Believe in Jesus the Lord
Sermon 1 in the series, “Free Grace in Focus – A Biblical Answer to Lordship Salvation”
Chuck Sligh / August 8, 2010
Illustrations and some key thoughts for this sermon came from Charles Ryrie’s book So Great Salvation and a sermon by Paul Decker titled, “What Did He Say?” at http://www.sermoncentral.com/sermons/what-did-he-say-paul-decker-sermon-on-divinity-of-christ-47672.asp?page=0.
TEXT: John 1:1-2 – “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 The same was in the beginning with God.”
INTRODUCTION
Illus. – In the comic strip, Calvin and Hobbes, Calvin is sitting at his desk in school, taking a test.
He’s quite dismayed when he reads the first question: “Explain Newton’s First Law of Motion in your own words.” In the next frame, a big smile comes across his face as it’s obvious as he has an idea. In the third frame, he begins to write: “Yakka foob mog. Grug pubbawup zink wattoom gazork. Chumble spuzz.” In the final frame, having made the answer in his own words, Calvin sits back with his hands behind his head and says, “I love loopholes.”
Which brings me to this significant question: Isn’t the goal of communication clarity? Today, the communication of the Gospel—the most important message in all the world—has been tragically muddled.
For instance, listen to a random sampling of expressions of Gospel messages taken from tracts, sermons, books, the Internet and radio and TV sermons which, if we gave even HALF of them to an unsaved person would leave him befuddled about exactly WHAT he should believe:
--“Repent, believe, confess your sin to God, and confess Him before men to be saved.”
--Another says: “The clearest statement of the Gospel in the New Testament is found in Luke 9:23: ‘If any man wishes to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me.’”
--Another: “May God reveal to the sinner that the only way for them to be saved from their sins is to repent with a godly sorrow in their hearts to the Lord.”
--Or: “Utter the prayer of the prodigal son—ask Jesus to be your Lord and Master.”
--Or: “Believe in Him, trust in Him, accept Him, commit your life to Him.”
--Or?: “We have the warning of Christ that He will not receive us into His kingdom until we are ready to give up all, until we are ready to turn from all sin in our lives.”
--Another: “God offers eternal life freely to the sinner who will surrender to Him in humble, repentant faith.”
--And this: “Do we literally have to give away everything we own to become Christians? No, but we do have to be willing to forsake all.”
--Another still: “Matthew 7:13-14 is pure Gospel: ‘Enter by the narrow gate…’”
--Or: “No one can receive Christ as his Savior while he rejects Him as Lord.”
With this mish-mash of confusing terminology, how in the world can anyone know for sure how to be saved or have the assurance that they have been saved? When you read the New Testament, one thing that stands out is that the Gospel is SIMPLE. Even a CHILD can understand the Gospel and be saved. What child could figure out what I read?—What ADULT could figure it out?
I thank God that I grew up in an era in which the Gospel of simple grace was preached clearly and without adornment. When I fully understood who Christ was, what He did for me and what He offered me, I didn’t have to sort out a bunch confusing requirements to know how to be saved. I simply BELIEVED in Christ one day—and that day I passed from death unto life.
In the weeks ahead I want to show you from the Bible that God’s clear, simple and SOLE condition for salvation is FAITH IN JESUS CHRIST—plus nothing and minus nothing and that lordship has to do solely with discipleship AFTER salvation. But to do that, first we need to understand why John wrote His Gospel, what his claims about Jesus are, and what the ramifications of that are with regard to our salvation.
Let’s look at this today.
I. FIRST, CONSIDER WITH ME WHY JOHN WROTE HIS GOSPEL.
John doesn’t leave us in the dark; he’s unambiguous about why he wrote his Gospel. In John 20:30-31 he says: “And many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book: 31 But these are written, that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you might have life through his name.”
John is very clear and very to the point that he recorded the things he did for two reasons:
1. First, to establish that Jesus was the Lord God.
Now I phrase it that way for a very specific reason. A good deal of the confusion about what is required to be saved comes from a view known as “Lordship salvation.” Those who believe in Lordship salvation misunderstand what the lordship in the New Testament means.
Their position is that say that before you can be saved, you must come to a place of total surrender to Jesus as LORD, which they say primarily means master or boss. For instance, commenting on Romans 10:9 where Paul says, “That if you will confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead, you shall be saved”, one writer says that trusting Christ as Savior is “contingent on obedience to His Lordship”—because of the use of the title “Lord” in this passage.
But this is based upon a faulty misunderstanding of what the title “Lord” means. The Greek word is kurios, which has several meanings, including the idea of a master who has servants, which, of course, implies authority and thus submission from those under him.
The question is, is that the primary way in which the word kurios is used in reference to Jesus?—Actually, no, it’s not. The Bible does indeed speak of Jesus as our personal ruler and master, but only when speaking to believers in discipleship. Whenever used in reference to the Gospel and the Gospel message, kurios is uniformly a designation for Jesus’ DIVINITY.
The primary Old Testament word for “God” was Yahweh, which is found 6823 times in the Old Testament. When the Hebrew scholars translated the Old Testament into Greek, called the Septuagint, they translated Yahweh as kurios about 90% of the time, or 6156 times.
The reason they chose the word kurios to translate Yahweh is explained by the venerable scholar, J. Gresham Machen:
…the fact that the Greek word “kyrios” in the first century…was, wherever the Greek language extended, distinctively a designation of divinity….[T]he word still expressed the relation which a master sustained toward his slaves. But… had come to be a characteristically religious term, and it is in a religious sense, especially as fixed by the Septuagint, that it appears in the New Testament. (J. Gresham Mechen, The Origen of Paul’s Religion” (New York: The MacMillan Company, 1921), 308.)
So to “confess Jesus as Lord” in Romans 10:9, and elsewhere, was to confess belief in His DEITY.
William G.T. Shedd, commenting on the word Lord in Romans 10:9 says,
The word kurios is the Septuagint rendering of Jehovah, and any Jew who publicly confessed that Jesus was “Lord,” would be understood to ascribe the divine nature and attributes to him. It is also the Old Testament term for the Son of God, and the Messiah….” (William G.T. Shedd, Romans. (New York: Scribner’s, 1879. P. 318).)
Which is what John was trying to establish: He said “These things have I written to you that you might believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God.”
2. Second, John wrote so that we might BELIEVE in Him and thereby have eternal life.
…NOT that we would hear these truths and surrender to the Lordship of Christ; or that we would hear them and resolve to live for Christ with all our hearts; or that we would hear them and take up his cross and follow Him.
He had ONE purpose: that we would BELIEVE in Him, and that in believing we might have life through his name.
II. NOW NOTE JOHN’S FIRST PURPOSE IN THE BEGINNING OF JOHN’S GOSPEL. – John says in John 1:1 – “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 The same was in the beginning with God.”
John communicates Jesus’ divine lordship in a most interesting way. He uses the word “Word” to describe Jesus. John doesn’t clue us in on this until verse 14 where he says, “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.”
By using the phrase, “the Word” in this passage, John is pointing to the truth that Jesus is the very expression of Yahweh, or the Lord God. He uses three characteristics of “the Word” to prove his point:
1. The first is DIVINE CREATIVITY. – He says, “In the beginning…”
Does that sound familiar? You find this phrase in the very first verse in the Bible, Genesis 1:1 – “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” Later, in verses 4 and 5, John mentions other key words from Genesis, such as life, light and darkness, so that we get the connection of “the Word” with GOD’S creative work in Genesis. And to make sure we don’t miss the point, he goes on to say in verse 3 concerning “the Word” that “All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.” Anyone in John’s day familiar with Genesis would instantly know that “the Word” John refers to in verse 1 is clearly Yahweh—the Lord GOD.
This aspect of God’s deity has nothing to do with lordship in the sense of sovereignty or rulership, but with His creative power as GOD.
2. John’s second characteristic of “the Word” describes ETERNALITY.
In the Greek this is much clearer. The word “was” appears 3 times in verse 1 and once in verse 2. It’s not, as it appears in English, a simple PAST TENSE, but rather the IMPERFECT tense, which gives a sense of CONTINUING.
So if we’re going to give a more literal translation, it would go like this: “In the beginning was continuing the Word, and the Word was continuing with God, and the Word was continually God.” Or to put it grammatically wrong in English, but pretty accurately in the Greek, we would say, “Jesus always was wasing.”
John’s point is that the Word (i.e., Jesus) existed BEFORE creation. He was not created and He is not to be included with created things. He had no start; He just always “was” and “is”—the very definition of God.
Remember when Jesus referred to Himself as “I Am”—an Old Testament name specifically reserved for the Lord God?—That’s the idea here. So when we think of Jesus, we don’t start with the announcement to Mary, or with the manger, or even with the prophets—we go back to ETERNITY.
Clearly, anyone reading this can see that “the Word” existed in eternity, which is a characteristic possessed only by Yahweh, the LORD GOD. So the emphasis is not on Jesus’ rulership, but his divinity.
3. The third characteristic John gives to “the Word” is DEITY.
Illus. – In the book, Prince Caspian, the second book of C. S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia, Lucy reencounters the lion Aslan, who symbolizes Jesus Christ.
As Lucy again gazes into his large wise face, he says, “Welcome, child.”
“Aslan,” says Lucy, “You’re bigger.”
“That is because you are older, little one,” answered he.
“Not because you are?”
“I am not. But every year you grow, you will find me bigger.”
The serious student of the Gospel of John finds that each time he returns to it, Jesus is a little bigger.
And that’s certainly true as we come to this last quality, for John is claiming that “the Word” is the same as God in essence and character. He was and is God in every way. And though they are separate and not identical, they are ONE. They are one in ESSENCE and they are one in CHARACTER. When you see “the Word”—you see Yahweh—the Lord GOD. His lordship is shown in his divinity, not His rulership.
III. THAT LEADS US BACK TO JOHN’S SECOND PURPOSE IN JOHN 1.
In verses 9-11, John tells us that Jesus came into the world, but was not received by the world, or even by His own people, the Jews.
But look at verses 12-13 – “But as many as received him [that is, received him as the Lord God who came to save them from their sins], to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name.”
WHO may become a child of God?—Those who BELIEVE ON HIS NAME; that is, those who believe on HIM—i.e., on Jesus, the I AM, the Son of God, the LORD GOD who came in the flesh.
John is very clear that there is only ONE condition to receive this God-Man, Jesus Christ—BELIEVE on Him!
This is the dominant theme throughout the New Testament concerning salvation:
1. Throughout His ministry, JESUS made the sole condition for salvation very clear.
--In John 3:16, the most famous verse in the Bible, He says: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” - What is the SOLE requirement to be saved?—to BELIEVE in Jesus! How dare ANYONE add anything to Jesus’ simple words! How dare anyone complicate it or redefine it!—BELIEVE in Him!
--In John 6:40, Jesus declared, “And this is the will of him who sent me, that everyone who looks on the Son, and believes on him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day.” - Do you want to be resurrected on the last day to live with Jesus eternally? Then don’t come to God with your good works or your baptism, or ANYTHING in your hand to present to the Lord. Come empty-handed and just BELIEVE God’s promise!
--In John 11:25-27, Jesus says to Martha at the tomb of her brother Lazarus: “I am the resurrection, and the life: he who believes in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: 26 And whosoever live and believeth in me shall never die. Do you believe thou this? 27 She says unto him, Yea, Lord: I believe that thou art the Christ, the Son of God, which should come into the world.” Will you rest in what Jesus promises? He says that he who BELIEVES in Him will be saved and never die spiritually…
> not he who RESOLVES TO GIVE UP EVERYTHING for Him;
> not he who WORKS for Him;
> not he who PROMISES TO WORK FOR HIM or LIVE FOR HIM;
> not he who is BAPTIZED for Him;
> not he who DENIES HIMSELF AND TAKES UP HIS CROSS
NO!—Jesus says whoever lives and BELIEVES; whoever lives and BELIEVES; whosoever lives and BELIEVES in Jesus, “though he were dead, yet shall he live.”—THAT’S the Lord’s promise! Let Jesus’ words stand on their own: “I am the resurrection, and the life: he who believes in me PERIOD!, though he were dead, yet shall he live.”
2. In Acts, LUKE tells us that when the Ethiopian Eunuch asked if he could be baptized after Phillip had explained to him the identity and work of Jesus from Isaiah 53, Phillip’s words in Acts 8:37 are so simple that it’s hard for us to fathom: “And Philip said, If you believe with all your heart, you may. And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.”
SOLELY on the basis of that confession of faith in Jesus as the sacrificial Son of God, Phillip assumed his salvation—No sinner’s prayer; no steps to salvation; no introspection as to how much he really meant to submit to Christ; no “surrender to the Lordship of Christ”. Just a simple confession of faith in Jesus Christ—and then Phillip commanded the chariot to stand still and he baptized this baby believer.
Isaiah 53:6, where this man was reading says, “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.” If you’ll just believe in Jesus, the Son of God, the LORD who died for your sins in your place, you too can be saved from sin and God’s judgment.
3. LUKE also tells us that a Philippian jailor anxiously asked Paul and Silas in Acts 16:30, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?”
Paul’s answer was not complicated. He didn’t say, “Well, first you must make sure that you have totally surrendered to the Lordship of Christ”, nor did he say anything about works or baptism or church membership or giving to charity or obeying the Ten Commandments or living by the Golden rule. No, his answer was simple and concise and direct: “BELIEVE on the Lord Jesus Christ as you SHALL be saved! (verse 31) BELIEVE, BELIEVE, BELIEVE!
That’s it?—Yes. PRAISE GOD, that’s it!
4. PAUL wanted the Romans to understand this truth clearly. – After explaining that works cannot save and obedience to the Law of Moses cannot save he explains what is the ONLY thing that can save in Romans 5:1-2 – Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ: 2 By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.”
According to this verse, what is the only way to be justified (which means to be declared “not guilty!” before God for our sin)? What is the only way we can have peace with God? What is the only way to have access to God and grace and hope of the glory of God? There’s only one answer: by BELIEVE IN THE LORD JESUS CHRIST! Nothing more and nothing less.
CONCLUSION
And that’s my challenge to you this morning. Are you trusting in Jesus alone for the forgiveness of your sins? Or are you trusting in your good works, or some spiritual activities you do or your church. The Bible answer is BELIEVE in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved!
Are you lacking assurance because you’re looking to your imperfect works and less than stellar walk with the Lord? Believe me, God wants you to grow in grace and the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ AFTER being saved, but works and a walk with the Lord are not a condition of salvation, nor a final arbiter of whether or not you are already saved. When you look to these things for assurance, you’re sure to lose your assurance because your faith is taken away from God’s rock solid promises to your frail life and works.
Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved!—That is the ONLY hope of salvation.
*SS, AM, PM, Wed., etc.
Alternate beginning illustration:
A. Illus. –In the telegraph days, the pastor of a small-town church sent one of his members to the big city to order a Christmas sign to be hung outside on the door of the church.
1. The church member lost the note the pastor gave him which gave the dimensions of the sign and the inscription that was to be printed on it.
2. So he wired the pastor: “Rush copy of motto and dimensions.”
3. A new lady clerk in the Western Union office got the reply and almost fainted.
4. It read: “Unto us a child is born. Eight feet long, three feet wide.”
(If interested in the PowerPoint used in this sermon, you may request it from me at chucksligh@hotmail.com.)
