There were a lot of things one could believe in in the ancient world…
• There were all manner of Greek or Roman ‘gods’ one could worship… just take your pick! Epicureanism was a common philosophy. So was Stoicism. There were all kinds of mystery religions and pagan worship ideas.
• There were all kinds of things one could believe in… just like today.
That’s why the principle we’re going to talk about today is probably the most controversial of everything we’ve said up to this point in this series: First Things First!
• Most people even in our day believe #1: there is a God. Even if they don’t believe in the Christian God.
• Many will even go so far as to accept #2: Jesus is His Son, even if they don’t understand what that means.
• #3: The Holy Spirit is Alive & Well… they’ll say “whatever—nobody understands the Spirit, anyway.”
• And they probably won’t give you much grief on #4: The Bible is God’s Word… even though they may not believe it actually came from God, most pay lip service at least to it as a book of potential wisdom.
• They certainly cannot deny the reality of the church; #5: The church belongs to God; even if we experience it in imperfect ways.
• But #6… THIS is where you’re going to be called all sorts of names if you actually believe this: …that Salvation is found in Jesus Christ… alone!
o Just get ready! You’re going to be called intolerant, close-minded, backwards, old-fashioned, un-enlightened, bigoted, etc!!!!
o Just imagine the gall! How dare you suggest that there is only ONE way to Heaven.
There are all kinds of things one can believe in today…
• All kinds of religions… from Islam to Buddhism! All kinds of philosophies… from Humanism to Scientology.
• It doesn’t matter what you believe… we’re all on the same journey, we’re just taking different paths, right?
• That’s what our world wants to tell us…But what Peter told that panel of religious leaders in Acts 4 has never been more true!
12 Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved." NIV
This great statement comes in the midst of a wonderful story in Acts.
• Peter and John have been out continuing the ministry of Christ… teaching the good news and healing the sick. In chapter 3 they came across a man crippled from birth.
7 Taking him by the right hand, he{Peter} helped him up, and instantly the man’s feet and ankles became strong. 8 He jumped to his feet and began to walk. Then he went with them into the temple courts, walking and jumping, and praising God. 9 When all the people saw him walking and praising God, 10 they recognized him as the same man who used to sit begging at the temple gate called Beautiful, and they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him. 11 While the beggar held on to Peter and John, all the people were astonished and came running to them in the place called Solomon’s Colonnade. NIV
• Peter knows a good opportunity when he sees it and so he starts preaching to the crowd in vs. 12. But all this preaching gets them into trouble… look down to chapter 4. The religious leaders are put out by Peter’s preaching about Jesus and the resurrection and so they throw them into prison. The next day they convene a panel and drag Peter and John to appear before them. And I love what Peter says as he is “filled with the Holy Spirit” (vs. 8)
8 Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them: "Rulers and elders of the people! 9 If we are being called to account today for an act of kindness shown to a cripple and are asked how he was healed, 10 then know this, you and all the people of Israel: It is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified but whom God raised from the dead, that this man stands before you healed. 11 He is "’the stone you builders rejected, which has become the capstone.’ 12 Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved." NIV
Jesus described his mission this way in Luke 19:10 “For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost." NIV
• Now, this was heretical teaching to the Jewish leaders! I mean, Jesus couldn’t be the Messiah! The Messiah, the deliverer, the savior, was supposed to come and restore Israel’s power and might… not die on a cross!
• Jesus hadn’t brought “salvation” from Rome! How could he be the Messiah?
• Did they understand what it meant that he came “to save what was lost?”
Indeed, what does it mean that Jesus brought “salvation?” What is it “to be saved?”
• Its sort of religious lingo that Christians like to throw around, maybe without realizing that there might be folks who don’t understand what we mean by it. We sort of take it for granted that everybody wants “to be saved.”
• Well, maybe some people don’t want “to be saved” because they don’t understand what it means to be lost? Maybe they don’t feel the need for Jesus in their lives because they don’t feel the need to be saved…?
• Things are going along pretty well for them… they’ve got good jobs, they’re paying the bills, raising their kids, shuttling them back & forth from school to soccer practice… all the while never feeling a burden to be saved, because they don’t feel like they’re in any trouble.
• Tell me Satan hasn’t done that to us! Especially in our society in America… where our wealth & prosperity and our ethic of self-reliance has blinded us to the fact that we are lost and in need of a SAVIOR!
2 Corinthians 4:4
4 The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. NIV
But folks, the truth of the matter is that whether we realize it or not… we are LOST!
• Wasn’t that the message of Romans? We are all lost and we cannot save ourselves!
• We have all sinned (Ro. 3:23) and what we deserve from that sin is death (6:23) but what God offers us instead is life… “but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (6:23b) NIV
Now, I suspect that more people realize we’re in trouble than they let on. It does seem that everybody agrees that there is something wrong with us… we’re just not sure what.
• Some people call it dysfunction, some bad karma or psychic voids; some attribute their problems to oppression or social ills; we all sort of intuitively know that this isn’t the way things are supposed to be.
• So there’s everything out there in the supermarket of ideas to help remedy the situation. I get sick, I go to the doctor and take a pill. I’m too fat—go to weight watchers. I suffer from addiction… alcoholism—go to alcoholics anonymous. I’m one of the millions affected by depression—there are medications I can take, counselors I can see.
• There are all kinds of things out there offering us help… offering us a remedy for what ails us and I don’t want to be like Tom Cruise and put any of them down… but I’ll tell you that NONE of them will even come close to treating our real problem. Like a lot of things, they will only treat the symptoms… but not the root of the problem!
• Our real problem… our real disease is SIN.
SIN is one of those 3-letter words that’s not extremely “PC” to talk about today. We’re more at home talking about diseases and dysfunction… but the heart of it all is SIN. There are two types of sin we need to consider:
• One, personal sins. These are the sins that you and I commit ourselves on a sometimes daily basis. It means to “miss the mark”. There are days when I sure miss it! Its these sins that we need forgiveness for.
• But perhaps more profound is corporate sin. This is the sin that is so much a part of our world, that we hardly know of anything else. We live in a fallen world and sin is all around us. It is the air we breath in a sense… the water in which we swim. It is this sin that Paul says “entered into the world through the one man” when Adam took that fruit (Ro. 5:12). It is this sin that clouds our judgment, twists our motives and distorts our relationships. It is this sin that we cannot escape because it affects us all so profoundly. Its this sin that we need salvation from, so desperately!
Why would anyone NOT want it; salvation?
A plague was ravaging a tiny village in the outermost bush of a remote African province. A lone missionary, a doctor who had given his life to fighting this particular disease, had gone in with the only cure available. It was made from plants indigenous to the region and could quite easily be reproduced by the villagers themselves just by taking some of the leaves and mixing it with some herbs & spices. When he went in, he found that there wasn’t a single person in the village who was free of the disease. They all had it and were dying at an alarming rate. Characteristic of the disease was a rash on the back of the neck. All he had to do was treat the rash with the medication and the people could be healed… but he couldn’t get anybody to let him give them the medication. Despite the fact that people were dying… nobody realized that they were sick. They all had the same rash. There wasn’t anything unusual about it. Since everybody had the same markings on their necks, they just assumed it was normal and nobody realized any different. Nobody realized it was killing them.
• Isn’t that the way it is here? We look around at the world and think this is normal. This is just the way it is, right?
• And nobody realizes that we’re all infected by sin and it is killing us!
Folks, we are all infected and there is only one cure… Jesus Christ! He has come into our village with the only cure available… and he’s the only one not sick!
• It is amazing to me that even though God knew we were going to sin when he created us… he made a plan to save us, anyway.
• God’s plan for salvation from the very beginning was Jesus Christ!
20 He was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake. 1 Peter 1:20 NIV … Sounds like a plan!
• And his plan from the very beginning was for us to become his.
Ephesians 1:4-11
4 For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love 5 he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, ………11 In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, NIV … Sounds like a plan!
We typically use the term “plan of salvation” in terms of what I do… our response to the good news of Jesus.
• Hear the message; Believe it to be true; Confess him as Lord; Repent of our sins; Baptized into Christ--- YES, those are all things I must do!
• But it is important for us to understand that those things are my response to God’s plan… God’s “plan of salvation” is and has always been Jesus Christ!
• My sin created a wall between myself and God that I could do nothing about… until by God’s plan a way was made. Jesus was made that “atoning sacrifice” (1 Jn 4:10) that takes away my sin… and that barrier is removed.
• So I think more properly understood, the “plan of salvation” is Jesus Christ. Yet, we must still ask, “What am I you going to do about it?”
Now, if Salvation is found in Jesus ALONE…
• You’re not going to find it in any other religion… no matter how peaceful Moslems want you to believe Islam is, Mohammed cannot offer you true peace.
• You’re not going to find it in the secular world. Hope for mankind does not lie within the realm of science or technology or politics.
• You’re not going to find it by working harder or by trying to earn it yourself! Remember, Romans was very clear on this point. You cannot get there on your own!
Ephesians 2:8
8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith-and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God- 9 not by works, so that no one can boast. NIV
• Salvation is a GIFT; you cannot earn it! It just doesn’t work that way.
• You will find it ONLY in Jesus Christ.
But… back to Acts 4 before we close… notice what Peter & John go on to do after their inquisition before the authorities.
13 When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus. 14 But since they could see the man who had been healed standing there with them, there was nothing they could say. 15 So they ordered them to withdraw from the Sanhedrin and then conferred together. 16 "What are we going to do with these men?" they asked. "Everybody living in Jerusalem knows they have done an outstanding miracle, and we cannot deny it. 17 But to stop this thing from spreading any further among the people, we must warn these men to speak no longer to anyone in this name."
18 Then they called them in again and commanded them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus. 19 But Peter and John replied, "Judge for yourselves whether it is right in God’s sight to obey you rather than God. 20 For we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard."
21 After further threats they let them go. They could not decide how to punish them, because all the people were praising God for what had happened. NIV
• Peter & John were so changed by their salvation in Christ that they couldn’t help from going about telling others about that good news!
• They couldn’t help from making a difference in the lives of people everywhere they went!
God does not simply save us from our sins (as if that was it)… He saves us FOR a purpose! Paul says in Ephesians 2:9-10
10 For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. NIV
• Part of this “plan for salvation” includes good works that he has planned for us to do!
• I’m afraid many of have sort of an “ego-centric” view of salvation. That what Jesus did on the cross was JUST so I could go to Heaven… settle into that big ol’ mansion on the hilltop, take daily strolls down the streets of gold, maybe a dip in the crystal sea every now and then.
• Now, all of that may be true, and don’t get me wrong- I’m looking forward to Heaven… but isn’t that kind of an “ego-centric”, selfish kind of view of salvation and Heaven itself?
• Folks, Jesus didn’t die JUST so you and I could live large in Heaven… but also so that we might live our lives to the glory of God right here and right now… in the midst even of all of this sin.
I mentioned Eph 1 earlier… in vss.11-12 Paul writes that we were chosen in Christ 12 in order that we, who were the first to hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory. NIV
• We are to live our lives to the praise of God’s glory! Our lives should be shining examples in a dark world of the light of Christ!
Salvation is found in Jesus Christ… alone!
The question for us may not be “Are you saved?” …though I need to ask you that this a.m. Particularly to our young people who may be thinking about what they are going to give their lives to.
• Have you given your life to Jesus Christ? Have you accepted God’s plan of Salvation and given your life to Jesus?
• Do you believe that He is the Son of God? Have you confessed His name as Lord of your life? Have you turned from your sin and made a decision to follow Him? Have your sins been washed away in the waters of baptism?
• Are you a Christian?
Most of us have… probably a long time ago. Maybe the question you ought to consider this morning is, “How is my salvation reaching others?”
• Has it at all? Are you telling others about Jesus?
• Are you living your life to bring glory to God?
• Is your salvation being demonstrated by your works and your actions?
•
Have you found salvation this morning? Its in Jesus!
