WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE SAVED?

Unchanging Faith ❧ Part 14

Selected Passages ❧ Pastor, Dr. John Denney

One of my favorite college stories is about a young student who needed a two-hour class to fulfill his course schedule for the upcoming semester. The only course that would fit was Wildlife Zoology.  Having heard the course was tough, and the teacher a bit different, he pushed his reservations to the side and signed up anyway.  It was the only course that would fit his schedule, and he really needed the credits.  After one week and one chapter, the professor passed out a test for the class.  It was a sheet of paper divided into squares, and in each square, there was a carefully drawn picture of a set of bird’s legs.  Not the bodies, not feet, just different the legs.  The test simply asked them to identify the birds from the picture of their legs. The student was completely floored.  He didn’t have a clue.  The longer he looked at the test the more he felt himself becoming angry.  Finally, he reached the boiling point.  Stomping up to the professor’s desk he heatedly exclaimed, “This is the worst test I have ever seen, and this is the dumbest course I’ve ever taken.”  The instructor looked up at him and said, “Young man, you just flunked the test.” Then the teacher picked up the paper and saw that the student hadn’t even put his name on the paper.  “By the way, young man,” he said,“what’s your name?”  With this, the student pulled up his pant legs, revealing his legs and declared, “You tell me!”

There are a number of commonplace words that get thrown around a lot in churches today which everyone seems to know but not everyone gets.  We’ve all heard them; words like “Gospel,” “salvation,” “redemption,” “sin,” “faith,” and so on just to name a handful of them.  We hear them a lot because of their central importance to the Bible and Christianity.  But I’ve found that for many trying to wrap their minds around what these terms mean biblically is like taking that ornithology exam.  They’re stumped!  

This morning we’re going to look at what is easily the greatest and the grandest theme in all of Scripture: The doctrine of salvation.    What the Bible says about God’s plan of salvation embraces all of time and with absolute certainty will affect every man, woman, and child that has lived or ever will live.  It nicely ties all the other commonplace words together. What does it mean to be saved?  I’m going to make this very practical: 1) Admit you’re a sinner, 2) Believe Jesus Christ died on the cross for you, 3) Repent of your sins, 4) Decide to trust Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. 

1. Admit you’re a sinner.  We have to begin here.  Most people have no problem admitting they’re not perfect.  Ecclesiastes states what all of us know: Not a single person on earth is always good and never sins (Ecclesiastes 7:20, NLT). If you ask the average church goer today what the answer to this is, they’ll tell you we need to get people saved by sharing the Gospel.  And if you ask them, what is the Gospel, they’ll tell you Jesus Christ died on the cross and was raised from the dead. Jesus died to save sinners.  And, they’d be right, but not completely. They’re only sharing half of the Gospel.  What’s the problem? You can’t save someone who doesn’t know they’re lost.  Oswald Chambers observed: We preach to men as if they were conscious they were dying sinners, they are not; they are having a good time.  People already know they’re not perfect.  What they don’t know is how sin and death and suffering entered our world.  

Ken Ham in his book: Gospel Reset, compares the majority of peoples disconnect with the Gospel to building a house.  Often when we share the Gospel, we don’t begin with the foundation.  Instead, we start with the walls and the roof.  What is foundational to the Gospel is answering the question: Why is there sin and death and suffering in our world? When God created the world, it was perfect. There was no sin, no death, no suffering.  It wasn’t until our first parents defied God; doing what He told them not to do that everything went wrong.  We’ve picked up where they left off.   We too have broken God’s commandments.  We’re all a bunch of liars, thieves, adulterers, murderers, coveters, false witnesses, and so on.  Most of us are ten for ten when it comes to breaking God’s commandments. We’re worse than Adam and Eve.  They only broke one commandment!  You might say, I’m not that bad.  I’ve got a pretty good record.  I’m about a two or three for ten.  James levels the playing field for all of us: whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of all (James 2:10).  If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us(1 John 1:8, NAS). We have to begin with the foundation.  God gave us the commandments to be like a mirror – to show us how flawed and broken we are. 

When we start with telling people Jesus died on the cross to pay the death penalty for their sins, we’re starting with the walls and the roof, so to speak.  They need to know the foundation – creation, sin, and death; how did our world get in this mess in the first place?  If they don’t know the answer to this question, it’s like being told by a doctor you need an operation but he doesn’t tell you why.  Ken Ham is right.  It has been said, There’s nothing more irritating than a Savior when you aren’t ready to be saved.  The good news is not our job to convict people of their sin; that’s the job of the Holy Spirit. When He comes, will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment (John 16:8, NAS). Only He can open their eyes to the truth of what God’s Word says:  First, admit you’re a sinner.  

1. Believe Jesus Christ died on the cross for you. God paid the death penalty we deserved on the cross. When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners. . . But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners (Romans 5:6,8). Paul says in Galatians: But the Scriptures declare that we are all prisoners of sin, so we receive God’s promise of freedom only by believing in Jesus Christ (Galatians 3:22, NLT).  The word “believe” is another one of those words that gets thrown around a lot in church circles without much understanding.  Belief is more than just mental assent, agreement with the facts.  In the Bible, Nicodemus believed that Jesus came from God. Rabbi, we know that You have come from God as a teacher; for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him (John 3:2, NLT).  Nicodemus witnessed Jesus’ miracles, he heard Jesus’ speak; he believed Jesus was a teacher from God. He believed the facts about Jesus, but what was missing was a personal trust in Jesus as his Savior.  

John Gibson Paton was a 19^th century Scottish missionary who sailed for New Hebrides islands (now known as Vanuatu) in the South Pacific. Three months after arriving he lost his wife Tanna and five-week year old son.  For three years he labored among the islanders to make Christ known to them despite the fact they were hostile cannibals.  After escaping with his life, he returned to another island where he spent another fifteen years.  

One day while Paton was translating the Gospel of John into their language he came to the words pisteuo eis, to “believe in” or to “trust in” Jesus Christ, a phrase which occurs first in John 1:12. He struggled to find the right word to convey its meaning in the native’s language.  Because the islanders were cannibals they had zero trust in each other.  In fact, they had no word for trust at all.  While he was wondering how to translate a word that is key to the Gospel and one they didn’t have, a native came in to his hut where he was working.  Paton asked him, What am I doing? The native responded, Sitting at your desk.  Paton then leaned back in his chair putting his feet up on the desk. What am I doing now?  He asked.  The native used a verb which means “to lean your whole weight upon.”  That was the exact word Paton needed to translate believe in.  That’s what believing in Jesus means.  Leaning on Him with the whole weight of your trust.  The Bible teaches there is no other way to know God’s forgiveness than through Jesus Christ (Acts 4:12). John Dyer,A person may go to Heaven without health, without riches, without friends; but he can never go there without Christ. 

1. Repent of your sins.  To repent means to make a U-turn in the road of life.  All your life you’ve been running away from God.  But when you placed the full weight of your trust in Christ, that’s when you started running toward God.  In the Bible, belief and repentance are two different sides of the same coin, one does not happen without the other.  Faith and repentance work simultaneously as a result of the Holy Spirit working in your life (Acts 2:38).  Bible teacher David Guzik points out:  Repentance must never be thought of as something we must do before we can come back to God. Repentance describes the very act of coming to God.  There are two things to do about the Gospel, said Susanna Wesley, believe it and behave it. 

Often times, a deep sense of sorrow swept over them when they turned to Christ.  Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 7, For the sorrow that is according to the will of God produces a repentance without regret, leading to salvation, but the sorrow of the world produces death(2 Corinthians 7:10, NAS).  Notice Paul does not say the two are the same.  Both Peter and Judas experienced sorrow; Peter for denying Jesus and Judas for betraying Him.  The difference was Peter repented, but Judas took his own life.  Never mistake sorrow for repentance – they are two separate matters.   

Repentance has been called the first word of the Gospel.  When John the Baptist preached, he said Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand! (Matthew 3:2). When Jesus began to preach, He said Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand (Matthew 4:17). When Peter preached on the day of Pentecost, he told his listeners to repent (Acts 2:38). John the Baptist said Bear fruits in keeping with repentance(Luke 3:8). The NLT translates his charge: Prove by the way you live that you have repented of your sins and turned to God(Luke 3:8, NLT). Theologian Wayne Grudem notes: Preaching the need for faith without repentance is preaching only half the gospel.  It will result in many people being deceived, thinking that they have heard the Christian gospel and tried it, but nothing happened (Grudem, p. 717). Ken Ham notes that America has the largest number of Christian churches, colleges, seminaries, resources, and media of any nation in the world.  Yet our country’s values are becoming less and less Christian every day (Ham, p. 15).  I believe much of the reason for this is we’re preaching only half the gospel.  First, admit you’re a sinner. Second, believe Jesus Christ died for you. Three, repent of your sins. 

1. Decide to trust Christ as your Lord and Savior.  Not only does the Bible clearly teach that both faith and repentance work hand in hand, it also teaches that when we trust Jesus as our Savior it means we’re also trusting Him as our Lord.  Wayne Grudem is helpful here: It is also contrary to the New Testament to speak about the possibility of someone accepting Christ “as Savior” but not “as Lord,” if that means simply depending on Him for salvation but not committing oneself to forsake sin and to be obedient to Christ from that point on(Grudem, p. 714). Grudem notes that a faith that teaches Jesus as Savior only requires an intellectual agreement with the facts of the Gospel.  Jesus teaches us if He is our Savior then He is also our Lord. Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. “Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls (Matthew 11:28-29, NAS).  Jesus does two things here. One He invites us to come to Him – that’s belief.  Second, He tells us we’re to take His yoke upon us.  He’s using an agricultural picture of two oxen teamed together.  Younger oxen would often be yoked with an older one in order to teach the younger.  Jesus is saying, by taking My yoke you are going to learn to follow My leadership, follow My guidance, learn to what it means to be obedient to Me.  If we refuse, we cannot say we have genuinely placed our trust in Him.  Paul echoes this same idea in Colossians 2: And now, just as you accepted Christ Jesus as your Lord, you must continue to follow him. Let your roots grow down into him, and let your lives be built on him. Then your faith will grow strong in the truth you were taught, and you will overflow with thankfulness (Colossians 2:6-7, NLT). C. S. Lewis captures this well: I think that many of us, when Christ has enabled us to overcome one or two sins that were an obvious nuisance, are inclined to feel (though we do not put it into words) that we are now good enough. He has done all we wanted him to do, and we should be obliged if he would leave us alone. But the question is not what we intended ourselves to be, but what he intended us to be when he made us…Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what he is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on. You knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently he starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make sense. What on earth is he up to? The explanation is that he is building quite a different house from the one you thought of—throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were going to be made into a decent little cottage, but he is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it himself.