03-09-2025

“SIMPLE, POWERFUL TRUTH”

Text: Romans 10::8-13

Sunday March 9, 2025 – Lent 1

Trinity – Creston

       Grace, mercy, and peace is yours from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ!

       Our text for this First Sunday in Lent the Epistle Lesson from Romans chapter 10 that was just proclaimed.

Let Us Pray: Dearest Jesus, send your Holy Spirit to remind us that we may be comforted and confident in your clear word of truth for our faith and salvation rather than misled into doubt by the false claims of the world.   Amen.

Dear Fellow Redeemed in Christ:

Pilate wasn’t really asking Jesus a question when he said, “What is truth?” (Jn 18:38). It was a fatalistic response to Jesus’ statement “Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice” (18:37).

 Pilate knew how hard it was to know truth. Yet standing before him was a bloodied, bound, pathetic Jew from Galilee claiming to be not just a voice of truth but the only source of divine truth, the truth that has the power to enlighten men with a faith that leads to eternal life.

 It was as if Jesus was saying, “My truth is not hard. It is easy. You only make it hard.”

God’s Truth Is Easy and Powerful.

   I.   God’s truth is easy to understand.

A.   There is a kind of truth that is hard to understand.

1.   Some truth is hard in that it requires us, so to speak, to climb high up into heaven.

a. That is, we must use the ladder of scientific inquiry, based on observation and theoretical postulations, to create truth statements that will define our physical and tangible world.

b.   The problem is that this kind of truth will never be certain. Observations change. Theories are modified. Assumptions are challenged.

c. Pilate knew that hard truth could never be certain truth.

2.   Some truth is hard in that it requires us, so to speak, to descend into the depths of the earth.

a. That is, we must understand what goes on in the depths of the human heart and mind. Psychologists and sociologists try to analyze and categorize human behavior. They try to peer into the subconscious to explain why we do things we shouldn’t do and don’t do things we should.

b.   But deep down in that dark cavern of our souls there are things happening that are mysteries even to ourselves.

c. Pilate, as a man who had to judge and examine and anticipate and explain human conduct, knew that this kind of truth was hard truth because it could not be certain or predictable.

B.   But God’s truth is easy, not hard to understand—first, his truth of the Law.

1.   The Ten Commandments are simple truth. As Israel was about to enter the Promised Land, Moses exhorted them: “This commandment that I command you today is not too hard for you, neither is it far off. . . . The word is very near you. It is in your mouth and in your heart, so that you can do it” (Deut 30:11, 14).

2.   We might ask, “Why did Israel fail to do what God commanded if God’s commands are so easy?” Did they not understand his commands?

a. They did, as easily as I understand a command to love God above all things.

b.   But just as I cannot make my heart love God beyond all things because of the limitations of my sinful nature, so also Israel could not fully keep God’s law.

3.   When a person realizes he or she cannot fulfill God’s Law, there are only three options:

a. Give up and run from God.

b.   Find ways to pretend we are fulfilling God’s Law.

c. Despair of fulfilling God’s Law and then seek another way to become righteous.

4.   Many of the Jews of Paul’s day chose to pretend they were fulfilling God’s Law, so they rejected God’s other easy-to-understand truth.

C.   God’s other truth is also easy to understand—his Gospel.

1.   It is the easy truth that Paul was proclaiming. He was grieved that his fellow Israelites did not understand it (10:1–3).

2.   It is the easy truth that Christ is righteousness, the end of the Law, for all who believe (10:4).

a. He fulfilled the Law completely for us.

b.   He died to take our punishment on himself.

3.   It is the easy truth of faith—that if you believe Jesus died and rose and you confess him, you will be saved (vv 8b–9). Period. Easy.

Transition: The truth of the Gospel, though easy to understand, is also hard to believe. Therefore, it’s just as vital that

II.   God’s truth is powerful to create faith.

A.  The truth of the Gospel is easy to understand, but for the natural man, it is hard to believe. It is unbelievable folly to unbe­liev­ers (1 Cor 1:18–21).

1.   The grace of God, God’s undeserved kindness toward us, runs contrary to our hard-truth way of thinking.

2.   It is so contrary to our natures to believe that God would save us not by our own works and deeds, but rather by sending his Son into our human flesh to live a perfect life under the Law to be our substitute and, as our substitute, to die in our place.

3.   And it is so contrary to reason that as our substitute, Jesus could unite our bodies to his body as he rose from the grave to defeat death!

B.   But God’s Word has power to do that thing human reason cannot do—create faith in God’s easy truth.

1.   His Word does not convince us by taking us into the heavens with logic and scientific observation (10:6).

2.   His Word does not create faith by taking us into the depths of the earth with psychological or sociological proofs (10:7).

3.   His Word of truth simply creates faith in the heart when he speaks to us. His Word has an inherent power to create faith.

a. It creates faith in the hearts of babies.

b.   It creates faith in the hearts of broken and sinful human beings who have transgressed God’s commands and deserve nothing but God’s wrath and punishment, like that thief on the cross.

c. It creates faith simply by hearing, and hearing through the Word of Christ (10:17).

Conclusion: Down the road from this first Sunday in Lent, we will see Christ stand before Pilate and declare that everyone on the side of truth would listen to his voice. Everything Jesus taught would be truth.

It would not be the word of the world or science or philosophy or psychology. Not the word of governors or kings or presidents. Not the word of doctors or professors or lawyers or successful business executives.

Just the sweet, simple, and easy-yet-powerful words of Jesus, like those spoken to Martha: “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.”

 He said to her, as he says to you, “Do you believe this?” (Jn 11:25–26). Amen.

Now may the peace of God which passes all human understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord and Savior.  Amen.