When We Confess Jesus As Lord

The following is an excerpt from a recent sermon I preached on Acts 2:29-36. The prose has been slightly edited for ease of reading, but I’ve tried to retain the sermonic, spoken feel as much as possible.

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Jesus is Lord.

And if he’s Lord over all, it means Jesus is my Lord. That’s what you’re saying when you confess Jesus as Lord. You’re saying, “Jesus can call the shots for my life. Jesus can tell me how I should think about myself and about marriage and about the world. Jesus is the one who has all authority in heaven and on earth. Not me. I am not an autonomous creature. I live to serve this Master.” That’s what you’re saying.

And when you believe that God raised Jesus from the dead, you’re not just saying, “Well, sure, resurrection. Meh. It doesn’t bother me. Sure, if a dead person wants to come back to life, okay by me. I mean, I’ve seen aliens and Martians and weird stuff before, whatever.” To believe in the resurrection is to believe it with boldness. You’re saying, “He lives and I’ll live. If he’s raised, then I can trust my whole life to him. If he really is the only person in the history of the world who died, did not stay dead, never died again, and rose to heaven, then this is the man I ought to spend my whole life following and give my whole life to worship.” That’s what you’re saying.

But no matter what we say, let’s be clear about one thing: Jesus is Christ and Lord whether we think he is or not. He’s not asking for your vote. He’s not standing there hat in hand just saying, “Will somebody down there please sing a song to me. I’m so lonely.” He does not depend on me or my affirmation of him. He is in heaven. He is at God’s right hand. He governs the church by his word and Spirit and no matter what any of us think or believe or decide, Jesus is now and forever will be Lord and Christ. He is not begging for you to be his Facebook friend and begging for more followers on Twitter. To be sure, Jesus issues a gracious invitation, but it’s not because he needs. It’s because he loves.

You can listen to the entire sermon and watch the whole thing here.