Salvation Requires A Savior

TITLE: SALVATION REQUIRES A SAVIOR

SCRIPTURE: ROMANS 10:10

We are living in a day and age where we appear to want salvation without a savior. We don’t like to talk about Sin any longer. Church that are growing no longer Preach and Teach the requirement of Salvation, we want Salvation without a Savior. We want to be saved on our own terms. We want to design what Salvation should look like for us individually. We want salvation to look like the Five Guys Hamburger Restaurant – where you place your order and tell them what you want on it.

Churches no longer talk about SIN. Sin, it's such a pesky word - we don't use it anymore.

• Sin makes me think of God

• Sin makes me think of Judgment

• Sin would mean there's a giant moral absolute out there and I'm accountable

• I might have to beg for forgiveness

• I'm probably going to be punished

• So we no longer want to deal with the word ‘Sin’

After all I JOHN 5:17 “ALL UNRIGHTEOUSNESS IS SIN…” Man, that kind of puts things in perspective. So, therefore; we don’t like to deal with or talk about Sin. I JOHN 3:4 “WHOSOEVER COMMITTETH SIN TRANSGRESSETH ALSO THE LAW: FOR SIN IS THE TRANSGRESSION OF THE LAW.” It's a transgression of divine law, which means there's a divine Person or God or something that has a law. Any act regarded as such a transgression, especially a willful or deliberate violation of some religious or moral principle, that would fall in the category of ‘Sin.’

• Sin means I did it on Purpose

• Sin means it was Willful

• Sin means there is no Valid Excuse

• Sin means I knew it was wrong when I did it, and that doesn't make me feel very good about myself

In fact, if I commit a sin, after a while I think I'm a bad person. So we don't use that word. No sense feeling bad if I don’t have to. There are enough things that I encounter that make me feel bad, I don’t need to add ‘Sin’ to the list.

• Feel bad for cheating on my Taxes

• Feel bad for not answering the phone when I saw your name on my Caller ID

• Feel bad for calling out Sick on the Job and spent day at the Casino

• Feel bad about gossiping about you all night – smiled in your face this morning

• Feel bad for eating the last of the Ice Cream and know you wanted it

• I don’t need to feel bad about ‘Sin’ too

In an effort to feel better, we like another Word instead -

• Mistake

• I made a mistake

• We feel more comfortable with that

• With a mistake I can take an Eraser and correct it

• With a mistake I can hit the ‘delete’ button and start over

• With a mistake I don’t have to feel bad, after all it was just a mistake

A few weeks ago I was talking with a person who said they were Saved. I must admit we had an interesting conversation about “salvation.” He admitted it was a word he was not that familiar with. He told me his Dad back in the day had worked at a SALVAGE YARD. He went on to say salvage and salvation sounded pretty similar. So he figured salvation had to do with claiming something that was broken and messed up and then somehow reselling it for a bit of a profit. Turns out he was pretty close with that Analogy.

The most common meaning of salvation is to be saved by god from the consequences of our sin. But the Bible speaks of our salvation in a bit fuller terms than simply being rescued from hell. When thinking about salvation it’s helpful to think about what we are Saved From - What We Are Saved To - Who We Are Saved By. It’s also helpful to think about our salvation as a Past – Present - And Future Happening.

Under these terms my Brothers and Sisters, it is evident – Salvation Requires a Savior. We cannot save ourselves. I know we are living in a time where we are now running around calling our wives queens and our husbands kings. Sounds good and uplifting, but we don’t have the power or authority to Save ourselves.

• That’s why Calvary was necessary

• That’s why Golgotha was necessary

• That’s why the Place of the Skull was necessary

• That’s why the Cross was necessary

• That’s why a Savior was necessary

It was exciting a few weeks ago to watch 16 of our young people give their lives to Christ at the end of our Community Vacation Bible School. God is still saving during VBS. It will be critical that we spend time with these new believers to help them in their Christian development and indoctrinate them to the life of the Church because we live in a social media generation, we must engage them as to what Salvation ought to mean in the life of every believer. We must counteract what is being dictated on Social Media as to what Salvation looks like and restore the Glory. The standard cannot be Social Media it must be the Word of God.