We are talking about our salvation. Spending time thinking about how God saves us. In once sense, it doesn’t really matter - we are saved! Thank God. Why analyze it?
But on the other hand, it is helpful to our understanding of God and to our Christian life if we spend some time thinking about how we got saved and how God uses us in the salvation of others. I believe that studying our salvation can lead to richer worship of God. Therefore, it is valuable. Today we are looking at a passage that identifies various steps in our salvation.
“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. 29 For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. 30 And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.
31 What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all-how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? 33 Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. 34 Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died-more than that, who was raised to life-is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 36 As it is written:
"For your sake we face death all day long;
we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered."
37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Today we are going to talk about God’s grace - the power of his grace in our salvation. But we are also talking about his love–I’m not sure how to separate the two of them. God’s love and grace are intertwined. This passage is about grace–God’s work in our lives, but it is also about the love of God working itself out in our lives.
We are going to do something somewhat artificial–dissect love. Analyze grace. We are going to look at salvation as a step by step process. I want to begin by saying that there is something artificial about this–the mysteries of love can’t really be dissected, but I think it is helpful to spend a little time doing it anyway.
All of these words and phrases are found in the Bible. But they are put together like a puzzle - and there isn’t one Bible passage that spells out this order of salvation. So we need to remember that this is theology, not the Bible.
Theologians talk about the
I. The Order of Salvation
This is a way of analyzing and explaining our life changing salvation. This is putting the grace of God which knows no bounds and his infinite love under a microscope.
It’s Valentine’s Day. So what we are about to do would be like analyzing the relationship I have with my wife. We can put our love under a microscope.
There was a day when I met Sue. It was an evening, a “floor date” where one floor of a boys dorm goes out with a floor from a girl’s dorm. We met on an ice rink playing broom ball. (She fell for me right away!). Step One.
We met, exchanged names. We became friends. Step two. That was a big step. For several years we hung out as friends. I think we always liked each other. One night we had a long conversation on the shore of a lake and I thought “wow. I like this girl.” That was the beginning of step three–something in me changed. I began to view Sue differently. 3a. 3 b came much later when she also had those kind of feelings for me. Step Four was huge–the day when we risked our friendship by becoming more than friends. It paid off big (at least for me). Then Step Five–getting engaged. Step Six–getting married. Step 7– what it is? Celebrating our 50th anniversary?
But you see there is a process of romantic love that culminates in a lifetime of marriage. You can artificially talk about it in steps and maybe it helps understand how this beautiful relationship develops.
So, the order of salvation is an attempt to understand this beautiful relationship we have with God. The order of salvation is an analysis of the process by which we are saved. I’m going to help us visualize this by using chairs, each chair is a step in our salvation.
It all begins with . . .
A. Calling: we hear the Gospel of God’s grace, when we hear about Jesus and salvation. We are called. Romans 8:30 “And those he predestined, he also called . . .” Predestination is the decision of God to save the elect - it is God’s love working behind the scenes of our lives to show his love to us, to adopt us, to romance us into a love relationship with him. It is a mystery that we cannot understand, unfathomable. Predestination leads to our calling.
1. Outward or External Call.
a. This is what Billy Graham has dons so well - lays out the message of the gospel and calls people to respond. The outer call touches the ears.
b. Romans 10:14 “How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?”
c. 30,000 people might hear Billy Graham, but only 3,000 come forward. Let’s say that another 12,000 non-Christians hear the message but don’t respond. Why? They have heard the outer call (their ears), but not the . . .
2. Inner or Internal Call, the effective call of the Holy Spirit.
a. Touches our hearts. Puts ears on our deaf hearts, makes us want the gospel. Something IN us changes and we look at God and the Bible differently, almost like a boy who suddenly takes a fresh look at his long time female friend and says, “Have I been blind???”
b. You know how you can hear something ten times, but not really hear it? It doesn’t sink in. And then something changes and it all falls together and makes sense. That is the effective, internal calling.
c. I’ve seen this with our own teens sometimes–they will go to a convention or a youth group, hear a message, and it is the same basic message that I preached, but they finally hear it–part of that is the internal work of the Holy Spirit.
d. Part of what happens with the internal call is . . .
B. Regeneration: Make alive again. Makes our heart of stone into heart of flesh. Gives us spiritual life so that we can respond to God’s love, reach out to him in love and accept the grace he offers to us.
1. Ezekiel 11:19 “I will give them an undivided heart and put a new spirit in them; I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh.”
2. This step isn’t necessary if you have a low view of sin. Then someone just hears the gospel and responds by their own spiritual insight or intelligence. But if you are dead in your sin, as Ephesians 2 teaches, then you need to be made alive again before you can respond to any spiritual activity, make any spiritual faith choices.
3. This is the first part of being born again. Which leads to . . .
C. Conversion - to change. You can convert currency–change US dollars to rupees. You can convert wind into electricity with a windmill. Our spiritual change, conversion, is to be born again (John 3:3); to die to old life and be born into a new life. It is to be made into a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17) - from dead to alive, lost to saved, non-believer to believer! Two things involved in conversion:
1. Repentance. More of a theme in the New Testament. But it is in the Old Testament as well. Ezekiel 18:30 “Therefore, O house of Israel, I will judge you, each one according to his ways, declares the Sovereign LORD. Repent! Turn away from all your offenses; then sin will not be your downfall.”
a. - turning around, turning away from sin, toward God and righteousness. A decision of the will that has been made alive by the Holy Spirit.
b. Jesus’ preaching ministry focused on repentance: “From that time on Jesus began to preach, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near."” Matthew 4:17
c. It is the conclusion of Peter’s sermon on Pentecost. Acts 2:38 “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”
2. Faith - is to believe. Make a decision for Christ. Romans 5:1-2 “Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.”
a. Faith is knowledge (intellectual), belief (heart and emotions), and trust (actions). Think about ice on a lake - you can know the thickness of the ice (3"–intellectually you can measure this), you can believe that 3 inches of ice can support your weight (emotions). But real faith is when you walk out onto the ice itself. That is trusting your life with the faith you have in the ice. Faith without actions is dead, it’s not real faith.
b. Faith is a gift in that it follows regeneration. God gives us the ability to believe and have faith.
c. It isn’t the power of faith or the strength of faith, but the object of faith that is most important.
(1) A lot of faith in thin ice will lead to death
(2) A little faith, doubting faith, in thick ice leads to life, provided that faith takes action.
(3) Jesus said in Matthew 17:20, “I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there' and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”
d. And yet Jesus commended strong faith (Matthew 15:28) and rebuked his disciples for their weak faith (Matthew 16:8). Faith is something we should grow in over time. (2 Corinthians 10:15 “Our hope is that, as your faith continues to grow”)
e. Romans 5:1-2 “Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,” Faith leads us to . . .
D. Justification: being declared innocent, not guilty. It is an objective, declarative act. When we are saved, God declares us innocent.
1. Romans 3:22-24 “This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.”
2. Just-as-if-I-hadn’t-sinned. Declared innocent, free from sin!
E. Sanctification (being cleansed, becoming holy)
1. It is a subjective, ongoing process. Justification is the moment of salvation.
2. Sanctification is a lifetime of growing in Christ, dying to sin, living to God, producing the fruits of the Spirit.
3. Joint project between us and the Holy Spirit
a. Holy Spirit: Romans 15:16 “to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles with the priestly duty of proclaiming the gospel of God, so that the Gentiles might become an offering acceptable to God, sanctified by the Holy Spirit
b. Us: 1 Thessalonians 4:3-4 “It is God's will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality; 4 that each of you should learn to control his own body in a way that is holy and honorable,”
4. It is an ongoing process by which we become new creations. We become Christlike, active agents in the Kingdom of God. But we never reach perfection in this life. There is also something objective, in that we are holy in Christ
5. 1 Corinthians 1:2 “To the church of God in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be holy”.
F. Glorification: this is when we become a new creation, when we are changed (1 Corinthians 15) in the twinkle of an eye.
1. Romans 8:30 “And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.”
2. This is when we become new, when we die.
3. 1 John 3:2 “But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.”
4. Jesus is the “firstborn among many brothers” (Rom 8:29.)
5. An important note: we will become like Christ, but not little mini- gods, rather we will become what we were meant to be in the beginning, our humanity will be fully restored.
G. While this is somewhat artificial, it is helpful in thinking about our own relationship with God and the work that he is doing in each one of our lives. EVERY single person here is at some stage in this process (except the last one).
For a moment I want to highlight the reality that there is a part of this process that is . . .
II. Simply Irresistible.
We talk about irresistible sometimes in romance.
A. There is a part of God’s grace that we don’t resist.
1. Talking about God’s irresistible grace is to simply give him credit for working in our lives, deep in our souls, before we even knew he existed. It is acknowledging that he is the author of our salvation, that he predestined us, orchestrated our regeneration and led us to our conversion. It is knowing that our faith is a gift. And praising God all the more because of the gift, freely given to us.
2. That is not to say that we cannot resist God’s grace. We do it all the time, every day. Every time I disobey, refuse to do the good I know I should do, ignore the presence of God and the work of God around me. When I fail to open the word.
B. Can we resist the grace of God? Of course–you all do. But there is an irresistible grace of God that works in our lives that brings us to salvation–and it is 100% the work of God and for that we praise him and thank him. God enlivens our souls and minds so that we are aware of a love that is so deep and wide and broad that it strikes us as irresistible– why wouldn’t I accept God’s gracious gift of love? How could I not?
C. Given this process of God working in our lives . . .
III. What Can You Say?
This passage ends by asking this incredible question: “31 What, then, shall we say in response to this?” Romans 8:31. Which we will look at some more next week.
Romans 8:31 “If God is for us, who can be against us?”
A. We are unstoppable. If God is can do all of this, what can’t he do? You might almost say that we can do all things through him who gives us strength. If God is on our side, who can stop this?
Romans 8:32 “He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all — how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?”
B. All of our needs will be met. If God gave everything, anything else is nothing.
1. If I give you a million dollars and on the way out you say, can I have one of those cokes in your fridge,,, of course – take the fridge. In comparison, that is nothing.
2. God gave his one and only son FOR US– the daily concerns of our lives are nothing in comparison (our daily bread).
3. God is generous in his love and mercy and in caring for us!
Romans 8:35 “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?”
C. We will focus on the answer to that question next week–for now are inseparable from the love of Christ if he is the author and perfecter, instead of us.
1. If our salvation depends on the grace of God, on his faithfulness instead of my fickle character, then I can say that my salvation is as secure as the foundations of the universe.
Romans 8:38-39
For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Challenge: So, where are you in all of this? Do you see God at work in your own life, wooing you into a relationship with him? Do you see how God is working in the lives of other people, bringing them step-by-step closer to himself?
We are going to celebrate the gift of salvation now with the Lord’s Supper.
