Show Notes
Matthew 10:32-33
Pastor Stephen Lauer
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Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Let's pray once more.
[00:00:06] Our great God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, as we come to hear from you in your word, we confess that we need what you have to say to us.
[00:00:23] It is by your word that we come to know our sin. It is by your word that we come to know j Jesus, our Savior.
[00:00:34] And it is by your word that we learn how it is that we may serve and please him.
[00:00:42] So we ask that you, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, O Spirit who revealed and inspired the words of scripture, that you would open our hearts, that we might hear from Jesus, our prophet, and that we might be drawn to adore and to obey God, our Father in heaven.
[00:01:06] Hear us for Jesus sake. Amen.
[00:01:13] We read once more from God's word, this time from Matthew, chapter 10, verses 32 and 33.
[00:01:21] This will be our sermon text this evening. Matthew 10, 32 and 33.
[00:01:35] This isn't just the word of man, Matthew, but it is the word of God inspired by the Holy Spirit. So listen.
[00:01:46] So everyone who acknowledges me before men, I will also acknowledge before before my Father who is in heaven.
[00:01:54] But whoever denies me before men, I will also deny before my Father who is in heaven.
[00:02:04] Thus far, God's word. Please be seated.
[00:02:23] There's a wonderful story about a man named Polycarp. Strange name, I know, but he was a Greek speaker, so his name probably made more sense in Greek.
[00:02:34] He lived in the end of the first century, so the same century that Christ came and in the beginning of the second century A.D. so the one hundreds.
[00:02:48] And he was pastor in the early church. And the story that comes down to us is of his martyrdom. You can go look it up and read it sometime. It's edifying, encouraging.
[00:03:01] The story goes that Polycarp was arrested and he was brought before the Roman official, the Roman judge.
[00:03:09] And being a Christian at that time in the Roman Empire was illegal.
[00:03:15] They didn't allow a Christ and the true God to be worshiped because Christians rejected and denied the gods of the Roman Empire, including Caesar.
[00:03:30] So the judge, the Roman judge kept urging Polycarp to deny Christ and to swear by Caesar, acknowledge and confess Caesar as a God. Deny Christ and we'll let you go free and you can go on doing whatever you want. And he badgered Polycarp. He threatened him. He said, look, you can just do this and then you can go on your way and go back to doing whatever you want to do, wink, wink. But for now, I need you to deny Christ and swear by Caesar. Polycarp refused again and again. And then he threatened him with punishments, with boiling him in oil, and with death burning him alive.
[00:04:16] Polycarp, hearing all of this, was unmoved.
[00:04:21] And he says, and I'll read the quote, the consul, the Roman official says to him, swear by Caesar and I will set you at liberty.
[00:04:35] Reproach Christ.
[00:04:37] Polycarp declared.
[00:04:39] 80 and six years have I served him. He was an old man at this point. 80 and six years have I served him.
[00:04:47] And he, Jesus, he never did me any injury.
[00:04:53] How can I then blaspheme my King and my savior?
[00:04:59] 80 and 6 years have I served him.
[00:05:01] He never did me any injury.
[00:05:04] How then can I blaspheme my King and my Savior? They went on to burn him alive and stab him to death and do all kinds of terrible things to him. He did die a martyr for Christ.
[00:05:15] But we hear there him doing exactly what Jesus calls us to do in this passage, to confess Jesus before men. And that's what we're going to look at this evening, the call that Jesus places on us to confess Christ.
[00:05:32] Look at that. Under three heads or three divisions. First, confessing before men.
[00:05:38] So this idea, what is it that Jesus is calling us to do this? Confession. Confessing before men. Second, the challenge of confessing.
[00:05:48] And thirdly, a call to confess. So confessing before men, the challenge of confessing.
[00:05:55] And thirdly, the call to confess, confessing before men.
[00:06:02] Our text used the word. Our translation uses the word acknowledge. Whoever acknowledges me before men, I will also acknowledge before my Father, who is in heaven.
[00:06:13] Other translations say confess. If you look the two words up in the English dictionary, I did that this week, confess and acknowledge, you'll find that. That they're almost identical. As you read through the list of definitions, they basically overlap in English, meaning the same thing. So acknowledge or confess. I'm choosing the word confess here because I think in Christian circles or Christianese, you might say that's the word we usually think of and use with reference to what Jesus is calling us to here. But they mean the same thing, to confess or acknowledge Christ.
[00:06:49] Now, confessing, just mentioned, or acknowledging has a number of different definitions in the dictionary, English dictionary, and there's a couple in the Greek ones, too. So what specifically is Jesus calling us to when he says we need to acknowledge him before men?
[00:07:05] Well, first, maybe the easiest thing we can do is we can say what he doesn't mean.
[00:07:10] And this is probably why our translation here didn't choose the word confess, but chose the word acknowledge. But we often think when we hear the word confess, we think of something negative.
[00:07:21] The Idea of admitting guilt, confessing our sins.
[00:07:26] That's not what Jesus is referring to here.
[00:07:29] He says, if you acknowledge or confess me before men, I will acknowledge or confess you before the Father. It's not about guilt.
[00:07:39] Rather, this is, and I'll.
[00:07:42] I'll say this carefully because this is kind of going to be our working definition.
[00:07:48] Jesus is calling us by confessing or acknowledging him, calling us to publicly declare our belief in Jesus, to publicly declare our belief in Jesus and our allegiance to Him.
[00:08:06] It's both our faith in him and our allegiance to Him. When we confess or acknowledge Him, Jesus wants us to express both our faith in him and our allegiance to Him. The two are bound together. They go together.
[00:08:21] What does this look like? Well, here's a very simple example, very simple example of a confession, something most of us are familiar with.
[00:08:29] Jesus asked his disciples, who do you say that I am?
[00:08:35] You remember, Simon Peter says, you are the Christ, the Son of the living God.
[00:08:41] You are Messiah, our Messiah, the Messiah of Jews, my Messiah. And you are the Son of the living God.
[00:08:50] A very simple statement of Peter's both faith in Jesus as the son of the living God and as the Messiah and Savior, but also of allegiance. You are my Messiah, my King and my God.
[00:09:07] So there's a definition, it's a public declaration of our belief and allegiance to Christ.
[00:09:15] Who is called to confess? If you look at Matthew 10, a lot of Jesus instructions, and we've been studying this for the last couple months together, a lot of Jesus Instructions in Matthew 10 are directed to first, in the first place to the apostles as preachers of the Gospel.
[00:09:34] So then they apply most. A lot of what he says here applies most directly to preachers. Today.
[00:09:41] Jesus is preparing the apostles to go out on their mission to preach the Gospel.
[00:09:46] What about these verses here? Who is called to confess?
[00:09:51] You note if you look at verse 32, Jesus says everyone.
[00:09:59] Everyone who acknowledges me before men, I will also acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven.
[00:10:07] The apostles and preachers today are commissioned, called and commissioned by Jesus to go preach. Not every Christian is called and gifted and sent to preach the gospel.
[00:10:19] But Jesus says everyone is called to confess me before men. There's a distinction between preaching and the confession that we're called to make. And everyone, all Christians are called to confess Christ.
[00:10:33] We could back that up by a parallel verse we read from Romans, chapter 10.
[00:10:40] There Paul says that if you confess with your mouth, Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. So confession belongs to All Christians.
[00:10:52] It's a duty, a calling for all of us to confess Jesus, publicly declare him as our Lord and king before men.
[00:11:02] So there's a basic definition. And who is called to confess?
[00:11:07] All Christians.
[00:11:09] What are we supposed to do, though? What is Jesus calling us to say? What does it mean to confess me? That's what he says, confess me before men.
[00:11:21] What are we called to confess about him?
[00:11:24] I said a moment ago that this isn't a call to preach the gospel.
[00:11:28] You're not called to prepare big sermons, to be an apologist and to defend every aspect of the Christian faith.
[00:11:38] It's a call to confess something specific about Jesus. What is that?
[00:11:45] Let's look at the context first, and then we'll go to Romans 10 in the context.
[00:11:51] The king. King Jesus is sending his messengers, the apostles, the preachers, sending them out to declare that the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
[00:12:01] Repent. The king is here. Repent from your sins. Come to him, be forgiven, be saved and receive eternal life.
[00:12:10] That's the call of the gospel.
[00:12:13] If that's the call that's being placed upon those who hear, come to Jesus, join him, be saved by him, receive him as your king.
[00:12:25] Then what is it that those who respond to the call of the gospel in faith, what is it that they can reasonably be expected to confess?
[00:12:34] That Jesus is my Savior and my Lord, or my Savior and my King?
[00:12:44] Jesus offers forgiveness and salvation. He invites me into his kingdom. Those are the two things that I confess about him.
[00:12:53] If we go once more and look at Romans 10, verses 9 and 10, that's fundamentally what we find Paul also saying about Christians. He says, if you confess with your mouth, Jesus is Lord, that he's king, that he's my Lord and my master, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead. What does that mean? That I believe not just that he rose from the dead, but that he died for my sins and rose from the dead. You will be saved, Paul, summarizing the very same thing. That we can expect that as those who have responded to the message of the kingdom, that they would confess.
[00:13:34] We confess that Jesus is Savior and Lord.
[00:13:39] Yeah, Savior and Lord.
[00:13:42] So that's, you might say, the substance of what it means, what it is that we should say when we're called upon to confess Christ, he's my Savior and my King. It's that simple.
[00:13:55] But we said that it isn't just a statement of our belief that we're called to in confession, but we are also acknowledging something more, that we have an allegiance To Jesus, this is a confession before men.
[00:14:11] The context of Romans 10 is broader. The context of Matthew 10 is a little narrower.
[00:14:17] Here Jesus is been talking about persecution, about where Christians might be hauled in front of a judge like Polycarp and called upon to account for themselves.
[00:14:30] Who do you believe? Who do you confess?
[00:14:33] Do you believe and confess a king and Lord? That we don't permit in Rome, for example, this idea of before men. Here is the context of opposition which tells us that this is an us versus them. There are sides in this scenario. In this context, are we on Jesus side or are we on the other side? Are we in Christ's kingdom or are we in the kingdom of this world or the kingdom of darkness?
[00:15:08] Confession here is about our relationship with Jesus, not just what we believe personally believe about him, but about our relationship with him.
[00:15:19] That we are on his side because he is on our side. We claim him as king because he came and he saved us and delivered us as king and made us his people.
[00:15:32] That means there's an allegiance that we owe to him as king.
[00:15:37] So to confess him isn't simply to say that I believe that these facts about Jesus in my heart, but that he is mine and I am His.
[00:15:48] You heard that in the words from Polycarp.
[00:15:52] I've served him, my master for 80 and six years. He's never done me wrong. How can I deny him now? It's not just about an intellectual faith, but about a relationship and even an allegiance.
[00:16:07] You can see this from the opposite of confession.
[00:16:10] Look at verse 33.
[00:16:12] Whoever denies me before men, I will deny before my Father who is in heaven.
[00:16:19] If you don't confess me, I will reject you.
[00:16:23] I will disown you. Not just a denial, but a disowning. Is what's happening here the opposite of loyalty, Disowning?
[00:16:34] Jesus says elsewhere, you're either for me or against me. We either disown him and deny him, or we acknowledge and confess him and show our allegiance to him by confessing Jesus. We say, I'm on Jesus side and he is on mine. I'm in his kingdom, not in the kingdom of darkness.
[00:16:56] I'm in his army, I, not the devil's.
[00:17:01] So confession is not just a statement of what we believe about Jesus, Lord and Savior, but he's my Lord and my King. It's an act of confessing allegiance.
[00:17:12] How do we confess?
[00:17:15] How do we confess? Well, there's this immediate context here, Matthew 10, which is in opposition when there's persecution and trouble confessing before men. But Romans 10 tells us that there's a broader context, that there's other times Christians are to confess Christ also.
[00:17:36] The first avenue or place that we publicly confess Christ as Christians is right here.
[00:17:44] When we gather with God's people in public worship, we publicly confess Christ when we pray to Him. That's a part of what we're doing. We're confessing him to be our King and our God. When we sing his praises, that's what we're doing. When we sit under and accept his gospel preaching, we're confessing him by hearing the gospel and believing it outwardly.
[00:18:11] And when we submit to the sacraments, what are we doing in baptism, we receive his name in ownership. He's saying, you belong to Me, and so I put my name on you. It's an act of confession to be baptized. And again in the Lord's Supper, we remember what he did on the cross, but we also proclaim that he is our Lord and Savior, and we put our trust in Him. Yes, first of all, we confess Christ publicly in public worship.
[00:18:42] But there's something narrower here in the Context of Matthew 10 that Jesus has in view, confessing him before men.
[00:18:51] The idea here, as we've been saying, is a statement, words by which we acknowledge Jesus as Lord and Savior. It's a simple statement or declaration. We're asked, do you believe in Jesus or will you deny him?
[00:19:07] And we acknowledge him. We confess him. It's not preaching of a sermon, but a simple statement like, peter, you're the Messiah. You're the Christ, the Son of the living God. You are Jesus, the Son of God, my Savior and my King.
[00:19:27] Why does Jesus call us to confess?
[00:19:30] We're kind of working through the doctrine here.
[00:19:34] What it is, how we do it, why does he call us to confess? We could probably go list a lot more reasons than this, but I'll give three. Very briefly, Jesus adds, as it were, a confession as a requirement of being a Christian, confessing him before men for several reasons.
[00:19:55] One, when he calls us to confess him, we know this in worship, when we call him our Lord and Savior, we are doing something with our words. We're expressing ourselves outwardly, what we believe to be true in our hearts. And that's good for us.
[00:20:12] It's a good thing that we be the same person on the inside as we are outwardly.
[00:20:18] If we truly believe that he's our Savior, we love him, we're loyal to him as our King, then the opportunity to confess him with our words outwardly is a privilege and an honor and a blessing.
[00:20:32] It allows us to be consistent inside to out a whole person. You might say.
[00:20:40] The second reason that Jesus calls us to confess him before men is that this is a key part of how we know who is a Christian. This might sound like a really, really simple thing, but how do you know that someone is a Christian?
[00:20:56] Because he says, I believe in Jesus and I serve him as my King.
[00:21:01] If someone doesn't confess that, you have no way of knowing that he belongs to Jesus. This is how I know that you are believers and you know that I'm a believer because we have a shared confession and we've heard each other make that confession. I know it's simple, but it's important.
[00:21:19] Thirdly, we're called to confess Christ because it's a part of the honor and worship that we owe him as our Savior, our King, and our God.
[00:21:32] We owe this to Him. We owe him our allegiance, not just with our actions quietly living as Christians, but we owe it to him with our verbal expressions of confession of faith.
[00:21:45] He is our King and our Savior, and we should gladly declare that before our brothers in the church and before the world.
[00:21:58] So when we confess Christ before men, he calls us to publicly declare not just our faith, but our allegiance in him as Savior and King.
[00:22:09] There's the doctrine of confessing Christ before men, but there are challenges to confessing him, aren't there?
[00:22:19] When do I confess Christ before men? Pastor, most of us would be glad to find all sorts of reasons not to have to open our mouth in difficult situations, wouldn't we?
[00:22:34] I know that I've given myself plenty of reasons, bad reasons, but I've given myself plenty of reasons not. Not to open my mouth at times when I should have opened it and said, jesus is Lord and King, and he's my Savior, and you should acknowledge that too.
[00:22:52] When should we confess Christ?
[00:22:57] When must we confess Him?
[00:23:00] Think again about our context here. Matthew 10.
[00:23:03] Jesus said a few verses before this.
[00:23:06] If you look at verse 23, that there are times of persecution when Christians need to flee from one town to find safety in another one.
[00:23:17] If it's permissible to flee persecution, that means at that moment we're running away from the opposition and the danger. We're not standing there and confessing him, right?
[00:23:30] So there are times when it's permissible. Clearly, when we're fleeing persecution, it's okay to do that instead of standing there and confessing Christ.
[00:23:38] So you can see immediately, even the immediate context tells us that it's not every moment of every day that we have to name Christ out loud.
[00:23:49] We could give other reasons for that, but hopefully that illustrates the point.
[00:23:56] Briefly, there's another principle that we can consider just it's true about God's commands. As you read the Bible, from beginning to end, when we're commanded to do things as Christians, there's two types of commands. There's negative commands, the things that are prohibitions, thou shalt nots. And then there's positive ones, the duties that we're called to do.
[00:24:17] The negative ones. In general, the prohibitions apply always at all times.
[00:24:22] It's always wrong to lie. It's always wrong to commit adultery. Right, you get the idea. The negative ones apply at all times.
[00:24:31] The positive duties, though, there are appropriate times for them. For example, we're to work six days, but rest one day so that we can gather and worship God together. Both are positive duties, work and worship, but each has their time and place. The same is true with confessing Christ before men.
[00:24:51] Hopefully that's helpful there. Ethical principle.
[00:24:55] What are some times then that Jesus would call us to confess, open our mouths, endanger ourselves, embarrass ourselves, whatever you might call it times, then we're called to confess Christ before men? Well, first of all, when we're required to by authorities. You see this in our own context here, verse 17 and 18. Jesus says that the disciples are going to be hauled in front of courts.
[00:25:25] Legal authorities will call on Christians to either confess or deny Christ. Again, that story of Polycarp, the Roman governor, was doing that. And they did it to thousands and thousands of Christians in the first couple centuries of the history of the Church. And there are other parts of the world today where Muslim governments do that to Christians. They haul them out and they say, well, you know, acknowledge that you worship Christ or not. And if they confess Christ, they may be executed when we're required to by lawful authorities.
[00:25:59] Jesus says, you must confess me.
[00:26:04] Similarly, a parallel text of 1 Peter 3 context is the same one of persecution. There we read in verse 15, 1 Peter 3, 15, Christians are told, always be ready to give a defense to anyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you.
[00:26:26] You're under persecution, you're required to give an answer. And Jesus says, you need to confess me.
[00:26:33] What's the hope that's within us? It's that Jesus is our Savior and our king.
[00:26:39] It's that simple.
[00:26:41] So we need to confess Christ when we're required to by authorities.
[00:26:47] Another example. And we can't list all of the different scenarios, all of the different contexts in which we might need to confess Christ before men.
[00:26:57] There's a sense in which we can say it requires Christian wisdom, applying the principles of God's Word to various contexts to know in which ones do we need to confess Christ. But here's another example.
[00:27:10] If we're in a context where there are those with us who have weaker faith, maybe their faith in Christ is not as strong.
[00:27:19] Someone speaks out against Christ and against the truth, and those of weaker faith might be led astray if we don't speak up and speak the truth about who Christ is.
[00:27:30] I'll give you an example of that in just a moment.
[00:27:34] Similarly, another context would be if we're. We're in a group of people or in some context and someone does or says something that puts Christ's honor at stake.
[00:27:46] His name is being dishonored, he's being lied about. We have a duty in honor of Christ's name to confess the truth about who he is and what he's done.
[00:27:57] I'll give you an example. I think it fits both of these kind of contexts.
[00:28:02] Many, many years ago, as a very young man, I was at a family gathering.
[00:28:08] It was on Easter Sunday, and there were all sorts of family members.
[00:28:13] Some were non practicing Catholics, some were liberal Protestants. All sorts of people were there at this Easter gathering. And one family member remarked that this whole idea of Easter, this whole idea of Jesus rising from the dead, was a wonderfully encouraging myth.
[00:28:36] It's inspiring, but it didn't really happen.
[00:28:41] Someone else piped up and kindly but correctly asserted, no, Jesus really did rise from the dead. And this whole Easter thing doesn't really make sense if he didn't rise from the dead, if it were just a myth.
[00:28:58] I think it illustrates both of those contexts.
[00:29:02] Christ's honor was at stake. He really did rise from the dead. And we know that the whole of the Christian faith hangs on that truth.
[00:29:12] And it's precisely for that reason that those who heard that might have been tempted to be led astray. Oh, it's just a myth. I don't have to believe in that miracle. I can just be captivated by how inspiring it is that Jesus might rise from the dead. Both Christ's honor was at stake and those weak in the faith might have been led astray. But someone spoke up and confessed the truth about Jesus as Lord and Savior.
[00:29:40] Hopefully that's a helpful example.
[00:29:42] Again, I can't list every single scenario here, but you might think of it this way. When there's an opportunity to confess Christ and good may come of it, we probably should confess Christ.
[00:29:57] But it's hard.
[00:29:59] It's a challenge.
[00:30:01] Most of the situations where we need to confess Christ, if we're honest about it, most of them are very hard.
[00:30:09] Relationships might get difficult. If we confess Christ, people might get upset with us.
[00:30:14] We might lose a friend.
[00:30:17] Worse, if it happens in a work context and we need to confess Christ, it might mean that people stop liking us. We might miss out on a promotion, even get pushed out of work.
[00:30:29] I know things like this that have happened to people who confessed Christ in such situations. And of course, in places where Christians are actually being persecuted and their lives are at stake, like the story of Polycarp, confessing Christ may mean we lose our lives.
[00:30:47] It's not easy to confess Christ.
[00:30:51] There's a danger. A danger Jesus warns about, that we might disown him.
[00:30:58] We might be tempted to turn our backs on our Savior and King and say, you know, this is too hard.
[00:31:06] I don't want life to be hard. I don't want to lose my job. I don't want difficulty with family members. I don't want to lose my life.
[00:31:15] You know, I'm just going to say the words. I'm going to walk away. I'm going to deny Christ because this is easier. Jesus warns us that if we disown him, he will disown us. If we're not loyal and faithful to him, we aren't his, why should he acknowledge us?
[00:31:37] We can expect to hear those words on the judgment Day. Depart from me. I never knew you.
[00:31:44] There's a danger here if we face that challenge and fail.
[00:31:51] Now, there's a comfort here too, in this particular verse. But remember the story of Peter. We're told that he denied Jesus not just once, but three times.
[00:32:05] What Jesus is referring to here in terms of denying him and disowning him, is. Is a whole change, you might say, of heart. It's a complete rejection and turning away from Him.
[00:32:17] Many of us have failed to confess Christ before men when we ought to.
[00:32:22] But Jesus forgives us.
[00:32:25] Like Peter. He calls us back to Himself. He restores us. We can repent and turn to him and seek his forgiveness full and free and press on to serve Him.
[00:32:38] It's hard. There's challenges in confessing Christ. But remember, Matthew 10 is full of promises and comforts that we've been looking at even as we're called to confess Christ in difficult places. Jesus has told us that he's the one sending us into those situations. He's the one that puts men before courts and rulers and kings. And he's the one who places you in those awkward situations where you're tempted not to confess Him.
[00:33:09] If he puts you there, he'll get you through it. He promises to give you his spirit, to help you, to give you words to say.
[00:33:17] He promises you not to be ashamed of him or be afraid of men, because the gospel mission will succeed. Remember, he hid the Gospel. He came to reveal it. And now he promises that that gospel will go forth if you open your mouth and claim him, own him as Lord and Savior. He will bring good of that and be encouraged. He frees you from the fear of men completely because he puts the fear of God in us. You remember, fear him who can destroy both body and soul. Don't fear men.
[00:33:52] Further, he frees us from the fear of men by promising our Father's care for us.
[00:33:58] The hairs on your head are numbered. Confessing Christ is a challenging thing, but Christ promises to be with you, to help you and to carry you through it.
[00:34:10] Finally, I want to leave you with a few thoughts. Under the call to confess, Jesus will call us to confess him at one time or another.
[00:34:22] It's for all Christians to confess.
[00:34:25] We need to be ready to prepare ourselves, heart and soul, spiritually and mind, to make that confession.
[00:34:36] Here's some encouragements in that vein.
[00:34:39] You need to be ready to confess Christ because confessing Christ is a really good thing. It's a wonderful thing to confess Christ. Yeah, it may be difficult, but. But it's a good thing in and of itself.
[00:34:53] It's good for others.
[00:34:55] They need to hear that Jesus Christ is Lord and Savior.
[00:34:59] If they hear that from your lips, that's a good thing for them. And it's a good thing for you, too, to tell the truth, to be a whole person inside and out. That's a wonderful thing. You know it. If you've lived with a lie, it's a terrible thing.
[00:35:16] But if you open your mouth and speak the truth about Jesus, your Savior, you can have a clean conscience and know that what you've done is a good thing.
[00:35:27] It's also a good thing to confess Christ because it honors Jesus. It lifts his name up.
[00:35:36] That's a wonderful thing.
[00:35:38] It's a privilege to be able to do that. Think of children with their fathers. When they love their fathers, they see their father come into the room.
[00:35:45] What do they do?
[00:35:47] They pipe up with joy. Look, there's my daddy.
[00:35:52] Come meet him.
[00:35:54] Children who love their fathers love to honor their fathers and to tell others about them.
[00:36:01] You know that feeling? Maybe you've heard it from Your children. Or maybe you remember saying that about your father. There's something similar here.
[00:36:09] We love Jesus. He's done us so much good.
[00:36:14] What a wonderful, joyful thing it is for us to tell others. Jesus is my Lord and Savior.
[00:36:21] Be ready to confess Christ because it is a good and wonderful thing to do. So be ready to confess Christ because loyalty and love demand it.
[00:36:33] Loyalty and love demand that you be ready to confess Christ.
[00:36:40] Loyalty is obvious. We talked about it. But love calls us to confess Christ also. Like children who love their fathers, we love Jesus and we want to tell others about Him.
[00:36:53] But think of it not just as love or loyalty alone, but really, they kind of go together.
[00:37:01] As you think of that awkward situation of naming Christ before men, remember that he bore your names before you knew him, before you were even born. He bore your names as he hung there on the cross. He bore them on his heart, and your names were graven on his hands.
[00:37:25] Does not love and loyalty compel us to name his name on our lips before others?
[00:37:38] Think of the apostles called before the Sanhedrin. They were beaten viciously with whips, sent out from the presence of the Sanhedrin. How did they feel about that?
[00:37:56] We're told that the apostles rejoiced that they were counted, worthy to suffer shame for his name.
[00:38:05] They rejoiced that they got to confess Christ before men.
[00:38:12] And remember, too, remember too, that it's not just that Jesus bore our names on his heart and on his hands on the cross, even as he calls us to name his name before men. In that very moment, Jesus names our names before the Father.
[00:38:33] Father, these are my children.
[00:38:35] Love them, protect them, help them as they go through this trial and difficulty. Strengthen them by your spirit. Christ is naming you, praying for you, pleading for you before the Father.
[00:38:49] Does not the call of love call us to love him and name him before men?
[00:38:56] Finally, we need to be ready to confess Christ before men, because Jesus promises us that if we do so, he will confess us before the Father on the Judgment Day.
[00:39:09] That's what he's talking about here in verse 32 and 33, not his mediation right now that I just referenced. That's true. But on the Judgment Day, he promises to name our names before the Father.
[00:39:23] You remember that great picture later in Matthew, when the King comes in all his glory, with all the angels with him? He's going to gather all the nations before him, and what's he going to do? He's going to separate the sheep from the goats.
[00:39:40] He's going to say this one is mine and this one is mine, but that one is not.
[00:39:46] This one over here is mine.
[00:39:48] That one is not.
[00:39:50] And he's going to say to those who are on his right, come, you who are blessed of my Father.
[00:39:57] Receive the inheritance that was prepared for you from before the foundation of the world.
[00:40:02] Jesus will confess us before the Father and bring us into that heavenly home that he's preparing for us even now.
[00:40:11] If we but confess his name before men, he promises that when he comes, he will name each of us by name and bring us into his heavenly kingdom. Let's pray.
[00:40:23] Lord Jesus, we acknowledge, confess before you sinfully that we have so often failed to name your name.
[00:40:33] We ask your forgiveness that like Peter, you would restore us and that even now you would help us to look beyond men and what they can do and look to you and what you have done for us. Oh, fill our hearts with love for you, Lord Jesus.
[00:40:50] Help us to see the great beauty of your name, a precious name, the only name under heaven by which men can be saved.
[00:40:59] And help us to be ever ready to name your name. Whatever shame or disgrace may come to us in this life, knowing that you are not ashamed of us, but you will name us before the Father when you come in your glory. And Lord Jesus, we ask that you would come quickly in Jesus name, Amen.
