I. Intro
So last time we spoke I told you that I would explain to you why these verses of
Scripture in Romans 1 where Paul tells believers to not be ashamed of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and today’s passage where Paul tells us in no uncertain terms how we can be made right with God were so shocking and jaw dropping to the Church at Rome. So let’s take a journey back in time to the City of Rome in about 64 AD. At this time Rome is the absolute center of commerce, thinking, trade, culture and extravagance in the entire known world. It is an absolutely jaw-dropping city. The Romans controlled much of the world, they were the undeniable superpower of their day. Things for Christians in Rome were going fairly well. They had an uprising a few years earlier where they clashed with the Jews. As a result the emporer Claudius had ordered all of the Jews to get out of town. But things after that had calmed down considerably until 64 AD. Specifically the night of June 18, a hot summer night in the bustling city of Rome. Now there was a new Emporer, you’ve no doubt heard of him, his name is Nero. He’s crazy as a loon. That’s what he’s most famous for anyway. Well on June 18 a huge fire broke out in Rome, Nero was several miles away at a summer palace and he rushed back to Rome upon hearing of the fire and marshaled all of his resources to put out the fire. Well, despite his best efforts the fire lasted 6 days and 7 nights and then flared up off and on for 3 more days. ¾ of the great city of Rome was destroyed. That’s hard to even comprehend. Imagine is ¾ of New York City was destroyed in a week. Unimaginable suffering followed for the people. Rumors started surfacing that Nero himself had started the fire and that he sat atop a tower, dressed as an actor, playing his lyre and singing while the city of Rome burned to the ground.
Well, Nero has to put to bed these terrible rumors so he looks around for someone to blame for the fire to take the heat off himself. Well, the historian Tacitus picks up our story, he says “In spite of every human effort, of the emporer’s largesse, and of the sacrifices made to the Gods, nothing sufficed to allay suspicion nor to destroy the opinion that the fire had been ordered. Therefore, in order to destroy this rumor, Nero blamed the Christians, who are hated for their abominations, and punished them with refined cruelty. Christ, from whom they take their name, was executed by Pontius Pilate during the reign of Tiberius. Stopped for a moment, this evil superstition reappeared, not only in Judea, where was the root of the evil, but also in Rome, where all things sordid and abominable from every corner of the world come together. Thus, first those who confessed were arrested, and on the basis of their testimony a great number were condemned, although not so much for the fire itself as for their hatred of humankind.” Did you catch that ? First those who confessed were arrested, and a great number condemned. What did Paul say, Confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead and you will be saved. Here Paul is telling the Christians in the Church at Rome to Confess with their mouth Jesus is Lord. In Rome, in the heart of the persecution. In the city where the emporer himself lives. Friends, that is a death sentence.
What would happen to those who confessed, well we know that some were dressed in furs and killed by dogs, some where crucified. Others were set on fire early in the night and placed around the city to light the night ! And many of us don’t want to tell our neighbor that we are Christians. So what does it mean to Confess with your mouth, and believe in your heart. Lets look first at Confess:
II. Confess
Today, there is great confusion, even in the Church about God’s way of salvation.
Some people say, well if I’m a good person, go to Church I’ll be ok. Listen going to Church doesn’t anymore make you a Christian that working at McDonalds makes you a Big Mac ! Still others say, well we all end up in heaven anyway so it doesn’t matter what I do or believe. But this plan makes absolutely no sense. A just God cannot just let everybody go to the same place no matter what they believe.
Fortunately God’s plan for the redemption of man has not changed in over 2000 years. It is the same as it was when Paul wrote to the Roman believers, If you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved.
Lets look first at Confessing with your Mouth Jesus as Lord. We confess Jesus Christ as Lord when we publicly acknowledge that we are sold out followers of Jesus Christ. We confess Him as Lord when we face the pressure to sin, maybe we face peer pressure and we tell our friends, no I am a follower of Jesus Christ and I will not do that. We confess Him as Lord when we have the opportunity to make a bunch of money on a less than honest business deal and we say, I won’t do it, I am a believer in Jesus Christ. These people confessed Jesus Christ as Lord even though they knew that it meant certain death. Friends, all over the world today people are confessing Jesus Christ as Lord even when it means imprisonment, loss of relationships, loss of income, or status, or even death. We must boldly confess with our mouths that Jesus Christ is Lord.
We must also understand that many people all over the world and throughout the ages acknowledge that Jesus is both the Son of God and the Lord of the Universe. But Paul is speaking here of the deep, personal, abiding conviction that, without reservation or qualification will confess Jesus Christ as Lord. That is, will confess that Jesus is mine and yours own sovereign, ruling Lord, in whom alone we place our trust for salvation and to whom alone we submit. There is a difference in knowing about Jesus and knowing Jesus. You see, I know a lot of facts about Abraham Lincoln, I know he was from Illinois, I know he gave the Gettysburg Address, I know he was married to Mary, but I don’t know Abraham Lincoln. You have to know Jesus personally.
The book of James declares, You believe that God is one, you do well; the demons also believe and shudder.” Think about that, demons have seen God speak the heavens and the earth into existence. They have observed more of God’s work and know more about His nature and power than all human beings, apart from Christ ever will. They know what heaven is like, they used to live there. And they know for sure that they are destined for judgment in the lake of fire, and they shudder.
James’ point is that men can hold the same belief as demons, belief that may be theologically correct but does not include receiving Jesus Christ as Lord. You can have good theology, acknowledge your sin, desire to go to heaven, be moral and yet go to hell. People like this do not repent and forsake their sin, and they do not trust in the savior who can forgive and remove their sin. They know facts about Jesus, but they don’t know Jesus. Jesus encountered many people just like this during His earthly ministry. This was the problem with the rich young ruler wasn’t it? He was willing to do some things that Jesus told him, but he wasn’t willing to acknowledge his sin and repent, or give up his riches which were really his first love.
Submitting to Christ’s lordship is such a part of salvation that Paul testified “I make known to you, that no one speaking by the Spirit of God says ‘Jesus is accursed’ and no one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except by the Holy Spirit.” (1 Cor 12:3) When the Holy Spirit brings salvation and faith to a heart, that heart proclaims the lordship of Christ. As one of my pastor friends used to say, you cannot meet the Son of God and walk away the same person.
Contrary to much teaching today, Scripture never separates Christ’s Lordship from his saviorhood. In the book of Acts Jesus is twice referred to as savior, but ninety-two times as Lord. In the entire New Testament he is referred to as savior ten time, but is referred to as Lord some seven hundred times ! To confess Jesus Christ as Lord is to let Him reign over your life personally, it is to not be ashamed of His name, it is to publicly identify yourself as a follower of Christ. Confess Him today while there is still time.
III. Believe
The second truth that must be believed in order to be saved is that God raised Him from the dead. Scripture is full of many truths that Christians are to believe. The New Testament clearly says that Christ lived as a flesh and blood man on this earth, that he was conceived by the Holy Spirit to a virgin mother, and that He experienced every kind of temptation and yet remained sinless. But the truth of Jesus’ resurrection from the dead was the supreme validation of His ministry. Paul declares that Jesus Christ “was declared the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead, according to the Spirit of Holiness, Jesus Christ our Lord.” (Rom 1:4) In other words, when God raised Him from the dead, God was declaring again that the savior was His beloved Son, with whom He is well pleased.
The resurrection of Christ also demonstrated that He was victorious over sin, death and Satan. We must believe the resurrection of Christ because it proves that He accomplished our salvation on the Cross. To believe in the resurrection is to identify ourselves with the One who purchased our redemption on the cross and rose to share eternal life with all of us who believe in Him as our Lord and Savior. Had He not been raised, sin and death would have won the victory over mankind.
You see, apart from Christ’s resurrection there could be no salvation. Paul warned in Corinthians that “If Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain. Moreover we are even found to be false witnesses of God, because we witnessed against God that He raised Christ, whom He did not raise, if in fact the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised; and if Christ has not been raised, your faith in worthless; you are still in your sins.” So if Christ has not been raised, then we have been going around lying about this making us false witnesses, according to Paul. But Paul goes further and says, if Christ has not been raised we are wasting our time. If God didn’t raise Jesus from the dead, guess what, He isn’t going to raise you either! But fortunately, we know that Jesus did raise from the dead, amen.
This passage clearly teaches that true belief in Christ’s lordship and resurrection comes from the heart. The Hebrews considered the heart to be the core of personhood, the residence of the soul, the deepest, innermost part of our being, where thoughts, will and motivation live. It is with our heart that we believe, and it is with our heart that our eternal destiny is determined.
What about you, what do you believe? What does your heart tell you, you know, deep down you know what your heart believes.
