The Mouth And The Heart

Alba 3-20-2022

THE MOUTH AND THE HEART

Romans 10:1-13

Bob Feller, pitcher for the Cleveland Indians and inducted in the baseball hall of fame in 1962, began his major league journey in 1936, at age 17, fresh off his family’s farm in Van Meter, Iowa.

It was during his rookie season that Feller earned the nickname “Rapid Robert” because of his devastating fastball and high strikeout totals.

The story is told that when Bob Feller was 9 years old, his teacher asked him to write an essay about an oak tree. Here are the ideas that he put in his theme:

An oak tree can be cut down and sawed into boards. You can make baseball bats out of them. You can also make home plates out of the boards. You can make bleachers out of the boards so people can watch baseball games.

At the age of nine years, he was saying - “For me to live is baseball.” In the letter to the Philippians, the apostle Paul wrote that there was something else that consumed him. He said, “For to me, to live is Christ.”

So much so was that true that he wanted everyone else to put their trust in Jesus for their salvation. Just as much as he had fought against Christianity before his conversion; now Paul fought hard, laying his life on the line many times, for the sake of the gospel.

So he writes in Romans 10:1-13 the following:

1 Brethren, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they may be saved. 2 For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge.

3 For they being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and seeking to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted to the righteousness of God. 4 For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.

5 For Moses writes about the righteousness which is of the law, “The man who does those things shall live by them.”

6 But the righteousness of faith speaks in this way, “Do not say in your heart, ‘Who will ascend into heaven?’ ” (that is, to bring Christ down from above) 7 or, “ ‘Who will descend into the abyss?’ ” (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead).

8 But what does it say? “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart” (that is, the word of faith which we preach): 9 that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.

10 For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. 11 For the Scripture says, “Whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame.” 12 there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord over all is rich to all who call upon Him. 13 For “whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”

Here again, the apostle Paul expresses his deep concern for his people, his countrymen. It is his “heart’s desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they may be saved.”

Here in Romans Chapter 10 Paul is declaring that God’s Promise has come in Jesus Christ Himself! In quoting from Deuteronomy 30: 11-14 Paul is saying, “You don’t have to go up to heaven because Jesus has already come to you.”

“You don’t have to go down to the depths, because Jesus has already been raised from the dead! Jesus is God’s gift of grace, not the law.”

Then he says that the righteousness of faith is in your mouth and in your heart and “that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.”

Then he adds in verse 13, “whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”

If God were to ask, “Why should I let you into heaven?” what would your answer be? This is at least one place in scripture that you can go for an answer. There are others that are just as important. But today lets examine what is involved with the mouth and the heart.

First, we are told to...

1. Confess With Our Mouth

The word confess in verse 10 is from the Greek word that literally means "to speak the same thing". That means that our confession about Jesus is to be the same thing that God has revealed to us about Jesus in the Bible.

That Jesus was born of a virgin, lived a perfect life, went to the cross to pay the penalty for our sins, rose again on the third day, and He now is in heaven until He comes again to gather up His people.