And seeing as we have no evening service, I'm gonna preach a little long this morning. You didn't laugh. You thought I was being serious. Not actually. We're going to be celebrating the Lord's Supper, conclusion of the service.

So we'll try to keep it fairly brief. But brief does not mean unimportant. Because what we celebrate today, what we celebrate every Sunday, what we celebrate, I pray every day, is that we have a living savior. Every day when we bow our head to pray, we are acknowledging that we serve a living savior that is up in heaven interceding in our behalf and hearing our prayers. As we celebrate the Lord's Supper here in a few minutes, we'll be celebrating not only his death and resurrection, but till he returns, thus also his his return.

It is a joy to be here today. I hope it is a joy for you. If you know the Lord Jesus, it shouldn't be a drudgery. It shouldn't be a duty. It is a it is a joy to remember, to celebrate, to be able to declare the resurrection of our savior Jesus Christ who died on the cross for our sins.

Romans 10 beginning in verse nine. Romans 10 beginning in verse nine. That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, shall believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart, man believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth, confession is made unto salvation. The scripture say it, whosoever believeth in him shall not be ashamed.

For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek. For the same Lord over for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him. For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. While this passage was written foremost to explain the current condition and one day future conversion of Israel, it contains in it one of the most powerful and clear gems of the gospel to all, not just the Jew. While Israel has taken a back seat largely to the Gentile church during this time, God has not closed the door to salvation of the Jews.

No. The gospel of salvation by grace through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ is just the same for the Jew as it is the Gentile. Just the same as it is for the rich or the poor. Just the same as it is for those who may be hearing it for the first time or those who have heard it since they were little children. It is the same.

Trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. Call upon him in faith to be your Lord and savior, and he will. And thou shalt be what? Thou shalt be saved. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, Paul declared to the Philippian jailer and thou shalt be saved.

It is a matter of faith. A matter of faith as it points out here, belief in your heart. A matter of faith demonstrated by a willingness, nay, an eagerness to confess that Jesus is Lord, the Lord, your Lord, the risen Lord, which we celebrate today and every Sunday. Let's take a few minutes to take a a closer look at this passage, particularly verses nine and ten this morning before we celebrate the risen savior in another fashion with the Lord's table. Notice first of all, salvation is dependent upon you.

It is dependent upon you. Your confession, your faith, your choice. Yes. Jesus paid the price. He died on the what?

The cross. To pay the penalty for all of our sins. To take our punishment. To pay it in full. It was his work that provides salvation to all who come to him in what?

Faith. But you must come to him in faith. You must choose him by faith as your Lord. You must receive the gift that he is wanting to give you this morning. The gift, as gifts do, that cost you nothing, but the gift that cost him what?

Everything on the cross of Calvary. But you must accept that gift. You must accept Jesus Christ as Lord by faith. You must make a what? A choice.

That is what the bible clearly says. Not everyone is saved because Jesus paid the penalty but only those who accept him by faith as Lord and savior. Only those will receive the gift that he purchased for us. While the scriptures do speak of the elect in Christ and God's choosing, it emphatically declares that salvation is not a choice made for you but a choice you must make. He that believeth on him is not condemned.

But he that believeth not is condemned already because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten son of God. You cannot be saved if you reject Jesus Christ or if you continue to ignore your sinful condition. It is because of my sinful condition and your sinful condition that Jesus Christ had to die on the cross. That is how much he loves us that he might deliver us from sin and sin's eternal penalty. But you must choose.

Confess and believe in Christ as Lord or reject him and his offer of salvation. The choice is yours. God does not make that decision for you. He created us in his image. He gave us a will, and you must, what, choose.

Your parents cannot make that decision for you. By having you sprinkled at birth or making you learn a catechism or go to church or even get baptized by immersion, those things will not save you. It must be a personal choice. Your choice, not their choice but yours. Notice the in your heart part of the verse that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and shalt believe what?

In thy heart. In thine heart. Believe personally in your heart. Make your choice. Going through the motions or someone else taking you through the motions will not save you.

You must decide for yourself in your heart to receive him that loves you and beckons you to come, who wants to save your soul, but you must come. The Bible says there's only one way. Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the father but by me. First of all, salvation is a personal choice based on faith.

Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ who paid for all your sins on Calvary. Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ who rose again from the dead. What must you believe in your heart? What must you confess with your mouth that Jesus Christ who died on the cross for your sins and what? Rose again from the dead is Lord.

Your Lord whom you have chosen by faith to be your savior. Let's divide that up into two things this morning. First of all, as it says at the beginning of the verse, thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus or that Jesus is Lord. You must believe and confess that he is Lord. When the New Testament writers wanted to quote an Old Testament passage that contains God's personal name, Yahweh or Jehovah, they're not exactly the Jews felt it so holy that they refused to pronounce it.

They were they were actually replaced it with Adonai and then put a mark on it in their in the Hebrew to acknowledge that it was God's personal name. When the New Testament writers wanted to quote those passages containing the personal name of the Lord, They used the word kurios in the Greek, in the New Testament, in their translation. The same word used here in verse 10. Thou thou shalt confess with thy mouth the what? The the Lord the Lord Jesus.

That he is who? That he is Jehovah. Jesus is the sovereign creator God of the universe. There is no other as specified by Moses in Deuteronomy six. Behold, oh Israel, the Lord thy God is what?

One Lord and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart. Therefore, confessing Christ as Lord means believing in his deity. As John declared in John one, in the beginning was the word. The word is obviously in the passage a title for Jesus. In the beginning was the word.

The word was with God and the word what? Was God. All things were made by him. Genesis chapter one, in the beginning who? God created the heavens and the earth.

As Thomas declared in John 20 in verse two, when he looked at Jesus, the risen savior, and said, my Lord and my God. He declared the deity of Jesus Christ. He is more than just a prophet. He is more than just a teacher. He is more than just a special man that became empowered by or indwelt by the holy spirit.

He is the son of God. He is the second person of the trinity who came to Earth and took upon him the form of a servant, a human being. So he could go to the cross and die for the sins of mankind. You must confess Jesus as Lord but but it also indicates as kurios means master, the word used here, that one must choose by faith to confess and surrender to Christ as your Lord. Not just the Lord, but whose Lord?

Your Lord. It is necessarily personal. It's not just acknowledging that Jesus is God, the son of God. It's more than that. It's receiving him.

It's bowing before him in faith as your Lord and savior. It is personal. Receiving Christ, as John puts it in John 12, receiving him, receiving Christ. It's personal. You must personally receive him in order to become a child of God.

It means, as Paul declares, choosing Christ as your personals, subjecting receiving Christ as your Lord personally, subjecting yourself to Christ as your Lord and trusting him to save your soul and forgive your sins. That's what it means here when John says, but as many as received him, to them gave you power to become the sons of God, even to them, what? That believe on his name. It's it's more than just asserting to a truth. It is choosing to receive him, what, personally as your Lord and Savior.

This is something you not only say with your mouth, but you must believe in your heart. Else, it means nothing. How many through the ages have confessed Christ as Lord but did not believe it in their heart and later strayed from the faith? First John two nineteen says this, John writes, they went out from us because they were not of us. For if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us.

But they went out that they might be made that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us. In Matthew seven, Jesus said, not all that say, Lord, Lord, will enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he that doeth the will of my father in heaven. What is God's will? That you come in repentance and faith through the Lord Jesus Christ to receive your gift of eternal life and salvation from sin personally, that you make that that choice to receive Jesus as your Lord and savior. Sad to say, there are many hundreds of thousands of Christians so called, so many of them Catholics, other denominations, who believe by virtue of following the tenants of the church or going through the motions, they are good with God, but have never received Christ as savior where?

In their heart. Have never called on him personally to forgive their sins. You can get sprinkled a thousand times. You can partake of these elements a thousand times. You can sit in a church a million times.

You can get dunked in that baptismal up there over and over and over again but it will do you no good unless you receive Jesus Christ by faith or unless you call upon him for all for whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. In our day in The United States, in some cases, there still remains a certain degree of pressure on some to confess Jesus Christ as Lord and to join the church or get baptized to which many a young person in particular felt obliged to do, who knew never truly believed and trusted Christ for salvation. There are many sitting in pews today that did what their grandma wanted them to do, and they prayed a prayer, Who did what their preacher wanted them to do, and they prayed a prayer. Who did what they were brought up to do, but it wasn't their decision. It wasn't their faith.

It was their parents' faith. It was their grandparents' It was their church's faith, but it wasn't what? Their faith. And so they leave home and they go out into the world. And as they leave the home, they also leave God behind.

And as John writes, it wasn't that they lost their salvation. It was that they never what? They never had it because they had never trusted Christ in their heart. They were just going through the motions. And though you may fool yourself and though you may fool others, you will not fool who?

You will not fool God. In the day in which this passage was written, no one was likely to confess Christ as their Lord who did not mean it. Why? Well, for the Jew and often for the Gentile alike, confessing Christ meant being ostracized from society. If you were Jew and you accepted Christ, you were kicked out of the synagogue.

You lost fellowship with your community. You lost the support of the synagogue. And as far as they were concerned, you were on your own. In many societies, today, Muslim and Hindu, communist. You accept Christ as savior, you're not only ostracized by your society, in some cases, family has a funeral for you and actually buries a casket in the ground.

Usually not with you in it, but treats you as dead because to them you are. Who would confess Christ in in that culture and face that that level of persecution? In some cases, even greater levels of persecution who did not truly believe it in their heart. But for us who have grown up in a largely Christian nation, that is more of an issue, going through the motions and not having believed it in our heart. Believed what?

That he is Lord. Your Lord. And number two, that God has raised him from the what? From the dead. And the resurrection, bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ, we celebrate on Easter as it has been called, is a key component of faith in Christ.

As Paul emphasizes in first Corinthians chapter 15. I'll turn over there. First Corinthians 15. He writes there, moreover, brethren, I declared unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also you have received and wherein you stand by which also you are saved. Down to verse three, for I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures.

Is that important? Oh, yes. Without the death of Christ and the payment of Christ for our sins, we would all still be what? Lost. But he continues, and that he was buried and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures.

How do we know that Jesus Christ was who he said he was? How do we know that he died not for his sins but for ours? How do we know that he can save us? Because he did what? He rose again from the dead, and he lives forevermore.

If you're in chapter 15 of first Corinthians down to verse 12, Paul writes, now if Christ be preached that he rose from the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen? And if Christ is not risen, then our preaching then is our preaching vain, and your faith also is vain. If we do not if Christ did not rise from the dead bodily, as he said one day, he will raise all who believe in him bodily, then our faith is in what? Our faith is in vain, Paul says.

Yea, and we are found false witnesses of God because we have testified of God that he raised up Christ whom he raised not. If so be that the dead rise not. For if the dead rise not, then is Christ not raised. And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain, ye are yet in your sins. Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished.

If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable. If Christ didn't rise again from the dead, why are we here? There would be no no need, no purpose, but he is. We serve a risen savior, a living savior. Because Christ's resurrection was the ultimate sign of his lordship.

Even death could not reign over Jesus Christ. He won the victory. So now death has no sting. The grave has no victory through our Lord and savior Jesus Christ who conquered the grave because he is God and not just a man. Because a dead savior cannot save you, but a living one can.

A dead savior cannot help you. But living one can. A days, a dead savior cannot deliver you from sin. But a living one can. He can hear you.

Because he is risen again and at the right hand of the father, he can intercede for you. He can answer your prayers, and he does because he is alive. And a dead God cannot raise you or give you eternal life, but a living one can. Christ's identity as the Messiah and savior of the world is verified in his resurrection, proof that his sacrifice on the cross for your sins was accepted by the father as payment in full for all those who will believe and receive him and what he did for them. How can we know that what we believe is right?

How can we know that Jesus is the way, the truth, and love? How can we know that God will forgive all of our sins and give us eternal? How can we know he's preparing a place for us in heaven? Because he is alive and he rose again from the dead. First Peter three eighteen says, for Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but quickened.

The word quickened means made alive again in the spirit. Yes. He died for our sins. He being the just, we being the unjust, that he might restore our relationship with God, dying in the flesh for our sins but rising again. Hebrews seven twenty five, wherefore, he is able to save them to the uttermost.

They come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them. The priests of the Old Testament, they were just men. And they died, and you had to have another one to mediate between God and man. Bible says, now there is one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus, who died on the cross for our sins, who rose again from the dead, who is our high priest seated seated at the right hand of the father, whoever lives to make intercession for us who come to him in faith. It does not matter what your heritage may be or what your parents believe or confess or what they have done or what you have done or said.

You must believe in your heart that Jesus is Lord, that he is risen again from the dead, and will hear your prayers and will save your soul. You must choose him personally by faith. For whosoever shall call in the name of the Lord shall be saved. You must make a choice. Some people I ask, do you know Christ as savior?

You have been saved. I've always believed in Jesus. No. The Bible tells us we're all born sinners. We might have heard about Jesus.

Well, I might believe certain things about Jesus, but you must personally, what? Receive as many as received him by faith. For whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved. Have you done that? Or have you been just going through the motions or trusting in growing up in a Christian home or or what your parents did or saying some catechism or getting dunked in water?

Have you personally had a talk with the Lord? Have you personally chosen Jesus? Your eternity hangs in the balance. Jesus came to earth and suffered unimaginably his choice to redeem all of us. He rose again bodily and visibly to declare his triumph over sin and Satan and to invite us to be saved.

He loves you more than more than tongue can tell. He died for you. Will you accept his love and choose him as Lord? That I cannot do for you today. That your parents can't or no one can but who?

But you. He that believeth on him is not condemned. Believe on him. Accept him today. Call upon him as Lord and savior, and he will save your soul.

Let's pray. Dearly father, thank you, Lord, for Jesus Christ, our savior, for the salvation that we have in him. We pray Lord if there's one today that is yet to receive Christ as savior, that they will choose this morning. Jesus Christ as their Lord. To trust in him who is risen again from the dead and who died on the cross to pay for their sins as their savior.

Accept his forgiveness and the eternal life that only he has to give. We pray as we sing this hymn of invitation, they might come. We might have the opportunity to talk with them today about their eternal soul and show them the way of salvation. In Jesus' precious name we do pray. Amen.

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