What means to be saved

        1st Sunday of Lent             
March 9, 2025

The texts for this sermon are 
Deuteronomy 30:9b-15, Isaiah 28:16-17a,
Psalm 91:14-16, Romans 10:1-13, Luke 4:1-13

If you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and trust in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. Romans 10:9

This verse along with John 3:16 For God so loved the world, that God gave God’s only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life has informed our theology of and preaching about salvation for generations.

Name the name of Jesus and you shall be saved. If you do not name the name of Jesus you will be doomed.

Now there is truth in this but we need to understand what this salvation our scriptures speak of really is.

When we Christians hear the word ‘saved’ we think in terms of Heaven—being saved to go to heaven. And when Jesus returns we will be among the sheep who will be granted entrance to heaven. I’m saved! I’m saved from eternal damnation.

For all too many Christians this belief that by naming Jesus as Lord, being ‘born again’ as some say, is a one-and-done event that secures their place in heaven. I call such as these freeze-dried Christians. I call them this because in my experience they think that holding to their particular lists of beliefs is sufficient; they lack interest in delving deeply into scripture, they lack interest in cultivating an ever deeper, richer relationship with God, they do not yield to the idea that they are in need of transformation. This single belief is sufficient. 

Alas, these texts that are used to forward this kind of thinking, this idea that naming Jesus is the sum total of what it means to be saved, are talking about something altogether different.

Paul is speaking to a divided congregation of Jews and Gentiles. The congregation in Rome was divided on what it meant to be Followers of the Way as exemplified by Jesus. They were asking what does it mean if you were raised Jewish and follow the Law? What does it mean if you were raised a pagan and know the names of all the other gods? What do you do about food: do you eat meat offered to idols? or do you not? will doing so mean you’re not a Jesus person?

These folks weren’t talking about who was going to heaven or not; they were wrestling with what it meant to LIVE as a child of Christ. Paul is writing to help them figure this out. And we need to pay attention to how he goes about this because he is fleshing out what it means to be saved.

In this case, he takes them into the past. He reminds them about something Moses said: It is not in heaven, that you should say, “Who will go up to heaven for us to get it as for us and make us hear it, that we may observe it?” Nor is it beyond the sea, that you should say, “Who will cross the sea for us to get it for us and make us hear it, that we may observe it?” Deut 30:12-13

What is it Moses is referring to here that he says cannot be found

in heaven or in some removed place? He says If you obey the Lord your God to keep God’s commandments and God’s statutes which are written in this book of the law, if you turn to the Lord your God with all your heart and soul, for this commandment which I command you today is not difficult for you, nor is it out of your reach. But the word is very near you, in your mouth and in your heart, that you may observe it.  Deut 30:10-11,14  

The WORD is in you, on your lips, in your heart; now, here on earth.

Paul takes them to the prophet Isaiah who said Therefore thus says the Lord God, Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a tested stone, a costly cornerstone for the foundation, firmly placed. Those who believe will be well-laid. Is 28:16  

Paul takes them to the prophet Joel who said And it will come about that whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be delivered. Joel 2:32  

Now, first let us understand that when the Hebrews heard Lord God and the phrase Name of the Lord, they heard Jehovah. God the Almighty, God, Creator of heaven and earth.

The Moses reference reminds the believers that the WORD is the Torah, it is not just a list of rules and regulations, a citation of practices and rituals, it is something dynamic and eternal: it is something to be internalized, the spirit of it was to be alive in their hearts and the knowledge of it ready on their tongues.

In referring to Isaiah and Joel Paul is pointing out to this new group of
Jesus followers that the WORD, the TORAH, spoke of the Messiah
long before Messiah showed up and Paul links Jesus with these texts.

Jesus is the incarnation of the WORD, the Torah. 

We Christians are all too quick to dismiss the WORD, the Torah, the Law and Prophets. We think that because Jesus fulfilled all that, that these texts are no longer relevant to us, that they no longer offer insight or instruction on what it means to be saved. We are wrong.  

If we hold that Jesus is the Word Incarnate: The Word made Flesh, we have to understand what the WORD is to understand what Jesus is about and what it means when the Gospel says that Jesus SAVES. 

When Isaiah uses the image of the cornerstone, what does he mean when he says those who believe will be well-laid? Is it not that they will have a secure foundation upon which to build. Build what? A life in alignment with God and fit for service: a life of justice of righteousness.

Paul insists that his congregation (and we too) recall the work God has done through the ages, the promises God has made, the promises God has fulfilled, the provision, the victories, the protections, the corrections, the rescues, the bounty.

These Old Testament accounts tell us about God and how God’s salvation works. They tell us the truth about ourselves. They warn us. They instruct us. They encourage us.

Paul insists we comprehend the eternal Truth revealed in Torah and see it in light of the new revelation in Jesus the Christ. Embrace these accounts, trust this foundational story, own them as belonging to you, he says.  Understand how all this that Torah reveals is wrapped up in Jesus.

Robert Prim, a Feasting on the Word commentator, says “Reading and meditating on Scripture is a practice that equips followers of Jesus to face the allure of lesser gods and the dead-end pathways of life.” Feasting on the Word, Yr C, Vol 2, p16-18

Consider our Gospel Lesson: what did Jesus say to the Tempter? Jesus responded with scripture. Jesus responded with what was on his lips and in his heart from Torah. And let us not think these were not real temptations.

A disciplined reading of Scripture helps us come to a place of Trust in God’s love and an understanding of God’s call upon our lives. Paying attention to Scripture leads us to understand that Salvation is that which comes down from heaven to earth to us. We might say it is heaven brought to earth. 

Salvation isn’t just about being Transported TO heaven, it is about allowing Salvation to Transform us while ON earth as we actively, earnestly allow Christ to conform us to Christ’s own image.

Our salvation begins when we trust that Jesus is the Lord God and then going forward, surrender ourselves to the saving, making-whole, transforming Word and Work of God.

Being saved means letting Christ have free and full reign in our life now;

on setting our mind and heart on living out the Christ-imbued life, realizing that this is TRUE life leading us into a full-orbed, rich, God-imbued LIFE now, not just in the hereafter.

L Quanstrom, Pastor 

Cornelius UMC