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.”

“Aha,” someone might be tempted to say. “Here we have hit upon what we must do to become righteous in God’s eyes and be saved.” But if that is what we think we find in this verse, we have missed Paul’s point.

Confessing Jesus as Lord is not a good work we do to be saved. “Jesus is Lord,” was one of the earliest and simplest Christian creeds. It identified who the Christians were. It distinguished them from the pagans, who considered other gods their lords. It distinguished the Christians from the Jews, who had rejected Jesus as their Lord.

It does the same thing for us today. It’s not so much a work we do. It is an expression of a living faith in Jesus, which Paul goes on to describe:

“…and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead,” Many people of Paul’s day believed that Jesus died: practically the whole Jewish nation, and a large number of Romans who were stationed in Jerusalem at the time of his crucifixion. But only the Christians believed he rose again from the dead. Thus, only those who believe that he rose can perceive the significance of his death as the payment for our sins. Only they understand it as the basis for our holy and righteous status before God. Only they will receive its ultimate blessing:

“…you will be saved.” Faith is not our work. It is God’s. We do not save ourselves. We are the objects of God’s saving work. He is the actor. But faith is the way by which true righteousness becomes our very own. Faith receives God’s gift and we are saved. It does not depend upon what you and I are doing. It does depend upon the one to whom we are listening.

A Christian radio station has a bill board which asks, “Does your Father know what you are listening to?” Perhaps an even better question is, “Do you?” The righteousness that saves us can’t be found in endless repetitions of the law. It is found only in the message of faith in Christ. Happy listening.

Romans 10:6-8 “But the righteousness that is by faith says: ‘Do not say in your heart, ‘Who will ascend into heaven?’ (that is, to bring Christ down) or ‘Who will descend into the deep?’ (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead). But what does it say? ‘The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart…”

The kind of righteousness that actually makes us acceptable to God does not have its source in the law. It has its source in Christ. Since this idea of doing something to be righteous and holy in God’s sight is so ingrained in us, it is natural that we think that there is something that we must do to get it from Christ. We still want to be in the driver’s seat when it comes to our relationship with God.

As a result, people think they must do something extraordinary to find Christ. They must search for his presence where he is giving away his grace and blessings. A person who didn’t know the gospel in Paul’s day might think, “We need to find a way to get up to heaven to bring God down to help us.” But God already came down himself, when Jesus became a man and lived here with us.

A person who knew a little more about the life of Christ might think, “We live after the time of Jesus. We need to go down to where the dead people are and bring Christ up to help us.” But Jesus rose from the dead. He is alive and well right now. Still, we can’t see Christ. If real righteousness, real forgiveness for sins, real love from God, real life comes from him, how are we going to get it?

Before we examine Paul’s answer, let’s note that the same dilemma has come up over and over again throughout Christian history. In the middle ages people felt they had to make pilgrimages to holy places to find God and his grace. More recently people have felt you have to find where the Spirit of God is moving in some revival or church movement. Throughout time some have thought that God must be present in mystical trances, emotional experiences, man-made rituals, a favorite styles of church music, or even the goodness of their own lives. They have worked hard to get or keep these things.

People may find Christ with his grace when they are looking in some or all of those places, but not for the reasons they go looking there. Paul reveals the true location where Christ and the righteousness that counts before God is found: “But what does it say? ‘The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart,’ that is, the word of faith we are proclaiming.”

We don’t have to make a pilgrimage to some spiritual Oz to get back home. We have been in “Kansas” all along. We don’t find our way to Christ by our efforts. He has always been here, present in his word! He came to us from heaven. He rose for us from the grave. In his word, he is still here for us with the blessings of his life, death, and resurrection. When you hear his Word preached, Christ is there! When you are washed by that Word together with water in Baptism, Christ is there! When you consume that Word together with bread and wine, Christ is there! If you have committed that Word to mind and heart, then wherever you take that Word with you, Christ is there!

Do you want to have Jesus with you, always making you holy, new, and righteous before his heavenly Father, woven into the very fabric of your lives? Take his word to heart. Get to know his word by heart. Believe that word with all your heart. Our hearts are never the source of the word that brings us Christ with his true righteousness and holiness. But they have become receptacles in which that word is kept. Real righteousness only comes to you and me in Christ.

Romans 10:5 “Moses describes in this way the righteousness that is by the law: ‘The man who does these things will live by them.’”

Here is a simple, straightforward way to eternal life that we instinctively want to follow. The plan is easy to understand: Keep the commandments, and you will live; break the commandments, and you will die. The plan is fair: Each person gets exactly what he or she deserves. The plan is reasonable: Good behavior should be rewarded, and bad behavior should be punished. The plan is appealing: I get to control my own destiny. Let’s admit it: every day we are surrounded by people who let us down in one way or another. Work doesn’t get done. Instructions aren’t followed. Important details are forgotten. But here I own the whole project from start to finish. I am in control. “Do these things and live” sounds like the way to go.

The plan is guaranteed to fail from the start. In order to understand why Paul states it without further comment, we need to understand a little bit about the earlier chapters of Romans. Note that Moses didn’t say, “The man who does some of these things will live by them,” or “the man who does most of these things will live by them,” or even “the man who does 99 percent of these things will live by them.” In order to live, to truly gain eternal life, by the law, you must keep it without fail 100 percent of the time. Not a single exception is allowed.

You can guess how many times that has happened since the beginning of the world. This is why Paul strings together this list of quotes in the middle of Romans 3: “There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.” Righteousness by the law doesn’t work. It’s too demanding.

Most Protestant Christians understand this in theory. But let’s take a look at how we may still find ourselves drawn to this impossible plan. A relative of mine attends a liberal Christian church. His pastor questions the idea that only Christians will go to heaven. It seems to him that a good Buddhist, or a good Muslim, ought to be able to get there, too. On the surface, such an idea might sound rather humble and gracious. After all, we don’t want to give the prejudiced and prideful idea that we are better than everybody else just because we are Christians.

But what false assumptions do such ideas reveal? Isn’t it clear that a person who thinks this way is thinking in terms of people being “good enough” to get into heaven? Doesn’t this suggest salvation comes by keeping God’s laws well enough to qualify? No Christians are “good enough” to enough to get into heaven, either. God’s law is simply too demanding for that to happen.

We may find ourselves listening to this kind of righteousness in more subtle ways. There is no virtue in spilling out all of the seediest details of our private lives in front of people for whom it is none of their business. But when we approach the fellow members of our congregation as though we must hide our struggles and constantly keep up a happy and holy false face, is that not because we believe we are acceptable only based upon how good we are, how well we keep the law? If people who struggle with sin will not seek our help because they are afraid of what this will do to their reputation, have not both they and we forgotten that none of us can keep the laws demands, that none of us are saved by our works, that all of us are utterly sinful and under God’s condemnation by nature?

We all confess together on Sunday mornings, “I am by nature sinful and…I have have disobeyed you in my thoughts, words, and actions.” Do we say these words only in theory, then deny that they have any basis in the realities of my life? Are they true, or aren’t they? And if they are true, then why are we so desperate to give others the impression that, in my case, they are not? While we must never embrace defiant, unrepented sin, we must never lose sight of the fact that the law is too demanding for any of us to keep.

We hear the real solution in the words the pastor speaks after we confess. “God our heavenly Father has been merciful to us, and has given his only Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.” That is for all of us, too. Whether it is easy to see or not, we are all in the same boat.

Philippians 4:19 “My God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus.”

What do the following Biblical accounts have in common?

• The Feeding of the 5000 (Matthew 14:13-21).

• The Trip from the Red Sea to Sinai (Exodus 15:22-19:2).

• Gideon’s Defeat of the Midianites (Judges 6-7).

• Peter Walking on Water (Matthew 14:22-32).

• The Missionary Journeys of the Apostle Paul (Acts 13ff).

• The Conquest of the Promised Land (The book of Joshua).

In each case, the Lord gave an assignment to one or more of his people. In each case the Lord did not reveal up front how he was going to provide the tools necessary for them to accomplish what he asked. In each case these people began their tasks with nothing more than God’s commands and promises. In each case the Lord made it possible for his people to do what he asked of them.

These were not merely special cases from the distant past. To some degree all of life works this way. Who of us would have ventured to have children if we had waited until we had all the resources necessary to raise them? Who of us would venture to buy a home, or a car for that matter, if we had to wait until we knew we had all the money up front?

We cannot guarantee that we will have the resources necessary to carry out the most basic responsibilities of life tomorrow. In an instant the Lord could snatch away business, home, wealth, or health. Just ask Job.

Nor does Jesus expect us to have the future all worked for years in advance. “So do not worry saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them…Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself.” There is a reason Jesus teaches us to pray, “Give us this day our daily bread.” He wants us to trust him to provide for us each day. His way of providing for our needs may change tomorrow.

In all of this our Savior is teaching us trust. He is teaching us not to rely upon our own resources. He wants us to depend on him. Ultimately, he is responsible for taking care of us, enabling us to serve him. He taught Israel the same lesson in the wilderness: “He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord” (Deut. 8:3).

These lessons also have application to our church life. When Jesus commissioned 12 apostles, and about 500 other followers, to go out and preach the gospel to all creation, they weren’t much more than a single congregation of believers with the whole world as their mission field. They weren’t spectacularly wealthy. They weren’t the world’s most naturally gifted people.

But they had the Lord’s command. “Make disciples of all nations.” And they had his promises. “I am with you always.” “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you.” “I will rescue you from your own people and from the Gentiles.”

We are the heirs of those commands and promises. We enjoy many opportunities to share the message of salvation–so many that our resources seem overtaxed. Manpower and money are perennially in short supply. We find it difficult to keep up the ministry that we have already made our concern.

However, our greatest resource is not to be found in our own money or manpower. It is in the Savior who promised to be with us always and empower us with the Holy Spirit. It is his mission we carry on. He will not let his work fail.

Proverbs 27:6 “Wounds from a friend can be trusted, but an enemy multiplies kisses.”

Who is truly your friend?

We all look to our friends to support us when we are down, to back us up when we are in trouble, to understand us when no one else does. We want our friends to express their care and concern and build us up with their kind words.

But since genuine love always seeks our good, not necessarily our happiness, sometimes true friends also have to perform the unenviable task of telling us the truth–at least to the best of their ability to tell it. That means that some of the things they say will hurt.

Someone who is less concerned about our welfare but more interested in how we can be used isn’t so concerned to tell us the truth. Such people butter us up with nothing but good things to say. And you know why we slather things with butter—it’s only to improve the flavor before we sink our teeth in.

Living with the truth of Proverbs 27:6 requires a loving atmosphere in which we learn to accept such friendly wounds as well as inflict them. In order for such wounds to be truly friendly, they must also be limited to times when we genuinely have someone else’s welfare at heart. Wise King Solomon did not mean to open the door to arbitrary meanness. Other proverbs warn against spouting off every stray thought that happens to come to mind.

This is a practical lesson for life in a Christian congregation. There are likely to be more opinions than people, opinions that are passionately held. We do well to check ourselves as we respond to each other. Every viewpoint is welcome, but not every rebuttal we are tempted to make is suited for a public forum.

And not every contradictory viewpoint, no matter how strongly expressed, should be taken as a personal attack. We are friends, teammates, working toward a common goal. If a friend perceives some weakness in our thinking, his wound can be trusted, even if we still don’t share his point of view.

As Christians, we have already learned how to adopt this way of looking at the deepest wounds that come from our dearest friend—our God and Savior. His points of view are always correct, but they don’t always coincide with our own. God’s law has some painful things to say to me.

But he never says them just to hurt us. His wounds ultimately aim to heal. They cut less like a “stab in the back” and more like the skilled surgeon carefully removing the cancer.

And our God is no enemy when he multiplies his kisses. His words of love spoken in the form of forgiveness are always sincere, always friendly, and always spoken with our best interest in mind.

Galatians 6:14 “May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.”

What makes a restaurant like McDonalds, McDonalds? It’s not the ambiance of their dining room, or the quality of their straws or napkins. It’s the taste of their food: the Big Mac, the fries, the chicken nuggets. You see that in their advertising. That’s what their commercials boast about. What makes a luxury car like a Lexus, a Lexus? It’s not the emergency jack in the trunk, or the owner’s manual in the glove compartment. It’s the features of the vehicle itself: the power of the engine, the comfort of the passenger cabin, the styling of the vehicle’s body. That, again, is what their commercials boast about.

What makes the Christian faith the Christian faith? It’s not a superior set of rules to follow or more stimulating and entertaining worship to attend. It is the central message of our faith, the chief thing that distinguishes it from all others: the saving death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is the message of the cross. Other things may be true about Christianity and Christians. But this is their only boast: the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.

That was Paul’s message to the Galatians. Other teachers were leading them to think that Christianity was about something else. Paul’s own faith had been on a different track at one point in his life. As a Pharisee who opposed Jesus and persecuted his people, he was building a religious career that promised him prestige, power, and plenty of money. Now he had discovered the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. That other world had been crucified to him.

There are many forms “the world” can take in our own lives. Many are hard to recognize. We, too, can pervert religion from being God’s means to save us, and a sincere matter of faith, to become a way to give me what I want here and now. We can turn church into an entertainment venue. That’s worldly, not spiritual. It is a wonderful thing for friends to invite friends to church to introduce them to Jesus. It is a worldly thing to choose a house of worship for the chance to be popular with certain people, because it makes me look good, because it means I will be accepted by my peers, or because it puts me in contact with potential customers for my business. There is not a single-minded focus on the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ in that. It is kind of worldliness, a sinful focus on tickling my fancies.

Now, Paul says, due to the cross of Christ, that world has been crucified to me. It hasn’t just been demoted to give up part of the time and attention it used to demand. The world and I did not merely come to a mutual recognition that this relationship wasn’t working out very well, and so we politely broke up and went our different ways. The world has been crucified to me. It met a violent, painful death by execution. It is the evil criminal in my life that had to die before it took my life instead.

The irony is that the world is crucified to me by means of another crucifixion, the one that makes me boast. That is a striking concept. The cross was an instrument of shame and humiliation. It is not something one would boast about. No one wants a relationship with a criminal, especially one on death row. It’s an embarrassment. It’s the kind of thing that families keep secrets about.

But this criminal and this cross are my pride and joy, because the crimes for which he dies are mine. The cross of our Lord Jesus Christ is the only thing that has real value because it is the only thing that can free me from the penalty for my sins. Wonder of all wonders, the cross, an instrument of death, does what I could never do: it removes all sin from my record, reconciles me to God in heaven, and gives me a life that will last forever and ever.

That’s our only boast. And what that cross has done for me crucifies the world to me.

1 Timothy 6:18-19 “Command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share. In this way they will lay up treasures for themselves as a firm foundation for the coming age, so that they may take hold of the life that is truly life.”

First, let’s point out what Paul is not saying in these words. He is not suggesting that you can buy your way into heaven. You can buy your way into a lot of places, it seems. If you have enough money, you can just about buy your way into public office. They are always talking about which candidates have raised the most money, or which ones are in trouble because they are running out. You can buy your way into prestigious schools or hot ticket concerts and sporting events. If you are jailed, you might be able to buy your way to freedom.

But eternal life is not for sale. In Psalm 50 God reminded his people, “I have no need of a bull from your stall or of goats from your pens, for every animal of the forest is mine and the cattle on a thousand hills.” We’ve got nothing to give him. It’s all his already. And it has always been his intent and desire to give away salvation for free. “God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son.” “The gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” “It is by grace you have been saved through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one may boast.” “My peace I give to you.”

So here is a word to the wise: a life of good deeds and generous giving, a life that doesn’t let riches make us proud or become our idol, lays up treasures for the life to come because it doesn’t get in the way of saving faith. It is not eroding our trust in God or leading us to give up his saving gifts. It keeps us from trading “the life that is truly life,” life with Christ, for the counterfeit “life” we have in this world, the one we are tempted to dress up to look like heaven by buying all kinds of temporary, empty pleasures.

The investment we make in our things–our cars, our homes, even our institutions and civilization–will be worth exactly nothing the day after Judgment Day. But the investment we make in the faith and love of God’s people, what we give to make sure the gospel is heard and shared, will pay dividends in souls saved for all eternity.

1 Timothy 6:18 “Command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share.”

Have you ever seen the musical Hello Dolly? There is a scene toward the end in which the matchmaker, Dolly Levi, is trying to help the wealthy tightwad Horace Vandergelder loosen up with his money a little. “Money is like manure…” She tells him, “It’s not worth a thing unless it’s spread around encouraging young things to grow.”

Paul’s words imply that he would agree with her, more or less. Money can stink, or money can serve us. For all the dangers money poses to our souls, it also has the potential to do a lot of good. Like so many other Bible teachings, there is a ditch on both sides of the road here. Love it too much, fail to respect its power to take over our hearts, and it becomes poison to our faith. But if we decide that money itself somehow has to be dirty and unholy, then we may miss the special opportunities it gives those who have it to do good.

Wealth may make it possible for some people to be particularly “rich in good deeds.” To hear some people talk about saving for retirement, you would think that work was evil, laziness was a virtue, and that life really is all about making yourself happy. “I slaved away for the company all those years,” they say. “I can’t wait to retire and do nothing.” Or “I worked hard and supported my family. Now I’m going to get to do something for myself.” Is there anything particularly Christian about years of doing nothing or using the last years of our lives to gratify our own desires? Where is that written?

But we can redeem the concept of retirement nest eggs when we turn working less into helping more. Whether in retirement or sooner, if more money means less days or hours at a job, then wealth can be a tool that frees us to volunteer. A doctor friend of mine spent less hours in the office as he approached the end of his career. He spent more hours at a clinic where children could see him for free. A group of retired tradesmen rebuild homes for families who have lost their houses to natural disasters. They can do this because the wealth on which they retired allowed them to donate their time and ability.

Another godly use for wealth is giving it away. “Command them…to be generous and willing to share.” We work hard at teaching our children to share, don’t we? We know it doesn’t come naturally. I have seen infants who weren’t even able to walk in a tug of war over the same toy. A video I saw on Facebook has two little boys pulling the same pacifier out of each other’s mouth and putting it in his own. Each boy starts to cry when the other takes the pacifier away. It’s adorable. So we intervene in our children’s play, and we teach them to share.

Do we forget the lesson as adults? Yes, it’s my money, humanly speaking. I earned it. No one should be able to take it from me by force. And it shouldn’t be used to reinforce someone’s bad habits or self-destructive vices. But maybe if we were a little less eager to upgrade the car, the house, the electronics, or the wardrobe, we could support some legitimate charities, get more mission work done, and improve our communities. Maybe there would be less reason for the government to raise taxes, and more people respecting, even joining, Christian churches.

Maybe we could just love someone. You know what we call the wealthy donors to hospitals, schools, or other institutions that serve the public good? “Philanthropists.” It’s from a Greek word, and the meaning has nothing to do with money. It means “Lover of people.” I know that some of the big donors may be more interested in getting a plaque on the wall, a building named after them, or some other publicity. But the idea of philanthropy is that giving is an opportunity to love people. Loving people is the second main thing God wants us to do after loving him. God’s philanthropy toward us lies at the heart of Jesus’ saving work. He so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son.

So generosity and sharing belong to a life rich in good deeds. Don’t let the wealth God gives you pile up and stink. Spread it around. Use it to make love grow.