The Lutheran Hour
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"“The Same Lord is Lord of All” – First Sunday in Lent"
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Text: Romans 10:8-13
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Jesus Christ is Lord! It’s the earliest and most basic Christian confession and, we might add, the most controversial. From the very beginning, this confession, “Jesus is Lord!” has defined Christianity over against all other religions and philosophies. The claims of Jesus Christ are both completely inclusive and exclusive. Inclusive in that God desires all people to know His love in Jesus. Exclusive in the sense that Jesus is the only way to the Father.
Today, on the First Sunday in Lent, as we begin our journey of repentance and renewal in the cross and resurrection of Jesus, many of our churches are hearing St. Paul explain this in Romans chapter 10, verses 8-13. “But what does it say?” Paul writes, “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart (that is, the word of faith that we proclaim); because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. For the Scripture says, ‘Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.’ For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him. For ‘everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.'”
The original word here is Kyrios, meaning, Lord, the one in charge, the master, the one at the top of the heap. At the time the church was being planted in the Roman world, the Roman emperor was making the claim – Caesar is Lord! The emperor wanted to be worshiped as divine, the one above all else. But the Jews also used this word. When the Old Testament was translated from Hebrew into Greek, the name of God, Yahweh, the Lord, was translated as Kyrios. God is the Lord. God is in charge, they were saying.
Now you can begin to see the significance of this distinctive Christian confession – Jesus is Lord! – and how it became the touchstone of faith. No Jew would say Jesus is Lord unless his faith was truly in Jesus Christ alone, unless he was confessing that the God of the Bible, the Lord who made heaven and earth, had truly come to earth in Jesus, that Jesus Christ is the Lord God in our human flesh. Likewise, no Gentile citizen of the Roman Empire would say Jesus is Lord, Jesus is the one in charge, unless he had given up his previous conviction that the Emperor, Caesar is Lord.
In a world of competing claims and contradictory voices, this one name rises above them all, Jesus. He is Lord, the One in charge, also today. In Him alone do we have life. The Bible says, “Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God.” (1 John 4:15) And again it says, “Whoever has the Son has life; and whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.” (1 John 5:12) Jesus Himself claimed, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6)
Wait a minute! That’s intolerant! And isn’t it dangerous to be intolerant in our world today? Indeed, writing against what he perceived as this kind of intolerance, Thomas Friedman writes in the New York Times in November 2001, “Can Islam, Christianity, and Judaism know that God speaks Arabic on Fridays, Hebrew on Saturdays and Latin on Sundays, and that he welcomes different human beings approaching him through their own history, out of their language and cultural heritage?” He goes on to affirm that it is urgent that the different religions “reinterpret their tradition to embrace modernity and pluralism and to create space for secularism and alternative faiths.”
Thomas Friedman was simply elaborating one of the basic ideas of our post-modern age. Just like all people are equal, all ideas are equal according to this philosophy. Every truth claim is equally valid. There are many roads to God, and as different as they all seem, they all lead to the same place. If Jesus is good for you, that’s fine. You have your truth and I have mine. Proponents of this philosophy say, and even if they are contradictory, it doesn’t matter because they’re all really the same.
To that we Christians confess – Jesus is Lord! Only Jesus is Lord! All other confessions end up in death. This one confession brings life; Jesus Christ is Lord of all. How can we say that? How do we know this? Paul writes in our Scripture for today, “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”
One of my sons is presently serving our country in Iraq. His Army unit took part in the battle for the Shiite Muslim city of An Najaf. One of the reasons there was a battle there is that An Najaf is the location of the tomb of the nephew of Mohammed, who is revered by all Shia Muslims. Now if you go into this tomb, what you will find is nothing but bones and dust.
But when you go to Jerusalem to the grave of Jesus Christ, what do you find? Nothing! The grave is empty because Jesus’ body is not there. Everybody at the time knew the grave was empty. Some just didn’t accept the reason why. God had raised Him from the dead. He is alive, even today! He is alive to be the Lord of the living and the dead, the Bible says. In the vision God gave to John in Revelation, Jesus says, “Fear not, I am the first and the last, and the living one. I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades.” (Rev. 1:17-18)
Jesus died and rose again. That’s why He is Lord. Confessing Him, we have life because He is alive. And this confession is at one and the same time, totally inclusive and also completely exclusive. Here’s how. When Paul went to preach in the city of Athens, he started his message by referring to their altar to an unknown god, telling the people, “What you do not know, this I’m going to tell you about…” When he was finished he said, “Now God commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.” (Acts 17:30-31)
The Gospel of Jesus is totally inclusive. No one is left out, for the call to repentance is for all people everywhere. It is also completely exclusive in that this is the only way to life God provides; He calls all of us to repent and turn from our sins and to confess Jesus Christ as Lord. And how does God demonstrate this fact? By raising Jesus from the dead. You have the same relationship between the inclusive and exclusive nature of Christianity in Romans 10, our passage for today.
The Scriptures promised in Isaiah, “Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.” Paul explains further, “there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him. For ‘everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.'”
The same Lord is Lord of all! Is anyone left out? No! The Lord gives out the riches of His salvation to all who call on Him. It’s total. Everyone is included. No one is left out. Jesus is for all. That’s how inclusive Christian faith is, yet you also see here how the Gospel excludes every other savior or lord, except Jesus. It says, “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” And just who is Lord? Jesus is Lord!
Here’s another example. The car that is provided for me in my work is a very nice car, a 2001 Taurus. I’m not trying to sell it to you, I just like it. It does what it’s supposed to do for me. Now suppose I decide to drive that car to go and see my son serving in Iraq. How far will I get? Guess what? No matter how sincerely I believe that car will carry me to Iraq, it cannot do it. I may be able to go 1000 miles east from my home in Illinois, but when I get to the edge of the big water called the Atlantic Ocean, I’m gonna have to stop. My car will not carry me any farther, no matter how strongly or sincerely I believe it will.
Every other religion can help you live a life that looks nice to other people. But when you and I get to the edge of the big water called death, none of those other religions can take us across, no matter how sincerely we believe in them. Only Jesus can take us all the way across the big water called death. That’s because only Jesus has been there and come back. Only Jesus died and rose again. That’s why our scripture says, “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
The world says it’s dangerous to be intolerant. The Bible says it is dangerous to be without Jesus. In fact, without Jesus we’re dead. We have nothing. Only in Jesus do we have life, because only Jesus died and rose for us. In Jesus, the promise is sure: “there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him.
If you already know Jesus and confess Him as Lord, I pray that His Spirit will strengthen you in this faith, and give you even more confidence and joy in Christ. For Jesus is alive and you are alive with His life. And I pray that Jesus will give you everything you need to tell others about Him. God’s doesn’t want anyone left out. He wants everyone to know Jesus as Lord. And He gives you and me the privilege to share Him with people who don’t yet know Him and are dying without Him.
In fact, that’s exactly what we are doing right now, sharing Jesus with you. If you feel you are far away from God, perhaps you were close in the past, but now God seems so distant; or perhaps you are afraid you have been running away from God, or that you could never be good enough for God. I have good news for you. What does our Scripture say? “The Word is very near you, on your lips and in your heart, the Word of faith we preach.” He’s not telling you somehow to find God within you, but He is reminding you that God is as close to you as God’s Word on your lips and in your heart. You don’t have to go on a long pilgrimage to find God. No, God has already found you. He has found you my friend, right here and right now in His Word, the Word about Jesus I am bringing to you.
Right now God is here to say to you, here’s life, here it is, in Jesus. Apart from Jesus everything else leads only to death. In Jesus you have life, life now and life forever. Believe it, and you have it!
Sound too good to be true? Oh, but it is true, because Jesus lives. God raised Him from the dead. That’s why His promise is for you also. The same Lord is Lord of all. That includes you; and He gives His riches to all who call on him, for everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved!
Come back to this program next week to hear more, won’t you. Even better, find a church that teaches the Word of God clearly. You see, the church is going to tell the story of Jesus over and over again in these next few weeks, leading up to our celebration of the Resurrection of Jesus on Easter Sunday, April 11. Here’s life, my friend. Life in Jesus and in His Word. In the name of Jesus. Amen.
Lutheran Hour Mailbox (Questions & Answers) for February 29, 2004
Topic: The Doctrine of Vocation and the Christian SoldierANNOUNCER: What is a Christian soldier called to do in a war with religious overtones? That’s a question we’ll discuss next with Dr. Gene Edward Veith, author of the book, Christianity in an Age of Terrorism, published by Concordia. I’m Mark Eischer. Dr. Gene Edward Veith is professor of English Literature at Concordia University- Wisconsin and director of the Cranach Institute. He is also cultural editor for WORLD Magazine and he joins us by phone from Mequon, Wisconsin. Dr. Veith, I recently saw an article in Time Magazine where they ran a side-by-side profile of a U.S. staff sergeant and a so-called “insurgent fighter.” The U.S. soldier was in uniform and clearly identified; the other fellow wore street clothes and his identify was concealed. From the perspective of Christian theology, is one the moral equivalent of the other?
VEITH: Oh, not at all. Romans 13 lays down the idea that lawful magistrates have the obligation to bear the sword, which includes police, our legal system, the military, and that God works through those human institutions. Someone who’s not under any kind of lawful command, like a terrorist, someone who just kills and is not under the laws of war or any lawful government even, they’re completely different situations. Yes, the doctrine of vocation is a very, very important concept that Christians really would do well to recover. It basically teaches how God works through human beings doing the ordinary work, the ordinary things of living in this world. God gives us our daily bread, Luther says, but He does it through the vocation of the farmers, the bakers, and we would add the grocery store people, and pretty soon you would have the whole economy. God heals through the vocation of doctors and nurses and other medical professionals. He teaches through teachers; He gives us blessings through the scientists and engineers and really, the doctrine of vocation is about how God Himself is working through human beings and their vocations. Not only the workplace, but family is considered a vocation which God brings new life into the world, and cares for new life – the vocation of fathers and mothers. We have a vocation as citizens, and so in the working of our government and in the problems that we have, Christians are to be engaged with that. There’s no vocation to be a terrorist. The purpose of all vocations is to love and serve your neighbors. So protection is a legitimate vocation, but harming people, hurting your neighbor, killing your neighbor, God never calls anyone to do that.
ANNOUNCER: But in one sense, isn’t that the job of the soldier? As I heard it described one time, “to kill people and break things?”
VEITH: Well that is, but see, a soldier has an authority. He has a calling. He has a vocation. For a soldier, and Luther talked about this in his book, Whether a Soldier, Too, Can be Saved; he says that as Christians, we are to forgive our enemies. And in our private lives we are to forgive and love. But a soldier has a calling through which God works to protect the society and that soldier, part of the proper work of being a soldier, is to kill. So the soldier does not have the right to just go down the street and shoot somebody, but within his vocation, again, under the lawful command, under Romans 13, the work of a soldier is to kill those who are threatening his country. A soldier has a vocation. He has a calling in which God works to do the work of being a soldier. To love and protect his neighbors by the things that he does.
ANNOUNCER: We’ve been talking with Dr. Gene Edward Veith, author of the book, Christianity in an Age of Terrorism published by Concordia. Dr. Veith, thanks for being with us.
VEITH: My pleasure.