My Loving Profession

Matthew 27:54 ESV

54 When the centurion and those who were with him, keeping watch over Jesus, saw the earthquake and what took place, they were filled with awe and said, “Truly this was the Son of God!”

When we study the pages of the Bible, what we see all throughout is that God commands all those who worship Him to outwardly proclaim, to openly profess that He is Who He is.

What He commands is for all to see their own inability, to own the fact that they are unable in and of themselves, to be made righteous in the sight of God. What God commands is for all to see that the ability to be made righteous in the sight of God is found only within God Himself.

What He commands is for all to utterly abhor their own depravity and thus desire to turn from it. What He commands is for all to see the goodness of God and thus flee to God that they may partake in His righteousness. And what He commands is that all trust in the only way that leads to righteousness, and that is through the blood of Jesus Christ, and that alone.

What it is that God commands of all is that they make a profession of legitimate faith in Him and in His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ as the only way to Him.

This means that God commands all people to not only confess the orthodox faith verbally, but to also submit to Him joyfully, and to love Him because He is Who He is.

Perhaps the most famous profession of faith found in the Bible is in the 16th chapter of Matthew’s gospel when Peter famously professed that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God.

What Peter had done here is he essentially said, “I believe that You are Who You have said You are, I believe that You are Who You have shown Yourself to be. And because You are Who You are, I will forsake everything about me, and I will follow You. I will make my entire existence about You!”

This profession of faith effectively includes Peter’s recognition of his own depravity and inability to obtain salvation through his own means, it includes Peter’s abhorrence of his own sins, it includes his belief that Jesus can and will save him from his sins, and last but certainly not least, it includes Peter’s personal trust in Jesus alone to deliver him from the penalties of the curse of sin and to make him righteous in the sight of God the Father.

This was indeed an orthodox profession of faith, and Jesus accepted this profession of faith. But after accepting this profession of faith, Jesus then went on to reveal something else to Peter.

Jesus told Peter that he was blessed. And the reason why He told him that he was blessed was because, as Jesus said, Peter had not discovered this and been drawn to Jesus by cunning or craft or discovery, or as He says, by flesh and blood, but rather, Jesus says that Peter is blessed because he discovered this truth and had been drawn to Jesus because the Father had revealed it to him.

Thus, Peter came to this point to where he professed faith because God had already revealed it to him. In other words, against Peter’s will, God effectively came to Peter and changed his disposition towards Him so that Peter would make the profession that he makes here and thus be justified by his faith.

A genuine, legitimate profession of faith does not precede, does not come before regeneration, but is instead a fruit ofregeneration. In other words, I don’t become born again after I make a profession of faith, but rather, I make a profession of faith because God first causes me to be born again.

This is what Jesus was saying to Peter. He said that Peter is blessed because God had already caused him to be born again, and this was evidenced by his legitimate profession of faith.

Now, some may say, “But there are all kinds of people who will make a profession of faith, but they’re not really saved. They’re here at church one day and then next thing you know they’re back out in the world again.”

And you’re right, there are many, many times when people will make false professions of faith. But because these are false professions of faith, they are not real professions of faith. They are “professions of faith” that do not come about as a revelation from God the Father.

I will even tell you that there are many people who believe in their heart of hearts that Jesus is Who He claimed to be and have verbally proclaimed the fact that He is Who He claimed to be, yet they never made a true profession of faith.

Now you say, “What do you mean they’ve never made a profession of faith? They believe it, and they’ve proclaimed that it’s true. How can you say that such a one has never really made a profession of faith?”

You remember when the devil tempted Jesus, he came to the Lord and he said, “If You are the Son of God…” Now, when we look at the way that that is written it seems as if the devil is questioning the legitimacy of Jesus’ claim of being the Son of God. But the Greek for the word “if” here is εἰ, which is always translated as “if” in English.

Now something that we have to remember is that ancient Koine Greek is not the same as modern English because while the Greek εἰ is always translated as “if” in modern English, the kind of “if” spoken of here in the Greek can be described as “a condition, thought of as real,”.

In other words, because the “if” being used here is described as a condition that is thought of and considered to be real, that tells us that the devil, when tempting Jesus, essentially said, “Because You are the Son of God…”

So, there we go, there is the devil’s profession of faith. He believes that Jesus is the Son of God, and he verbally professed that Jesus is the Son of God… but the devil is certainly not saved.

But he made a profession of faith. So why isn’t he saved? Because though the devil believes that Jesus is Who He says He is, the devil has no love for Jesus. And so it is with many who have made “professions” of faith. They may have believed what they professed, but they have never truly loved the One Whom they professed.

Today in our reading, we recount a profession of faith. Now, whether or not the profession was legitimate is something that we can speculate for ourselves. But today I want us to observe the aspects of this particular confession and then finish off by speaking of how one day, everyone will confess, whether they love Jesus or not.

First, let’s go ahead and look at, let’s say the first two thirds of this verse, where it says:

Matthew 27:54a ESV

54a When the centurion and those who were with him, keeping watch over Jesus, saw the earthquake and what took place, they were filled with awe

It speaks here of “the centurion and those who were with him”. Now, a centurion was a Roman commander who could be over sixty to one hundred soldiers. So, this lets us know that at the crucifixion of Jesus, there could have been at least sixty Roman soldiers present who were keeping watch over Him to ensure that He was executed indeed.

Now, I don’t know about you, but when I was studying this text for our sermon today, I was surprised at this. I always knew that the text spoke of a centurion, but I guess that I had never pictured that many soldiers present at the crucifixion.

But when you think about it, it does make sense. Jesus had so many followers just before His crucifixion that those who executed Him were probably fearful that some of His followers would try to interfere with Him being put to death.

But at any rate, this centurion and those under him who were also present, when they saw everything that had happened when Jesus died; when they saw the earthquake, the tearing of the temple curtain, and the rocks splitting, they were, as our text says, filled with awe.

Now, these were the same soldiers who had stripped Jesus and put a scarlet robe on Him. These were the same soldiers who had twisted a crown of thorns and placed it upon His head. These were the same soldiers who placed a reed in His hand and mockingly hailed Him as the King of the Jews. These were the same soldiers who had spat upon Him and struck Him in the head with the reed that they had placed in His hand.

But these same ones who had ridiculed the Lord were now in awe of the Lord. Their contempt had now been turned to wonder.

And because of the awe-inspiring events that had taken place, the centurion and his soldiers declared:

Matthew 27:54b ESV

54b “Truly this was the Son of God!”

At witnessing the power of God, the mighty declaration of God, the overwhelming events that God had caused to take place, the centurion and those who were with him declared a reality that was right in front of their faces: that this Jesus was actually telling the truth, that this Jesus really is Who He said He is, that this Jesus actually is the Son of God!

Now, many will look at this and say, “There you go! There’s proof that the centurion and all of his men were saved!” and while that may very well be true, it could also be equally untrue.

For example, I may profess to you, indeed, I pay profess to everyone that I see that eating vegetables is a healthy thing to do. Furthermore, I may say that because eating vegetables is a healthy thing to do, one should eat vegetables.

And even more than that, I may say that because eating vegetables is a good, healthy thing to do, one should always choose to eat vegetables when they are deciding whether they should eat vegetables or candy.

But even though I believe that enough to say it out loud, I can, and many times do have the choice to either eat, let’s say, something like a carrot or a Snicker’s bar. And even though I know that I should eat the carrot, even though I tell everyone that I should eat the carrot, I will still say, “forget the carrot! give me the Snicker’s bar!”.

Now, I just confessed that eating vegetables is a healthy thing to do. I just confessed that vegetables should always be chosen over candy, so why do I choose the candy more times than not? Because I love candy! But vegetables… not so much.

In the same way, this centurion and his men may have stated, may have emphatically declared an obvious truth that was right before them but had not been moved to actually love the One Whom they had just confessed was the Son of God.

And I likewise believe that there are many who profess to be believers, who profess that Jesus is Who He said He is, who profess that He was crucified, that He was raised from the dead, that He ascended to heaven, and that He is returning one day, yet are not saved… because they have never actually loved Jesus.

Now, I’m not saying that the centurion and his men did not love Jesus, they may have; indeed, I hope that they loved Him and were genuinely saved by Him. But we don’t really know, our text doesn’t really tell us for sure one way or the other.

But like I said, the litmus test as to whether or not we are saved is whether or not we love Jesus.

Jesus said that on the last day many will come to Him saying, “Lord, Lord, look at all of the great things that we did in Your name, we tithed every penny that we made, we went on missions trips, we came to church every Sunday, we led the Sunday School class, we preached in your churches”.

To which the Lord will declare, “I never knew You!”. “Never knew You?!” they will say, “Didn’t You hear all of the stuff that we just listed off, we know You!” To which the Lord will reply, “You done those things, but you didn’t do those things for Me, because you never really loved Me.”

Frightening, sobering words indeed! Words that should cause us to ask ourselves, “What do I love most? Who do I love most?” Is it Jesus? Or is it something, someone else?

The Lord declared that if we will not love Him more than even our dearest relations, then we are not worthy of Him and He will not receive us.

Some of you may be wanting to say to me right now, “Stop it pastor! You’re scaring me!” But I don’t say these things for fun. I don’t speak words that sober people up because I like for them to be disturbed. No, I say this because of the eternal gravity that it carries. I say this because I love you.

Because, as Paul tells us, one day, everyone will declare what this centurion and his men declared. One day, every knee will bow, and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

Every knee, every tongue, there will be no exception. Even those here on earth who would not confess that Jesus is Lord; atheists, agnostics, those of other faiths, every last one will be subdued by the Lord Jesus and like the centurion, they will be so overwhelmed that they will declare that Jesus is Who He said He is.

So, does this mean that everyone will be saved? Of course not! But everyone will be brought into subjection. Only those who love Him, only those who have made a legitimate profession of faith, only those who truly love the Lord Jesus are brought into eternal fellowship with Him.

Beloved, may we be among those who love Him.

Amen?