Romans 10
Think of the most important person alive today, someone who is rich powerful and has renown. Who do you think of? Get a picture of them in your mind.
What would it take to get that person to come to Signal Mountain and visit this church?
Now, let’s take that scenario to another level. What would it take to get that person to move here, become a regular attendee and eventually give up everything they have and die for you?
Let’s say that no one here has ever called them or even imagined that this would happen and you had no clue that this person cared about you.
When we look at Romans 10 we see that God has done this very thing for us. We who are Gentiles had perhaps some awareness of God, but who could believe that he would actually do what he has done: come here, spend his life with us, die for us.
The gospel is an amazing message. God loved the world so much that he gave us his only begotten Son. Jesus came here. God the Word – the Son, came! He left everything glorious, emptied himself, took up with us. He came to us and became one of us. We were lost. We were sinners, separated, doomed to damnation. The Jews were attempting to sew legal fig leaves to cover their sins, but we Gentiles were so far gone that we felt nothing. We were dead.
God sent Jesus and he came. God first called Israel. He freed them from slavery, delivered them from Egyptian masters. God took Israel out of Egypt – but they never let go. You see it is one thing to take Israel out of Egypt, it is quite another to take Egypt out of Israel.
As a nation they never submitted to him. They never loved him. They never fully trusted him. Their final condition was one of legalists who expected God to honor them for their own works of righteousness. They had zeal for the law and ignorance of God’s righteousness. Finally, God says, “All day long I have held out my hands to a disobedient and obstinate people!”
Picture God here – holding out his hands to Israel. “Come to me! Come on, trust me, love me!” But they would not break from their stubborn self reliance. They would only break the heart of God.
Romans 9 reveals Israel’s fall. Romans 10 shows us Israel’s fault. Romans 11 points to Israel’s future!
You and I never asked Jesus to come here and save us by dying for us, did we? You didn’t wake up and recognize your sins and beg God to send Jesus to save you. No! God reaches out to us before we ever even imagine it. We Gentiles, dead in sin and ignorant of our condition – hell bound and lost – we didn’t even have a law and leader like Moses. We were separated from God and outside of the covenant of grace. We had no hope.
Oh, don’t get me wrong, we found ways to cope! We learned to chase the passions of desires of the flesh and situate ourselves into comforts that distracted us and deceived us into searching for worth and purpose in illusions. Our hopes became fixed on temporal happiness. But God! God has called us too! Through the Christ of Israel! And the salvation he offers us is beyond what we can begin to imagine!
God moved here. It is almost too accessible! Grace is here! In our mouth! In our heart! In fact, I talk about it all the time! You hear this, and how do you respond?
Are you hardened or converted?
Are you thankful or thoughtless?
Are you drawn close to God or driven away?
Do you wonder in worship or walk away indifferently?
Do you bow down or get bored?
Look! See Israel! They heard the word, but didn’t hold it in faith!
Listen! Do you understand that God sent Jesus, his Son to save you through his sacrifice? Israel understood God’s call but were disobedient and obstinate.
Who’s fault will it be if you reject God’s grace through Jesus Christ?
Who’s glory and credit will it be if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord!” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead?
I’m trying to make the message of Romans 10 as practical and applicable to you and me as possible. But let me speak clearly here:
God is talking to you in this word! God is speaking to your heart and calling you in the scriptures. Do you believe this? If not, why are you here today? If so, be sure that God is looking for a response of faith and confession from you!
Let’s say the memory verse for this week. Romans 10:9-10
“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 unto righteousness and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.”
If those words say anything at all they say this: Salvation is accessible to you!
God has made it so that anyone, anywhere can be saved. As we read the rest of the chapter it becomes utterly clear that anyone, anywhere – that is who God wants. That is who God has given Jesus to die for. Thank God, that includes you and me.
That also includes our neighbors and friends. It includes those we like and those that get on our nerves like crazy. Remember, you’ve gotten on God’s nerves too, and he still came and called you! God called you to believe and confess!
Believing is personal and internal. Confessing is public and external. By the way, it takes both. In faith God changes you, in confession God calls others through you.
Great believers are also great confessors! Confession is not a "once upon a time" event that you did somewhere in your past that sewed up your salvation. It is not something you do and then move on from. Confessing describes the voice of the saved day to day. The so called Christian who stops believing and quits confessing gets cut off. We will see this in chapter 11.
Someone says, “Oh I have deep faith in Christ! I just don’t want to wear it on my sleeve. I just don’t like to talk about it all the time.” Listen! If you don’t confess it, you don’t possess it! Jesus said, “If you confess me before men I will confess you before my Father in heaven, but if you deny me before men, I will deny you before my Father in heaven.”
Silence is sometimes denial.
We are called to be a confessing people, a confessing church! We confess that Jesus is Lord. We herald the message in the hearing of others so they can heed it too. Our mission work is a form of confessing Christ. Our singing, our Bible studies, fellowship - these offer us confessing practice in a friendly environment. The real challenge is to confess the light to the darkness.
Our lives should agree with our mouths. By our actions and attitudes we also make confession of the Lordship of Jesus. But, and let us be certain of this, you can’t just live the example, you must confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord.” He came, he sacrificed himself for us, he rose again, he lives, he’s coming back. We who believe in the risen Savior say so. "Let the redeemed of the Lord say so!" Amen!
