We Believe:
Salvation
&
The Purpose of God’s Grace
Into
Today we get to talk about something that is so wonderful – and yet misunderstood. It’s wonderful in that we have it, the world needs it, we can help them get it, and but we are not the ones that give it.
And it is misunderstood because there are many out there who think that you can lose it.
Salvation!
And along with Salvation, I am going to share with the Purpose of God’s Grace.
Salvation
Salvation is the great theme of the Bible. The Gospel message is plain and simple: God saves sinners. Not only is this the greatest news the world has ever heard – it is the bedrock of Christian faith.
When sin entered into the world it was a terrible event in human history – it was the MOST terrible event in human history. The moment sin entered the world, there was a barrier placed between man and God.
God’s judgment against sin was so great that NO HUMAN EFFORT could ever overcome it. Sinners cannot solve the problem of sin.
Isaiah 64:6
All of us have become like something unclean, and all our righteous acts are like a polluted garment.
The very best we have, our righteous acts are filthy compared to a holy and perfect God.
Our salvation is rooted in the character of our heavenly Father. Man sinned; the only way to cover sin was a sacrifice.
God required a sacrifice for sin, be He also demonstrated His mercy by providing that sacrifice; the only sacrifice that would meet the demands of His justice – His Only Begotten Son, Jesus Christ!
Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection make up the events through which HE purchased our salvation.
And everyone needs salvation.
It doesn’t matter if they believe in the Bible or not – they need salvation – they just don’t know it!
Romans 3:23
for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God
I hear pastors all the time: You don’t need to preach on sin that much, people need to be lifted up, not beat down. The pastor of Hillsong even said: people don’t need to be told they are sinners, they already know.
NO THEY DON’T!
The basic human problem is sin.
And I hope that after today you will feel the urgency to tell others about Jesus, or at least to invite them to Sunday school, to a church event, to church so they can hear the Good news that is Jesus. Because if you know you are to tell people the good news, that you are to GO AND MAKE DISICPLES, and you don’t do it – that’s sin.
James 4:17
If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them.
Guys we sin enough, lets not add one more.
The growth of this church, the growth of the kingdom, its on you.
Guys everyone needs salvation! And no one deserves it – not you, not me.
Everyone needs to hear the message of Jesus Christ. Everyone needs to hear the truth. And in our society today, with all the lies and compromise, people desperately need the unchanging hope that is Jesus Christ.
And the first thing that we need to really drive home today is this:
There is only 1 way to heaven: Salvation in Christ alone.
Plain and simple: Salvation comes by butting your FAITH in Jesus Christ!
Acts 4:12
Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved.
John 14:6
Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
In our society today verses like this get us accused of all kinds of things.
Christians are called intolerant, bigots, and even worse.
People who make these accusations do not understand, nor are they willing to listen to the truth of the Gospel. And it is our duty as children of God to proclaim the good news that is Jesus Christ because He will save ALL who call upon his name.
6 Aspects of Salvation
1. Grace – unmerited favor
a. G.R.A.C.E. = God’s Reward At Christ’s Expense
b. Grace affirms our absolute dependence on God
i. We do not deserve salvation, nor can we do anything to earn it, and yet God gives it to us anyway
Eph 2:8-9 - 8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9 not by works, so that no one can boast.
c. God saves us by His grace, because of our faith, He does it alone. We are all equally guilty of sin, we are all equally saved by God.
d. Timothy George – God’s grace is inexhaustible, irrepressible, overflowing; god is not stingy…God’s sufficient grace radiates it’s adequacy to meet the deepest needs of the vilest sinner who ever lived. There is no hell on earth so deep that God’s grace cannot reach or go deep still.
i. If you are afraid you will mess up 1 to many times – you wont! God’s grace is sufficient and never ending! And NO ONE has done something so bad that they cannot be forgiven! NO ONE!
2. Faith – Herschel Hobbs - means to believe, but in it’s truest sense it is more than intellectual. It involves an act of the will whereby one trusts in Christ and commits one’s self to Him, to His will and way. It means to accept or receive Christ as both Lord and Savior, thus one will be brought to confess Him as such.
a. Faith is active! It marches and moves, it is a commitment! Faith is not about book knowledge, it is not about knowing who God is or what He has done – the devil has that! Saving faith is trusting faith! It means to trust what God has planned for you and to do it!
b. Grace and faith go hand in hand: the most beautiful example I have ever read comes from Adrian Rogers:
i. Here is how salvation works and the new birth comes about. I put my faith in God’s grace. It is not the faith that saves; it is the grace that saves. Faith just lays hold of that grace. Think of grace as God’s hand of love reaching down from heaven saying, ‘I love you, I want to save you’. It is a nail pierced hand because He has paid for our sins. Think of faith as your sin-stained hand, saying ‘ God I need you and I want you’. And when you put your hand of faith in God’s hand of grace, THAT IS SALVATION!
3. Regeneration – New Birth – Born again – New creation
a. John 3:3 – unless someone is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of heaven
b. Regeneration is the way God begins his work of salvation in us. It is the beginning of our new life.
c. 2 Cor 5:17 - Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come:[a] The old has gone, the new is here!
i. It doesn’t matter who you were before you came to Christ, once you come to Him you are NEW –
4. Repentance – This is a word we don’t often think about. But we should. Repentance is godly sorrow for sin – a genuine turning away from what had once ensnared you.
a. Fleeing from sin – Joseph and the Potiphar’s wife in Gen 39. (flee leaving his cloak behind in her hand) (run across stage)
b. We are commanded to repent – ACTS 17:30 - In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent.
c. Lee Scarborough – Repentance is turning away from your sins. It is giving up love of your sins, your affection for everything that you know to be wrong in your life. It is turning right about with a new view and new vision of God.
5. Justification – God’s gracious and full acquittal of sinners who believe in Christ.
a. It is the opposite of condemnation – instead of being punished for our sins we are acquitted.
b. NOT A PARDON! Higher than a pardon. In a pardon the crime stays on your record, but your punishment is waived. It’s not good enough!
c. God’s grace of justification is so great that you are fully restored to the favor of God and treated as if you had never sinned! All who Jesus delivers from the wrath to come, all of His people, are freely justified from all things and presented faultless before the presence of His glory!
d. And the beautiful thing that that we are justified THROUGH FAITH ALONE! Our faith in the Lord is all it takes! There is nothing we can add to it, and nothing we can take from it!
6. Sanctification – the progressive work of the Holy Spirit by which the believer is set apart for God’s purposes and MOVES into Christian maturity.
a. It’s progressive – it’s a process – there is movement and growth.
b. When we are new we are infants, and like infants we require someone to feed us and walk with us, and guide us; but we are not meant to remain spiritual infants! We are expected to grow and mature and eventually LEAD OTHERS!
Heb 5:12-14 - In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God’s word all over again. You need milk, not solid food! 13 Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. 14 But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.
c. The Bible says that our Christian life is an experience of growing in grace – moving from elementary truths to deeper truths.
i. If all you are doing if coming 1 day a week, not reading your Bible, not growing in your walk, YOU ARE STARVING TO DEATH!
ii. As you grow you are expected to HUNGER for God’s word, to spend time in God’s word, and to seek God’s word!
iii. And this might hurt someone’s feelings – but Wednesday night is abysmal!
1. If you aren’t coming here for study and fellowship, and growth together – and I don’t believe we have to meet here- then we need to get some home groups together so you can meet, fellowship, and learn with each other at home.
Phil 1:6 - being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.
d. The process of Christian growth is to continue from being born again all the way until Christ returns and when He returns we will be made perfect. And that’s called Glorification.
7. Glorification – completes the saving work of God. It is the culmination and the final blessed and abiding state of the redeemed. We will be in paradise with Jesus!
Salvation is a beautiful thing – and we all desperately need it!
Bu what exactly is God’s Purpose of Grace?
Can we know it?
There is this word that gets thrown around in theological circles, and I am sure you have heard it.
It’s called Election. Sometimes you hear it associated with the called, and true believers.
Salvation begins in God – His determination to save sinners through the atonement by Jesus Christ. This is important because it secures our salvation in God’s power and purpose, rather than in our own efforts.
From the very beginning, God’s plan was for all the world.
Gen 22:18
and through your offspring[a] all nations on earth will be blessed,[b] because you have obeyed me.”
We can see right there, a glimpse of God’s plan.
And as you go through Scripture you see that there were covenants made, and in the Gospel of Luke we can read of a new Covenant
Luke 22:20
In the same way, after the supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you.[a]
We know that God maintains His plan. The doctrine of election affirms that God took the initiative in our salvation. He is the one who started it, not us.
But what does it mean to be the Elect? To be the called?
That’s actually a lot easier to understand than you might think!
God is revealed in all of creation, because God breathed eternity inside of us all, and we have this internal sense that there is more than our eyes can behold. When we are presented with the Gospel – we are called. When you and I obey God’s command and go share the gospel with others, God is using us to call others. When we respond to the Gospel message and accept Jesus Christ, we have answered that call – and because we have answered that call, accepted Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, and been born again – we become the Elect and we have ETERNAL SALVATION!
And we can be CONFIDENT of this.
Phil 1:6
being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.
We don’t have to worry. We don’t have to wonder. When we belong to Jesus- we belong to Jesus! We have ETERNAL SECURITY!
BUT!!!!!!!!!!!!!
There are those who claim the name, but aren’t true believers.
Remember the Parable of the Sower from Matt 13 and Luke 8.
There are those who will never respond to the Gospel message.
There are those who will respond briefly.
There are those who will respond until life gets hard.
And then there are true believers, fertile soil, that not only respond, but produce.
It can be heartbreaking at times when friends leave the church, when friends leave the faith and get mad at God. Often you wonder what happened to make them lose their faith; when in reality they never had real faith to begin with.
1 John 2:19 speaks to this
They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us.
If that’s painful to hear – its painful to preach.
We can try and try and try to get them back and exhaust ourselves and get discouraged. Or we can move on to fertile soil.
True believers persevere until the end. It’s that perseverance, that is evidence of true faith. Faith is a lifelong process. It’s an endeavor. And if you have faith, you never lose it.
You may sin, believers may sin, may even fall into a terrible/awful sin that hurts you and the church.
We are humans, we are not perfect. God knows this! That’s why His grace is never ending! We may mess up, But true believers do not remain there. True believers do not remain in sin and rebellion – that’s what sin is – true believers will repent and get back on track.
We try to live our life right according to the Word of God. But in the end our confidence is not in ourselves or our faithfulness, it is in God and His promises.
1 Pet 1:5
This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.
We are kept by the power of God! We have nothing to fear!
Christians are encouraged to trust securely and safely in Christ. It is our duty! Doubting your salvation is doubting God’s promise!
When you are the Lord’s, you are eternally safe!
Romans 8:38-39
For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,[a] 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.
