Presented to Swift Current Corps of The Salvation Army, 11 Sept. 2011; Corps 614 Regent Park, Toronto, 14 Feb. 2016; The Warehouse Mission, Cabbagetown, 11 Feb, 2018; and TSA Alberni Valley Ministries, 11 May 2025 by Major (Captain) Michael Ramsay
Also included in Chapter 6 of SALVOGESIS
Guidebook to Romans Road by Michael Ramsay (The Salvation Army: Vancouver
Island, 2022)
THIS IS THE 11 MAY 2025 VERSION
Click to see the original version here:
https://sheepspeaks.blogspot.com/2011/09/romans-109-say-it-know-it-do-it.html
Click to see the abbreviated 2018
version here:
http://sheepspeaks.blogspot.ca/2018/02/romans-109-say-it-know-it-do-it.html
Romans
10:9: “That 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.” Romans 10:13, “For
everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” These are some of
the basics of the whole Christian faith.
As it
is Mothers’ Day. I have one sort of Mother’s Day story that relates to this.
This story is a piece of wisdom that was presented to us at a gathering of
Salvation Army Officers by Major David Ivany, who at the time, was in charge of
Spiritual Care for all of Canada and Bermuda. He shared this story with us
about a kind elderly mother and grandmother who upon a public confession of
faith is experiencing the pure joys of Christian love.
This
lady, Emma, she goes into a local Christian bookstore and sees a ‘Honk if you
love Jesus’ bumper sticker. Feeling particularly good that day because she has
just come from a great choir practice and prayer meeting, she buys the bumper
sticker, and she puts it on her car – professing her faith publicly. She
recalls, “Boy, I’m glad I did! What an uplifting experience “It is a good thing
someone else loves Jesus,” she said, “because if he hadn’t honked, I’d never
have noticed that the light had changed!” She then noted that indeed, lots of
people actually love Jesus because while she sat unmoving, blocking the lane of
traffic, the guy behind her also honked like crazy before leaning out of his
window and screaming, “For the love of God! Go! Go! Jesus Christ, Go!” She
remembers thinking, “What an exuberant cheerleader he was for the Lord!”
Suddenly,
it seemed as though she had started an epidemic and everyone started honking.
Impressed by such a response, she leaned out of her window and started waving
and smiling at all these loving people – while she was still parked in front of
the intersection. “I even honked my horn a few times to share in the love!” she
recited. Then she realized the mix of celebrants. “There must have been a man
from Florida back there because I heard him yelling something about a “sunny
beach… I saw another guy waving in a funny way with only his middle finger in
the air. I asked my teenage grandson in the back seat what that meant, and he
suggested that it was probably an Hawaiian good luck sign or something…”
The
woman admitted that she had never met anyone from Hawaii before and was unaware
of their customs. “I leaned out the window and gave him the good luck sign
right back,” she reminisced.
She
also remembers that a few persons were so caught up in the joy of the moment
that they got out of their cars and started walking towards her. “I’ll bet they
wanted to pray or ask what church I attended but that was when I noticed that
the light had changed. So, I waved to all my loving sisters and brothers in
Christ, grinned joyously, and drove on through the intersection. I noticed that
I was the only car that made it through the intersection before the light
changed again and I felt kind of sad that I had to leave them after all the
love we had shared, so I slowed the car down, leaned out of the window and gave
them all the Hawaiian good luck sign one last time before I sped away.”
Key to
our salvation, like with the bumper sticker, Romans 10:9, “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.” Romans 10:13, “For everyone who calls on the name
of the Lord will be saved.”
I do
have a bit of a teaching background and this pericope does lend itself to an
older style of teaching from way back; so as well look at this, I will take us
through a 3-point discourse complete with plenty of repetition – like we were
taught to teach a million years ago. The three points we will address today are:
Romans 10:9: One, “Confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord’; two, believe in
your heart that God raised him from the dead”; and, three, Romans 10:13:
“everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” In other words:
1)
Confess Jesus as Lord with your mouth: Say it.
2)
Believe in your heart in His resurrection: Know it.
3)
Call on the name of the Lord: Do it.
We
must remember that God has offered the whole world a free gift of Salvation
(Romans 6:23, John 3:16-17) and to fully take advantage of it we should say it!
Know it! Do it!
1) Say it! Romans 10:9: Confess with
your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord
This
is important. Whenever I hear this verse, I immediately think of the Apostle
Peter, the rock upon which Christ built His church (Matthew 16:13-16; cf. Mark
8:27-29, Luke 9:18-20). Jesus told Peter that He was going to use him to help
build His church. This was at the time Jesus gave Simon the nickname ‘Peter’.
Peter wasn’t his given name; Simon was his given name. Peter means ‘Rock’ or
even ‘Rocky’. Simon ‘Rocky-Peter’ was one of Christ’s main ‘go to’ people after
His resurrection and we remember the story about how Jesus told Rocky-Peter
that he would deny Jesus three times before the cock crows twice, then shortly
after Peter says ‘I don’t know what your talking about’; shortly after Peter’s
third denial that he even knows Jesus; the rooster crows and Peter is
devastated (Matthew 26:69-75; cf. Mark 14:66-72, Luke 22:55-62, John 18:15-27).
Point
#1 about Salvation today: Say it! (Cf. also Luke 21:12– 15; 1 Corinthians 12:3;
Philippians 2:11; 1 Peter 3:13–16, 21) Simon Peter had his chance to confess
Jesus as Lord but he declined it. If the story ended there this would be very
sad but John 21:15ff, records Simon Peter’s restoration, as Rocky, as Peter.
The Resurrected Lord asked him three times to feed his sheep and Peter agreed
to it. Near the conclusion of the book of John, Jesus then blows on Peter -and
the other disciples- giving him the Holy Spirit (John 20:22). Luke picked up
the story of Rocky-Peter in the book of Acts as Rocky-Peter was at Pentecost
taking the lead as the Holy Spirit, like a starting pistol, sent the disciples
and more out to proclaim salvation to the world. Acts 2, after they share the
gospel in many different languages as the Spirit enabled them, the Lord added
to their number daily those being saved. Point 1, Romans 10:9, say it!
Peter
and the disciples said it and many were saved. And just to underscore the fact
that Peter did fully recover from his earlier denial, church tradition states
that Peter even earned his martyr’s crown. He was apparently crucified upside
down as he left his life here for heaven to await the resurrection. Point 1:
Say it! This brings us to Point 2.
2)
Know it! Believe in your heart in His resurrection.
It is
very important to proclaim the gospel but that is not the end of it. Speaking
is one thing and believing is quite another. If you have any doubt about that,
think about the general reputation (accurate or not) of our elected politicians
– speaking is one thing, believing what you say is quite another. Paul in this
section of scripture is really addressing the whole problem of Israel (Romans
9-11; cf. also Deuteronomy 30, Leviticus 18). He is addressing the problem of
the Law and their relationship to the Law and their relationship to God. He is
very concerned about people who are quite happy to say what needs to be said –
the Pharisees, as a group, did believe in the resurrection and as a group were
quite evangelistic (cf. Acts 23:7-8)! But believing in your heart in Jesus’
resurrection is quite a different matter (1 Corinthians 15:17; cf. 2
Corinthians 4:13-14). The Apostle Paul - who was a Pharisee - celebrated the
fact that Jesus was raised from the dead but sadly many Israelites and even
many Pharisees did not. It pained Paul that people who were zealous for God’s
Law were indeed missing out on the benefits of the culmination of that Law:
Jesus, the one to whom the Law points (cf. Romans 9:1-5; 10:1-4; Matthew
5:17,18; Luke 16:16; Acts 4:12; Galatians 3:19-24).
Salvation
is about,
Point 1, Saying it, confessing that Jesus is
Lord, and it is also about,
Point
2,
Knowing it, really believing in your heart in the resurrection and in Jesus’
resurrection.
This,
of course, is a central part of not only Paul’s message but of all of
Christianity (Romans 6:9, 9:16; 1 Corinthians 15:17, 20; 2 Corinthians
4:13-14; Ephesians 1:20-23; Philippians 2:9-11; Colossians 3:1-4; Hebrews 2:9;
Revelation 1:17-18; cf. Deuteronomy 30:14, Acts 4:12, Isaiah 28:16).
N.T. Wright tells us, “Almost all early Christians known to us believed that
their ultimate hope was the resurrection of the body. There is no spectrum such
as in Judaism. Some in Corinth denied the future resurrection (1 Corinthians
15.12), but Paul put them straight; they were most likely reverting to pagan
views, not opting for an over-realized Jewish eschatology” [1] Belief in the
resurrection and the resurrection of Christ is central to Christianity. To
review what we know so far about Romans 10’s three points of Salvation:
1) Say
it! - Confess Jesus as Lord with your mouth.
2)
Know it! - Believe in your heart in His resurrection.
3) Do
it! - Call on the Name of the Lord.
3) Do
it! Call on the Name of the Lord.
This
is important. Saying it is good. Knowing it is better. Doing it is imperative.
This fact is also implied in Verse 9. The scriptures speak about this quite a
bit (cf. Leviticus 18:5 and Deuteronomy 30:11-16, cited in vv. 5-8; Luke in
Acts 2:16-21 and Paul here are both quoting from Joel 2:32). I believe that
Matthew actually paints this picture quite vividly. In Matthew 25:31ff is
recorded the parable of the sheep and the goats. In this parable you have two
groups of nations. Both groups – the sheep and the goats – 1) say it and 2)
know it, that Jesus is Lord. But it is only the sheep that 3) do anything about
it. As a result, only the sheep are saved. The goats who don’t do anything are
sent to where there is a weeping and gnashing of teeth. Matthew 7:21 is quite
clear on this matter: it is recorded there that the Lord says “Not everyone who
calls me ‘Lord, Lord’ will enter the kingdom of heaven but only he who does the
will of my Father in heaven”: Say it! Know it! Do it!
We
must actually call on the Name of the Lord. We have to call on Him. We have to
trust Him. This is important. For example, it is one thing for me to confess
that I know my wife; it is another thing to believe in my heart the many
wonderful things that have been done by and through her: these are wonderful
things but my relationship with Susan only grows when I actually call on her,
when I actually spend time with her. I can say she is my wife all I want; I can
believe she is my wife all I want; but we only actually have a marriage if I
bother to see her, to call on her sometimes. This is important. Christianity
isn’t some academic pursuit. Christianity isn’t some code. Christianity isn’t
some rules and regulations. Christianity isn’t some club. Christianity isn’t
some principles by which we should live our life. Christianity is a
relationship with the risen Christ. Jesus Christ rose from the grave and we are
promised that, Romans 10:13 “…everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will
be saved.” He loves us and He wishes that none will perish. And Salvation in
our text today is as easy as 1, 2, and 3. It is my prayer today that every one
of us will:
1) Say
it! - Confess Jesus as Lord with our mouths.
2)
Know it! - Believe in our hearts in His resurrection.
3) Do
it! – That we would call upon the Name of the Lord
Psalm
34:8, “Taste and see that the LORD is good; blessed is the man who takes refuge
in him.” Matthew 11:30: “For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” And
blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord (Psalm 118:26, Matthew 21:9,
Matthew 23:39, Mark 11:9, Luke 13:35, Luke 19:38, John 12:13). Romans 10:9a,
say it: confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord. Romans 10:9b, know it:
believe in your heart in Jesus’ resurrection. And above all else, Romans 10:13,
do it: Call upon the Name of the Lord and then even we shall be saved.
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