This week Pastor Mel preached Romans 10, picking up where guest Pastor Eran Holt left off in Romans 9. The question driving these chapters is a hard one: if God's promises are so good, why did so many in Israel miss their own Messiah? Mel answers it with a single picture — two roads to righteousness. Israel pursued being right with God by works, by keeping the law, and stumbled over the very cornerstone, Jesus. The Gentiles, who weren't chasing it at all, received it by faith. Same God, same offer, two different roads.

From there Mel opens the heart of Romans 10: the gospel is near — as close as confessing with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believing in your heart that God raised him from the dead. The offer is universal — everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved, with no distinction between Jew and Gentile. And because the offer is for everyone, the church has a job: faith comes by hearing, so we give, we go, we pray, and we send. Mel closes with God's relentless heart — "all day long I opened my arms to them" — and the reminder that there is a gospel in every believer, as simple as your own story of who you were before and who you are now.

1. Mel describes two roads to righteousness: Israel chased being right with God by works and stumbled, while the Gentiles received it by faith. He warns, "they got so focused on just working their way to heaven that they miss the Messiah." Where in your own life are you still trying to earn something from God that he's actually offering as a gift? What would it look like to receive it by faith instead of working for it?

2. Mel says, as gently as he can, "Our sincerity is not enough because we can be sincerely wrong. Your sincerity in a lie is still a lie. Your sincerity to an idol is still an idol." Where might you be sincere — but sincerely off — in how you're relating to God? How do you tell the difference between genuine faith and a sincere assumption you've never examined?

3. Mel insists salvation is "nearer than your next breath," but also that "your life is a confession of who you think Jesus is." If someone read your life this past week like a confession, what would it say you actually believe about Jesus? Where do the words of your mouth and the witness of your life line up — and where don't they?

4. Mel admits, "there are people in my life that I'm not sure will be saved," and yet, "when it says everyone, it means everyone." Who is the person you've quietly written off? What changes in how you treat them this week if you genuinely believe the offer of grace includes them?

5. Mel says every lost person "is a person with a name and a face and a story," and that there's a gospel in you — your own two-minute story of who you were before and who you are after. Who is one specific person God is putting on your heart? What is one concrete step this week to give, go, pray, or send toward them?