Do You Confess Jesus As Lord?
Romans 10:9-10
INTRODUCTION
Please turn with me to Romans chapter 10 starting at verse 9.
This morning in Acadiana as well as across our vast country, thousands upon thousands of congregations will meet just as we have.
Songs will be sung in praise to God
A message will be given by a Pastor.
Then everyone will be asked to close their eyes as he asks for anyone who has experienced a desire for salvation during the service to raise their hand in secret as to not be embarrassed.
Anyone who raises their hand will be asked to come forward and repeat “the sinners prayer”.
Once this technicality has been taken care of...he will popeshly declare them saved.
How did we get to this?
From Paul in 2 Cor. “17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.[a] The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” Being a new creation with new desires, that desires God above all as the watermark for our salvation.
To now….reciting words you were told to say as if they were some mystical chant that forced God to follow our command.
How did we go from the early church and even today followers of Christ joyfully laying down their lives for the Lamb who was slain in the ultimate act of devotion and love…..to being sooooo embarrassed by it, we need a room full of professing Christians to hide their faces...so we can feel comfortable enough to acknowledge our need for the very Lord who was publicly put to shame on our behalf?
I think it can be pinpointed to a fundamental misunderstanding of verses concerning professions of faith like we are fixing to read.
Go with me now to the word of the Lord. Romans 10:9-10
PASSAGE
9 because, 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. 10 For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.
EXEGESIS
CONTEXT, CONTEXT, CONTEXT
Weather we realize it or not..we do not come to Scripture with an interpretative clean slate.
Instead we look at Scripture with cultural blinders. We relate Scripture to our own personal experience in an attempt understand the Author's intent. Let me give you an example of what I mean:
1 Timothy 3:2 is a well known verse regarding qualifications to be an Elder in the Church. It says:
2 Therefore an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach,
Pretty simple correct? We understand “husband to one wife” to mean the prospective Elder could not have been previously divorced for unbiblical reasons.
Yet….I read of a missionary in the Republic of Congo running into a difficult theological road block with this verse. He had planted a churches throughout the country and upon returning for a visit to one of the congregations he a serious debate that threatened to split the church.
There was a serious issue with the men the congregation felt had been called to be Elders because they could not decide which of their wives they would divorce and which one they would keep.
See their region practiced polygamy. So when they read 1 Timothy 3:2 they come away with a completely different understanding.
They interpreted this same verse to mean they could only keep 1 of their numerous wives.
They used cultural and personal experience to drive their biblical understanding…..just as we do.
1 verse….2 completely different understandings.
Now it’s easy for us to look at the absurdity of the Congolese understanding of 1 Timothy 3:2. But the hard truth is we are just as guilty of doing the same thing.
How many time have you heard “what this verse means to me” in a conversation about difficult passages in the Bible.....how many times have you been guilty of saying it yourself…..
Often without even realizing it, we bring presupposition to our reading of Scripture.
But the good news is, there is a sure way of overcoming this. It’s by employing an essential method used in rightly interpreting Scripture. It’s a method if you’re not already acquainted with, I want you to leave the service this morning with a greater understanding of.
It’s understanding Scripture in its historical context.
We tend to forget that we are not the original audience of the Scriptures.
When reading passages like Romans 10:9-10…..realizing that they were written originally to a particular group of people addressing issues they were dealing with…..is essential to a correct understanding of the Author’s intent.
The simple rule of thumb is this “It cannot mean to us, what it didn’t mean to them”.
I have said all of that to lay the foundation for this. What would “confessing Jesus as Lord” have meant to the Roman Church?
We believe Paul’s letter to the Romans was written sometime between 55-57 AD.
This was a time when the church in Rome was facing increased persecution for their faith in Christ. A persecution that would reach its apex over the course of the next couple of decades with Emperors such as Nero not only crucifying believers….but covering their bodies with oil and lighting them on fire as they hang dying on the cross…...to light the pathways throughout the City.
For the believer in the early Roman church...Paul’s call to confess Jesus as Lord would have meant not only assured persecution….but the possibility of death.
It was the life application of Matthew 10:33 when Jesus said:
33 whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven.
Paul was calling the Roman church as well as you and I to profess the name of the King of Kings to a world of corruption and perversion. Just think about what this confession has led to:
It Led 11 of 12 disciples to give their lives laying the foundation of Christianity by confessing Jesus as Lord.
It caused a lowly monk named Martin Luther to stand before Emperor Charles the V in 1521 at the Diet of Worms and refuse to recant his repudiation of the Catholic Church….lighting a spark that would turn into modern day Protestantism
It motivated Moravian missionaries to - sell themselves into slavery - 1732 - in order to reach an unreached people group on the islands of St. Thomas and St. Croix with the news of the freedom found in Christ.
It would propel missionary Jim Elliot to glorify Jesus until his very last breath on January 8, 1956 as he and 4 other missionaries were martyred by the Quechua Indians of Ecuador…...Many of the Quechua Indians would later be brought to a saving faith in Jesus Christ as a result of the love and mercy shown by the families of the murdered missionaries to those responsible for their death.
In 1949 while Jim Elliott was considering the implications of surrendering his life to the mission field….when he opened his journal and made the immortal entry “he is no fool who gives up what he cannot, for that which he cannot lose”.
Over the course of the last 2 millenia the call to this confession has led untold numbers of believers to stand before regents, rulers, kings, potentates, presidents and dictators to declare Jesus Christ as King of kings and Lord of lords!!...... Even though doing so meant assured death.
For them Romans 10:9 is not an empty platitude...but instead has been written with the blood of our brothers and sisters in Christ throughout the ages.
They confessed Jesus as Lord because this truth was so amazing…...so…...extraordinary…….THAT IF IN THAT MOMENT HAD KEPT SILENT……..AS JESUS SAID IN LUKE 19 THE STONE LYING ON THE GROUND AROUND THEM WOULD HAVE CRIED OUT!!!!!!!
THEY WERE A NEW CREATION...WITH A NEW HEART….THAT DESIRED TO CONFESS JESUS AS LORD NO MATTER THE SITUATION OR CONSEQUENCES!
Now compare this to the description I gave earlier happening in churches across our country this morning and tell me how it's even remotely the same understanding.
See…...It's not whether you secretly confess Jesus in a room full of believers….it’s when the chips are down that counts…..it’s when you cannot partake in the things those around you do….it’s when you can’t agree with decisions those around you make, even when called on to do so...it’s when confessing Jesus as Lord aND UPHOLDING HIS TRUTH AND RIGHTEOUSNESS AS THE ONLY TRUTH AND RIGHTEOUSNESS…..even though doing so may cost you friendships, promotions, financial security, familial relationships….when it could even cost your life…..that you truly start to exemplify Paul’s meaning in this passage.
I’m not asking if you are willing to confess Jesus as Lord in this room...this morning.
We have an abortionist moving into Opelousas responsible for the deaths of an untold number of children.
We have false religions, many claiming to be of the Christian faith pulling thousands upon thousands of our relatives, friends and neighbors to an eternity of torment.
We have neighborhoods overrun with drugs, crime and any form of evil and depravity imaginable…...all around us.
We have people struggling at this very moment with addiction, hunger, homelessness, abuse, depression and the list could go on and on…..living in every direction from where we sit right now.
What I want to know this morning Christ Church is are we willing to confess the love and Lordship of Jesus Christ, to those situations.
Right now you may be confused as to what I mean. Let’s take the next few moments and try to gain a greater understanding of how confessing Jesus as Lord should look in our lives?
FIRST, IT’S AN ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF THE SUPREMACY OF JESUS CHRIST OVER OUR LIVES IN THOUGHT, WORD AND ACTION.
Turn with me to Luke chapter 14 starting at verse 25 and let’s see how Jesus taught a life confessing Him as Lord should look:
25 Now great crowds accompanied him, and he turned and said to them, (UNDERSTAND THE IMPORTANCE OF THIS FIRST VERSE. IT DOESN’T SAY JESUS WAS TALKING WITH HIS INNER CIRCLE OF APOSTLES, GIVING THEM SOME EXTRA KNOWLEDGE THAT THE MASSES JUST WEREN’T READY FOR. HE WAS TALKING TO A LARGE CROWD OF PEOPLE….MANY MORE THAN LIKELY HEARING HIM FOR THE FIRST TIME. TO MANY IN THIS CROWN, IT WOULD BE THE FIRST AND ONLY INTERACTION WITH JESUS ON THIS EARTH AND THIS IS WHAT HE TELLS THEM IT MEANS TO BE HIS ) 26 “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.
Now I am going to make an admission to you this morning. We have recently looked at this passage at Christ Church Recovery and I have wrestled in my soul with this passage over the course of the past few weeks.
I think it’s important that believers in Christ spend time every so often, facing passages like this in order to take inventory of our lives. We want to skirt by them during study because of the ominous implications, but it’s essential we face them head on and allow the scripture to do its job.
I urge you at some point take a look at your spiritual standing based on this passage and be completely honest with yourself.
As a matter of fact...I want to help you start the journey this morning.
It’s easy to say we love God more than anyone or anything….but I want us to go beyond the Sunday School answer……
Do this for me….I want you right now, to think of the people you love most in this world. It may be a husband, wife, son, daughter, mother, father, brother, sister, friend.
Sometimes we even become numb to our level of love to even those we hold most dear...so to understand the depth and breadth of your love for them, I don’t just want you to think of them...I want you to think about specific experiences in your past that were shared with them. Experiences that brought to the surface the immensity of your love for that person.
I’ll give you some personal examples to help you get started:
I can remember the night Angie became my wife April 17th, 2000…..I still so vividly remember how beautiful she was standing before me. I can remember what she wore, how her hair was fixed…..I can remember the fear that “I do” would stick in my throat because standing there it was never more apparent to me that I did not deserve her.
I can remember standing in the delivery room as my children took their first breath and in that moment truly understanding what pure love was.
I can remember my daughter having a serious health emergency within the first hours of her life and thinking we were going to lose her.
I had never known fear like that moment. I had just met her for the first time, yet my love for my daughter was already so strong...so complete...that the thought of losing her ripped the heart from my chest.
I can remember the day my father passed away. Pain has a way of clarifying things we think we understand and standing by his bedside that day….I understood with a degree of clarity I had never before had, just how much I loved my father. As men, often we aren’t the best at expressing emotions or saying things we carry in our heart. Sometimes, it forces us to live with the regret of things unsaid. In that moment, I would have given anything to let him know the realization how much I loved him.
I have given you some examples in my life of moments that canonized my love for different members of my family.
Now the question I am forced to ask myself……...and the question I hope you will ask yourself as you do the same, is does my love for Jesus surpass that?
Does the thought of my Lord…...my Lord who created me…..my Lord who gives the breath I breathe this morning...my Lord who took on the form of a man to pay a debt I had no hope of paying……...My Lord who fell to His knees in the Garden of Gethsemane at the realization of the horror that awaited Him…..who even so drank every drop of the cup of God’s spiritual wrath dry in my stead. Does my love for Him surpass my love for others?
NEXT, TRULY CONFESSING JESUS AS LORD WILL ALWAYS LEAD TO ACTION
Look with me again at verse 27.
27 Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple.
If Jesus is truly our Lord...our confession is not just in thought and word….but in action.
It’s hard for us to grasp the magnitude of what Jesus is saying in verse 27.
We have crosses as ornaments on our Christmas trees….we have them hanging as decorations on our walls….we even wear them as jewelry.
But to those standing in the audience that day, many of whom had seen the agony and horror of crucifixion first hand….this would have been unthinkable.
This was a punishment so cruel….so ghastly….that Roman law prevented Roman citizen from being crucified for anything apart from treason.
The condemned would:
Normally first be beaten with a whip.
They would then have a wooden beam weighing between 100 and 200 pound tied across their shoulders (this was the beam their arms would be nailed to).
Carrying this beam they were marched through town..all while being mocked and beaten...to the place of their execution.
I want to read a short passage from an article titled “The Agony of Love: Medical Aspects of The Crucifiction” by Dr. Mark Eastman to describe what happened next.
"The victim was placed on his back, arms stretched out and nailed to the cross bar. The nails, which were generally about 7-9 inches long, were placed between the bones of the forearm (the radius and ulna) and the small bones of the hands (the carpal bones). The placement of the nail at this point had several effects. First it ensured that the victim would indeed hang there until dead. Secondly, a nail placed at this point would sever the largest nerve in the hand called the median nerve. The severing of this nerve is a medical catastrophe. In addition to severe burning pain the destruction of this nerve causes permanent paralysis of the hand. Furthermore, by nailing the victim at this point in the wrist, there would be minimal bleeding and there would be no bones broken. The positioning of the feet is probably the most critical part of the mechanics of crucifixion. First the knees were flexed about 45 degrees and the feet were flexed (bent downward) an additional 45 degrees until they were parallel the vertical pole. An iron nail about 7-9 inches long was driven through the feet between the 2nd and 3rd metatarsal bones. In this position the nail would sever the dorsal pedal artery of the foot, but the resultant bleeding would be insufficient to cause death. The resulting position on the cross sets up a horrific sequence of events which results in a slow, painful death. Having been pinned to the cross, the victim now has an impossible position to maintain. With the knees flexed at about 45 degrees, the victim must bear his weight with the muscles of the thigh. However, this is an almost impossible task-try to stand with your knees flexed at 45 degrees for 5 minutes. As the strength of the legs gives out, the weight of the body must now be borne by the arms and shoulders. The result is that within a few minutes of being placed on the cross, the shoulders will become dislocated. Minutes later the elbows and wrists become dislocated. The result of these dislocations is that the arms are as much as 6-9 inches longer than normal.
With the arms dislocated, considerable body weight is transferred to the chest, causing the rib cage to be elevated in a state of perpetual inhalation. Consequently, in order to exhale the victim must push down on his feet to allow the rib muscles to relax. The problem is that the victim cannot push very long because the legs are extremely fatigued. As time goes on, the victim is less and less able to bear weight on the legs, causing further dislocation of the arms and further raising of the chest wall, making breathing more and more difficult.
The result of this process is a series of catastrophic physiological effects. Because the victim cannot maintain adequate ventilation of the lungs, the blood oxygen level begins to diminish and the blood carbon dioxide (CO2) level begins to rise. This rising CO2 level stimulates the heart to beat faster in order to increase the delivery of oxygen and the removal of CO2.
However, due to the pinning of the victim and the limitations of oxygen delivery, the victim cannot deliver more oxygen and the rising heart rate only increases oxygen demand. So this process sets up a vicious cycle of increasing oxygen demand-which cannot be met-followed by an ever increasing heart rate. After several hours the heart begins to fail, the lungs collapse and fill up with fluid, which further decreases oxygen delivery to the tissues. The blood loss and hyperventilation combines to cause severe dehydration. That's why Jesus said, "I thirst.
Over a period of several hours the combination of collapsing lungs, a failing heart, dehydration, and the inability to get adequate oxygen supplies to the tissues cause the eventual death of the victim. The victim, in effect, cannot breathe properly and slowly suffocates to death. In cases of severe cardiac stress, such as crucifixion, a victim's heart can even burst. This process is called "Cardiac Rupture."
To slow the process of death the executioners put a small wooden seat on the cross, which would allow the victim the privilege of bearing his weight on his buttocks. The effect of this was that it could take up to nine days to die on a cross.
When the Romans wanted to expedite death they would simply break the legs of the victim, causing him to suffocate in a matter of minutes.”
And now Jesus has just told those in attendance that day….as well as those of us hearing His words this morning,
in order to be His, this is the path we must take.
What does this mean for you and I? It’s a command…..make sure you understand the phrasing I am using…..It’s not a suggestion...not a request….not an admonition...but a command to die to self.
A wonderful theologian and preacher Dr. A.W Tozier said:
“You knew one thing about a man who came through town carrying a cross, you knew he wasn't coming back”
Think about it, the condemned had:
No more dreams...no more aspirations
No more desires...plans
No more possessions or monetary status
His honor was gone...pride gone….
Likewise if your life truly confesses Christ:
Our selfish desires and aspirations are gone.
Our possessions and money are not ours but Christ’s.
Our plans for personal gain and social status are banished and replaced with the desire and efforts to see Christ glorified in a dark and evil world.
The Apostle Paul talks of his life in this great exchange in Galatians 2:
“I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”
If you truly confess Jesus as Lord. there should be evidence of action in your life.
Our confession should drive us forward into the abyss of this world to show the Glory of Christ to those who need Him most.
CLOSING
The longer I do this there is an ever increasing awareness I gain of the great folly of preaching.
Week after week you stand on stage...behind the pulpit….and confront the congregation with truths you are still internally battling yourself.
I’m not saying as Christians we have mastered all of this. The war rages daily within us. With the help of the Holy Spirit we battle our sin nature to lessen as Christ increases.
But I am saying this….if this battle doesn’t rage in your life. If you are not fighting against the selfishness and pride and greed and perversion within all of us….there is a serious problem.
If it's you……….great news…….the feeling of conviction in you right now is because God loves you.
