The "Enoughness" Of Salvation Series

Sermon Brief

Date Written: September 18, 2009

Date Preached: September 20, 2009

Where Preached: OPBC (AM)

Sermon Details:

Sermon Series: Back To School – Believers Edition!

Sermon Title: The ‘Enoughness’ of Salvation!

Sermon Text: John 3:16-17 [NLT]

Introduction:

Over the past 2 weeks we have been in our series “Back to School – Believers Edition” where we have focused on the basic tennents and principles of who we are as Christians. 2 weeks ago we saw looked at Jesus Christ and celebrated who He is and what He has done and how He holds us together in all we are and in all we do!

Last week we looked at the Word of God… the Scripture… that they point to and reveal Jesus Christ to the world! Jesus is called the “Word” by John in John 1:1 whereby John is relating Jesus to God on equal footing… that Jesus IS God! And that the Scripture we cling to is the very breath of God himself!

Today I want us to look at the end game of Scripture… Why did God choose to reveal Himself to humanity? Why did He wrap Himself in flesh and come to earth in the person of Jesus Christ? Why did God see fit to allow Scripture to endure and be preserved? What purpose does Christ revealed and Scripture preserved have to do with our lives today?

Today I want to share with you that there IS a very specific purpose in Christ revealed to humanity and there is a very specific purpose in Scripture preserved for humanity and that purpose is SALVATION!

Let’s read our Scripture for today:

16 “For God loved the world so much that He gave His one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life. 17 God sent His Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through Him…”

I believe that it could be said that all the world would agree that in the person of Jesus Christ there was a turning point for this world. Now understand me when I say this… I know that there are those today who do NOT believe in Jesus Christ as God, or who even believe that there is a God who created us…

But even these people use a simple term that gives acknowledgment of the importance of Jesus Christ in this world… that tells the world that Jesus Christ and His life was the turning point for this world!

Today when we look at history, it is divided into 2 very broad and basic categories, secular humanists call these eras… The Common Era (CE) and Before the Common Era (BCE)! You may not know what I am speaking about but before these terms came along in the 1980’s or 90’s, they were called something totally different.

It is interesting to note that the purpose of the BC / AD dating system was to make the birth of Jesus Christ the dividing point of world history. However, when the B.C. / A.D. system was being calculated, they actually made a mistake in pinpointing the year of Jesus’ birth.

Scholars later discovered that Jesus was actually born in around 4-6 BC, not 1 AD. That is not the crucial issue. The birth, life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Christ are the "turning points" in world history. It is fitting, therefore, that Jesus Christ is the separation of "old" and "new." BC was "before Christ" and since His birth, we have been living "in the year of our Lord." http://www.gotquestions.org/BC-AD.html

So basically what we can determine is that Jesus is the change agent… that there was a world BEFORE Christ and there is a world AFTER the life of Christ… and that world is radically different because of the person of Jesus Christ!

So in looking at Salvation this morning I want to focus on that theme… the Before and After Jesus theme… You see for those of us who know Christ as Savior there was at one time in our lives… a BEFORE time when we did not know Christ… and there are others in this world, maybe even in this room today who are living in that BEFORE era… not knowing Jesus as their Savior!

We are all familiar with the before/after concept. Usually what happens is you take a picture of something BEFORE a specific event, and then a picture AFTER that specific event, and it is fun to compare the two! I have seen before and after pictures on about every subject matter known to humanity, but here are just a few I have seen this week that I find interesting.

The first picture you see here is a traditional watermelon BEFORE scientists in Japan got a hold of it [show picture here]… then this next picture is a watermelon AFTER Japanese scientists got done with it…[show 2nd watermelon pic here] Now I don’t know about you but a square watermelon is just wrong!