Not as Easy as You Think!

C – CONFESS

Finishing up with the ABC’s let’s think about the confession Paul wrote about in the book of Romans. The verse inspiring the letter C in the well known “ABC’s” of becoming a Christian is Romans 10:9. This verse reads, “That if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in you heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” (NASB). The requirement of confession in Romans 10:9 seems simple enough, really doesn’t appear to us to be anything terribly taxing. That is because for me and you it is no big deal to confess with our mouth, or acknowledge with our mouth, that Jesus Christ is Lord. Maybe you just read Matthew 16:24-25, “Then Jesus said to His disciples, if anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it” (NASB). And maybe those two verses got your stomach in a bit of a knot. That seems like a lot to ask; basically Jesus told the disciples they must give up everything to follow Him. Wow, can you do that? Do you want to do that? Now someone has popped in your life with a tract that says becoming a Christian is as easy as ABC. Admit-Believe-Confess, since I addressed Admit and Believe in earlier post, think about your reaction to Confess. Well you want to go to Heaven, but you’re not sure about the whole “deny” yourself thing. But "saying" something you can do. Yeah sure you’ll say it, there is no harm in that and it’s easy. Now granted you may get a few funny looks if you stood in the middle of the mall and yelled, “Jesus is Lord!” But funny looks never really hurt anyone.

But think about this for a moment, who was Paul writing to when he wrote this verse? Paul wrote the letter to the Romans in the year 58 AD. Paul was writing to the believers in Rome, many of whom may have seen or at least had firsthand knowledge of the torture inflicted by the Roman Government upon the Man they chose to follow. And this was a group of people who would very soon face major persecution ordered by Emperor Nero in 64 AD.  Early believers in Rome were executed because they confessed Jesus as their only Lord. Many of the people Paul was writing to would soon be executed by the Roman Government for their confession of Jesus Christ as their only Lord. Let that sink in and all of a sudden Romans 10:9 brings about that same knot in your stomach that Matthew 16:24-25 does. Wow, can you do that? Do you want to do that?

Santa Claus, The Tooth Fairy, Jesus

BELIEVE

John 3:16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life” (NASB)

Children learn a lot. Children learn that two plus two is four, four plus four is eight and so on. Children learn that the color blue is blue and green is green. Children learn to capitalize the first letter in a sentence and to capitalize the first letter in someone’s name. They learn the difference between a mammal and an amphibian. And the majority of time these lessons are taught by just a handful of adults that are a part of a child’s life. So children begin to trust these adults for the most part (and by the way this is a huge responsibility). So when one of the significant adults in a child’s life tells them they need to “believe” in Jesus, that He is the Son of God, this is easy for them to accept. After all the significant adult was right about two plus two equaling four, so they must be right about Jesus being the Son of God.

So we simply ask a child to “believe” in Jesus, and when that child says they “believe” in Jesus then celebration breaks out and we declare another in the Kingdom. This is another reason our churches are full of adults who remember a time in their life they started “believing” in Jesus as a child, maybe shortly after they stopped “believing” in Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy. And these adults are lost, because an acknowledgement of Jesus does not necessarily result in salvation. What does result in salvation is when you trust Jesus.

Children cannot fully grasp the meaning of John 3:16 without careful explanation of what it means to believe. The Greek word that we have translated as believe is pisteuo, which in the NASB translation is used 93 times in the Gospel of John. Most recognized is the occurrence in John 3:16. Many people claiming to be a follower of Christ are making their claim based on hearing this one verse and maybe even intellectually acknowledging the truth that Jesus is the Son of God. However it means more than just intellectual assent to a fact; pisteuo means entrust. According to Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance, pisteuo means to believe and entrust. Entrust as defined by Webster’s is “to turn over for safe keeping”. Now that sounds more like Biblical Salvation, turning your life over to Jesus Christ for safekeeping. Not always easy and not always what we see as safe, but in His hands we are safe even though we are among powers that are against us. Read Psalm 3.

   

So try this; read the entire Gospel of John and each time you see believe, read it as trust. “For God so loved the world, that he gave His only begotten Son, that whoever trusts in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life”. We will follow Jesus when we trust Jesus. So why not tell our children to trust Jesus? Don’t think we can “slide” them in the Kingdom with some quick “yes I believe”. Their belief in Santa Clause and the Tooth Fairy was short lived, and without trust their belief in Jesus may be short lived.