Part 28, Salvation

Well, it’s Easter Sunday.

I thought about preaching on tithing. I don’t think so.

Romans chapter 10.

Romans chapter 10, if you’ll be finding that in your copy of God’s Word. If, uh, you’re like me using the pew Bible that’s there in front of you, Romans chapter 10 will be on page 1,5.

Romans chapter 10, beginning in verse 9.

When you get there, if you’re able, would you stand with me as we honor God and the reading of his Word?

Romans chapter 10 and verse 9.

Now hear the word of the Lord.

“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.""

One believes with the heart resulting in righteousness and one confesses with the mouth resulting in salvation.

For the scripture says, "Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame since there is no distinction between Jew and Greek because the same Lord of all richly blesses all who call on him."

For everyone—say everyone.

Everyone.

For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.

May the Lord add his blessing to the reading, the preaching, and your hearing to understand his holy word. May our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ forever be praised.

And all of God’s people say, “Amen.”

Amen. You may be seated.

Today actually continues a series that we began long ago, uh, back before Christmas. We were actually all the way back in the Old Testament with this series called Great Stories, Eternal Truths, looking at the true stories in the Bible, the things that we preachers and Sunday school teachers may just assume that everybody knows—all these stories, the story of creation and Adam and Eve and Noah and Jonah and Daniel.

And I have found out over the years not to assume. And I found out that folks don’t know these Bible stories.

So, we’ve been all of this time, 28 sermons before this, looking at the great stories from the Bible all the way back from Genesis all the way up today to the death, burial, and resurrection.

And here’s why this is so important today.

Because everything else, every other Bible story that we have seen all the way back to Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth,” every one of those great true Bible stories have all been working up to, all been pointing directly to the passage where we are today.

Because, folks, if it did not happen, then none of the other Bible stories matter.

If it didn’t happen, then we are gathered here today in vain.

If it didn’t happen, we would have no hope.

But friends, because he lives. Amen.

Amen.

And so, for those just joining us, this series, this sermon series, has had the same three points in every single sermon: retelling the story, remembering the truths, and responding with faith.

And this morning, just like the other sermons, we begin with number one, retelling of the story.

The story, the Bible story of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus, is found in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. And so, what I have done this morning is I have taken those four Gospel accounts and combined them into one story together for us to retell the story with all of the details that the Bible gives us.

Let’s retell the story this morning.

Jesus was dead.

They saw his dead body with their own eyes.

They saw the stone rolled in front of the tomb and the Roman seal and guards to ensure no one else entered. The crucifixion had not been a rumor or a misunderstanding. It had been a brutal, public, undeniable execution.

The disciples watched him die.

The women had watched where Joseph of Arythea and Nicodemus laid him in the tomb. They wrapped his body quickly before the Sabbath began. But the burial had been hurried. The spices, the embalming was unfinished, and the grief was unfinished because so much had been left undone.

That was Friday.

And then came the silence of Saturday.

For the followers of Jesus, it must have felt like the world had stopped turning.

The one that they believed was the Messiah, the one that they believed held all of their hopes, had been nailed to a Roman cross. Their hopes seemed buried behind that heavy stone when they rolled it in front of the tomb.

But early on the first day of the week, before the sun had fully risen, something began to happen.

Several women made their way toward the tomb. They were carrying spices to finish preparing the body. According to the accounts of the Gospel, these women included Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James—there were lots of Marys in the Bible—uh, Salom, Joanna, and others.

And they, as they walked, we have recorded that they said aloud, they wondered aloud, “You know, when we get there, who is going to roll away the stone for us?”

They were not expecting a resurrection.

They were expecting to go to a sealed tomb with a dead body.

But when they arrived, the stone had already been rolled away. The ground had trembled earlier, and the guards who’d been posted there had already been overcome with fear.

An angel of the Lord had descended and rolled back the stone, not to let Jesus out, but to let the witnesses look in and to see the tomb was empty.

Inside, inside the tomb, heavenly messengers spoke words that still echo throughout history.

They say, “Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here. He is risen.”

Mary Magdalene ran to tell the disciples.

Peter and John raced back to the tomb. John arrived first and he looks inside. Peter stepped in and saw the linen cloths lying there, the burial wrappings folded and set aside.

Jesus was not there.

The grave had been defeated.

Soon afterward, Mary Magdalene lingered outside the tomb, weeping, not understanding. And when she turns around, she sees someone and thinks it is the gardener.

But when he spoke her name, “Mary,” she knew immediately it was Jesus.

He was alive.

That same day, Jesus walked with two disciples on the road to Emmas, opening the scriptures to them and showing how Moses and the prophets had all foretold these things hundreds of years before they happened.

And their hearts burned within them as he spoke.

By evening, he stood among the disciples themselves in a room where the doors had been locked because they were afraid. But without even going through the door, suddenly Jesus was there among them, saying, “Peace be with you.”

They touched his hands. They saw his wounds. They heard his voice.

He was not a ghost.

He was the risen Lord.

And over the next 40 days, he would appear again and again, showing himself alive, appearing to the disciples, appearing to a group of more than 500 believers at one time, and finally on a mountain in Galilee where he gave the Great Commission.

The cross had not been the end of the story.

The cross had been the turning point in the story.

Death had done its worst, but the grave could not hold the Son of God. The resurrection declared that everything Jesus said had been true.

And that is why the Apostle Paul could later write in Romans 10, “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you shall be saved.”

Because the empty tomb changes everything.

Jesus was dead.

But on that first Easter morning, the stone was rolled away. The grave was empty, and the world would never be the same again.

Amen.

The greatest story ever told.

Retelling the story is where we always began, but we don’t stop there.

Number two, we remember the truth.

And the truth is very simple this morning. It’s what we have said repeatedly. We’re going to say it again.

This is the truth.

This is the truth we proclaim.

This is the truth we believe.

This is the truth that we stand upon today:

That he is risen.

You may forget many things, folks.

Never forget that.

Retelling the story, remembering the truths, and for the last few moments, we’ll have number three, responding with faith.

How do we respond in faith to this truth that we see, that we experience, that we believe?

That’s where we start.

Number one, we believe the resurrection.

That’s what Romans chapter 10 tells us, that if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe—and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead.

Folks, it’s not about an emotional experience somewhere down deep in your gut. It’s not even an intellectual experience up in your brain.

No, friends, it is a true faith within your heart.

Something down deep within you, down to the very core of your being, believing that God raised him from the dead, believing that Jesus was dead and is now alive forevermore.

Believe the resurrection.

You say, “Preacher, that’s easy enough to say. I know it. I get it.”

I’ve got half of one of my bookshelves in my library that is on a subject called apologetics. And it goes through historical evidences and logical evidences and philosophical evidence. All of the evidences of the Gospel to prove the Gospel.

And we can read that, and I have recommended those books again and again to various people. And that’s all great, and it’s good, and it’s wonderful. I’m so glad we have it.

But at some point, it comes down to just believing.

Not thinking, not feeling, but believing.

Believing that God raised him from the dead.

Number one, believe the resurrection.

Number two, confess the resurrection.

Romans 10 tells us that if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord.

Folks, the Christian faith is a public faith.

The Christian faith is not something that we hide. The Christian faith is not something that we lock away. The Christian faith is not something that we keep from revealing to the world.

Right now, today, this morning, we are safe and we are sound and we feel secure, and we have a security team and we have law enforcement here, and we just feel like we’re safe and secure here this morning.

But this morning, today, all over the world, our brothers and our sisters in Jesus Christ, all over the world gathering to worship Jesus on Easter Sunday, are in threat and peril.

I guarantee you this. When you get home this afternoon, you’re going to hear a news story about 73 Christians killed in this country and 24 Christians killed in this country at their Easter ser. It’s going to happen.

I—you go home, I’ve already seen some of the stories, and they could have lived if they would just kept their mouth shut and hidden the fact that they were Christian.

But we can’t do that.

The Christian faith is a public faith.

I say along with the apostle, “I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation.”

We cannot hide our faith in Jesus.

It must be public.

You must confess it.

Number one, believe the resurrection.

Number two, confess the resurrection.

Number three, live the resurrection.

Romans chapter 10 tells us that if we confess with our mouth that Jesus is Lord.

Not confess with your mouth that Jesus is nice.

Not confess with your mouth that Jesus is good.

Not confess with your mouth that Jesus is interesting.

No.

Confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord.

Lord means master.

It means ruler.

It means king.

If Jesus is your Lord, he’s going to be the Lord of your life.

And you’re going to live the resurrection that you believe and confess.

Friends, if Jesus is your Lord, that affects every single square inch of your life.

If you confess that Jesus is your Lord, that covers every single day that you live and breathe on planet Earth.

If you say that Jesus is your Lord, that does not leave out any part of who you are.

It means that he is Lord over your emotions, and he is Lord over your language, and he is Lord over your place of business. He is Lord over your athletic team. He is Lord over every crowd that you are with.

He is Lord at midnight.

He is Lord at noonday.

He is Lord on Monday.

He is Lord on Saturday.

He is Lord when you’re seven.

He is Lord when you’re 97.

Amen.

Live the resurrection.

Because if you are saying, “Jesus is my Lord,” that covers every fiber of your being, every square inch of your life, and every day that you live.

Believe the resurrection.

Confess the resurrection.

Live the resurrection.

And here’s how we conclude:

What are you waiting for?

I say that to I don’t know who this morning, maybe someone watching us live, but in Acts 22, verse 16, Saul, whom we know as St. Paul the Apostle.

Saul is confronted with this question by Annus, and he asks him, “What are you waiting for? Rise up and be baptized, washing away your sins by calling upon his name.”

Today, it’s that simple for you and for me and for everyone throughout all of history, that if we confess with our mouth that Jesus is Lord and we believe in our heart that God raised him from the dead, we shall be saved.

And so there is no need to wait anymore.

If you have never trusted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior and made the good public profession of faith, I ask you today:

What are you waiting for?

There is no better day than Easter Sunday to make the good confession of faith.

As a matter of fact, next Sunday, the 12th, in our Baptist calendar, in our Baptist life, is called Baptism Sunday.

We’ll baptize you next week.

Amen. Amen.

You say, “Preacher, I’ve got to get—”

No, you don’t.

“Preacher, I got to quit.”

No, you don’t.

“Preacher, I got to try to understand.”

No, you don’t.

You got to come this morning.

That’s what you got to do.

Making the good confession of faith.

That’s what you got to do.

All the other stuff you can get done.

What are you waiting for?

Believe, confess, and live it.

He is risen.

He is risen.

Heavenly Father, I pray this morning that everyone in the sound of my voice has heard your Word, not mine. And that as your Holy Spirit moves and quickens, I pray that he will draw the lost to salvation.

Father, I pray that as your Holy Spirit is at work in the hearts of men and women and boys and girls, that the one that needs to step forward this invitation and walk down this aisle and profess Christ as Lord and seek believer’s baptism and join this church.

I pray that nothing will hinder that because this is the best day ever because it’s today.

Now, Lord, bless this invitation, for we pray in Jesus’ name.

And all of God’s people say, “Amen.”

Amen.