First Sunday of Lent, March 10, 2019
* Originally preached at
HillSong, October 31, 2010.
Followers of Jesus Christ get quite passionate -
sometimes about faith. And sometimes that passion is directed toward
hotly debated issues of the day. This is not new. One of the 12 disciples was Simon the Zealot
(Luke 6:15). He was on fire for
Israelite nationalism and he wanted Jesus to be as motivated as he was, but
Jesus had a different agenda. Simon was primed for a violent overthrow of
Rome. The way of Jesus the way of
peace. He subvert the social order
through revolutionary love. He prevented
Simon and the other disciples from defending him the night he was arrested.
He ended up dying on a Roman cross.
There’s the hot-button issue. They come and
go. And then, there’s way of Jesus.
Simon the Zealot was a disciple who was passionate about the holiness of
God’s people. He wanted to see God’s people rule the land God had
promised to Abraham and he could point to Old Testament passages as Biblical
support for his zeal. Today, true disciples of Jesus Christ pour their
lives into movements they believe to be rooted in scripture. Consider the
following:
Theological passion - some Christ-followers are ardent advocates of
reformed theology.
Political involvement - some Christ-followers are so involved in
politics it gets hard to distinguish their Christianity from their patriotism.
Social justice - the whole faith expression for some Christians
is their adherence to the scriptures which declare God’s love for the needy and
downtrodden.
Specific issues - one example (of many) is abortion; I have met
Christians who entire faith expression is the pro-life, anti-abortion movement.
I am not critiquing any of these issues or the people
passionate about them. I bring them up just to point out that people who
love Jesus get wrapped up in specific issues and movements. We are called
to love as God loved us. Often there are
Christ-followers on both sides in these debates. As important as the issues I have named and
other issues are, these things are not the heart of who we are in Christ.
That phrase in Christ
names us. This is who we are. Everything - politics, identity,
vocation - our very lives are determined by this phrase: in Christ.
One of the Apostle
Paul’s chief concerns in Romans is the heart. How are sin and death
defeated? How is the heart transformed
so that the person who was defined by sin is now defined by God’s
righteousness? There’s a one-word answer: Jesus. (1) All people sin and are lost. Paul emphasizes this in Romans 1-3. Sin destroys us. (2) The only hope for rescue from our sins
and the damage they do is Jesus. We can only we stand before God when we stand in
Christ. Talking about Christ, we must talk about the crucial moment
in the God-human story: Jesus Christ crucified, and resurrected.
Moving through the
stories of Jesus we read during Lent we get to this point, the heart of our
faith. Romans 10:9-10. “If you
confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God
raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For one believes with the
heart and so is justified, and one confesses with the mouth and so is saved.”
Everything about me
proceeds from my belief that Jesus is Lord and that he is the resurrected one.
Everything about who I am stands on that belief. No other argument, ministry, current issue,
or theological debate can claim a disciple of Jesus. How I vote does not
show who I am. Where you fall in a
particular theological camp or ideological system does not tell me who you
are. Nothing we can argue about is the
cornerstone or life blood. Faith in Jesus is the ground on which we
stand. The Holy Spirit is the energy in
us. We are all about Jesus. And when we speak of Jesus, the crucifixion
and resurrection inform our thoughts.
To say we believe in
Jesus is to say we are a confessing people. Confession is our verbal
witness. We boldly speak our faith. Our declaration is absolute and
uncompromising. Jesus is Lord.
When he met the
resurrected Jesus, the Apostle Thomas shouted “My Lord and My God” (John
20:28). He was no longer “doubting Thomas.” He became “confessing Thomas.” In Philippians Paul writes that after Jesus
died on the cross, God exalted Him so that “at the name of Jesus every knee
should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue
confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.” (2:10-11a). John of Patmos, writer of
the book of Revelation, concludes that collection of spectacular visions by
saying, “Amen! Come Lord Jesus” (22:20)!
We are people who say
it! Jesus is Lord - Lord of our lives. He’s our God, our Master,
and our King. Ours is a spoken faith.
Our words, as we saw in
Jesus’ Sermon on the Plain which we looked at last week, come from the faith we
hold in our hearts. Paul writes, “If you believe in your heart that God
raised Jesus from the dead ...”. We know
it intellectually. Faith is rational.
But, what we know through measured reasoning also grips us in the deepest
parts. We hold this faith
emotionally. We speak it audibly because
its too much to be contained. We can’t keep it in and we shouldn’t. Jesus is Savior and Lord.
The message in Romans
10:9-10 is the heart of our faith. Jesus and nothing else is the
cornerstone of the church and the foundation of the individual believer’s life.
Every sinner needs Jesus and everyone sins. Once we understand ourselves to be in
Christ, we realize we are not just saved. We’re called - called to
share our faith. We tell the good news of salvation in Jesus that others
might hear and turn to him and themselves receive his grace and be saved.
We can share our faith
in countless ways and in just about any place; in the driveway after a
one-on-one basketball game; at a bar with friends; at the coffee pot with a
coworker; in an instant messaging conversation; while jogging; in the foxhole;
at the kitchen table; before bedtime prayers; in a song; in a handwritten
letter; with a neighbor over the backyard fence; through prison bars.
Jesus is Lord in all these places and we can speak our faith in Him in
all circumstances.
Paul says more about
evangelism in Romans 10:14-17:
How are they to call on one in whom they have
not believed? And how are they to believe in one of whom they have never
heard? And how are they to hear without someone to proclaim him? And how are they to proclaim him unless they
are sent? As it is written, ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who
bring good news!’ But not all have
obeyed the good news; for Isaiah says, ‘Lord, who has believed our message?’
So faith comes through hearing and hearing through the word of Christ.
For Paul, the witness of Christians is the hope the world
needs. In Romans 3:9, he writes, “We have already charged that all, both
Jews and Greeks, are under the power of sin.” In the next 9 verses, he
make reference to 9 Old Testament passages that show that sin has plagued
humanity in all ages. He sums it up in verse 23 where he says, “All have
sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”
Arguments about border walls or who can or can’t get married fade to the
background. Paul’s concern is that all sin and thus all are permanently
cut off from God. It is a universal
theme.
But then in Romans 10, Paul declares a second universal
theme. Just as everyone sins, in Christ, everyone can find
salvation. Romans 10:12-13. “There
is no distinction between Jew and Greek; the same Lord is Lord of all and is
generous to all who call him. For everyone who calls on the name of the
Lord shall be saved.” Just as sin’s
curse and death’s cruelty are inflicted on all, so is God’s grace through Jesus
available to all.
During Lent, we see our own need for God and in seeing,
we step toward Him through repentance and confession. You can begin this
journey today. If you have never put
your trust in Jesus, you can do that today.
Come, confess your sin and ask Jesus into your heart.
If you are already a
believer, speak your faith. This morning, pray and ask God to give you
the words and the opportunity to share Jesus with someone you know who needs
Him. Ask God to help you see how faith in the risen Lord is a present
reality that defines our everyday lives.
Between now and Easter ask God to help you help someone you know find
their way to Him.
Throughout Lent, step
toward Jesus. Step into the heart of our faith.
AMEN
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