The Roman's Road To The Redeemer

“The Romans Road to the Redeemer”

Romans 3:23, 6:23, 5:8, 10:9-10

9 That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.

10 For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.

POLL ON SALVATION

56% say a good person can earn their way into Heaven.

44% say if a person does not consciously accept Christ as savior, they will be condemned to Hell.

44% say all people experience the same outcome after they die, regardless of their religious beliefs.

34% say there are some sins that God cannot forgive.

31% believe that Hell is a literal, physical place, 37% say it is separation from God

39% say it doesn’t matter what faith you embrace because they all teach the same lessons

53% contend that if a person is good enough, or does enough good things for other people, they will earn their way into Heaven. One-third of all born again Christians (34%) accept this notion.

Barna Research Group, Ltd., Oxnard, CA — (10,000 Sermon Illustrations)

Intro:

I. The Declaration – agree with God

That if thou shalt confess - The word here rendered "confess" ??µ????e´? homologeo¯ is often rendered "profess"; Matthew 7:23, "Then will I profess to them, I never knew you;" Titus 1:16; Titus 3:14; Romans 1:22; 1 Timothy 2:10; 1 Timothy 6:12-13, 1 Timothy 6:21; Hebrews 3:1, etc. It properly means to "speak what agrees with something which others speak or maintain." Thus, confession or profession expresses our "agreement or concord with what God holds to be true, and what he declares to be true."

a. The profession

It denotes a public declaration or assent to that, here expressed by the words "with thy mouth." A profession of religion then denotes a public declaration of our agreement with what God has declared, and extends to all his declarations about our lost estate, our sin, and need of a Saviour; to his doctrines about his own nature, holiness, and law; about the Saviour and the Holy Spirit; about the necessity of a change of heart and holiness of life; and about the grave and the judgment; about heaven and hell. As the doctrine respecting a Redeemer is the main and leading doctrine, it is put here by way of eminence, as in fact involving all others; and publicly to express our assent to this, is to declare our agreement with God on all kindred truths.

With thy mouth - To profess a thing with the mouth is to speak of it; to declare it; to do it openly and publicly.

b. The prerequisite

Shalt believe in thy heart - Shalt sincerely and truly believe this, so that the external profession shall correspond with the real, internal feelings. Where this is not the case, it would be hypocrisy; where this is the case, there would be the highest sincerity, and this religion requires.

c. The person – Jesus

Hosea 13:4 “Yet I am the Lord thy God from the land of Egypt, and thou shalt know no god but me: for there is no savior beside me.”

SALVATION ITSELF

Today Jesus Christ is being dispatched as the Figurehead of a Religion, a mere example. He is that, but he is infinitely more; He is salvation itself...

d. The position – Lord

The Lord Jesus - Shalt openly acknowledge attachment to Jesus Christ. The meaning of it may be expressed by regarding the phrase "the Lord" as the predicate; or the thing to be confessed is, that he is Lord; compare Acts 2:36; Philippians 2:11, "And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord." Here it means to acknowledge him as Lord, that is, as having a right to rule over the soul.

A key accomplishment of the empty tomb is so Jesus might be “the Lord of both the dead and the living.” Lordship implies ownership or the right to exercise authority over another. When we come to Jesus, we're under new management.

Someone once said, "To many people Jesus is nothing. To some people Jesus is something. But to a few people Jesus is everything."

II. The Doctrine – that God has raised Him from the dead

THE RESURRECTION IS CRUCIAL

So significant is this event that the whole of the Christian faith would fall if the resurrection of Jesus Christ were not true. William Lane Craig suggests that, “Without the belief in the resurrection, the Christian faith could not have come into being. The disciples would have remained crushed and defeated men. Even if they continued to remember Jesus as their beloved teacher, His crucifixion would have silenced any hope of his being the Messiah. The cross would have remained the sad shameful end of his career.” Therefore, it is crucial that the events of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection are true and historically accurate.