INTRODUCTION
• SLIDE #1
• It is great to be with you today! Today we are in week three of our series, WHAT DO I BELIEVE ABOUT…
• WEEK 1, we examined we we believe about the concept of God, is there a God, or did everything happen by accident for no particular reason.
• Last week we examined the concept of a personal God, a God who knows you and loves you, this week we take it one step deeper.
• Our key QUESTION today is this, “HOW DO I HAVE A RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD?”
• Once we wrap your mind around the thought that there is a God in heaven who created everything, and if you dare take it to the next level of believing that God loves you, the next logical question is how can I have a relationship with this God?
• Today we are going to cut a path that will help us to understand this concept, and once we grasp and accept the premise of this message from the Bible, it will help is to have the understanding we need so that we can have a saving relationship with Jesus.
• The key idea is that I believe a person comes into a relationship with God by God’s grace through faith in Jesus Christ.
• This key idea is actually an idea that is loaded with theological baggage probably since the 1520’s. For about the first 1500 years of the church, there was little dispute as to what this statement actually meant.
• I am going to share with you what happened around 1523 that colors the way people people today view what one must do to be in a saving relationship with God through Jesus.
• But first, let us take some time to examine…
• SLIDE #2
SERMON
I. The problem.
• SLIDE #3
• The problem that we run into when we are born is that we are not born into a relationship with God.
• I will not hit this point too long because we have already looked at the fact that when God created Adam and Eve, it was to have a relationship with them, and what fractured that relationship with their decision to choose their will over God’s will.
• The freewill God gave to Adam and Eve. As well as all of mankind allows one to decide who and if they are going to love. We have the freedom to choose whether we love God Himself or not love Him.
• Some say that God is not fair; however, look at Genesis 2:15-17 with me.
• SLIDE #4
• Genesis 2:15–17 (HCSB) — 15 The Lord God took the man and placed him in the garden of Eden to work it and watch over it. 16 And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree of the garden, 17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for on the day you eat from it, you will certainly die.”
• Notice that God gave Adam and Eve the parameters in which they could live in harmony with each other and with God.
• HE also told them what would happen to them if they disobeyed His wishes.
• For a time, they walked in harmony with God, we do not know how long they did so, but for a time they did.
• They knew what would happen, yet Satan was able to convince Eve that God did not have her back, he appealed to her pride and convinced her to eat.
• Satan convinced Eve that nothing bad would happen to her if he disobeyed God’s one command.
• In Genesis 3:6, Eve succumbed to the temptation and ate, then she offered it to Adam and he ate.
• I want to share a verse that shows how close Adam and Eve were to God before this event happened.
• SLIDE #5
• Genesis 3:8 (HCSB) Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze, and they hid themselves from the Lord God among the trees of the garden.
• From there is all went downhill, Adam blamed God, then he blamed Eve, Eve blamed the serpent, and here we are today!
• That sin causes all of us experience physical death.
• Well, the problem is we are not born into a relationship with God. And as long as we have a sin problem 1 Corinthians 15:21–22 (HCSB) — 21 For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead also comes through a man. 22 For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive.
• SLIDE #6
• 1 Corinthians 15:21–22 (HCSB) For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead also comes through a man. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive.
• Our own sin separates us from God, Adams “original sin” causes our physical death.
• So as long as sin stands between mankind and God, we have a problem.
• SLIDE #7
• Romans 6:23 (HCSB) For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
• Fortunately, God has a solution!
• SLIDE #8
II. The solution.
• Once Adam and Eve sinned, God laid out a plan to defeat Satan!
• SLIDE #9
• Genesis 3:15 (HCSB) I will put hostility between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed. He will strike your head, and you will strike his heel.
• This refers to how Jesus would strike a deathblow to Satan in the end!
• It took blood to cover the effects of sin.
• When Adam and Eve sinned, God explained the consequences for their sin and then He did something interesting.
• SLIDE #10
• Genesis 3:21 (HCSB) The Lord God made clothing out of skins for Adam and his wife, and He clothed them.
• God slaughtered an animal to cover the sin of Adam and Eve.
• When the Israelites were enslaved in Egypt, God showed us another instance where blood would protect people.
• In Exodus 11, God laid out the final plague against Egypt in an effort to get Pharaoh to release God’s people. This plague was going to take the life of the firstborn of every person and animal in the land.
• In Exodus 12:1-13, the Lord told Moses that the Israelites were to spread blood from one-year-old sheep or goat on the door posts of their homes and they were to stay in their homes when the angel of death came.
• When you read the passage, God gave VERY SPECIFIC instructions as to what the people were to do during the Passover so that their family would be safe. God did not tell Moses to let the people make up their own way, He told the the conditions by which they would be saved.
• Later, Jesus would be the lamb of God who would save us.
• SLIDE #11
• John 1:29 (HCSB) The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Here is the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!
• Hebrews 10:1-7 tells us that the blood of Jesus is the only blood by which our sins can be cleansed!
• So how can be covered by the blood of Jesus? How can we possess the salvation God offers through Jesus? For the first 1500 years of the church, this USED to be a simple question; however, since about 1523 man has muddied the waters, we are going to seek to filter those waters so we can see…
• SLIDE #12
III. The conditions.
• God has always given conditions for one to follow to receive blessings from Him. The Passover in Exodus is a good example. God gave specific instructions as to how to avoid the loss of the firstborn in the family.
• In order to claim the gift of salvation the bible gives us some conditions to follow.
• Faith is a condition of receiving salvation through Jesus.
• SLIDE #13
• Ephesians 2:8–9 (HCSB) — 8 For you are saved by grace through faith, and this is not from yourselves; it is God’s gift— 9 not from works, so that no one can boast.
• Without faith we cannot please God. Hebrews 11:6 Faith means to trust, that we trust God to do what He said He will do.
• WE are called to confess Jesus as our Lord.
• SLIDE #14
• Romans 10:9 (HCSB) 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.
• We must confess Jesus initially and on an ongoing basis.
• Repentance in another condition.
• SLIDE #15
• Acts 2:38 (HCSB) “Repent,” Peter said to them, “and be baptized, each of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
• Repentance means we will turn to God to live for Him.
• Back to faith. Faith is one of the conditions, it is the main condition, it is the SOLE means (instrument, vehicle) by which salvation is received (http://jackcottrell.com/uncategorized/saved-by-grace-8-saved-by-grace-saved-in-baptism/).
• However, there are different KINDS of conditions. This brings us to baptism.
• Baptism is not just another condition for salvation, but another KIND of condition.
• Specifically, it is the TIME or occasion when God has said he will bestow grace upon the sinner; it is not the means of receiving salvation in the sense that faith is. Both faith and baptism are conditions for salvation, but faith is the means and baptism is the time.
• Please take care: do not equate condition with means, and do not confuse means and time. (http://jackcottrell.com/uncategorized/saved-by-grace-8-saved-by-grace-saved-in-baptism/).
• Romans 6:1-11 teaches this concept, that when we are baptized into Christ, that is the time in which we are buried with Him to rise again!
• SLIDE #16
• Colossians 2:12 (HCSB) Having been buried with Him in baptism, you were also raised with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead.
• Here Paul says that in that moment we were “buried with Him” and “also raised up with Him!
• It is significant that in this same verse (v. 12) Paul uses both the phrase “in baptism” and the phrase “through faith.”
• We are buried and raised with him in baptism, but at the same time it is through faith. There is no paradox, no contradiction here. Baptism as the TIME of salvation is perfectly consistent with faith as the MEANS of receiving that salvation. (http://jackcottrell.com/uncategorized/saved-by-grace-8-saved-by-grace-saved-in-baptism/)
• SLIDE #17
• Historically, for its first 1,500 years Christendom was nearly unanimous in its belief that water baptism is the moment of time when God initially bestows saving grace upon the sinner.
• This includes Martin Luther, who forcefully taught this view. He said, for example, that one is baptized so that he “may receive in the water the promised salvation” (“The Large Catechism,” IV.36). Luther saw no conflict between baptism for salvation and salvation by grace.
• The change conflict concerning the change of view concerning baptism came in years of 1523-1525 when Swiss Reformer, Zwingli reworked the doctrine of baptism when he declared that baptism is the exact NT equivalent to OT circumcision, thus what we would say is an outward sign of an inward grace.
• He declared that everyone before him for almost 1500 years was wrong concerning baptism.
• Today people claim baptism is a work and therefore not needed for salvation, Luther saw it as a work also, A work of God, not man, therefore when Luther taught we are saved by FAITH ALONE, he had no issue with baptism because he saw it as a work of God, which it is; not man!
• I could on about this for hours.
• SLIDE #18
IV. The outcome.
• I am not going to repost the passages; however, Acts 2:38 tells us we when we fulfill the conditions, we receive the forgiveness of sins and we receive the gift of the Holy Spirit!
• The Ephesians passage says we are saved!
• When God told Moses how to keep the Israelites safe during the Passover, the result for those who fulfilled the conditions was safety.
• When we fulfill the conditions God lays out, we receive salvation!
CONCLUSION
• Are you ready to receive Christ? We have people from many different churches come to FCC, many of those churches tell people they can pray a prayer for salvation, which is a good start, but they do not finish the story.
• They put them in the car, FAITH, yet they have not taken them to the meeting place for salvation, the condition of time, the place of baptism.
• Asking Jesus in your heart is a good start, but the time of meeting Jesus is at baptism.
• Jesus did it, taught it, and commanded us to do as a part of making disciples. The sinner’s prayer is not found in scripture, asking Jesus into one’s heart is not in the scriptures in the context of salvation.
• These things are WONDERFUL starts. For some of you, it is time to meet Jesus in the baptismal waters, where God does a GREAT work!
• Are you ready to either meet Jesus for the first time, or are you ready to complete the work that your faith in Jesus began!
