Untitled Sermon (36)

We continue where we left off by us week in a section of scripture that I stated last week was probably one of the most important text in all the New Testament. It is most definitely 1 of the most important statements in this letter. And it is a section of scripture that I said You should have marked down somewhere.

This section that we are reading has so many implications that if we you're just skimming through this section, we miss the implications. We have the tendency, has fallen human beings, to be superficial when it comes to the things of God.

You may not think that to be true but it is true. When we read the statement that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord we think that it is just a simple statement. We never slow down and think about all the implications of the word Lord itself.

This is essentially how Jesus trained his disciples. When we open up this living revelation of God, the word of God, we see that Jesus instructs us to look at all the implications. That there is more to these words than we like to think. The surface as much deeper.

We see this on the sermon on the mount. Jesus tells the listeners you have heard it from old, but I say unto you. And what Jesus had to say was that the law meant so much more than we can possibly imagine. That the very word of God means so much more than we can possibly imagine. Folks, this is true today.

Theologians have a phrase about God and that is God is inexhaustible. Meaning when you search out to seek God and when you search out to study God you will never finish. There is so much to God that you will never finish studying about God. Because he is inexhaustible you will never be able to exhaust out all resources about God.

God is infinite you will never reach the end of God. This is why the greatest theologians who have ever lived are men who devoted their entire lives to the study of God and even at the very end felt like they were just beginning.

God is inexhaustible, God is infinite therefore his word is so much more than what we make of it. But unfortunately, this is no longer the concern for the Christian. The Christian is not concerned with seeking out God with all of their mind heart soul and strength.

I mean honestly ask yourselves, have I sought out God with all of my mind heart soul and strength? All of it. Yes I have used my brain to it's fullest capacity to loving God? I have spent every waking moment seeking God out with my mind getting the know him more challenging myself in my brain. Have you really done that?

Have I really given God all of my soul am I using all of my strength to seek out the living God. I think you all are thinking no. Because if you're thinking yes right now I would love to put you to the test. And if I ever get to a point where I say yes I would love for one of you to put me to the test.

The problem is, loving God with all of your mind your heart your soul and your strength is not even attempted. Christians do not attempt To love God this way. We have become like the rich ruler who asked Jesus what must I do to be saved and Jesus told him to honor his parents and he goes yeah I've done that already.

Jesus knowing the heart of all Men Stated that specific commandment for a reason to that specific person. Knowing what that person was guilty of. and that person was completely delusional that he went yeah I've done that already what else.

Jesus said go and sell all your possessions. And the man went away hanging his head low. The man did not honor the Lord of all creation therefore he could not possibly honor his father and mother. We have adopted the same attitude.

Love God with all of your heart with all your mind with all your soul with all your strength. Yeah I've done that already what else. It is dominating current Christian trend. It is no longer relevant for the Christian to love God with all of his mind. To seek God out by any means necessary which would mean loving God with all of your heart.

None of this is essential to the Christian what is essential to the Christian is his or her's own personal experience. we have replaced truth with experience. So that when people come up to us and say what about this scientific explanation or what about this philosophical standpoint.

We have no foundation that we are standing on and we say that's irrelevant because I know what I have experienced. Well that's all fine and dandy but your experience is not the authority. It's not. Furthermore, your life, and the things you Have gone through are not about you.

You're experience will save nobody. It doesn't mean that it can't be helpful and it doesn't mean that it doesn't have its role or place in life. But when it comes to saving faith, folks, it's not about you or what you have gone through. It is about Jesus Christ and what he had gone through for you.

And the implications in this section of scripture mean so much more than just a quick utterance, when we see the phrase That if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, that is not an invitation to a quick checklist were you get to say yeah I've done that already.

And that statement in itself means so much more than we can possibly imagine, which is true of just about everything we read from the word of God. Which is true about everything we can possibly know about God. And once we have come so far in understanding and knowing God, we realize there's no end to it, we realize we must go further.

Last week we talked about justification by faith being the battle cry. And it is a battle cry that must return. But if we're so wrapped up in our own personal experience I'm not sure how it will. If christians cannot take what we are seeing in these 2 verses seriously I'm not sure it will.

On Tuesday another school shooting happened. It was A K through 12 charter school. And many people have heard of the brave young men who risked their own lives to save their fellow classmates one of whom did die protecting other students.

A mother is going through Mother's Day without her son. And I seen pictures of adults leading little children out of the school into safety. I am assuming after the shooters were apprehended. And the look of fear in there crying eyes was terribly sad.

And the situation has become another soapbox for politicians. As these things usually do. And you have people on the left demanding stricter gun laws. And you have people on the right demanding better mental health care. And this situation has brought up mental health more than other situations.

The issue with it all, is we are trying to confront sin and the problem of evil with legislation. We are trying to confront sin and the problem of evil with policy. Satan wins at that game every time. every time. Using a corrupted system that is ran by people who are corrupted by sin to Create policy That will never confront the issue.

You go ahead and ask sin if it cares about your political opinion, you go ahead and ask sin if it cares about your political policy. While you are at it why don't you ask satan if he cares about any of that.

Write this down

Ephesians 6:12 NASB95

For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.

You wanna know why this must be our battle cry. Because we really are fighting A-war. We really are in a fight and sin can manifest itself in very harmful and dangerous ways. Our best defense and form of attack is the gospel message. Taking the truth of saving faith to sinful ears.

So let's dive in To our text and begin to look at all the implications of what Paul is trying to communicate.

Romans 10:9 NASB95

that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved;

As already stated we covered the lordship controversy last week. This is the position that when you are saved you are safe because you received Jesus as savior but you do not have to receive Jesus as Lord in order to be saved.

This is a very popular view that has dominated Christianity in America for a long time. You say pastor I've never heard a preacher say anything like that. No you have not because those kind of preachers wouldn't say it like that .

They will just ask if you have trusted Jesus as savior and leave out the word Lord. Or if they are curious if you have made Jesus Lord of your life which is a phrase they use; they will ask have you trusted Jesus as Lord. They will never take the time to educate their congregants On the difference between savior and Lord.

Because the common mind Thinks those 2 terms are synonymous. So it is not direct language. I do think though if you were to ask one of these pastors what is the difference or I noticed you said savior but you did not say Lord is there reason behind that, you will get the answer and the explanation that I have given you today.

This is their common understanding of grace. And a lot of these preachers who hold this position believe they are preaching grace. They believe that if One must confess Jesus as Lord in order to be saved that means you are saved by works.

this is their common understanding of grace. And a lot of these preachers who hold this position believe they are preaching grace. They believe that if One must confess Jesus as Lord in order to be saved that means you are saved by works.

Or if one must submit to Jesus as Lord and his lordship in order to be saved that means it is a work based righteousness and it is no longer grace. This is why They avoid telling new believers do you accept Jesus as Lord or something like that.

They are afraid and feel like that they are no longer teaching grace. This topic with highly controversial in the 1980s and the debate has gone away but the idea behind this cheap grace that we are talking about is still prevalent.

And so I made the argument last week that Jesus is Lord whether you make him Lord or not. And this week we are going to continue with that discussion.

At 1st glance is seems like this is a simple statement but when we unpack it further and understand what Paul was trying to communicate you will learn that it is not that easy I was statement especially for those who abuse grace.

Part of the reason why these people who follow this cheap grace movement think that the word Lord and submitting to the lordship of Jesus is a works based righteousness is because of the word Lord itself.

The word Lord means sovereign, it means king it means the one who's in charge. It is the 1 who calls the shots, it is the 1 who will have his way and all violators of his way will receive the due punishment.

So they say yeah Jesus is Lord but you do not have to confess that in order to be saved you just need to recognize Jesus as savior and that will save you and if you want to make Jesus Lord of your life at another time then we encourage you to do so.

But we need to take this word Lord seriously. And we need to take Paul's use of this word right here in verse 9 seriously as well. Because he says if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, Will your confession is so much deeper and more than just uttering a simple word.

In the days before the New Testament the Jewish people were so afraid to utter the name of God that the used the word Lord in order to protect themselves from saying god's name.

This may seem like a odd thing to us here and now today, but the motive behind that fever is that they had so much of reverence for the name of God that they didn't wanna see it on the slight chances that they might be saying it in vain or wrongly.

So the used the word Lord. And often in many English translations, christians have continued on with that tradition and so when you read the Old Testament you see the word Lord a lot. And I will use as an example.

In the translation I am reading from in verse to God says I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt out of the house of slavery. And when you look at my translation you see the work Lord is in all capital letters.

As far as I know, this is true of all English translations. But the word Lord is not used in this section of scripture. It is the word ya way. The Hebrew name for God. So the Hebrew people thought that name was too holy for their lips so the used the word adoni.

This means Lord. Now what does the name ya way me? It is actually explain to us in Genesis chapter 3 were the pre incarnate Jesus, as it was the pre incarnate Jesus speaking to Moses through the burning Bush, when Moses asked who should I tell M sent me God through the burning Bush said tell them I am who I am.

That is what Ya way means. I am. And there is so much behind that word that we do not have the time to reflect on today. But it is a present and continuous word. So the idea behind it is I am who I am and I will always be.

Maybe to some of you it seems strange but I ask how does the infinite God explain himself to finite humans. So the word ya way is used but during the Dark ages the translators of the scriptures took the constants of Ya way And the vowels of adoni, which means Lord. And they combined them together and the result is that we got the word Jehovah.

Paul no doubt is well aware of this Hebrew history as he was a Learned pharisee. This word Lord has so much content and meaning for Paul that is different from our modern day understanding. The confession that people are making with their mouth is that Jesus is God.

The he is the essence of the same one who was speaking to Moses through the burning Bush. That he is in essence the same 1 who led Israel out of Egypt. Paul has something else to say about the word Lord in Another letter he wrote.

1 Corinthians 12:3 NASB95

Therefore I make known to you that no one speaking by the Spirit of God says, “Jesus is accursed”; and no one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit.

Some have taken this text And have said if you say he is lower than you obviously saved because this Can only be done by the power of the Holy Spirit. Paul is not saying that Apart from the Holy Spirit you can not utter the phrase Jesus is Lord.

What he is saying is you cannot wholeheartedly hold to the confession that Jesus is Lord with all the indications that is behind it that word Lord. You can not even come to the understanding of who Jesus is apart from the Holy Spirit. That is what Paul is saying.

Paul then moves on to and believe in your heart That God raised him from the dead. Here is the issue of the heart that we were talking about last week. For whatever reason though we do not know Paul begins with the mouth then the heart.

Last week we established that the mouth speaks whatever is in the heart. That the mouth is the vessel of what's in our heart. So Paul is not reversing that because we already know the scriptures teach that what comes Out of the mouth of men as based on what's in their heart.

So Paul is not changing the order up. But we do not know why he chose the order that he chose. The ordering of it all is irrelevant anyway as the point is still What is Inside man. What we have here is the inward outward expression of faith.

Confessing Jesus as Lord is an outward expression and then we peer to the heart of man and Paul is saying that you must believe that he was raised from the dead. Again there is so much more to this than just mere intellectual knowledge that Jesus was raised from the dead.

The very fact that Paul chooses these words means we have to reflect on what these words mean. And because he used the phrase raised from the dead, that forces us to look at the life-and-death of Jesus. So it is so much more than Just acknowledging That he was raised from the dead but we have to reflect on the entire life of Jesus.

And guess what folks, that is what Paul has been saying this entire time . And so we come to this phrase and now we are looking at everything that we have already covered. Trace it back. He was raised from the dead what is that Mean, what happened before that that led it to that point.

Well that would be Jesus was dead Well what happened before that? Jesus was crucified. What happened before that? He was betrayed. And eventually you come to the incarnation itself. And when you continue on and you say what about Jesus before that .

You have circled yourself all the way back to confessing Jesus as Lord, that you are confessing him as ya way of the Old Testament.

I have said it before and I will say it again Paul is not saying anything that he has not already said. I will Paul is doing here is pointing people to salvation. And salvation is not in the agreement of these mirror academic things.

It is not some head knowledge that you nod your head to. So it is not reduced down to Jesus Lord Yup and sure of course I believe he was raised from the dead. It means believing and trusting it in everything that those words indicate as well.

And in order to have a proper understanding of what Paula saying here and to properly communicate it to others we must be loving God with all of our mind with all of our soul with all of our heart And strength.

Nope, we can't do that . We have to tell our story we have to talk about ourselves. Let me tell you what I have been through and let me tell you of my experience.

Hey buddy do you realize that the scriptures contradict your experience? Well they are my experiences and who are you to question them.

When we rely on our own personal experience as an affirmation then we are committing the same erroneous actions as those who claim to be transgender as those who claim to be homosexual.

Because essentially what they are saying Is that I feel the way that I feel and this is who I am this is my experience.

Our experience can not be the authority and we must not allow it to be our authority. We can glorify God through the great experiences that we have, we can praise God for the things that we go through. But they are not an argumentative case that will bring people to salvation.

People will not be saved because you felt something. So we need to learn to be the people of truth. We need to learn to be the people of proclaiming that truth. But in order to do that we have to have a full and proper comprehension of this truth.

You wanna go and take on sin with policy and legislation, go ahead. You are beating a Dead Horse. And that is not to say that we can not use political powers to help end sinful activities. That is not what I am saying here.

What I am saying is that the issue we are facing in our current culture can not be cured by any policy. The only cure for this is salvation through the Lord Jesus Christ. Which means that his people must be proclaiming the salvation. That they must be proclaiming this truth.

Sinners must face the fact that on the current road that they are on they will experience the wrath and h*** fire of God if they do not repent.

And we have to be the ones to communicate that message. That they are already judged in their transgressions. And we have to point them to the only sacrifice that is ever been acceptable, we have to point them to the lamb of God who took away the sins of the world.

Our only chance at fighting the sin that is dominating our culture is by taking it head on with the gospel message. Because folks it's not happening. And the reason why it's not happening is because christians have become too selfish and life is more about their personal experiences then about the salvation a fallen man.

And this is something that has been going on for a while, we even sing about it in some of our hymns. You ask me how I know he lives, He lives within my heart. That is a personal experience. And you have somebody in that him asking how can I know this to be true and the hymn writer reduced it down to a personal experience.

That him was written in 1933 believe me when I say this has been happening for a while and we have accepted it. This confession that Paul is talking about here is do you trust in the Lord Jesus Christ as he is revealed in the holy scriptures. Not to as he is revealed by your experience.

Not as he is revealed according to your parents. Not as he is revealed according to modern Philosophy. Not as he is revealed according to modern science. But as he is revealed according to the holy scriptures which is the very living word given to us.

It is the very revelation of God that God freely chose to give us so that we may know him and love him more. No pastor you're wrong it's not about the word of God it's about my experience. And now we have pastors encouraging the congregation to get away from scripture.

Andy Stanley encouraged his congregation to unhinge themselves from the Old Testament. He has openly said that the Virgin birth is not something he likes to focus on because it is not essential salvation.

But this very text that we are looking at today forces us to focus on the very life Of Jesus including his miraculous conception. Do you wanna know why we have such weak christians throughout the United States because we have weak men in the pull bits.

And I think they are doing God a favor and they think they're doing our culture of favor when they are in fact the ones who are causing the damage that we see. And I think it's time we start demanding these wolves get out the pulpit and we see some real men start preaching again.

The culture is not gonna wait for us to get our act together people. It is go time for the church it is put up or shut up time for the church. Will we be a people who will speak this truth, focus all of our attention upon the Lord Jesus Christ and crucify ourselves for it is no longer us who lives but christ in us who now lives.

Can we once again be the people of God. Let's pray.