The Good News Of The Gospel-Pt.3, Conclusion- "saved For What?

The Fiddler on the Roof was a wonderful story about a lovable character named Tevye. He has daughters and the story cycles around the challenges to Tevye’s Jewish traditions. In the musical there are a number of songs. There is one that expresses what probably everybody has at one time or another thought about and that is “If I were a rich man.” It is sung as sort of a prayer or conversation with God and Tevye muses about his life if he were rich. We probably express the same longings when we sigh, “If only I’d win the lottery!” The closing stanza of that song read;

“Lord who made the lion and the lamb,

You decreed I should be what I am.

Would it spoil some vast eternal plan?

If I were a wealthy man.”

Well, the truth is, for the believer in Christ Jesus, God does have a vast eternal plan for us which includes incomparable riches and blessings that make wealth here pale by comparison. In fact there is no comparison for the wealth of this world is transient and ultimately empty. Jesus warned about the danger of the love of money and in Mt.6:19-21 cautioned;

““Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

So today, I close this three part series. The first part we took a look at the question, “Saved FROM what?” and saw the inevitable condemnation and horrors of hell that await all those outside of Christ. Last week, in Pt.2, we answered the question, “Saved BY what?” in which we saw how both the LIFE and DEATH of Jesus was needed to atone for our sins and clothe us in His righteousness. So today we want to consider the final question, “Saved FOR what?”

We begin where we left off last week. Christ was out substitute in living a perfectly sinless life which fulfilled the demands of the Covenant of Works, and He was our substitute in death, taking upon Himself all the sins and punishment of all those He came to save. But for all of that to take effect, Christ had to rise from the dead. The resurrection was proof that God the Father had accepted all that Christ had accomplished on our behalf. Because just as His death was the payment for sin, so was His resurrection the certification and vindication of that payment. “The resurrection was the great vindication of Christ, that the Father had approved of His work, that it was completed, and that there was no more penalty left to pay, no more wrath left to bear, and that sin and death could no longer lay legal claim to Him.”

Not only was Christ raised from the dead but He also ascended to glory, to reign forever. Eph.1:19b-20 reads;

“That power is the same as the mighty strength 20 he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, 21 far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is invoked, not only in the present age but also in the one to come.”

Christ now reigns and is our eternal mediator and High Priest who makes intercession for His children. Having completed His work and our salvation He has sat at the right hand of the Father. So, This brings us to ask, “Saved FOR what?” To answer we start in Ephesians 1:18;

“I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, 19 and his incomparably great power for us who believe.”

What is this “glorious inheritance” the Apostle speaks of? It is indeed vast and eternal and so beyond what we can even describe. We see God’s vast eternal plan in the following 3 sets of Scripture and they are so profound because they bring us onto holy ground before the Sovereignty of God. It takes us from our election, Ch.1:4-6;

“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 for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— 6 to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves.”

all the way to our exaltation Ch.2:6-7;

“And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, 7 in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.”