Salvation

Good morning. You know, whenever Roger substitutes, we kind of have decided that we would go down the doctrinal statement as mentioned on the web, and there are copies of it in the back, and do whatever topic's next. Well, the next topic that we're going to cover is salvation. And I got to thinking about why would we discuss salvation in a body of believers like this? You all know it, don't you? Most of you are saved, if not every single person here. But I thought that it actually is a wonderful subject because it's important for us to have a clear and precise message when we talk to someone about salvation.

It's important for us to understand personally that salvation is by grace alone. And so we'll talk a little bit today about additions to the salvation message because if you understand, if we understand that salvation is by grace alone, it will go a long way to neutralize legalism in your life. If you start on a grace basis, you're going to end on a grace basis.

There are two paragraphs in the doctrinal statement. I'm going to read the first one, and then we'll talk a little bit, and then read the second one. The first one in the statement says, we believe that because God so loved the world that the Lord Jesus Christ was sent to die for our sins.

He took the penalty of our sins upon himself on the cross, according to scripture. Our redemption from sin has been accomplished solely by his shed blood and death. No repentance. No feeling, no good resolution, no sincere efforts, no submission to any supposed spiritual rules can add to the least degree to the value of the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ. So you have to ask yourself, does man need salvation? Do we need it? If you look at scripture, I've got three or four from the Old Testament.

Genesis 6.5 says, And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. Boy, there isn't a lot of wiggle room in that.

Isaiah 64.6 says, But we are all as unclean things. and all our righteousness are as filthy rags, and we all do fade as a leaf, and our iniquities like the wind have taken us away.

Romans 3.10-12 says as it is written, there is none righteous, no not one. There is not one that understands. There is none that seeks after God. They are all gone out of the way. They are all together become unprofitable There is none that does good, not a single one.

And verse 23 says, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Quite an indictment from the Word of God in terms of whether man would even consider whether he needed to be saved or not. So, why does man need salvation? Not necessarily because he sinned and he doesn't seek after God and those reasons.

The real reason is, is in John 3.18, where the Lord Jesus told his disciples that he that believes on him is not condemned, but he that believes not is condemned already because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.

Big problem. It's one thing to be a sinner. It's another thing to be judged, found guilty, and be condemned and you're just waiting for the condemnation to be carried out. All men are under the condemnation. The trial is over. We don't live on the yellow line thinking if I go left, I'm going to be okay. If I go right, I probably won't be okay. Really, the state that we're all in and the standing we have before God is that the trial is over. We all were found guilty. Every human being was found guilty. You were sent to the gallows, so to speak, and you're condemned. That's the state of every human being.

But, in John 3, verse 5, he says to Nicodemus, unless a man be born again of water and the Spirit, he'll never enter the kingdom of God. He won't see it. He won't know anything about it. Speaking primarily to Jews. So, if that's our state, God offers us salvation.

Why do you think he did that? What do you think his motive is? for just offering us salvation. The reason is that God so loved the world. He did it because He loves the world, that He gave His only Son, that who should ever believe in Him should not perish but have eternal life. So God's motive for giving us the opportunity to be saved was His love towards us.

So let's look at some of the elements of salvation. In Ephesians 2, 8 and 9, Paul says, For by grace you are saved, through faith, and that not of yourselves, it's a gift from God, or salvation is a gift from God, not of works, lest any man should boast. So the elements are this, it's by grace, it's through faith, it is a gift, it's not of your works or anybody else's, And there's no pride on man's part when it comes to the discussion of salvation.

First issue is grace. What is grace? Chester McCauley probably has the best definition of grace that I've ever seen. He says that grace is the unlimited and unmerited blessings from God based on the complete and total adequate work of Christ on the cross. It's unlimited and unmerited blessing. We can't do anything to get it in terms of earning it, and when we do get it, it's totally unlimited.

The second aspect is that it's through faith. So let's talk about faith a little bit. Tal Malloy did a wonderful study on faith, and some of you have seen that book that he did. And inside there, he talked about there are four elements of faith. The first one, he said, was the very essence of faith, which is described in Hebrews 11.1, that faith is the substance of things hoped for, and it's the evidence of things not seen. Translated, I think that says that it's trust and dependence and reliance. It's proof of the things of God. Faith, in fact, is substance and it's evidence of the things of God. Then the second aspect of faith was what Hal called, when you see in the Word of God, the faith. You see the definite article in front of the word faith.

And that really refers to the totality of God's revelation to man. The Word of God contains everything that's included in the faith. The third aspect, and this is the one that pertains to those of us who are believers, and it's personal faith. Personal faith is how we receive the gift of salvation. And you know what?

God has given every single man the capacity and the responsibility to respond to Him and His drawing by your personal faith. Every single human being has that built into him, that he can respond to God's drawing by personal faith. And if you read Romans 1, 19 through 21, Paul explains that man is without excuse when it comes to the things of God because the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power in his Godhead. And so therefore, man, you're without excuse.

In other words, God is making a statement to man, I've revealed myself to you in my creation. And I've also revealed myself to you in your conscience. You know that I exist. You know that I'm God. And I demand a response from you. And the response is, is by faith to acknowledge me as God and be thankful.

So, verse 21 says, because that when they knew God, they knew Him, they glorified Him not as God and neither were they thankful. But became vain in their imaginations and their foolish heart was darkened. So all men have the responsibility before God to believe Him. But on the other hand, it pleases God to save those who do believe him. The last and fourth aspect of Hal's write-up on faith is faith as a principle, and we don't need to discuss that today. A quote from Verne Peterman.

He says that we find, as we examine both the Old Testament and the New Testament, that since Adam sinned in the Garden of Eden, Salvation has always been and always will be by faith in God's provision. And he gives a lot of verses, Genesis, Isaiah, etc. Though salvation has had a different expression and character among varying times and people groups, we will be focusing on the expression and character of salvation in regards to the church. This is given for us primarily in the book of Acts, and the New Testament epistles. Salvation as described in God's Word has an impact on believers past, present, and future.

So, let's talk about characteristics of faith. Number one, faith demands content. If I said to you, I want you to believe, and that's all I said, what would you say back to me? Well, what do you want me to believe? Faith has to have a focus, a content of what to believe. If I say to you, just believe, you're going to say back to me, well, what do you want me to believe? So you have to have the context and it's the only thing that requires information. You have to have the information in order to know what to believe.

The Gospel makes it very clear. Number two about faith is that the value, and this is really important, the value of faith is in the object believed and not in the person who has the faith. Do you understand that? The value of salvation is in the object that you believe in and not in your faith. The total value is there.

Let's say that I recognize that I'm lost. I've been living all my life thinking, oh, you know, I'm going to do enough spiritual push-ups and God is going to be happy with me and at some point he's going to save me. And I come to the realization, oh, you know what, I'm lost. And so I've got to believe in something. So I believe in Allah. Am I saved? Absolutely not. Because the object doesn't have any value. The object must have value. The Lord Jesus Christ as the object in his work is the only thing of value.

In 1 Corinthians 15, 1 and 2, Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you and which also you have received wherein you stand. by which you are saved, if you keep in memory that which I have preached to you, unless you have believed in vain."

He's telling them that if you didn't believe in that gospel, then you did believe in vain. In verse 14, he said, if Christ is not risen, then our preaching is vain. And your faith is also vain. And vain means that you haven't come in or realized the potential in which you were created. My faith is vain if I believe in something that's not true.

In verse 17, if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain, you're yet in your sins. So valid faith must have valid content. The message Faith will be preceded by the message. You've got to have solid content. You've got to know the truth. How do you get faith? How does it show up? I think it shows up by hearing.

Romans 10.17 says, So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.

Galatians 3.2-5 says, This is what I learn of you when Paul is talking to the Galatians. Received you the Spirit by the works of the law or by the hearing of faith? Did you get the information? And he therefore that ministers to you the Spirit and works miracles among you, does he do it by the works of the law or by the hearing of faith? Acts 15, 6 and 7.

And the apostle and the elders came together to consider this matter. And when they had been much disputing, Peter rose up and said to these men, Brethren, you know, and he's talking about when he witnessed and was involved with the Lord's work in saving Gentiles in Cornelius' house. Here's what he says, you know how that a good while ago God made choice among us that the Gentiles by my mouth should hear the word of the gospel and believe. And God, which knows the hearts, bore witness, giving them the Holy Spirit, even as He did unto us.

John 5.24 says, Verily I say unto you, He that hears my word, hears it, and believes on him that sent me, he has everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation, but is passed from death unto life.

So here's the formula. plus proper content, Christ died for your sins, plus the proper response, which is your faith, equals the result. And what's the result? Salvation. Those are the elements. And if you study the Word of God, you're going to find that Paul never prays for the salvation of people necessarily.

What he prays for is that a door would be opened so that his message would be clear, that people would understand what he said. Colossians 4, 2, and 3 continue in prayer and watch in the same with thanksgiving. With all praying for us, please pray for me and my companions that God would open unto us a door of utterance and to speak the mystery of Christ, for which I am also in bonds, that I may make it manifest as I ought to speak. That is a prayer that is common or should be common to every one of us. If you're ever in a position to speak the gospel to anyone, that's the prayer.

Number four, faith is the only act excluded, I'll put it this way, from the works category. Faith is a non-meritorious act. It's the only thing a human being can do that he can't take credit for. If the value in what you believe is in what you believe, then what value is there in your believing it? You can't take credit for a thing because you have believed in the person and the work of somebody else.

What's wonderful about that is that it forces you to be on a grace basis. It forces you to be on that. If you can go to God and say, well, I believed and you owe me, then there would be some merit in your faith. But there isn't. The merit is all in what you believe.

Romans 4, 5 says, But unto him that works not, but believes on him that justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness. God gives you the greatest blessing when you exercise faith, and it's the one thing you don't get credit for. Number five, faith is the only act that's in harmony with grace.

Romans 4.16 says, therefore, it is salvation is of faith. Why? That it might be by grace. To the end that the promise might be sure to all the seed, not only to those which are of the law, the Jews, but to those also which are of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all. Salvation must be by faith if it's going to be in the category of grace. Six, faith is the only act that eliminates pride in a man.

Romans 3.26 says to declare, I say at this time, his righteousness, that he might be just and the justifier of him that believes in the Lord Jesus.

Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what principle? By works? No, but by the principle of faith. I can never stand up before God and say, you know what God, you owe me something for something I did. Can't do that. The last element of faith is that faith achieves the greatest blessing available.

Romans 5, 1 and 2, and I have to tell you, the entire New Testament, especially Paul's epistles and Peter and James and John, that's really what the focus is. The blessings that we have because we are believers. They're totally on a grace basis. Romans 5, 1 and 2 says, therefore being justified by faith, accomplished fact, you've been justified by faith, We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, absolute peace with God, by whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand. Everybody in this room who's a believer lives, stands, functions in an environment of unlimited and unmerited blessings from God permanently. And you got there by exercising faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. You're there. We live in grace. You and I can never say, God, I did something that caused you to act. He already acted.

I believe that I got the greatest benefit from it just because I believe. By whom also we have access by faith in this grace and where we stand, and we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Someday, everybody in this room who's a believer will be manifesting the glory of the resurrected Christ for all creation to see. So what God will not give you and I by doing, He will give it to us by believing.

So, that's faith. Let's talk a little bit about the gospel. The focus of salvation must be on the gospel. You have to ask yourself, is the gospel sufficient? Is it enough? Is it adequate for salvation? And if it's sufficient, then how do I make it effective for me?

I read 1 Corinthians, part of it, the declaration. But if you go down to verse 3, Paul says, For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received. Paul is going to deliver to those who hear him what he got directly from God. And because he got it directly from God, and God can't lie, this is absolute, perfect, and pure information. There's no wiggle room in this. And here's what he got. This is the Gospel. That Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures.

That he was buried. and that he rose again on the third day according to the scriptures, and that he was seen of Peter, and then of the twelve, and then seen by about five hundred. So, if you look at those verses really closely, you'll find that it's written and recorded accurately, and the Holy Spirit is communicating precise, accurate information. And because the Spirit of God can't lie, the information is true. Number two, it talks about a specific person, and that person is the Lord Jesus Christ.

He is the one who did the work. Number three, He did a specific thing. He died for your sins. The death of Christ, according to the Holy Spirit, is sufficient to pay the penalty for your sins because God did it. It is sufficient. His death accomplished a very special thing, the dealing with your sins and my sins. It's a very short, very easy statement that Christ died for your sins.

Now, He either did or He didn't. or he kind of did and there's something left for me to do. If I can do something to save myself, what would it say about God's work on the cross? It would say it was insufficient. It wasn't 100%. It was 96 and I got to do 4. It was 87 and I got to do 13. Whatever.

If it's not sufficient, then God is not sufficient or is not capable of doing a 100% job and His work is a little shoddy. He can't do, because He is God, He can't do anything but a perfect work. And if I don't believe that Christ did it, I dishonor God by not acknowledging that His work was perfect, and it was 100%. So, in light of His work, now we know what the work is. It's perfect, it's complete, and all of it's there. How do I respond to it? God has given every man the ability to respond. How do I appropriate that work for me?

Acts 16.31 is a very simple, easy verse.

The Philippian jailer runs into Paul and his companions and he cries out, what must I do to be saved? Paul's answer, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved and your whole house. That's it. Believe. To appropriate the perfect work of Christ For me, for you, for anybody, you do it by believing. So the terms of salvation are real simple. Christ's work is adequate, it's perfect, it's ample, it's sufficient. And for me to make it effective for me, I just have to believe it for me.

Again, if you're not quite sure about that, if there's something you have to add or something else you have to do, you upset the whole concept of salvation by grace alone. You've insulted the work of Christ on the cross and realistically you've earned the condemnation of the Holy Spirit. Now let me give you an example of what I mean by that. In today's Christian world, you see all kinds of add-ons to the Gospel message.

You see that I must believe and as a separate act repent. Repentance is in believing. You see that I must believe and receive Jesus into my heart. You see that I must believe and I've got to go home and do a category of my sins and I've got to turn my back on them. You see that I must believe and I've got to come forward.

You see that, I don't know, little additions. Those are not the gospel. The only thing that God requires of us is to believe this gospel. That's it. There's another group of people now within Christianity that you may or may not be aware of. Rather than adding to the gospel, they're taken away from it. There's a group that says, all I need to do is just believe Jesus and I'm saved.

What's wrong with that? The problem with that is that there's not enough content. Believe Jesus what? Well, Jesus is the Savior and if I believe Him, I'm saved. No, you're not. What did Jesus do? He died on the cross for your sins. He was buried and He's resurrected. All of that has to be there. You're going to find there's a group and it's a growing group within Christianity that says, you believe Jesus and you're saved. It's subtle, but I would say to them, believe what about Jesus? There's got to be more.

The second part of the doctrinal statement in Holly Hills is we believe When any unsaved person exercises faith in the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ, he passes positionally from spiritual death into spiritual life and is immediately justified from all things and is immediately accepted before the Father as Christ is accepted, as his Son is accepted.

We believe his personal history in Adam terminated. If you're sitting here today and you believe in the personal work of the Lord Jesus Christ, your entire history in Adam terminated before God the moment you believed. And eternally you have been united and established positionally in Christ and is one with Him forever. His history is now your history.

The person who believes is from that moment of belief, saved from the penalty of sin, which was due him in the past. He is right now, this very minute, being saved from the power of sin or the power of the sin nature in the present life. And he will be saved from the very presence, the sin nature and the practice of sin when he goes home to be with Christ in eternity. Once saved, the believer has a new nature and is positionally separated from and no longer under slavery to the sin nature. But the sin nature dwells in him and dwells in the believer until he's home and present with the Lord.

Those are the two paragraphs that have to do in our doctrinal statement as to what we believe. So let's sum up a little bit. If you take a look at Ephesians 2, 8 and 9 again, it's by grace Unlimited, unmerited blessings from God that you are saved, that I am saved. And it is through faith. It's by believing the gospel. And it's not of ourselves. It's not of myself. Salvation is a gift of God, totally free. It's not of works. And nobody can boast about it. Not a single person.

So how inconsistent would it be if I were to say that there was something else for you to do for your salvation other than what the gospel says? And here's why I think that us in this body of believers, why it's so important for us to understand that salvation is by grace. you find if you're dealing with other believers in various capacities and counseling or discussing circumstances about the Word of God, that legalism is the primary problem in Christianity. Everybody has got this little packet of laws that they stick behind their ear or put up on their refrigerator that they think that they have to do in order to be pleasing to God. So they do all of these spiritual push-ups and they wonder why they don't rest in the glory of Christ. I'm convinced it's because they didn't get a good start.

If we would be careful when we involve and lead people to Christ to make sure that the salvation message is on a grace basis only, it would eliminate a lot of this legal mindset that seems to go along in Christianity today. If you are a person that feels like, boy, you know, I'm kind of burdened under the tyranny of obligations I have in the back of my mind, go back and visit the gospel and visit salvation and learn what grace is.

We have been saved on a grace basis only. We live on a grace basis only. For every one of us to understand and to rest in the fact that we live in an environment of unlimited and unmerited blessings from God, unlimited, unlimited, unlimited, and totally unmerited, totally unmerited, blessings from God. Ephesians says that we have been blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies. And it's all based on what somebody else did, the Lord Jesus Christ. It would change our viewpoint about how we conduct our Christian life. We would stop thinking, oh boy, you know, there's something else for me to do.

No, there's not. Other than believe, which is a non-meritorious act, You have nothing else to do. When you read in Romans 6 that you have been crucified with Christ and you're buried and you're resurrected, what do you do with that? You believe it. Is it a blessing? Absolutely it is. When you read in any of Paul's epistles, the first part of them, that lays out this positional truth, all of these blessings that are yours, what do you do with them? You believe them. That's what you do with them. You believe them. That's how you enter in to the blessing and the grace. We are to grow inside of grace and knowledge in the Lord Jesus Christ. So, if we start on a grace basis, we're much more likely to live and function on a grace basis. If we lead others to salvation by grace, they will grow in grace.

So, Romans 6.14 says, Sin will not have dominion over you anymore, and here's the reason. For you're not under law, you're under grace. You live under a grace system. If you live under that grace system, sin won't have dominion over you anymore.

Ephesians 1.3, blessed by the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us with every single spiritual blessing in Christ Jesus in heavenly places. Didn't leave any out. Every single one, you already have. So, I would close by repeating Ephesians again.

But God who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherein he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, even then, he quickened us together with Christ. By grace you are saved. He has raised us up together. He's made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come, he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness towards us through Christ Jesus. For by grace, you have been saved and that not of yourself. It is a gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. Let's close.

Dear Father, How we are thankful that we live and have come to salvation by grace and now live in grace. Father, I guess the only prayer we'd have is that if we ever find an opportunity to preach the gospel or to communicate the gospel to any other human being who's lost, that we might do it on a grace basis only. that those that we come in contact with who don't know your son may see the grace and the hope that's in us. Father, we thank you so much. We pray in your son's name. Amen.