Know your ABCs   (Romans 10:1-13)             *All verses in NKJV*

– ABCs often refers to the alphabet, something basic that everyone knows, or should know.

– ABC is also an acronym. What does “ABC” mean to you? (…like family feud)

– American Broadcasting Company. Always Be Closing. Always Be Careful. Already Been Chewed…

– I found over 350 definitions of some kind for “ABC” online.

– In the physical life-saving sense, ABC stands for Airway, Breathing, Circulation. When someone goes into cardiac arrest, this is the basics for the process of their life being saved.

– In the spiritual sense, ABC stands for Accept, Believe, Confess. When someone is spiritually dead, this is the basics for the process of them finding salvation through Jesus Christ.

– It is important to follow the process, and know where to start.

– Read Romans 10:1-13

#1. Airway and Acceptance. ABC

– When people find out you are a firefighter, they always want to talk about the calls you’ve been on.

– CPR, uncon/unresp., seems complex, but can actually be one of the more simple scenarios to deal with. The main problem is easily identifiable, and the plan is straight forward. Check their ABCs.

– Check the Airway. If someone doesn’t have an airway, then breathing will be impossible.

– Example: Choking, blocked airway, no other measures will matter, if no oxygen getting to the cells, then the body will die. You have to clear the obstruction!

– Spiritually, you must Accept you are a sinner who needs a Savior.

– The starting point is you recognizing your own sins, and knowing you need forgiveness.

– Romans 3:23, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 

– 1 John 1:8-10, If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. ⁹ If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. ¹⁰ If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us.

– This is fundamental to Christian belief.

– Read Romans 10:2-3

– Zeal means “passionate commitment”. The Jew’s zeal was misdirected because it failed to recognize Jesus as the Savior. Zeal for the wrong things can be dangerous!

– The Apostle Paul know all about misdirected zeal, because it caused him to persecute Christians.

– Read Galatians 1:13-14

– Just because you attach God to your misdirected zeal, doesn’t necessarily make is godly… Politics?

– The Jews were ignorant about their need for Jesus and tried to establish their own righteousness through the law.

– They had a strong belief in God, but they needed a spiritual “airway” before they could breathe in salvation.

#2. Breathing and Believing. ABC

– Once you have an open airway, breathing will supply oxygen to the blood, which circulates to the cells to keep you alive.

– Even if your heart hasn’t stopped beating yet, you have to breathe or you will die.

– Example: Heroin overdose, suppresses CNS and then the breathing reflex, minutes later heart will stop… Now we have to bag them, breathe for them.

– They can’t live simply by us being their “breath”, eventually they have to breathe on their own.

– Spiritual belief is and action. “Passive oxygenation” isn’t enough!

– The belief we are talking about is a confidence and assurance, not simple a recognition of.

– James 2:19, You believe that there is one God. You do well. Even the demons believe—and tremble!

– Many religions believe Jesus existed. A quote from a Secular Humanists article. Many will not recognize Jesus as God, “but be captivated by the teachings and example of the figure of Jesus.”  “There are lots of people who are not conventionally religious but who sense that the teachings of Jesus have a universal appeal that transcends Christianity.”

– I think these ideas come from an “everyone gets a trophy” generation. No one has to be wrong.

– Jesus can’t just be a good moral teacher. Ironically, that idea could only come from someone who has never heard Jesus’ teachings.

– CS Lewis says it like this, “Jesus can only be a liar, a lunatic, or the Lord.”  He said He was God!

– Believing in Jesus means that you believe what he says is true, you believe he is God, and believe in his death, burial, and resurrection. And that he will come again.

– 1 Cor. 15:1-4, Moreover, brethren, I declare to you the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received and in which you stand, ² by which also you are saved, if you hold fast that word which I preached to you—unless you believed in vain. ³ For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, ⁴ and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures, 

– You can be in church every Sunday, act life a Christian, but only have an intellectual belief that Jesus existed, and that will never be enough.

– Like a heroin overdose, your heart may still be beating, your body looks alive, but without a true belief in Jesus, and eventually you’ll see that life has stopped.

3. Circulation and Confession. ABC

– If your heart isn’t beating then you aren’t breathing. Makes diagnosis easy. Do a pulse check!

– If your blood isn’t circulating, oxygen isn’t getting to cells, organs don’t work, the body is dead.

– Pulse and circulation are outward signs that your physical body is still alive.

– CPR and Defibrillators don’t “jump start” the heart. CPR keeps the blood pumping, and a shock actually STOPS the bad rhythm with hopes that it will restart on its own with a good one.

– Only the “Great Physician” can fix the heart by surgery, removing the “blockage”. (wink, wink…)

– Confession is an action. A declaration of faith. An outward expression that you’re alive inside.

– Example: My father’s salvation story. 41 yrs old, active in church, chairman of the worship committee, and faithful attender… My father knew about Jesus, but didn’t KNOW Jesus.

– Like Doubting Thomas, around Jesus all the time, yet still didn’t understand who he was.

– While doing a Christian bible study/discipleship guide, my dad came across some familiar scriptures.

          – Matthew 16:15-16, Jesus asks his disciples, “But who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter     answered and said, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

          – John 20:27-28, (Jesus appears to the disciples, in the flesh after being crucified.) Then He   said to Thomas, “Reach your finger here, and look at My hands; and reach your hand here,           and put it into My side. Do not be unbelieving, but believing.” And Thomas answered and said       to Him, “My Lord and my God!”

– My father had read that verse, written that verse, and thought that verse; but when he said it out loud he felt a shock like a bolt of lightning go through him, and he finally truly believed. 

– When he gave his life to Christ, he said, “It was like the lights were turned up, and the volume was turned down. I could see, and I could hear.”

– His airway was open, he took a breath, he got shocked, and he became alive again in Christ!

– Cardiac arrest survival rates are measured by who walks out of the hospital alive, not by the condition of who we bring into the emergency room.

– If you are going to walk out of this place “alive” you have to let the “Great Physician” fix your heart.

– Romans 10:9-13, that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. ¹⁰ For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. ¹¹ For the Scripture says, “Whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame.” ¹² For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord over all is rich to all who call upon Him. ¹³ For “whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.

– alter call – prayer –

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