Sermon Details

Sermon Notes

Please note that these are only notes, not transcripts, and as such are not identical to the recorded sermons. They also contain frequent abbreviations.

Introduction

1. Matt. 10 records Christ’s instructions to the Twelve as He sent them out to preach.

   1. As part of His instruction He warns them of the persecution they shall face.

      1. They shall be like sheep in the midst of wolves (v. 16).

      2. Men shall condemn them in their courts, and punish them as evildoers for Christ’s sake (vv. 17-22).

      3. Such prospects are hardly encouraging; in fact, they are fearful.

   2. Christ encourages His disciples so that they do not faint with fear.

      1. First, their sufferings come from being associated with Him (v. 24-25)

      2. 2^nd, men really have no ability to harm them, because they can only kill the body (v. 28)

      3. 3^rd, God cares for them even more than He cares for the sparrows of the field (vv. 29-31).

2. We are precious to the Father and we are precious to Christ. And the greatest encouragement to continue in our Christian walk is found in our text.

   1. The world of unbelieving men mocks, persecutes and hates us because we belong to and confess Jesus Christ.

   2. But Christ promises to confesses us, who confess Him before men, before His Father which is in heaven.

“CONFESSING CHRIST BEFORE MEN”

I. The Activity

II. The Promise

III. The Encouragement

1. THE ACTIVITY

   1. We confess Christ (“Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men …”

      1. To confess means to say the same thing as, openly to acknowledge one’s commitment to, agreement with or association with someone.

         1. To confess Christ means that we openly declare that we believe in Him.

            1. This means, first, that we admit that what He says and teaches is truth: we are His disciples and we willingly learn from Him.

            2. This means, second, that we count ourselves as belonging to Him, and that we represent His cause in the world without shame or embarrassment.

            3. This means, third, that we live in such a way to show by our behavior that we agree with Him and His teachings. Ungodly living and confession of Christ do not mix.

         2. To confess Christ begins by confessing Him with the mouth (Rom. 10:9).

            1. Confession, remember, is to say the same thing as, it is to use words; confession must have content, and confession must be doctrinal.

            2. A person cannot confess Christ and reject what Christ teaches. A person cannot claim to belong to Jesus Christ but reject what Scripture says about Christ. A person cannot confess Christ without knowledge of who Christ is and what Christ has done.

            3. That is clear in parallel passage in Mark 8:38 where He speaks of His words.

         3. But confession never ends with words: a confession of words without corresponding deeds is hypocrisy, a pretense. Read Titus 1:16.

            1. A person might speak positively about Christ, but if he lives in a way which contradicts what he says, by disobeying God, his confession is a sham.

            2. A person confesses Christ antithetically, that is, a person confesses Christ by rejecting what contradicts or opposes Christ, whether that be false teachings and wicked practices.

            3. And a person confesses Christ by making clear that the reason he rejects false teachings and wicked practices is that he loves Christ and belongs to Him.

      2. This confession is before men, or better, a confession before human beings, men, women, young people and children (“before men …”)

         1. The child of God begins to confess Christ before sympathetic men.

            1. God rarely throws us in at the deep end: before we confess Christ before the world, we have the custom of confessing Him in church, as we come to His house, sing His praises and call upon His name with the other saints.

            2. In church we receive strength to grow in that confession as members of the church confess X together: we encourage one another in common confession.

            3. And there comes a time in the life of a person who has grown up in the church that he makes that confession official by confessing to the consistory of elders and then before the congregation his love of Christ and agreement with the doctrines and practices of Christianity.

         2. But greater test of one’s confession is confession of Christ before hostile men.

            1. That is the immediate context of our text: Christ is warning His disciples that to confess Him will be costly: they will be hauled before the authorities and then they must confess, even when a confession means suffering.

            2. This is exactly what happened to the 11 disciples: they confessed before the hostile leaders of the Jews, they were imprisoned, threatened, beaten and eventually martyred for their confession of Christ. Such happens today.

            3. Our calling to confess may not be as dramatic today but we too must confess Christ before an hostile world: in the workplace, in university, in school we must refuse to join in the sinful behavior of those around us. When they ask us, must speak of Him unashamedly; and when they mock, we bear patiently.

   2. We do not deny Him (“But whosoever shall deny me before men …”).

      1. To deny is the opp. of confess: to deny is to reject, to oppose, openly to disown someone, to say that one does not agree with or belong to Christ or His truth.

         1. A denier of Christ refuses to be known as Christ’s disciples, does not want his friends, family, coworkers to know that he is a Christian.

            1. One who denies Christ is ashamed and embarrassed to be associated with Jesus Christ, openly repudiates and rejects the doctrines of Christianity and lives in an ungodly manner to please men.

            2. One who denies Christ publicly rejects who Christ is, what Christ says, what Christ has done, stands against Christ and counts Christ an enemy and himself an enemy of Christ.

            3. We often think of Peter’s denial (“I know not the man”) but Judas Iscariot is a much more serious example. He openly rejected Christ, and said to the world, “I would rather have 30 pieces of silver than be a follower of this Jesus.”

         2. A denier of Jesus Christ may even keep up a pretense for a while, but sooner or later his actions will prove his confession to be false.

            1. A denier of Jesus Christ says, I prefer my own comfort, my own convenience, my own sins, to following Jesus Christ.

            2. A denier of Jesus Christ will prefer to please his wife, his children, his family, his friends than to follow Jesus Christ wherever he leads. Such readiness to compromise the truth is the beginning of the denial of Christ in the heart.

            3. A denier of Jesus Christ will follow only when and insofar as it suits him: when the demands of the Gospel become too much, when finally he must take a stand for the truth, the cost will be too high because he loves the world [“Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this present world” 2 Tim. 4:10].

      2. There are two main ways in which people can deny Jesus Christ.

         1. First, some deny Him out of weakness. This form of denial is frighteningly possible for the child of God as the story of Peter shows us.

            1. Peter, after his beautiful confessions of Christ in places like Matt. 16:16 and John 6:69, denied his Lord in a moment of weakness. The fear of man overcame him and he fell. So terrible was Peter’s fall that he said that he never knew Christ and emphasized it with cursing.

            2. We are not unlike Peter: in moments of weakness we fail to confess Christ. A colleague or fellow student swears. We should rebuke him, but we are afraid. Faced with peer pressure and the fear of men we crumble.

            3. That kind of denial of Christ is a serious weakness & a terrible sin. We must be warned about that awful possibility. We must pray for & practice courage.

         2. But there is more to the denial of Christ than failing to stand for Him and for His truth in a moment of weakness.

            1. The fact is, Peter was not the first; nor was he the last to deny Christ in that way: there is the well known story of Thomas Cranmer was burned at the stake in 1555. Cranmer, in a moment of weakness, signed a recantation, rejecting the Reformed Faith, but when Bloody Mary had him burned anyway he regained his courage, and as the fire was being lit he recanted his recantation burning his right hand first because it had signed the recantation.

            2. We are all prone to moments of weakness where we deny Christ, where we are embarrassed to say we are Xians, where the fear of man overcomes us.

            3. And that is dreadfully serious because says Christ, the one who denies Him, will be denied before the Father. If Christ means that every believer who in a moment of weakness denies Christ, we are all doomed.

         3. But Christ means more than a denial through weakness: He means a lifelong, persistent denial of Christ which has as its source hatred of God and rejection of the Gospel.

            1. The denier here is not a weak believer but an ungodly reprobate man who goes on impenitently in his sin of denying Christ: the Pharisees and the common people of Christ’s day, these denied Him.

            2. The person described by Christ here is characterized by rejection of Christ, rejection of Christian doctrine, rejection of Christian morality. Such a person might even claim to be moral or religious, but he is a Christ-denier.

            3. This is not, and cannot be, true of the child of God: at times he is marked by cowardice, and then he must repent and seek forgiveness, but his life is one of confessing Christ, not denying Him.

2. THE PROMISE

   1. The beautiful promise is that Christ will confess him (“him will I confess also …”).

      1. Christ declares openly, without any embarrassment that we are His.

         1. Now, it is one thing for us to confess Christ, but quite another astounding thing for Christ to confess us.

            1. We must acknowledge Christ as our Lord and King, and it is not only our calling, but our privilege to do so. He is worthy of such a confession.

            2. Christ sits at God’s Rt. Hand, the center of heaven’s adoration and glory.

            3. Who would not confess Him, but the text says, He confesses us!

         2. He confesses us, says the text, before the Father [Luke 12:8 adds “before the angels of God”].

            1. That confession of Christ is not grudging, not hesitant, but enthusiastic, passionate & continuous. He delights to confess us before His Father.

            2. Notice that He confesses us before the only one who matters, not before men whose opinions are worthless, but before the Triune God of heaven and earth.

            3. He makes no attempt to hide His association with us. He declares to His Father: these people, they are mine, they are mine in election, they are mine because I died for them, they are mine because I sealed them by the HS. I want you, the angels, and all of heaven to know that I confess them as mine.

      2. That confession of Christ is our salvation. Only those Christ confesses are saved.

         1. Christ confesses us, not because of who we are, not because of what we have done, but on the basis of what He has done for us.

            1. Christ declared that He would be associated with us and with all His elect. But that meant being associated with sinners, and being associated with our sins. In fact, that meant that He had to take upon Himself our sins.

            2. Even on the cross, Christ was not ashamed to confess us: He purchased us with His own blood; He cleansed us from our sins; He reconciled us to Himself; now God’s just wrath is satisfied and we are forgiven.

            3. Now Christ appears before the Father: He says to the Father in His great work of intercession. “Father, I bring before Thee the names of my people. See, I have paid for all of their sins. Accept them therefore in mercy. They are my beloved people, my precious sheep, my body, my bride.”

         2. The cross of Christ makes the confession of Christ for us certain & effectual.

            1. If God looked upon us in our sins, Christ’s confession could not be heard. God would have to destroy us. But since Christ has paid the price, we are spared.

            2. If God marked our sins against us, we could not be acknowledged before the holiness of God, but those sins were marked against Christ.

            3. God cannot deny Christ’s confession of His people for whom Christ died: if He did, Christ’s sacrifice would be declared a failure, Christ’s intercession ineffectual and God Himself would be unjust.

   2. That promise means that Christ does not deny us, but those who persistently and wickedly by word and deed deny Him Christ does deny (“him will I also deny …”).

      1. There is something terrifying about these words. To be denied by Christ before the Father is to be damned forever.

         1. The ones denied before the Father are the reprobate ungodly esp. those who make a profession of Christianity but later repudiate it.

            1. When they stand before the Lord on the Last Day they will hear awful words, “I never knew thee. Depart from me, ye that work iniquity” (Matt. 7:23).

            2. Many of them expected to be acknowledged as followers of Christ: they had been church members, even preachers and theologians, perhaps their family and friends had been believers but they were never believers themselves.

            3. But their hope is in vain: by false doctrine & evil living they showed that they never belonged to Christ: Christ Himself shall deny them before the Father.

         2. That denial on the Last Day will simply be a confirmation of what Christ had been doing all along in heaven.

            1. Christ will say to them before His Father: I never confessed you before my Father! I always repudiated all association with you! You flattered yourself with vain words that you belonged to me but you never did!

            2. And, terrifyingly, in heaven, right now, Christ is actively denying the reprobate. He says to the Father, “Those people are not mine. I have nothing to do with them. Do not show mercy to them.” Read Psalm 69:24, 27-28.

            3. Christ does not confess them because He did not die for them; He did not blot out their sins; He has no basis on which to confess them before His Father.

      2. But, beloved, we must not be afraid that Christ will deny us. We deserve to be denied, but He never will, He never can, deny us.

         1. As miserable sinners we should be an embarrassment to Him, but we are not.

            1. Hebrews 11:16 says, “God is not ashamed to be called their God.” Well, Jesus is not ashamed to be called our Savior, our Lord, our Head, our Husband.

            2. Christ does not look at the sins of His Church, wring His hands and hope that no one finds out that we are His bride. He does not look for another people.

            3. What comfort to know that Jesus does not deny us now, when we, in weakness, are often tempted to deny Him: He will not deny us on Last Day.

         2. On the Last Day, X, beaming with joy will present us to the Father (Jude 24).

            1. On that Day, He will set us by His Rt. Hand, and He will say, “Father, they are here. All of them are here. Not one is missing!”

            2. Look what I have made of them, “Father. Sinners they were, and I have cleansed them. Enemies they were, and I have reconciled them.”

            3. And the Father, the angels, the saints and Christ together will rejoice as the devils and the reprobate on Christ’s left hand look on with dismay.

3. THE ENCOURAGEMENT TO CONFESS

   1. Christ encourages us to confess because of His confession of us.

      1. We ought not lose sight of the astounding claim Christ makes here as the Son of man walking the dusty streets of Palestine.

         1. Christ claims influence in heaven which no mere man dare claim. Illustration: it would be like my saying to you, “I will put in a good word for you with the White House or at Buckingham Palace.”

         2. Christ says, “Upon my confession or denial depends the eternal salvation or damnation of an individual. Such authority I have in heaven.”

         3. If Christ is not the Son of God, He speaks as one either suffering from severe delusions of grandeur or He is unspeakably arrogant. But because Christ is the Son of God, the Head of His Church, and the Savior, He can and does make this claim.

      2. When we struggle to confess Christ here below, we must look up by faith and remember that Christ gladly and continuously confesses us.

         1. What men think of us does not matter: what your friends at school, what your family, what your coworkers, fellow students think is of no consequence. The issue is: what does Christ think of us, and we know that He loves us.

         2. Those who confess Christ are more than compensated for any convenience their confession causes them: does your confession make you the laughing stock of the office, the work place, the classroom? Fear not! Christ confesses you in heaven.

         3. Have your family or friends rejected you because of your confession of Christ? their opinion is of no consequence because you have an Advocate in heaven. Is a child of God condemned by a human judge, sentenced to prison, torture or death. None can condemn him in heaven’s court.

   2. The power of our confession is Christ’s unshakable confession of us. Notice that Christ does not make this conditional, “If you confess me, I will confess you,” but future and therefore certain, “Whosoever shall confess me … him will I confess.”

      1. You shall confess, and Christ shall confess. All of God’s children shall confess, even the weakest will confess.

         1. That is because confession is a fruit of God’s grace: by nature we cannot confess, but by grace, the grace of the HS worked in our heart and flowing to us from the cross of Christ, we do confess.

         2. Christ purchased for us the gift of the Spirit of Christ, including the gift of confessing Him before men.

         3. Our confession, therefore, can never be a condition of our salvation but it is the sure and certain fruit, the necessary result, of a true faith, of salvation.

      2. To underline this Christ uses the word “whosoever.” The translation is, however, almost too weak because the Greek says, “all whoever,” or “each and every one who.”

         1. The idea is that each and every one who belongs to Christ by true faith shall confess Him before men, and each and every one who confesses Him before men, Christ shall confess before the Father.

         2. We all confess: some more boldly than others, some in the face of greater opposition and danger than others; and some more consistently than others. We need much grace and we pray for much grace to confess, but we cannot but confess the Lord we know and love by our words and deeds before men.

         3. And Christ confesses all of His children before the Father: not one, not the least, not the most timid, does He deny. He overlooks none; He forgets none; He turns His back on none.

         4. May God give us all grace, young and old, to confess Christ before men, knowing that all the while Christ is confessing us before the Father in heaven. AMEN!