield, located on top of a sheer 400-foot cliff, was fortified with a deadly network of Japanese machine gun nests and booby traps. The escarpment, nicknamed Hacksaw Ridge for the treacherously steep cliff, was key to winning the battle of Okinawa. The mission was thought to be near-impossible, and when Doss’s battalion was ordered to retreat, the medic refused to leave his fallen comrades behind.

Facing heavy machine gun and artillery fire, Doss repeatedly ran alone into the kill zone, carrying wounded soldiers to the edge of the cliff and singlehandedly lowering them down to safety. Each time he saved a man’s life, Doss prayed out loud, “Lord, please help me get one more.” By the end of the night he had rescued an estimated 75 men. (The always modest Doss reckoned he saved about 50, but his fellow soldiers gauged it closer to 100. They decided to split the difference.)

Here’s the reality: we all have been commissioned and sent out into the world to proclaim the good news of God’s love and saving grace.  God promised that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved. 

But it all begins with us getting on our feet and going forth to bring good news that Jesus saves.  Let us put our best foot forward and GO as the Lord has commanded us.

So, let me ask you again, how beautiful are your feet?  Shall we today believe God to help us get one soul, and then one more, and then one more as God enables us.

Sis Melinda praying for those that responded to the call to... GO!