======================================================================== CONFESSING AND BELIEVING by Moses Bushendich ======================================================================== Summary: This sermon focuses on the importance of confessing and believing in Jesus as Lord and Savior, emphasizing the radical nature of this declaration. It explores the power of aligning the heart and mouth in confession, highlighting the unity and transformation it brings. The message delves into historical and personal examples of faith, urging believers to boldly proclaim their faith in Christ despite challenges and opposition, drawing inspiration from biblical figures like the Uganda martyrs and Archbishop Janani Luwum. Topics: "Confession of Faith", "Boldness in Belief" Scripture References: Romans 10:9, Galatians 3:28, Proverbs 18:21, Revelation 3:16, Romans 8:11, Deuteronomy 30:14 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ DESCRIPTION ------------------------------------------------------------------------ This sermon focuses on the importance of confessing and believing in Jesus as Lord and Savior, emphasizing the radical nature of this declaration. It explores the power of aligning the heart and mouth in confession, highlighting the unity and transformation it brings. The message delves into historical and personal examples of faith, urging believers to boldly proclaim their faith in Christ despite challenges and opposition, drawing inspiration from biblical figures like the Uganda martyrs and Archbishop Janani Luwum. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CONTENT ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Almighty God, may the Holy Spirit overflow in this place. May the meditations of my heart and the words of my mouth be pleasing in your sight. Refresh us by your word. Revive us, O Lord, for your glory. In Jesus' name, Amen. We are going to be speaking about confessing and believing. And first of all, I would like to give glory to God for this extraordinary opportunity to be part of the Wineskins Conference, which I have longed for, and I'm here for the very first time. I do bring you Christian love and greetings from my own family. Caroline and the children are praying with me and praying for this conference, and I send you greetings. Our CMS Africa family that we serve together in Nairobi are praying with us. Actually, one of them said, I'm groaning with you. So receive those love and greetings from my people. I am really humbled, even a little nervous, to be chosen among many to bring God's word this year, and I pray that the Holy Spirit will speak to you. Let's get into this amazing text, which was written by Paul. Originally, it was intended for the Jews that were in Rome, and the text is Romans chapter 10, verse 9 to 13. Romans 10, 9 to 13. And it reads, If you declare 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 is with your mouth that you confess your faith and are saved. As the scripture says, anyone who believes him will never be put to shame, for there is 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. Dear friends, Paul was addressing the Jews who were in Rome, and as we go along, you'll realize that this message was not only for Jews in Rome at that time. You will realize that this message is relevant to all people everywhere, every time, even today. When I move back to the same chapter, verses 1 to 4, Paul writes this and says, Brethren, my prayer to God for Israel is that they may be saved. For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. For they being ignorant of God's righteousness and seeking to establish their own righteousness have not submitted to God. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes. End of quote. Friends, this is a very familiar thing today. Let me give you some examples. In traditional Africa, John Beatty writes, Africans are notoriously religious. Notoriously religious. In Uganda, my own country, the motto is, for God and my country. And the national anthem goes, O Uganda, may God uphold thee. In Kenya, where my office is, where CMS Africa office is located, the national anthem goes, O God of all creation, bless this our land and nation. That's the beginning and then it goes on. What is the motto of America? In God we trust. All these mottos and national anthems sound godly, isn't it? They sound godly. But we can agree with Paul that even when this motto sounds godly, we are not so godly as the motto suggests. Or if we are, if we have that zeal for God, it's not according to knowledge. And Paul says, you have missed the point. And he is speaking not only to the Christians in Rome, but the Jews in Rome who were knowledgeable about their scripture. He quotes to them their scripture. He quotes Deuteronomy chapter 30 and verse 14. And he writes this in Romans chapter 10 and verse 8. The same words, he said, the word is near you. It is in your mouth and in your heart. Just to confirm that the resources for salvation are within reach. In our mouth and in our hearts. Now there is this relationship between heart and mouth. Proverbs 18, 21 says, the tongue has the power of life and death. Jesus says, out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. Now, let me say this. The distance between you and your salvation is just as much as the distance between your heart and your mouth. In our text, I would like us to understand this word confess. In the Greek language that Paul spoke. Now I'm going to some boring stuff here. I promise to be brief. There's this word confess comes from the word homologio. And I don't know how to pronounce well, but homologio. And this has two words, homo and logio. Homo means same. Logio means speak. So this word just simply means speak the same thing. Speak the same thing. Agree with the same thing. In terms of our context, the context of our passage, it therefore follows that mouth and the heart go together. Hence the theme better together. It's better for your heart and your mouth to go together. Speak the same thing. The mouth must speak and agree the same thing as the heart believes. Confession is declaration of belief. The mouth verbalizes what is in your heart. And when we speak about the heart, we don't mean the organ that pumps blood. I'm sure all of us are aware of that because we are all Bible readers. This is the seat of our personality. Now let's get to Paul's message. And I want to say that Paul's message is a radical message. It looks simple. When we read it, it looks like it's easy. Just speak with your mouth and confess with your heart. Is that difficult? Now let me take you a little deeper. Paul's message is a radical message. This is because to confess that Jesus is Lord is to confront the forces that be. The same Lord, the same title for Lord was used for the emperor. Now that was not an easy thing to say that you confess Jesus is Lord, not emperor, not the emperor of the Roman Empire. To confess that Jesus is Lord is something that is radical to the Jews. They cannot believe that because to say Jesus is Lord, it's equating Jesus to God. And for Jews, God is the Lord. And Jesus could not be God. And Paul is writing to the Jews to confess that Jesus is God. And Paul says if you believe, you will be saved. The other title of the emperor was savior. Now this was a politically dangerous statement. To agree and believe that God raised Jesus from the dead was to come in conflict with the Roman authorities who authorized the crucifixion of Jesus. And Paul is saying although Jesus was crucified and people thought it was they had conquered, Paul is saying God conquered those you thought were unconquerable. God raised Jesus from the dead. And so those were radical statements. It is Jesus and not the Roman emperor. Who is Lord over everything. He is Lord in heaven and on earth and in the earth below. He is the Lord over the universe. He is the Lord over every continent. He is the Lord over every country. He is Lord over the Roman Empire. And I want to declare today's Lord over the American Empire. Jesus is Lord. And he is the Lord of Lords. We have many Lords. We have Lord mayors. We have Lord who is Lord who is Lord this. But Jesus is the Lord of Lords. Now the other third radical statement that Paul says is this. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile. You dare tell a Jew like that that there's no difference between Jew and Gentile? You are taking a serious risk. But Paul could not, you know, hold the gospel. Paul says that those who confess Christ as Lord and Savior and believe that he was raised from the dead, they have crossed every cultural boundary. There is no black and white. There's no yellow and red. There is no other racial discrimination. There is no coming from north and south. There's nothing like west and east. All are one in Christ. In fact, Paul deepens this theology of no discrimination when he writes to the church in Galatia. In Galatians chapter 3 and verse 28, Paul says there is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free. There is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. Friends, God doesn't care who you are. It only cares who you confess as Lord and Savior. He doesn't care where you come from. Unfortunately in the world today there are too many divisions. Divisions here and there. But let me say this. When you confess Christ, we become one. And we become one and we are together. It was actually dangerous and risky to make that confession and believe that. However, it has never become easier. Believe me. If you think it was difficult in Paul's time, to confess Jesus as Lord and Savior, do you think it is any easier today to confess Jesus as Lord? Let me give you this. Now, I know some of you come from countries where you are not allowed to be Christian. You either be hidden underground or somewhere. Are we there? If you come from those nations, you know what I mean. There are those of us who come from countries where you can be allowed to practice your religion, but do not convert anybody. You are questioned never to convert anybody. Do not even put on the cross because it offends others. Practice your religion, but quietly. But Paul says we have to declare publicly. Some of us are from countries where there is freedom of everything, freedom of worship. And even in that freedom of worship, you are even free to end life. You are even free to be queer. Because there is freedom. Now, in all these circumstances, if you think it was easier or difficult during Paul's time to confess Christ, this is the time now that we need to be radically trusting and believing that Jesus was raised from the dead and that he is Lord. It is now. It is now. Now, friends, I got converted in 1989 by making this prayer, by declaring that Jesus from today is Lord of my life. And that is actually the tradition of the East African revival that started in the 1930s, and it caught up with me in 1989. And I moved in that way of confessing that Jesus is Lord. When I confessed, it was not an easy thing when my father learned that now I was called born again. It wasn't easy. In fact, one day I had a fellowship at home and I invited my friends, and my father said, I do not want to see those things in this home. Thankfully, my dear friends, today I stood up, I walked in with the Lord. Though my father passed on, the entire my family, which is a family of 22 children and two mothers, are in Christ as we speak today. I come from Uganda, where the first Christians, the very first Christians in 1880s, who received Christ, who responded to the gospel of the missionaries, were burned. We have the Uganda martyrs. And they even asked them to collect firewood in order to burn themselves, to be used to burn them. And they would send them to go and collect firewood alone without God, hoping that when they get there, they will fear the fire and run away. They never ran away. They came with the firewood faithfully, and they entered into fire singing hymns. And, you know, they burned them little by little. And one of them told the executioners that, actually, what you are doing to my feet, you think you are burning, but I feel like you are pouring cold water onto my feet. Now that became the seed of the gospel in Uganda. I wrote a whole doctoral thesis on Archbishop Janani Luwum, who stood as the Archbishop of Uganda during the time when Idi Amin was the president. And people were murdered every single day. And Luwum would stand with people. And it became clear that Archbishop Luwum was to be killed. And he knew it, and everybody knew it. They wanted to take him out of Uganda. And his wife spoke to him and said, my dear husband, why don't you leave this country? They are going to kill you. Archbishop Luwum said, if the shepherd should leave, what will happen to the flock? If I be killed, my blood will save Uganda. And you know what? He was killed in 1977. Sure enough, two years later, Idi Amin was removed from power. Friends, I do not want to downplay the aspects of safety and security as we do mission work. But anyway, if there was no risk, what is the point of faith? You know that faith is also spelled as risk. The point I'm making here is that the gospel has always been resisted. But we must not abandon the cause of Christ in our lives. In all situations, Paul desires a radical homologio, if I can come back to that boring word. Homologio of heart and mouth. Jesus in Revelation 3.16 speaks to John. Revelation 3.16 says, he speaks to the church in Laodicea. And I believe this message is to the church today. It's the church in my country, in Uganda, the church in Africa. I think it is to the church even in the U.S., in the west and in the north and in the south. In the far east, this message goes. Jesus says, I know your deeds. That you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either cold or hot. In Paul's words, Romans 8.11, Paul says, and if the spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his spirit who lives in you. There's assurance, friends. Just for you to know that when you are in Christ, you will never be ashamed. But it is sad today that even when we confess Christ, when you go out in the streets and say, I'm a Christian, sometimes they want to make you look like you are not thinking well. You mean you are Christian? I attended one of these theological discourses and discussions where theologians were actually debating whether Christ really rose from the dead. You see, sometimes even in theological circles, there's some nonsense that goes around. Now, if you take away the resurrection of Christ, what are you left with? Are you not behaving like these gods who were told, take some money and please, this last lie, if ever people hear that Christ raised, that lie would be even more terrible than the rest of the things. Our faith is grounded in the resurrection of Christ. And do not be ashamed, that's what Paul says. You will never be ashamed by confessing Christ as Lord and Savior. Let me conclude. I have said that our salvation is as far as the mouth is from the heart. Friends, there is extraordinary power in confessing that Christ is Lord. In believing that Christ was raised from the dead. If Christ is your Lord, you have the Lord of Lords. If Christ who was raised from the dead is your Lord, then every dead thing in your life will rise again. You will rise again and there will be no shame about it. We will wait for those who are ashamed of Christ to be ashamed. Friends, we believe, let our mouths and our hearts believe the same thing. That our heart and our mouth be the same. If our mouth and our hearts are together, and each one of us, each one of us, walk in obedience to the Lord, walk in obedience to the Lord, each one of us. And we walk together. And we fellowship together. We support one another. We build partnerships, relationships together. If we should have this confession moving together, we create a movement. And friends, this movement will be unstoppable. This revival that begins from here just simply becomes unstoppable. Because whoever we find on the way, we have them. Christ is Lord and He is Savior. This was my life. In fact, the East African revival melted, you know, these differences of kings and subjects, whatever, and the Christians. This born again people would call themselves brother and sister in Christ. There were no hierarchies, my friend. It was like wildfire. And I want to confirm and say, you are a better person if your heart and your mouth are together. We are a better church if we are together. Better together. Friends, Jesus is Lord. Can we say together? Jesus is Lord and He is risen. The Lord bless you. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, I pray that you create a movement beginning right here. And that this movement, Lord, will know no boundaries. This movement will know no other lords except the Lord Jesus. And let this movement, Lord, turn around this world for you. In Jesus' name, amen. The Lord bless you. ======================================================================== Video: https://sermonindex2.b-cdn.net/lkXQoqEShtc.mp4 Source: https://sermonindex.net/speakers/moses-bushendich/confessing-and-believing/ ========================================================================