Believe and Confess – A Sermon on Romans 10:9
Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ in unity with the Holy Spirit.
We human beings have a knack for making even simple things complex. Someone that we work with says “Good morning” to us and we start wondering what they meant by that. A husband buys his wife some flowers and she begins to think that he must have done something horrible and he’s just trying to placate his guilt. So often, we can’t accept the simplest explanation of things. We always suspect that others have devious motivations when they do something nice for us. We tend to think that when someone gives us a gift, it’s only because they want something from us. We don’t enjoy the gift because we worry what it’s really going to cost us. We always seem to want make things more complex than they actually are and it just causes problems for us.
Rube Goldberg was a cartoonist back in the first half of the 20th century who made fun of this tendency in people by drawing very complex machines to take care of a very simple task. Here’s a Rube Goldberg machine that is an automatic safety device for walking on slippery surfaces. Of course, it might be easier just to not walk on ice.
We also make our relationship with God way more complex than it needs to be. We’ve been given a gift, the greatest gift that’s ever been given, the greatest gift possible – eternal life in the presence of God. There are no strings attached. It’s a gift that is given freely by God to each one of us who will accept it. This is a gift that came with a massive price tag, the suffering and death of the only Son of God, but it is given to us at no cost to us. Not to accept this gift is the most foolish thing that anyone can do and yet many people refuse to accept it. They refuse to accept it because they’ve made it more complex than it truly is.
“If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.” Here is the key to eternal salvation. It is so simple. Believe and confess. That’s all there is to it. When we recite the creed in worship, we’re confessing with our mouth the faith that provides eternal life. Believe it in your heart and you will be saved. What could be simpler than that?
How do we make this simple truth more complex? We always think that something worthwhile having comes with a cost. Many people think that the greater the cost, the more worthwhile it is to have. People spend a great deal of money to buy a BMW because it’s supposed to be a much better car than a Kia. Both cars will get you from point A to Point B, but the higher cost gets you a more luxurious ride, better acceleration, and the status that goes with the price tag. But salvation is more like having someone hand you the keys to a brand new Lamborghini and saying “This is yours. No taxes. No title or license fees. Take it and enjoy.” Paul says that we don’t have to ascend into the heavens or descend into the depths to find Christ. We don’t have to go searching all over creation to receive this gift. It’s placed right in our hands, all we have to do is take hold of it. Christ comes to us, we don’t have to search for Him. But we have to make it harder, more complex, than that because that is our nature. We can’t accept how simple it is. We don’t believe that it’s a free gift. We think there’s strings attached.
Now I’ve just said that salvation doesn’t come with a cost. That there are no strings attached. But actually there is a cost. The cost is that we have to submit to Christ. We have to confess that Jesus is Lord. That is a cost that is too high a price for many. I watched Dinesh D’souza and the late Christopher Hitchens debate the case for the existence of God. You can find it on YouTube. Hitchens was a militant atheist who could not accept the free gift of salvation because it meant calling someone other than himself Lord. He admitted in his argument that even if it could be proven beyond a doubt that God exists, he still would reject Him because he did not want anyone, not even God, having authority over his own moral choices. He couldn’t accept that God has the authority to determine right from wrong. Well, Hitchens was wrong and he is now paying the extremely high cost of his refusal to acknowledge Jesus as Lord, the cost of eternal damnation. Hitchens made the mistake of making something simple complex.
Because you see, the cost of salvation, of confessing and believing that Jesus is Lord of my life is actually no cost at all. It is simply acknowledging the reality that Jesus is Lord. He is the Lord of all creation, the ruler of the heavens and the earth. Through Him all things were created and God the Father has declared Him to be Lord of all. To confess with our mouth and believe in our heart that Jesus is Lord is no different than confessing that the sky is blue and the sun is hot. It is simple, not complex. And the simple fact is that Jesus is Lord, whether we confess that He is or not. The simple fact is that all people will bow down before Him and acknowledge that He is Lord when He returns in judgment. The cost to us of salvation is simply recognizing the truth that Jesus is Lord. Believe and confess that Jesus is Lord and you will be saved.
Another way that many make the simple complex is by believing that we have to rely on our own righteousness. Like the Jews who rejected Jesus because they believed that the path to God is through following God’s laws, many try to earn their salvation through doing all the things that good Christians are supposed to do. We go to church every Sunday and put our tithe in the plate. We love our wives or husbands and care for our children. We help an old lady across the street. All these things are wonderful and great and pleasing to God unless we begin to believe that these things that we do pave our path to heaven. The prophet Isaiah writes that all our righteous deeds are like filthy rags. Paul writes that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. We can’t ever be righteous in the eyes of God through our own efforts. But the simple good news is that the path to eternal life has already been paved by Christ. When we try to pave our own path to heaven through good works, we pave a path to our own destruction. There is only one path that leads to eternal life and that path has been paved through the suffering and death of Jesus Christ and His resurrection. We do good works not to earn salvation but simply as a response to God’s love for us in Christ. We love our neighbors as ourselves because God first loved us.
We sometimes don’t even realize that we are attempting to pave our own path. We think that our actions are a response to God’s love, but then when some tragic occurrence happens in our life, we find ourselves bitter towards God. We get angry that God would allow trials in our life because we are doing such great things for Him. It’s not fair, we think. How can God allow this disease, this financial problem, this relationship breakdown, to happen to me when I faithfully go to church, help the poor, pray, study my Bible, tithe? When we think that God owes us a good life because we are so faithful and do such good works, it’s a sign that we are paving our own path. God doesn’t owe us anything. He’s already given us the greatest gift of all. And He sometimes allows us to suffer in order to strengthen our faith, to help us to trust in Him even more. When we have come to circumstances beyond our control, our only recourse is to turn to the One who controls all things and that drops us to our knees in humility and brings us ever closer to Christ. Believe and confess that Jesus Christ is the one true path to righteousness before God and you will be saved.
Another way that we make the simplicity of salvation complex is when we believe that we are so unrighteous that we are unable to accept that God could forgive us and declare us to be righteous. We don’t believe that we are worthy to receive God’s gift of righteousness through Christ. It’s as if we are offered a no-strings attached Lamborghini and we say “I can’t take you up on this generous offer because I have had too many accidents in my old Datsun. If I accept this fabulous gift, I’ll only ruin it. I’m unworthy to have this car.” Maybe there is some sin in your past that burdens you. Maybe you have done something that you consider to be so terrible that you believe that there is no way that God could possibly forgive you. But God is full of grace and mercy and desires all people to receive the forgiveness of their sins. He so loved you that He sent His Son to live the sinless life that you are unable to do. And Jesus died on the cross to pay the price for your sins, all of them, even that terrible sin that you think is unforgiveable. Christ suffered and died and rose from the grave to offer you forgiveness of all of your sins. You are forgiven. The beauty of the Gospel message is that we all are unworthy and only when we recognize our unworthiness to receive this great gift are we deemed worthy to receive it. Repent of your sin and seek the forgiveness that has already been provided. Then allow God to remove your burden of guilt and be free. Believe and confess that Jesus forgives your sins and you will be saved.
We make the message of Christ so complex when it is so simple. Salvation is a free gift that God offers to us through the blood of Christ. It’s a simple fact that we only need to accept. We can’t make ourselves worthy of receiving this gift and we can’t be too unworthy to be eligible for it. Salvation is what God has done for us simply because of who God is, not because of who we are. “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”
May the peace of God, the love of Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit be with us all. Amen.
