What "Jesus Is Lord!" really means. Paul meant something different than we usually hear.

Jesus is Lord! What do you think when you hear that? Most Christians when they hear it in church say "Yes, right on!" But when I hear it on the street, or on social media, or when it is said about politics, I do a double-take. "Jesus is Lord" comes from Romans 10:9 and carries a lot of baggage. It can be great. But it also can be used to bully people. In this episode, I tell you about Romans 10 and why Paul said that to say "Jesus is Lord" with your lips is so important. Instead of separating people, it is really about supporting people and bringing them together. This is the main theme of the whole book of Romans. So go ahead and say "Jesus is Lord", but make sure you are saying it with love and devotion and never to put other people down. The love of God is so much bigger than we imagine. We should never use these verses to exclude people. 

Romans 10:1 
Brothers and sisters, my heart’s desire is for Israel’s salvation. That’s my prayer to God for them. 2 I can vouch for them: they are enthusiastic about God. However, it isn’t informed by knowledge. 3 They don’t submit to God’s righteousness because they don’t understand his righteousness, and they try to establish their own righteousness. 4 Christ is the goal of the Law, which leads to righteousness for all who have faith in God.

5 Moses writes about the righteousness that comes from the Law: The person who does these things will live by them. 6 But the righteousness that comes from faith talks like this: Don’t say in your heart, “Who will go up into heaven?” (that is, to bring Christ down) 7 or “Who will go down into the region below?” (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead). 8 But what does it say? The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart (that is, the message of faith that we preach). 9 Because if you confess with your mouth “Jesus is Lord” and in your heart you have faith that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 Trusting with the heart leads to righteousness, and confessing with the mouth leads to salvation. 11 The scripture says, All who have faith in him won’t be put to shame. 12 There is no distinction between Jew and Greek, because the same Lord is Lord of all, who gives richly to all who call on him. 13 All who call on the Lord’s name will be saved.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:18

Welcome to the Real Bible Rob teamcast once again. And today I'd like to talk about that phrase you probably hear a lot. That is, Jesus is Lord. Have you heard it? Have you heard it at church? Probably, yeah. But have you heard it like at school? Have you heard it um out on the street? Have you heard it at um political rallies or when people start talking about politics? Or have you seen it on social media when you've looked at um, you know, uh Instagram or TikTok or Twitter or whatever? When you look at these, you see people and they'll say, Jesus is Lord! Well, what do they really mean? And mostly, how does it make you feel when you hear that? Does that make you does that turn you away? Does that make you feel angry? Does it make you feel excited and supported? Well, um, that's a big question because people say Jesus is Lord for different reasons. And um, when I hear it, uh when I hear it in a church or I hear it from people that I really uh I know who they are and I respect them, and I go, Yeah, hallelujah. Yeah, Jesus is Lord. I agree. But when I hear it, especially when people who are very political or Christian nationalists, you might have heard of them, or when I hear it um, you know, in some places where they say Jesus is Lord, uh, I do a double take. I think again, I look at the people, I try to understand why they say it, because sometimes when they say it, they're saying it to dominate, to um, to send a signal to people, people to other Christians or people like them, and it's not all that good. And so um we can talk about where this comes from, because what Paul says in Romans 10, Romans 10, 9, especially, he says Jesus is Lord for a very, very important reason, and it's important for you to know what that reason is. And then you when you say Jesus is Lord or Jesus is king, sometimes people will say that's a little more trouble. And people don't always do that because sometimes we don't want to think of Jesus as a king as much as we want to think of uh Jesus as Lord, but people use it the same way, and then you gotta, well, maybe I should know what Paul was saying and make sure that when I say it, or I hear people say it, that it's being said for the right reasons. Uh, and that's really important. So that's what I'm gonna do with you is I'm gonna kind of go kind of go through uh Romans 10 a little bit. And what I'm hoping to do as well is you'll find that a lot of times people who say Jesus is Lord will say it in a way that makes other people feel uncomfortable because they're being they feel like they're being told that there's only one way to be a Christian, there's only one way to be saved, and that salvation means only one thing, and we'll talk about that a little bit too. Uh, is Jesus uh part of uh is Jesus the way to be saved? Well, that is pretty clear in the Bible, but what does it mean to be in Christ? What does that mean? Does that mean that you have to say certain things or be a certain way? Because uh, or does it mean that you can be in Christ without even knowing the name Christ or knowing the name Jesus, but you are in Jesus because you're you believe in the things that Jesus believed in. You believe that God loves us so much that God sacrifices uh himself for our sake. Well, you know, it's a little bit more complicated than that, and we have to approach it humbly. That's the most important thing because we don't know, we don't know exactly uh what uh God's intention is for every single person on the earth. We also don't know, and I firmly reject the idea that um six or seven billion people around the world are headed to hell because they don't believe in the kind of Christianity that I believe in, or that they uh don't aren't Christians. Um we have to talk about that. What does what does the saving uh that Jesus does or Jesus is, what does that really mean? And that's at the heart of what Paul is saying here. So let's talk about that. So, first of all, where does it come from? It comes from Romans uh chapter 10, 9, and this is a really important verse because a lot of people use this verse, especially pastors, use this verse as sort of like um a checklist, a formula for becoming a Christian to be saved. And they say here, and uh Paul says it, this is the CEB version of the Bible that I'm reading from, because if you confess with your mouth, Jesus is Lord, and you're in your heart, you have the faith that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. That's a really uh that's a really straightforward um way of talking about what it means to be saved in Christ and what it means to be saved as a Christian. And but what happens with this is then people and a lot of pastors will just say, well, that's it. That's all there is. So just say Jesus is Lord a lot with your lips. Make sure everybody else knows it. I think that's one of the reasons why people say it so much. Um, and that's it, that's all you have to do. Well, there's more to it than that. Paul is way more um complicated than just uh what we use him for. So um, and I think that instead of looking at as just this is what you do, and every no, and anybody who doesn't do these things doesn't say Jesus is Lord with their lips, or doesn't um uh believe exactly as um as uh other Christians do that they're not going to heaven, you've got to get that out of your mind because that's not what Paul is saying. It's really important also to realize that Paul never talks about um about hell as hell. He never talks about eternal uh damnation in that way. Now he does talk about dying and death and uh sin leading to death a lot. And the last episode of my podcast, I talked about that quite a bit. But he never, not like anybody else, never says you're going to hell if you don't do these things. That's really important because a lot of pat a lot of preachers, a lot of people say that you will. So let's talk about that a little bit too. That's a little harder topic. So let's uh so when you go on this and you say, okay, Jesus is Lord, when when I hear that in a church or the people I trust, great, fine. But when I hear somebody say, especially on social media, or I say, you know, people who do it Christian nationalists, these are the folks that you know really are political and say that, you know, uh Christians should take over um the government completely and stuff like that. Those people, when they say Jesus is Lord, they mean it in a way of domination. They're signaling, they're telling you that I'm a Christian, I'm a certain kind of Christian, and um my Lord is Jesus, therefore I'm all I'm right. That's what they usually mean. But how is that different than what was intended by Paul? Very different, because Jesus' Lord, when Paul's saying it, is talking about something really specific, and that is he's writing to Romans. So here we are, 2,000, almost 2,000 years ago, Paul is writing this letter to the Romans, and we're told that Phoebe, who lives in Greece, takes the letter that Paul gives her and says, go to Rome and read it to those Roman churches. Now, churches in those days were not like big cathedrals like we have, or you know, big uh sanctuaries with hundreds or thousands of people. No, churches back then were houses and there were households. Now there were big families, uh, and these families had lots of servants, slaves, and uh brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, and things like that. So there may be big households with many dozens or hundreds of people in them sometimes. Um, so maybe uh, you know, sometimes Phoebe was reading to a larger group like that, but it was very much like this household, that house, that house, that house had different churches. So that she would go from place to place reading this letter from Paul in Rome. Now, the thing that's so interesting about this is that when you when you think about a Roman citizen or you think about somebody that's in Rome, and that would be like the the head of the household. That would be like the man that's in charge, the father of everything. Um, he had to, and all of the people that were free in the household had to um participate in the Roman emperor cult. And what what what do we mean by that? Uh in during this time when Paul was there and uh afterwards, the Roman Emperor was considered like God, and the Roman Emperor would try to show themselves as God, they would show up in in statues, uh, of course, they were on the money, you know. You'd have the Romans uh uh emperor's uh profile face on the money, right? Um, you would have things uh uh carved into stone with the um the emperor's name, and um so what developed is a way to make sure that everybody in the empire um worshiped and supported the emperor, that there was a cult of the emperor. In other words, you had to consider the emperor like God. Now remember, these Romans were pagans, so they had they didn't have one god, they had several gods, and they would go to different temples to to worship uh different gods. Well, basically, when a new emperor came, they were added to the um uh to the list of gods and they had to be worshipped. This was difficult for Christians. This is one of the reasons why Christians, not just Christians, but also Jewish people too in the Roman Empire, because Jewish people were often uh you know persecuted and put down because they refused to um worship the emperor, and that became especially true for Christians, too. So Christians and Jews were considered very much alike. What became more difficult was when people who were not Jewish became Christians, so what we call Gentiles, when they became Christians, and these this was most of the people that um Paul brought into the church. So you so to say with your lips, Jesus is Lord means that you're telling everyone around you that the emperor is not the most important thing. I'm not going to worship the emperor as a god. What in practice what most Christians did is they did, you know, honor the emperor. They honored their their superiors, the people who were the governors and the and the and and the senators and things like that. And that's not bad. That's like what we do, you know. We look up to people who are our leaders, we hope to, um, if they deserve it. Not always, not always do they deserve it, right? Sometimes we have bad leaders too. But um, we we give them uh uh honor, you know, we say, yes, you know, um, but that's not worship, that's different. But Paul is giving permission, he is saying to the people that you will be saved. Saved means something different too. We in our culture, we always think of saved as heaven and hell, you're being saved from hell. That is not really what Paul's saying here. He's partially saying that. He's saying that, you know, you'll be the you'll be in Christ and you'll be saved through Christ for sure. But he also means that you'll be saved from uh the Roman cult, from the uh all of the influences that are outside of it, too. You'll be protected from them. So that's what he's saying here. He says, um, he he's saying to Jewish people who were skeptical and fighting, and the um the Gentiles were fighting, the Jewish people who became Christians were were just Jewish and you know, still, you know, in the churches, and the Gentiles that became Christians, they were pagans before and became Christians, they were fighting a lot. And Paul is saying to them to the um the Jewish members, the Gentile members, if they went all the way from paganism to become a Christian, they kind of already did this. They've already rejected um their their old ways and they repented and became became Christians. Now, Jewish people is more complicated because they were already in God, they were already um understood the the the God, uh the God of Israel, um, they already were part of this. And Paul is saying, now you kind of got to go, you you think you're in, and they are, but I mean they're in, you know, God's people. Uh God doesn't reject them. But that Paul's saying you gotta go, gotta do that next step. And that next step is you also, just like your Gentile brethren, your brothers and sisters, that they all you also have to proclaim with your lips, you have to be bold enough to tell the world that Jesus is Lord and not the emperor. Isn't that interesting? That's where that comes from. So this is support. This is not so much to dominate others, this is just to say, no, this is what it means for me to give myself to God rather than give myself to the emperor. Give myself and to humbly give myself to God rather than to give in to the bullies or give or or show uh worship the bullies. It's almost the opposite of what a way a lot of people use this today, where people, you know, they'll say Jesus is Lord, and then you know, they'll go after their, they'll have like cult-like behavior with their favorite politicians or their favorite leaders. And, you know, that's just no, it's the opposite of what Paul saying Jesus is Lord in order to signal you're part of that group is not what Paul's saying. Saying you're Jesus as Lord is really saying, I'm God's and I'm not the emperor's. I wish more people knew that today. They would say, I'm God's, I'm not part of this political party. I'm not a Republican, or I'm not a Democrat. I'm not, you might be a Republican or Democrat, but I'm not worshiping the president of the United States, or I'm not worshiping this um podcaster that tells me everything. That no, I am it's the the that Jesus is the Lord. See how that's different. It's not signaling as much as saying what matters to you. Then the next thing it says, now this is where the C E B, which I read from, I think really helps a lot because it says, and in your heart, now notice it does not what you say, but it's in your heart you have faith. Not you believe necessarily, because um some some people say you have to believe in certain facts, right, in order to be a Christian. No, you have faith that God raised Jesus from the dead and you'll be saved. So what this really is, is again, it's where you believe that God loves you, loves us so much that God gave of God's self to the point that of that dying in him also means um being resurrected in him. And if you have a if if we are uh in a death like Jesus, um, in other words, just like baptism is some the symbol for that, but it kind of doesn't matter that the that detail. But it's really you know, if you're in Christ, then you'll be raised with Christ. That's what that means. Now, is that just certain people? Is that all people? Is that um only people who say certain things? Uh, you know, that's where it gets kind of complicated. But the point here is that if you ever say these two things, you ever say you must confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord, and in your heart, you must believe that Christ raised Jesus from the dead, and you must do those things to be saved. Um, you you have to be careful what that means, because it could be that somebody who's of um maybe a different denomination, different kind of church than you or whatever firmly believes those things and firmly uh says those things, but maybe not in the way that you are, or maybe not in the way that that evangelist or that person who yells on the street corner, Jesus is Lord, says. We have to be humble about that. And it what it's used for is to lift people up and bring people together. So that was Paul's whole purpose, is that he also says a few verses later, he says, um, and scripture says, all who have faith in him will not be put to shame. Remember what faith is? Faith is not necessarily a belief as much as a trust, but all who put their trust in God and bel and and and have faith in that that Jesus is God and will not be put to shame because there's no distinction, there's no difference between Jew and Greek. Their same Lord is the same Lord of all who gives richly to all who call on him. Now the most interesting one is that Paul uh uh quotes the um um the prophet Joel and saying, and all who call on the Lord's name will be saved. So why is Paul doing this? He is taking a group of people who thought that they had the only way. And it was it was the Jewish people who thought they had the only way because they were the ones that had the law in God, and then there were Gentile people who looked at the Jewish people and said, No, you don't, because you don't do things the way we do. We're the ones that are taking the bigger risk, we're the ones that have you know left our pagan background in order to become uh Christians, you know, and you're telling us that we're not good enough. That was the kind of argument they were having. And Paul's saying, No, no, no, no. Your Lord is the Lord of both. In fact, Paul is doing something very, very important here. He is making it wider that more people can be Christian, that more people are Christian, sometimes with you know, some differences in belief and so forth, but fundamentally they're Christian because they trust in God and because their loyalty is to God. That's what Jesus is Lord means loyalty to God rather than to the emperor. So, what are we supposed to do with this? How do we um make that work for us? I think the way you you can do this the best is to always ask that question Is God merciful, gracious, or does God want everybody to? Be uh in him, in God. Does God want Jesus to save everyone? I think that's quite clear. That and how that happens or to whom it happens, we don't always know. But do we trust that that's what God wants? God will never be as exclusive and as rejecting as we humans are, because we're tribal. We think that if somebody sees it uh in a different way, as of a different religion, or as a of a different kind of uh um belief system, or maybe even a different kind of uh uh politics or different political or different language or whatever, we will tend to go there the other on I am me. And that's a very natural um thing for us to do. We always have to go to the next step and said, okay, is that is that me talking and is that the my group of people trying to just uh say we're the only ones or not? And that's super important to be able to go back and say, you know what, God, I know you have a purpose here. I know that these are beloved people by you, created by you. I'm not going to be the one that says whether they're, you know, they're going to heaven or or not. In fact, in this uh chapter, there's this whole thing where um uh where Paul says, but the righteous that comes from faith talks like this. Don't say in your heart, will you go up into heaven? Who will go up into heaven? And then who will go to the region below or the abyss? Sometimes people have said the abyss, that's hell. Remember, Paul doesn't talk about hell at all. He never mentions it. He's talking about death right here. To that region below is the place of death. But he's saying, no, that you're thinking way too small. That's what Paul says through through a whole book of Romans. So when you are reading anything in the Bible and you think, well, I got it, and my group, my church, they really know it. Well, maybe they do, but you you have to be able to have be humble enough to realize that maybe there are many people who read the same things as you do, and they see it a little bit differently. The only important thing is honoring God and basically loyalty to God, to say that God is the Lord, that God in Jesus Christ is the Lord, not the emperor, not my political leader, not my person I'm really looking up to, not the rock and roll star or the or the singer or the podcaster or the gaming guy that I know and I really look up to. That's not God. That's not the Lord. The Lord is God in Christ, and Christ is God here, brought with us. We're told that Jesus is Emmanuel, was called Emmanuel. Now, Emmanuel is a Hebrew word, and it just means God with us. So not separated from God, not a not something different, just God with us in human form. And then now we believe sitting with God, the Father and God Spirit, all of all the same thing, all of one substance, three different ways of seeing the same thing. That's what we think that that is. So I hope that that helps you. So go ahead, go ahead and say Jesus is Lord. Go ahead and listen with an open mind and say, you know, maybe the person who's saying that is, you know, sincere and um saying it out of love and devotion, but be skeptical enough when somebody who in every other way is acting like a bully, uh, being mean, uh saying terrible things, doing terrible things, and then they go, well, Jesus is Lord. And then you got to ask the next question: why are they saying it? Are they saying it just to push around people and to say that I'm that they're the only ones? Or are they saying it sincerely from the heart? That's important. So as you go through scripture and you go through this, you'll run into this many, many times. Um, I've told you a number of stories in some episodes. I'll do more of that. We'll talk about certain stories, but that every time you see a story, you have to know whether it's Jesus saying the story, whether it's Peter, whether it's Paul, whether it comes from the Old Testament. You always have to ask, what is the goal of the story? Does the story make God smaller, smaller, narrower, fewer people accessing God? Or is it making God more accessible, bigger, uh more people uh become uh can become God or can become with God, then almost it's always the latter. It's always that these stories are meant to open people up, to bring them in, to include them, to make them part of the family. That's our job, and you know, we struggle with that all the time. That's the job of the entire Old Testament, from a small little tribe of people who were the Israelites to more and more and more people, and then with Paul uh who spread the word of Jesus throughout the world in his time, and we today take Paul's words, and if we do it right and we listen closely, we take Paul's words and it spreads everywhere. The the love of Jesus can and does work everywhere, whether you are an American Christian or you're another person in another part of the world. But the love of God is bigger than we can ever imagine. So with that, I just say um thank you so much for listening. Uh I hope that when as you read these stories, you go, Wow, God is bigger and setting us free, and that Jesus is God with us. With that, I say, God bless you. Thanks for listening.