I Am Saved
Scriptures: John 3:1-7; Acts 16:31-34; Romans 3:22-24; 10:8-11
Introduction:
This message this morning comes from my desire to confirm with every member here what it means to be saved, especially for our young people. This understanding is crucial to how we see ourselves as Christians and how we’ll come to understand what God will or will not do for us based on our actions. As a Christian we must understand, accept and teach others that being a Christian is about accepting Christ. It’s about believing that He died for our sins and through His death and resurrection, we are able to receive forgiveness for our sins and thus eternal life. If we do not understand this as adults, we cannot teach this to our children. If our children do not understand this, there will be times in their lives when they will experience something and believe that because of something they did or did not do God will not hear them when they pray to Him. This comes out of how we as parents treat our kids as they are growing up. You see if they get in trouble we punish them and teach them to live with the consequences of their actions. We might also have them do things to get back in our good graces. Some of us go so far as to treat them differently when we are disappointed in them thus solidifying the understanding that if they do something bad they must do penance in order to get back in right standing. Several Church denominations and TV ministers preach and teach this same doctrine. In this message I will address what it means to be saved and how you can know without a doubt that you are in fact saved. Let me set the framework by reviewing some survey results with you.
A. Youth Survey Results
Two weeks ago Rev. Williams asked his students (the teenagers) the following question: “If you died today, do you believe you would go to heaven?” He then left the room and allowed the students to write out their answers. What became clear in their answers is that in their minds there is a clear link between being saved and acting “right.” I will be the first to take ownership of this belief because of assumptions that I have made based on messages that Rev Fulks, Rev. Williams and I have delivered through the years. I assumed that everyone understood salvation and what the kids heard here at Church was being re-enforced at home. I am not saying that it has not been, but I am saying there is still more work to be done. Here are some of the responses from our youth. I do not know who said what and that does not matter at this point. As I read these the only people who will know is the person who wrote it and possibly Rev. Williams. I ask that you parents do not try and figure out what your child said, just take this as a whole. Moving forward, just reconfirm within them why they are saved and that will move us forward greatly. So here are some of the comments from the youth in response to Rev. William’s question and I will be reading them just as written.
• I think for me, if I died today I would go to hell. Cause to me I think, I need to improve on being a Christian and getting more into the bible, then I will know if I am really going to heaven and reading the bible it can help people cause I would have more of the Spirit of the Lord and break away this shell in my outer shell in my outer later to show my true stripes for God, then I will go to heaven and rejoice and be grateful forever.
• I would like to believe I’m going to heaven, I think I live my life well and try not to stray too far from doing what the bible says, but honestly I don’t know. It’s hard, to know. I mean, I sin like everyone else but all sins are the same, so it’s not like I’m better than everybody else, so I don’t know.
• I don’t know. I’m not the best person, but I’m not the worst person.
• Yes, because if I work for it and not let him down. Get a whole lot of understanding from God. Talk to my pastor about life situations.
• I think I’m going to heaven because, I am a good person. Sometimes. I should pray more and help, but over all I’m good.
When I read what is in the hearts of our youth I am blessed that they have a conscience that is aware of Christ and that somewhere in the midst of their days they are thinking about what they are doing and how He would view it. The first responder who said that they needed to improve on being a Christian confirmed that one, he/she is a Christian, and two, he/she knows that there are areas where they can improve. Do you know how many adults do not have this mindset? Whoever wrote this just know that you are saved and if you act on what you stated and begin to break free of the outer shell you will not be more “saved” but could potentially be responsible for helping others get saved. There are no levels of salvation per se, either you are saved or you’re not.
When I read the remaining responses I thought about how we view sin as a definer of who we are. Many people say that I am a sinner who has been saved by grace. That’s not a true statement. You were a sinner who has been saved by grace. The term sinner defines a person whose lifestyle and core being are sin. When we accepted Christ that changed. The core of who we are is now Christ – we have God’s nature through Him, not the sinful man’s nature even though we might sin some times. Finally, when I read in the responses about being saved because of being a “good person” I thought about my past and how I would look at myself compared to someone else. The individuals who wrote they were not the best or the worst or not being better than anyone else, they spoke the truth. It’s only by the grace of God that we have access to what we have. We did not earn it or deserve it. It was a gift that was given to us.
B. Adult’s Survey Results
Last week I asked the adults the same question that Rev. Williams asked his class. All of the adults answered “Yes” to the question “If you died today, do you believe you would go to heaven?” The adults were sure of their salvation. I also asked the adults ‘How did they know they were saved or not saved?” Here are some of your responses:
• Because Christ died for my sins and I have accepted Him as my Savior.
• Cause God told me.
• I have sincerely accepted God/Christ into my heart….do I “deserve” to go to heaven, no…but thank God for grace and mercy.
• Because I am walking in faith and listening to Jesus and God.
• I have accepted Christ/Jesus in my life and I “believe” I am saved.
• Because I am on the right road that leads to heaven.
• Because I believe.
• Because I feel the Lord knows my heart and I know I am trying to get on the right path.
• I have accepted Jesus Christ…rededicated my life and study His word to rebuild a relationship with Him.
• Obey God’s laws. No one comes to the Father except through Jesus.
Those were some of the responses from the adults. In some of the responses there was a theme of “believing I am saved” which can be different from “knowing” but to the individuals who wrote it for them it could mean the same thing. Most of the responses state that they knew because they have accepted Christ as their Savior. What I want you to take away from this is the gap between what the parents wrote and what the youth wrote. There is a gap between the parents knowing for sure and the kids linking their salvation to how they act. For some of our youth they also link your salvation to how you (parents) act so even though we as parents profess that we are saved, I wonder if our children would say that we are based on what they see us doing outside of Church. Are you seeing where I am going with this? So what does the Bible say about salvation? I am going to walk you through a few Scriptures pertaining to salvation so that you can know without a doubt, from the youngest to the oldest, that if you have accepted Christ then you are saved!
C. What The Bible Says
There are many Scriptural references that speak about salvation, from how one receives salvation to what it means to live a life of a Christian. I will focus primarily on answering the question, “How can I know for certain that I am saved.” Once we understand the answer to this question, what you do from this point on is about your growth and maturity as a Christian. Remember Paul spent time talking about baby Christians versus mature Christians so even though there was a difference in how mature the Christians were in relations to understanding God’s word and living according to it, they were still “saved Christian.” So let me quickly answer the question of how we can know for a certainty that we are saved. Turn with me to John 3:1-7.
1. What It Means To Be Born Again
“Now there was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews: the same came unto him by night, and said to him, ‘Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God; for no one can do these signs that thou doest, except God be with him.’ Jesus answered and said unto him, ‘Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except one be born anew, he cannot see the kingdom of God.’ Nicodemus saith unto him, ‘How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb, and be born?’ Jesus answered, ‘Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except one be born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God! That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born anew.” (John 3:1-7)
In order for anyone to be “saved” he must be born again. Every one of us has experienced a physical birth and we were born into sin because of Adam and Eve’s decision in the Garden of Eden. When they sinned, everyone born after them did not have God’s nature, but Adam and Eve’s which now consisted of sin. When we were born of our earthly fathers we were born spiritually dead with a sin nature. In order to be saved, Jesus said we must be born again. Nicodemus thought Jesus meant being born or his mother again and Jesus explained it clearly. When we accept Christ as our Savior, we experience a “spiritual” birth wherein God is now our Father. This does not make us deity (a god) but we now have the exact same life and nature as Him. We are not perfect by any means, but we are also no longer “sinners” which again is someone with a sin nature. We might have the worst parents in the world and their DNA flows freely through our bodies, but when we accepted Christ our spiritual DNA was changed and this change will affect how we walk in our natural DNA. The things our parents might have exposed us to do not have to become our future. And just to be clear, as a Christian I am not under a “generational curse” based on something my ancestors did before I was born. I am free to live how God has made me! This is what we had before we accepted Christ and our nature was renewed. So how does one “accept Christ” and why must we do it besides the obvious?
2. How To Accept Christ
The book of Acts records an incident when Paul and Silas were in jail. Around midnight they were praying and singing hymns of praise to God as the other prisoners listened to them. Suddenly there came a mighty earthquake and the foundations of the prison shook. All of the doors of the cells were opens and the chains binding the prisoners were unfastened. When the jailer awoke and saw the doors open he was about to kill himself as he thought the prisoners had escaped. When Paul stopped him he asked Paul “What must I do to be saved?” He was not talking about his physical life; he was talking about his eternal life. This is what Paul told. Let’s begin reading in Acts 16:31. “They said, ‘Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household. And they spoke the word of the Lord to him together with all who were in his house. And he took them that very hour of the night and washed their wounds, and immediately he was baptized, he and all his household.” (Vss. 31-34) The jailer asked Paul and Silas what he needed to do to be saved and they told him to believe in the Lord Jesus and he would be saved. After they told him this, they taught him about Jesus so that he would understand what he needed to believe. So what was it that he needed to believe about Jesus if he was to be saved? Turn to Romans chapter ten and let’s begin reading at verse eight.
“But what does it say? ‘The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart’, that is, the word of faith which we are preaching, that if you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation. For the Scripture says, ‘Whoever believes in Him will not be disappointed.” (Romans 10: 8-11) The jailer was told that Jesus died for his sins and if he accepted this fact, believed it in his heart, that he would be saved. The jailer was not told that he had to be a good person first in order to be saved. He was not told that he had to say certain things or do certain things. He was told that he had to accept that Christ died for him and he had to believe that God raised Him from the dead.
So I want to make this extremely clear, to our youth, to the parents and anyone reading this. Christ died for our sins. If we accept this fact, believe that God raised Him from the dead, and accept Him in our hearts, then we shall be saved – PERIOD, no if, an or buts about it. Even though you may experience times when you do not “feel” saved because of something you did or did not do, if you have accepted Christ, believe in your heart that He died for your sins and was raised from the dead by God, you are saved whether you feel like it or not. Salvation is not about feeling – it is about what you know. You can feel saved today and not saved tomorrow, but it does not change the fact that you are saved. Following feelings can sometimes get you in trouble especially as it relates to the free gift that God has given us. Now before I close this, I have to address the issue pertaining to working our way into heaven. I could spend several weeks on this topic but I am going to give you the Cliffs Notes version and you can go home and study it more and teach it to your children.
3. Works Vs. Grace
Listen closely as I read a few Scriptures to you. I will email this message to all of you and I ask that you give a copy to your children so that they can refer to it and study these Scriptures until they are firmly planted within their hearts. Let’s start with Romans 3:22-24.
Romans 3:22-24: “Even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believes; for there is no distinction; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus…..Where then is the boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? Of works? No, but by a law of faith. For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the Law.”
Romans 4:4-5: “Now to the one who works, his wage is not credited as a favor, but as what is due. But to the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited as righteousness.”
Romans 6:23: “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Galatians 2:20-21: “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me. I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness comes through the Law, then Christ died needlessly.”
Ephesians 2:8-9: “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.”
Titus 3:4-5: “But when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared, He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit.
We cannot do enough “good works” to earn a place in heaven. We cannot work our way into heaven like we work for a promotion on our jobs. Salvation is a gift that we receive when we accept Jesus Christ as our Savior.
Conclusion
I know that I have covered a lot in this message but I wanted to keep it as simple as possible. If you do not remember anything else, remember that you are saved because you accepted Christ as your personal Savior. You did not work for it and you can never be good enough to “earn” it – it is a gift of God. But because this is a gift, it does not mean that we can continue to sin or do wrong. The reason we should do our best not to sin is because when Jesus saved us we received the power not to. When we sin it hurts God to witness it because He sent His Son to deliver us from the power of sin. So when we return to it or continue therein it’s almost like we are saying He did nothing for us. The works that we do as a Christian is not so that we can be saved or stay saved, it is because we love God; we are grateful for Jesus dying for our sins; and we want to please Him. We do things that are right because they are pleasing to God and we love Him and want to be an example for others who do not know Christ.
To our young people I want you to know that your words encouraged me. The fact that you were thinking about your actions as it relates to being saved tells me that the Spirit of God is working within you. Continue to study and listen to God’s Spirit. You will make mistakes, but as you continue to mature by the grace of God, you will be surprised at what you will be able to overcome through His Spirit. Be encouraged and know that your salvation is secure because you have accepted Christ and you believe that He died for your sins and was resurrected by the Father. If you have any questions about this, you can come and talk directly to me or even call me. I will always be here for you.
“May the Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord make His face shine on you and be gracious to you. May the Lord lift up His countenance on you and give you peace.” (Numbers 6:24-26)
