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Welcome to our daily drive-time devotion. We're in day three of Romans chapter
10 verses 8 to 13 today in this look together at how to be an expert witness
from the book of Romans chapter 10. We talked about the need for a passion for
salvation, if I'm going to be wrong, and my witness, the understanding of the
barriers of salvation.

And today we're going to look at the essentials of salvation. And I'd like to
begin with the verse that we ended with yesterday, verse 8, and read through
verse 13. Romans 10, 8 through 13 says this, "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 that we are proclaiming, 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.

For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified and it's with your
mouth that you confess and are saved. As the scripture says, anyone who trusts
in him will never be put to shame. For there's no difference between Jew and
Gentile.

The same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him. For
everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. " There it is.

Those are the essentials of salvation. There's what it means to know Jesus
Christ, have a relationship with him, and how that starts explained in a very
simple way. The essentials are in your mouth and your heart because your mouth
is where you confess, where you tell God and you tell others, "I have faith in
you.

" And your heart is where you believe, where you trust God. I want to look at
the simplicity of these verses in just a moment, but it's amazing to me that in
the simplicity of these verses we often try to confuse them. So I would say
don't take this too literally.

Confess with your mouth. Some people say, "Does that mean you can't be saved if
you're mute? You can't actually say the words with your mouth?

" The mouth is just the tool. It is the confession that's the point. We're going
to talk about what that means in a minute.

The word believe here. You just believe in Jesus, that he was resurrected from
the dead. Some people ask, "Does that mean that you don't have to even go to
church or obey God or even love Jesus to get to heaven?

You just have to believe he was resurrected? " No, no. You have to believe what
the words mean.

If you believe that Jesus is resurrected, you have to believe all that that
means. He is God. He is to be followed.

You have to believe you can trust everything that he said. As you look at these
verses and what they have to say, it says, you say, "Jesus is Lord. " You say
with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and you are saved.

And so some people ask, "Do you have to say those exact words? Jesus is Lord? "
Can you say, "Jesus is my Lord?

" And people really confuse these verses. I know it sounds goofy, but I've read
a lot about this. Know what this means is you have to accept him as your Lord,
and you have to be willing to confess him as your Lord before others.

These verses are talking about confession and belief. Confession. You tell
others.

You're not ashamed to let other people know you have faith in Jesus Christ.
Confession is a choice. I can choose to try and hide the fact that I am a
believer in Christ, and these verses remind me that if I'm choosing that, it
says something very, very meaningful about the lack of faith that I have.

I confess. I'm willing to let other people know Jesus is my choice, and you
believe with your heart. You trust God.

Belief is a choice. Am I going to trust myself, or am I going to trust God? When
someone says, "I don't believe in God," it's sometimes the facts they doubt.

Sometimes they doubt the facts about the Bible, but usually about 80 percent of
the time I have discovered in talking with people that much more often it's the
fact that they're choosing not to change. It's keeping them from believing. They
trust themselves the way they've decided to run their life, and they know that
to accept God's presence, his relationship in their life, they'd have to make
some changes, and they don't want to do that, so they don't believe.

They trust themselves and not God. Now Paul says, "If you confess, if you
believe, you're justified, you're saved. " He's using two different words, two
different pictures of the same thing.

You are justified. You're declared not guilty. You're saved.

You're rescued. That's what those words mean. Jesus did this for you.

The moment that you confess, the moment you believe. They don't come one after
the other or one later than the other. The moment you confess and believe, you
are declared not guilty, justified, you are rescued, you're saved, and a hundred
other things.

Now it is amazing to me that we often take these verses that are meant to simply
explain salvation, and we use it instead to make salvation sound complex. It is
not. These verses remind us of these simple truths.

The righteousness that comes by faith is available. It's right there. It's near
you.

It's in your mouth. It's in your heart. Paul is saying here that the gospel is
easily accessible.

It's not easy, but it is easily accessible. It is made available. It's in your
own heart and mouth.

The two essential beliefs here are that Jesus is Lord. Lord means the manager,
the director, the master, the one who guides my life. He is the Lord.

He has the final say. And also that Jesus is alive. You confess that he is
raised from the dead.

Jesus is Lord and he is alive. That's the incarnation and the resurrection.
Salvation is available.

That's a simple truth. The simple truth is also that salvation is available to
everyone. Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.

There is no difference between Jew and Gentile. Anyone who trusts in him will
never be put to shame. It is available to everyone.

That's the simple truth. And the simple truth is it's available to everyone who
calls. Desire to have a relationship with God isn't even enough.

You have to call. You have to have the faith to say I ask you God to come into
my life, to become a part of my life. Verse 13 reduces all the gospel to one
simple statement.

Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. That's the scope.
Everyone.

That's the simplicity. Who calls on the name of the Lord. And that's the
security.

Will be saved. No doubt about it. Someone asked me once does that mean that if I
don't call on his name I will not be saved?

If I could do anything to help people to understand salvation it would revolve
around this question. Some people have the sense that we all are born into this
world innocent and that some of us along the way get saved and some of us along
the way get not saved. That is not the Bible's picture of us as human beings.

The truth is you're already not saved. The moment you're born into this world
you're not saved. You're already lost.

Every one of us. And so we need a savior. That's why Jesus came.

Salvation means rescue. He is rescuing me out of something. He's rescuing me
from an eternity without him.

You're not born innocent. You're born lost. The decision's already made.

You can't do anything about it. But Jesus can. Jesus can.

That's why everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be rescued. We're
already lost. We're already in need of rescue and he has come to rescue us.

Now as we talk about salvation everyone calling on the name of the Lord and
they'll be saved. Some people ask well weren't people in the Old Testament saved
by the good things that they did and then like when Jesus came then people were
saved by by him. Didn't things sort of change?

Not at all. If you read the Bible carefully you find that Old Testament and New
Testament everyone is saved by Jesus Christ. In the Old Testament those who were
saved were saved by calling on the name of someone who hadn't been born yet as
they made sacrifices and look forward to the fact that Jesus would one day
complete the ultimate sacrifice once for all by giving himself for us as they
trusted in God's direction and God's love for them and looked forward to the
fact that one day he had promised a messiah.

They were looking forward to what God would do. I always like to say that the
blood of Jesus Christ flows both ways in history. It flows forward in history to
us who today believe in him knowing his name but it also flows backward in
history to those who even before Jesus was born trusted in God and his
direction.

Everyone who's saved is saved by Jesus Christ and these verses remind us that
being saved is a simple process. Don't complicate things so much that you don't
recognize the simplicity of what it means to know him. We rest in Christ.

We rest in the fact that he has given himself for us. If you confess with your
mouth that Jesus is Lord and you believe in your heart that God raised him from
the dead you will be saved. That is so reassuringly simple.

Someone wrote to me about these verses and said on the one hand there are a lot
of things I don't understand. By nature I question everything and I always want
to draw my own conclusions rather than just accept those of others. Because of
this I'm also afraid I'm going to get something wrong and that that would have
eternal consequences but on the other hand as I read these verses it makes it
sound so simple.

Confess and believe and you'll be saved. Faith is the most important thing and
through God the rest will follow. This is extremely reassuring to me and gives
me a great sense of peace and that's what I pray for you.

As you hear these verses there's an extreme sense of reassurance and a great
sense of peace. It's so simple and here's God's promise based on this
simplicity. Anyone who trusts in me will never be put to shame.

Now what does that specifically mean? It means specifically in our relationship
with God I will never be put to shame in my relationship with him. I can go to
him in confidence any moment any time not put to shame because of what Jesus did
for me.

I'm saved and I will spend eternity with him without shame because of what Jesus
did for me and that is true for anyone who trusts in him. As we talk to God and
spend a few minutes talking to him let's thank him. Let's thank him for the
reassurance and the peace that is in these verses.

Our father we are grateful. We are grateful for your reassuring love and the
simple truth that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. The
simple truth that anyone who trusts in him will never be put to shame and the
simple truth that you bless all who call on you.

As we think about the reassurance in that for us personally we also are grateful
for the reassurance in that for all who call on you from all times, from all
countries and God we pray for a sense of peace. A sense of peace that results
from the assurance of what you have said. A lot of people who say a lot of
things about you but when we read what you say, when we read your truth, we
sense your peace and we thank you in Jesus name.

Amen. Well join us tomorrow we're going to be looking at verses 14 to 17 of
Romans chapter 10.