Jesus is Lord

Have you ever been asked, “How do I become a Christian?” These verses give you the beautiful answer: Salvation is as close as your own lips and heart. People think it must be a complicated process, but it is not. If we believe in our hearts and say with our mouths that Christ is the risen Lord, we will be saved.

Paul is trying his best to get this message across that the only way to be right with God is through faith in Jesus, not by good works. The reason we must be reminded of this time and time again is that we are prone to try to get saved by our own good works. We need to hear this message hammered into our work-oriented brains!

Before we go too far in the sermon today, I need to emphasize the practical value of these verses: At this moment, you are either saved or lost. There is no in-between category. If you are saved, that means if you died today you would spend eternity with Jesus in heaven. If you are lost and died today, you would spend eternity in the torment of hell. Those are the only two options.

Going through ordination, they did not want us to use the term “saved” but rather view salvation as a process. Today being saved is too radical. Many feel that if life seems to be going okay, then you don’t sense the need to be saved. If you think that you’re a basically good person and that your goodness will get you into heaven when you die, then you won’t feel a need to be saved. If you think that Jesus came to give us a few tips on how to have a happy life, then you don’t realize your true condition before God. You are in need to be saved because you are perishing!

To help you see the need for salvation, imagine a cruise ship that is sailing smoothly through the ocean, and you rush into the dining room and yelled, “Get into the lifeboats now,” the passengers would have thought that you were crazy. They didn’t need to be saved. You would only be interrupting their dinner.

But a few minutes later, when the ship hits the rock and began sinking as it took on water, everyone’s attention was focused on being saved from a watery grave. The truth is, your boat is going to hit the rock called “death,” and so you need to be ready for that inevitable moment. Life may be going smoothly at the moment, but if you’re not right before God, then you need to be saved.

Jesus said, “For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which is lost.” He said, “I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.” He was not implying that some are righteous enough that they don’t need salvation. Rather, some mistakenly think that they are righteous enough to get into heaven by their own works. But the truth is, we all have sinned and deserve God’s judgment (Rom. 3:23). Thus, we all need Jesus to save us from that judgment.

So Paul says, “To be saved, you must recognize that you cannot save yourself and you must truly believe in Jesus as the risen Savior and Lord.”

In order to be saved by the law, a person would have to live a perfect life, not sinning once.

Why did God give the law since he knew people couldn’t keep it? According to Paul, one reason the law was given was to show people how guilty they are. The law was a shadow of Christ-that is, the sacrificial system educated the people so that when the true sacrifice came, they would be able to understand his work. The system of ceremonial laws was to last until the coming of Christ. The law points to our need for a savior.

Paul was describing two kinds of righteousness. The first is righteousness which has its origin in the law. Regarding this approach to righteousness, Moses said, “The man who does these things will live by them” (Lev 18:5). That is to say, if a person is able to perform all that the law requires, it will lead to life.

The problem lies in the fact that no one is able to live up to the requirements of the law. Although the law points us in the right direction, it provides no power to achieve its demands. It was never meant as a way to merit God’s favor. Its role was to reflect the character of God in terms of ethical goals. The Jewish legalists had perverted the divine intention of the law and made it into a way to gain God’s favor based on personal merit.

The righteousness that is based on faith is quite different. It does not require valiant exploits such as bringing Christ down from heaven or up from the grave. We don’t have to make heroic attempts to storm heaven or the kingdom of the dead. Christ the Savior is here, incarnate and risen. Faith is readily available for those who will simply believe and confess that Jesus is Lord. The message concerning faith is “already within easy reach of each of us.”

I thank God for the word “whosoever.” If God had said there was mercy for Trey, I am so vile a sinner, that I would have thought he meant some other Trey; but, when he says whosoever, I know that includes me, the worst of all Trey’s.

This message is so simple and yet so profound. It is not salvation that we achieve. It is one that we receive. We simply confess that Jesus is Lord. We no longer resist and reject Him. We commit ourselves to Him and to His way. He is our choice. And we submit to His choice. We declare concerning Him that He is Lord. More than that, we submit to Him as our Lord. We not only hold the doctrine that He is Sovereign. We live it in a commitment of surrender and faith.

What are we saved from? What is salvation? What was Paul dealing with here?

Many believe salvation is a final deliverance from hell. In Romans 10, salvation is embracing God’s generous provisions and aid for the believer in any and every circumstance of daily life. The Lord becomes our defender, provider, sustainer, and savior in all the problems and difficulties of life.

In other words, the “salvation” of Rom 10:9-10 borders on what we generally call sanctification rather than what we identify as justification.

“It follows from this that the confession Paul calls for here is not merely telling my neighbor or close friend about my conversion. It is much more than that. It is my public identification as a member of that circle of people who “call on the name of the Lord.” To call on Him like this in public prayer is nothing less than a confession with my mouth that “Jesus is Lord.” My whole experience of Christian victory and deliverance depends on my willingness to do this.”

Listen to me, friends, once you go public with your faith, confessing that Jesus is Lord of your life, it will have a cleansing and sanctifying effect on your life. You will now know that a non-believer will quickly respond to your inconsistencies and compromises with, ‘I thought you said you were a Christian?” You will choose to live a godly life.

If everyone who calls upon the Lord will be saved, it is important that everyone have the opportunity to hear. Apart from hearing the message, no one can believe. People do not believe in one of whom they have never heard. Therefore, it is necessary that a messenger be sent. Someone must come preaching the good news. Christ sends heralds; heralds preach; people hear; hearers believe; believers call; and those who call are saved.”

Don’t make the fatal mistake of thinking that because you’re a pretty good person, you don’t need to be saved. Jesus didn’t give up the glory of heaven and suffer the agonies of the cross so that you could have your best life now. He didn’t die primarily so that you can have a happy family or succeed in business. He died to save you from your sins. He will save you if you recognize that you can’t save yourself and you truly believe in Him as your risen Lord and Savior.