OPEN: Years ago, a young man had just gotten out of Bible College where he’d spent several years learning all the theological terminology that he thought would make him a successful preacher. He’d just been hired at a country church and he was determined to begin bringing new people to Christ set out to win his first soul for the Lord in the community.
He came upon a Farmer busily working in his field and, not sure the man was a Christian, he asked “Are you laboring in the vineyard of the Lord, my good man?"
The farmer didn’t even look up "Naw, these are soybeans, not grapes."
Realizing he’d asked the question wrong he said "You don’t understand what I’m asking. Are you a Christian?"
With the same amount of disinterest as his previous answer the farmer said, "Nope my name is Jones. You must be looking for Jim Christian. He lives a mile south of here."
Undaunted, the determined young preacher tried again asking the farmer, "Are you lost?"
"Nope! I’ve lived here all my life," answered the farmer.
"Are you prepared for the resurrection?" the frustrated preacher asked.
This caught the farmer’s attention and he asked, "When’s it gonna be?"
The young Preacher smiled and replied, "It could be today, tomorrow, or the next day!"
Taking a handkerchief from his back pocket and wiping his brow, the farmer remarked in a monotone voice, "Well, I’m terribly busy with harvest right now, so I’d appreciate it if you didn’t mention it to my wife. She don’t get out much. If she hears about it she’ll want us to go all three days!"
APPLY: What that preacher and the farmer were having was a “failure to communicate”
They weren’t talking the same kind of language.
They weren’t referring to the same kinds of things.
They weren’t “saying the same things” to each other and as a result their conversation was going nowhere fast.
Romans tells us that the same thing can happen to our salvation.
If we’re going to spend time with God, we need to use the same kind of language.
We need to “say the same things” He says.
Look again at Romans 10:9 It says: “That 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.”
The word CONFESS in that verse is the Greek word “Homologeo”.
If you break that word down it is “homo” (the same) and “logeo” (to speak).
Thus homologeo literally means “to speak the same thing”.
When I “confess” that Jesus is Lord (as Romans 10:9 says I should) I’m agreeing with God.
I’m echoing His words.
In Matthew 16, Jesus asked His disciples who they thought He was.
And Simon Peter answered, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God."
Jesus replied, "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven.” Mt 16:16-17
When Peter recited what we call Good CONFESSION, Jesus said he was merely parroting God. What Peter said had been revealed to him by the Father in Heaven.
Thus to “confess” that Jesus is Lord - is to echo back what God says is true.
It is to say the same thing He says.
Now, Romans 10 tells us that “confessing Jesus as Lord” is part of our response to God’s gift salvation. As we’ve noted over the past couple of weeks, we are saved by the grace of God. His grace, and His grace alone is what really saves us. But God calls upon us to respond that grace by (1) Faith, (2) Repentance, (3) Confession of Jesus as Lord, and (4) being buried in the waters of baptism and rising up to a new life.
Today we’re looking at confessing Jesus.
This is a very important part of our response, and the reason it is so important is because – IF I’m unwilling to agree with God that Jesus will be my “Lord” I’m not going to be saying the same thing God is.
I’ll always be trying to make my relationship with Him to be based on ME… on what I think is right and wrong.
But if I confess that Jesus is Lord – I am surrendering that right. When I confess Jesus is Lord I’m surrendering control of my life I’m putting Jesus in charge.
ILLUS: Back in the days of Jesus if you called someone your LORD, that meant they owned you. They were the Master and you were the slave.
Now (quiz time) – did a slave OWN anything?
No, they were slaves.
They didn’t own their homes/ their families/ their clothing.
Everything they possessed belonged to their Lord and Master.
So, when you and I declared Jesus was our Lord, we were saying we were giving Him ownership of everything we possessed.
(Open Wallet) When I made Jesus the Lord of my life – all my money became His.
I have agreed to give Him a portion of what I earn each week (a tithe, or 10th of my income), but in reality all the money in the wallet – and in the bank, and in my IRA, etc. – it all belongs to Him.
So, when I go to see a movie – I’m using God’s money for the ticket.
When I buy a book or magazine – I’m using God’s money.
When I sign up for cable or internet – I’m using God’s money.
Thus, if I realize that I’m using His money to purchase these items, I’m more likely to be careful what kind of entertainment I let into my home and life.
In my wallet I also have pictures of my family (Show pictures of kids).
They belong to Him as well.
Thus, how I treat my kids will be affected by the fact that they don’t belong to me anymore – they’re God’s. How I treat them and how I raise them up should reflect the fact that God will hold me accountable for what I do with them and for them.
Now, it’s not like God really wants to take those things away from me… but when I make Jesus Lord, I’m giving Him control of everything I possess I give Him authority over every aspect of my life.
(PAUSE)
Now, because “confessing” Jesus as Lord is so important to our salvation we always ask people (when they’re being baptized) to repeat the good confession. In fact, let’s just repeat it here this morning so you remember
“I Believe (echo) that Jesus is the Christ (echo) the Son of the Living God (echo).
Then I’ll often say something like: “on the basis of your confession and because you believe in Jesus Christ, I now baptize you in the name of the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit for the forgiveness of your sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit.”
Apparently, the early church did much the same thing, because Paul wrote Timothy and said:
“Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called when you made your good confession in the presence of many witnesses.” 1Timothy 6:12
ILLUS: And when you think of it that makes sense.
When a baby is born – what is the one of the first signs that it is alive? (it cries)
In fact, if a baby doesn’t cry, people get nervous – they think something is wrong.
If a baby doesn’t cry the doctor will often wack on it on it’s backside to get it to cry.
New birth is always accompanied by the cry of life.
And for those who want to be Christians – confessing Jesus as their Lord is that cry of life.
Now, that leads to something that’s so obvious about confession that many overlook it.
Confessing means you are “saying something”.
Homologeo means to “SAY the same thing”
Too often people like to think of their Faith as being something that is private, personal.
They don’t like the idea of sharing Jesus with others.
They like to do their Christianity over here (go over to one side and sit down off to one side of the stage) and live for Jesus over in the corner/ quietly.
But if you’re going to be a Christian you better get used to the idea that Confessing Jesus is critical to relation with Him.
Billy Graham once explained why that was so:
"There is something about making a public confession that seals it in your heart, confirms it to your friends, and makes it much easier to live the life you have openly proclaimed."
And so, when we have people repeat the Good Confession at their baptism we’re merely getting them used to something they need to repeat again and again throughout their entire lives.
In fact, Jesus literally expects us to continually confess that we belong to Him.
Jesus said "Whoever acknowledges me before men, I will also acknowledge him before my Father in heaven. But whoever disowns me before men, I will disown him before my Father in heaven.” Matthew 10:32-33
Jesus says if you publicly acknowledge Him in front of others it is SO important to Him that He brags about you before the Father. If you’re proud enough of Him to share Him with your others He’ll be proud enough about you to proclaim your name throughout the courts of Heaven.
SO, every time you tell someone here on earth how much Jesus means to you, your name is almost shouted by Jesus in Heaven.
But why would Jesus put such a priority on our publicly confessing Him?
Well, a lot of the reason has to do with the problem of “peer pressure”
There are people who will put us down because we believe in Jesus.
In fact Jesus said that was going to happen
"Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.” Matthew 5:11
It’s going to happen. There will be people who don’t want to hear about Jesus. And so we’re going to be tempted to leave Jesus out of our conversations. We’re going to be tempted to be quiet about our faith in God and the Bible.
And the less we talk about our Jesus the more we’re going to be tempted apologize for our going to church… or even to replace Him with something else.
ILLUS: I once remember watching a TV show about a young man who wanted to join a particular fraternity. It was a popular fraternity on campus and everybody was anybody belonged. So he and his close friend pledged for the Fraternity.
Good news: the Fraternity wanted him… really wanted him
Bad news: the Frat didn’t want his friend.
He wasn’t the right type for them. They regarded the friend as a “loser” who wouldn’t fit into their group. He would be an embarrassment to them.
Thus the hero was faced with a dilemma – should he join or not?
And I remembered thinking – this is a no-brainer. Why would I want to belong to an organization that doesn’t want to include my friend? Why would I want to mix with people who look down on someone who has always been there for me?
But isn’t that what people do who don’t want to embarrass themselves by talking about Jesus?
Isn’t that we do if we leave God out of the conversation because it might make it so that my “friends” wouldn’t want me around?
Why would I want to belong to an organization that doesn’t want to include Jesus?
Why would I want to mix with people who look down on the Savior who has always been there for me?
But even more than that, if I leave Jesus out of certain parts of my life because I’m afraid of offending someone… I may even risk my very salvation.
ILLUS: It’s said that when Henry Ward Beecher was a boy, he had a teacher at school who asked one of the boys in class a question which the boy answered.
The teacher became angry and told the boy he was wrong and commanded him to: "Sit down!"
The boy was obviously confused because he’d thought he’d answered correctly, but he sat abruptly down.
Several boys were asked the same question, they gave the same answer and promptly rebuked by their teacher.
Finally Beecher was asked to stand and answer the question. He gave the same answer and was commanded "Sit Down!" But Beecher held his ground and insisted that the answer was correct.
For a few moments the teacher stormed at him, but seeing Beecher wasn’t going to give up he smiled and said:
"Well, boys, you were all correct, but Beecher was the only one sure enough to stand up for it.”
Many people have lost their faith in Christ because they simply lacked the courage to stand up for what they believed. They had grown so used to apologizing for their faith that once someone mounted a serious challenge to that faith they just gave up and sat down.
ILLUS: There’s a parable about an ancient philosopher who came to a city to save its people from its sins. The inhabitants of the city, who at first listened to the philosopher, gradually turned away.
One day a child asked the learned man why he went on - did he not see that his mission was hopeless? The philosopher replied, "In the beginning, I thought I could change men. If I still shout, it is only to prevent men from changing me."
Publicly (and deliberately) taking our stand for Jesus helps us make sure that we don’t lose our faith when others oppose us.
That comment by Billy Graham is worth repeating:
"There is something about making a public confession that seals it in your heart, confirms it to your friends, and makes it much easier to live the life you have openly proclaimed."
CLOSE: Bill Bright tells of the time he’d asked a leading statesman to become involved in a worldwide effort to reach out to people for Christ.
He said the man turned him down:
“I don’t wear my religion on my sleeve. My religion is personal and I don’t want to talk about it”
Bright was appalled. He asked the man: “You are a Christian aren’t you?”
He replied “Yes, but I’m not a religious fanatic.”
Bright paused for a moment and then gently asked:
“Did it ever occur to you that it cost Jesus Christ His life so you could call yourself a Christian? It cost the disciples their lives too, and millions of Christian throughout the centuries have suffered or died as martyrs in order to get the message of God’s love and forgiveness to you. Now do you really believe that your faith in Christ is personal and private and that shouldn’t talk about it?”
The man was quiet for a moment and then said: “No sir, I’m wrong. Tell me what I can do about it.”
Well Jesus tells us what we can do about it: "Whoever acknowledges me before men, I will also acknowledge him before my Father in heaven. But whoever disowns me before men, I will disown him before my Father in heaven.” Matthew 10:32-33
And it all begins when we give our “Good Confession”
“I believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God.”
If that’s something you need to do in your life, we give a time of invitation for you to come forward…
