56) The Message of Faith
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
Pastoral Reminder: Head Heart Hands
16 All Scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, for training in righteousness, 17 so that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.
Turn with me to Chapter 10 of Romans. We will be continuing in the the passage we started last week. Paul compared the righteousness from the law with the righteousness that comes by faith.
4 For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes, 5 since Moses writes about the righteousness that is from the law: The one who does these things will live by them. 6 But the righteousness that comes from faith speaks like this: Do not say in your heart, “Who will go up to heaven?” that is, to bring Christ down 7 or, “Who will go down into the abyss?” that is, to bring Christ up from the dead. 8 On the contrary, what does it say? The message is near you, in your mouth and in your heart. This is the message of faith that we proclaim: 9 If you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 One believes with the heart, resulting in righteousness, and one confesses with the mouth, resulting in salvation. 11 For the Scripture says, Everyone who believes on him will not be put to shame, 12 since there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, because the same Lord of all richly blesses all who call on him. 13 For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.
For all of time people have looked out to find what is next. What is after this life. Many have spent their entire lives searching and seeking, devoting themselves to finding the secret to what is to come. The Jews did not have to seek out those answers. God have given them the answers and instead of believing in God and what he has promised. They has set up a false confidence in their own works and actions.
Paul is telling them that what they need to be saved is found in the message that they proclaim.
The Message of Faith We Proclaim
The Message of Faith We Proclaim
8 On the contrary, what does it say? The message is near you, in your mouth and in your heart. This is the message of faith that we proclaim: 9 If you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
The righteousness that comes by faith speaks like this. The message is near you, in your mouth and in your heart. Pointing them back to the words of Moses as he wrote of the will of God.
11 “This command that I give you today is certainly not too difficult or beyond your reach. 12 It is not in heaven so that you have to ask, ‘Who will go up to heaven, get it for us, and proclaim it to us so that we may follow it?’ 13 And it is not across the sea so that you have to ask, ‘Who will cross the sea, get it for us, and proclaim it to us so that we may follow it?’ 14 But the message is very near you, in your mouth and in your heart, so that you may follow it.
Moses told the people that what God wanted them to do was not to difficult or out of their reach. It wasn’t in a far off land over the horizon or on the other side of the moon. God’s commands are in your heart and in your mouth. You know them from deep in here and they are on the tip of your tongue.
Paul is says, like the command of God, the message of faith is a message from the heart. It is near the one who believes in the words of God and lives by them. When God acts upon the heart of man and circumcises the heart a person will love the Lord your God.
6 The Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the hearts of your descendants, and you will love him with all your heart and all your soul so that you will live.
The circumcised heart is a work of God. Where he extends his hand does a work on the heart of man. The heart that is hard against God.
9 The heart is more deceitful than anything else, and incurable—who can understand it?
Fully deceptive and incurable. When we look at the heart of the lost. When we look back to our own heart we find this to be true. We find deceit and wickedness. Doing things that we don’t understand. Doing things that cause harm and trouble. All fall short of the glory of God. No one seeks after God. The heart of the fallen man is incurable. It must be removed and replaced. It must be cleansed by the work of God.
25 I will also sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean. I will cleanse you from all your impurities and all your idols. 26 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. 27 I will place my Spirit within you and cause you to follow my statutes and carefully observe my ordinances.
The heart of stone. Cold, hard, callous, dark and dead must be removed and replaced. God comes and gives men new hearts. Hearts that beat with new life. Hearts that are alive. As the Spirit of God is placed within a person they will find the will of God and the message of God in their hearts and mouths. As the Spirit causes us to follow the will of God, the message of faith is right there.
28 For a person is not a Jew who is one outwardly, and true circumcision is not something visible in the flesh. 29 On the contrary, a person is a Jew who is one inwardly, and circumcision is of the heart—by the Spirit, not the letter. That person’s praise is not from people but from God.
Those that obtained the righteousness that comes by faith will find that the message of faith is near their mouth and in their hearts. And what is the message of faith?
9 If you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
Jesus is the Risen Lord
Jesus is the Risen Lord
The message that is found in the mouths of those that have a new heart of flesh is the confession that Jesus is Lord. To confess is to make a statement of the full truth. When a person is accused of breaking the law they are given the opportunity to write out their confession to the crime. What are they expected to do? They are to write out the truth of what happened.
A person who has faith will proclaim that Jesus is Lord. They will recognize him as king of kings and lord of lords. as the great high priest. As the head of the body of Christ and the church. The lord of Armies. They may not know all of the specific truths about the places and titles that God has exalted Jesus but they will confess that Jesus is my Lord.
9 For this reason God highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow— in heaven and on earth and under the earth— 11 and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
The apostles start many of their letter with the honorific title of a servant or slave of Christ.
1 Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called as an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God—
They would remind their readers that they were servants to the good master. They were followers of him and lived to do his will. As he is the Lord Jesus.
Jesus said that if you love me you will keep my commands.
15 “If you love me, you will keep my commands. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever. 17 He is the Spirit of truth. The world is unable to receive him because it doesn’t see him or know him. But you do know him, because he remains with you and will be in you.
The desire to follow the commands of God come from the Counselor that brings the message to the mouth as the one with faith speaks by the Spirit.
3 Therefore I want you to know that no one speaking by the Spirit of God says, “Jesus is cursed,” and no one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit.
The true heartfelt profession of following Jesus as Lord is a work of the Holy Spirt. Yes there may be those the make the claim to follow Jesus but will not see him as Lord. They will say that he is friend or teacher or a wise man. But only those that have a changed heart will truly call him Lord. Will truly look to Jesus’ words with the desire to know his will and to do what he says.
Not only will the message of Jesus is Lord in the mouth but also the deep belief in the heard that God raised him from the dead.
9 If you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
The resurrection is truth that is believed by the one who has the new heart and the Spirit. Jesus told Martha that he is the resurrection.
25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me, even if he dies, will live.
There is the resurrection to life and the resurrection to condemnation.
28 Do not be amazed at this, because a time is coming when all who are in the graves will hear his voice 29 and come out—those who have done good things, to the resurrection of life, but those who have done wicked things, to the resurrection of condemnation.
There is a resurrection from the dead for all men who die. Two path lie before every man and women. Life or condemnation. A denial of the resurrection is a denial of scripture and the testimony of the early church.
29 “Brothers and sisters, I can confidently speak to you about the patriarch David: He is both dead and buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. 30 Since he was a prophet, he knew that God had sworn an oath to him to seat one of his descendants on his throne. 31 Seeing what was to come, he spoke concerning the resurrection of the Messiah: He was not abandoned in Hades, and his flesh did not experience decay. 32 “God has raised this Jesus; we are all witnesses of this. 33 Therefore, since he has been exalted to the right hand of God and has received from the Father the promised Holy Spirit, he has poured out what you both see and hear. 34 For it was not David who ascended into the heavens, but he himself says: The Lord declared to my Lord, ‘Sit at my right hand 35 until I make your enemies your footstool.’ 36 “Therefore let all the house of Israel know with certainty that God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Messiah.”
The resurrection must be believed in or their is no salvation. For we are united with him in the resurrection.
5 For if we have been united with him in the likeness of his death, we will certainly also be in the likeness of his resurrection.
If there is no resurrection then what do we believe in. If Christ was not raised from the dead who is the son of God who was without sin. Then we who are sinner would be without hope.
13 If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised; 14 and if Christ has not been raised, then our proclamation is in vain, and so is your faith. 15 Moreover, we are found to be false witnesses about God, because we have testified wrongly about God that he raised up Christ—whom he did not raise up, if in fact the dead are not raised. 16 For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. 17 And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins.
Those that believe in the risen savior are those that will be saved. They are those that will be resurrected into life. Why is that? Because
10 One believes with the heart, resulting in righteousness, and one confesses with the mouth, resulting in salvation.
Belief in the resurrection results in righteousness which justifies a person before God.
22 The righteousness of God is through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe, since there is no distinction. 23 For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; 24 they are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.
As the righteousness of God is through faith in Jesus to all who believe, they are justified and found right before God. The proclamation of what God has done will be on the lips of the one who will be saved. The confession that Jesus saves sinners and died to pay the penalty for our sin and was raised on the third day. In the gospel is the power of God for salvation.
16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, first to the Jew, and also to the Greek. 17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, just as it is written: The righteous will live by faith.
There is no salvation in anyone else.
12 There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to people by which we must be saved.”
There is one name above all other names. There is one name that saves and brings life to the spiritually dead.
Call on His Name
Call on His Name
11 For the Scripture says, Everyone who believes on him will not be put to shame, 12 since there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, because the same Lord of all richly blesses all who call on him. 13 For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.
Paul returns back to the end of Chapter 9 as he speaks of those who will not stumble over the stumbling stone.
33 As it is written, Look, I am putting a stone in Zion to stumble over and a rock to trip over, and the one who believes on him will not be put to shame.
Quoting Isaiah 28:16 and 8:14 reinforcing that the stumbling stone is belief or unbelief. Those that believe are those that will not be put to shame. They are those that will stand before the judgement of God and be found not guilty and justified before the Lord. But this will be only for those that believe on the stone, believe on Jesus.
This will be given to any and all who make this profession. The Jews felt that they were the only people of God and that God was not for or would not save any outside of their own people. They did not eat or associate with outsiders as they were not God’s people. But there is no distinction. God does not chose based on merit or nationality or heritage. There is no distinction between those that believe as there is one Lord and only one Lord.
4 For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes,
The greatest blessing is the blessing of salvation. All is loss except knowing Jesus as Lord and savior. Each and every person who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.
32 Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved, for there will be an escape for those on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem, as the Lord promised, among the survivors the Lord calls.
This may have been a common theme in the early church as Peter also speaks to these same themes and scriptures.
6 For it stands in Scripture: See, I lay a stone in Zion, a chosen and honored cornerstone, and the one who believes in him will never be put to shame. 7 So honor will come to you who believe; but for the unbelieving, The stone that the builders rejected— this one has become the cornerstone, 8 and A stone to stumble over, and a rock to trip over. They stumble because they disobey the word; they were destined for this.
There is only one who must be believed in, one who is to be submitted too. One who is Lord and savior. The scripture all turn to this one purpose, so that you may believe in the name that saves.
31 But these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.
Conclusions
Conclusions
The message of faith that we have recieved and that we continue to proclaim is the same one Paul writes here.
9 If you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 One believes with the heart, resulting in righteousness, and one confesses with the mouth, resulting in salvation.
This confession and this believe comes from the circumcised heart and the Spirt of God. It is near the mouth and heart of those that believe in the Gospel. For in it is the power of salvation for all who believe. There is no distinction among men that prevents the gospel to be heard and believed.
Let us remember the work of God as he took out our heart of stone and replaced it with one of flesh.
Let us not think that the gospel is only for our ears but must be shred with others.
Let us truly live in line with the confession that Jesus is Lord. Seeking to know his will through his word. Being diligent to obey and follow his commands. To live bringing honor to the name that saves.
Jesus our Lord
What must i do to be saved?
Jailer, Lydia, Jews at Peter’s Sermon
Let us pray.
Let us pray.
Prayer
Blessing/Benediction
24 Now to him who is able to protect you from stumbling and to make you stand in the presence of his glory, without blemish and with great joy, 25 to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, power, and authority before all time, now and forever. Amen.
