Q29 – How can we be saved?
Notes
Transcript
Good morning everyone and welcome to Collide!
My name is Jack Hopkins and if I haven’t met you, hi, I’m Jack nice to meet you.
We have been on a journey through our New City Catechism to try and understand who God is, what Jesus has done, and what we are supposed to do about it. I am going to do a journey through our old questions and I really need your guys' help to make this work, if you know the answer to my question raise your hand.
We have learned that our only hope in life and death is what?
Okay so if we belong to God, What is God?
So if we owe everything to this God, how can we glorify God?
Well if we are supposed to obey his commands, what does the law of God require?
Wow, I am so bad at this, I remember talking to my 6th grade boys and asking, what percentage of the time would you guys say you do this, at the end I do not think any of us were above 50%, so can anyone keep the law of God perfectly?
Well that doesn’t make much sense, if no one can keep the law, what is its purpose?
Okay, so the law shows us how good God is, how sinful we are, and how in need we are of a savior. But what is sin?
But why is sin a big deal? Will God allow our disobedience and idolatry to go unpunished?
Well, we are in a bad place then. We all have this issue of sin, we all sin and fail the law, and God is angry with us and will punish us now and forever. Dang.
We are going to skip down to what we covered last week in Lifegroups. So we are all sinners and will be punished. What happens after death to those not united to Christ by faith?
They will be cast out from the presence of God, into hell, to be justly punished, forever.
Hell is a scary place. It is a place of never-ending fire and burning, a place of weeping and gnashing of teeth. And sadly, anyone who is not united to Christ is destined to hell. They will be separated from God, forever. I personally think the idea of forever is the scariest part.
Let me ask you the most important question, are you united to Christ by faith? And the answer is a yes or no question. You either are, or you are not. You are united with Christ and going to spend eternity with Him or you are separated from him and will be spending eternity away from him in hell.
God is all-powerful, he is holy and perfect, and he is just. We all sin, we all can't fulfill the law. And we all deserve to be punished. But here is the good news in all of this, God is so loving and gracious that he gave us a way out. He sent his son Jesus, who lived the life we could never live, died the death that we deserved to die, and rose again to give us new life, both now and for eternity. But how can we be saved, I don't want to be separated from God for eternity in hell, I want to be united to Christ.
Well how! How are we to avoid hell, how are we to be united with God? And that is where we get to our question for today.
How can we be saved?
But what does that phrase even mean?? The process by which God reconciles a person to himself is often called “being saved”. And that’s a fitting title. This week we’re going to talk about what the Bible says about that process.
That phrase “being saved” is a good word because at the root of the word “salvation” is the idea of being saved, of being delivered.
Notice what Paul says in
For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
But how?
Q29 - How can we be saved?
A29 - Only by faith in Jesus Christ and in his substitutionary atoning death on the cross.
Now we are going to work through this step by step because this is complicated but it is an extremely important answer.
What are some of the ways that people try to save themselves? What about in other religions?
Well this answer starts with a very important word, ONLY. There is ONLY one way. One way to be saved.
There is this idea that many people hold that there are multiple paths to get to heaven. Whether that is by being a good enough person or believing in another God. Jesus says very clearly otherwiseJesus is talking to his disciples, he just told them he is going to die, and they are all in disbelief. But then he tells them why it is so important, he says,
Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
No one can come to the Father except through me. So the only way to be saved? Only Jesus can save us. Nothing we do or say or believe in, beside Jesus can save us.
GREAT! We understand now that Only by Jesus can I be saved. What do we have to do for Jesus? How do we get this Jesus person so we can be united to God?
Open your bibles to the book of Ephesians, Chapter 2. It is in the New Testament, past the gospels of mmlj, right after Galatians and right before Philippians.
8 God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. 9 Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it.
Let's break that down a little bit. God saved you by his grace when you believe.
OKAY, WE HAVE AN ANSWER. What do we need to do? We need to believe, we need to have faith.
Sounds good, but like, what else do we need to do? There is no way just believing is enough. Almost everywhere in life, we have to do something to belong. For instance - what does it take to belong in school. Or, maybe take it down another level.
What does it take to belong to the popular crowd in school?
Or - what does it take to belong on the basketball team?
Or - what does it take to belong in the National Honor Society?
I wanted to start with these questions because we often view our relationship with God through the lens of our relationships with other people.
Here is what I mean. In most groups you have to do something to belong. You have to behave a certain way, or have a special skill, or look a certain way. Even in church we sometimes mess this up - we expect people to look or act a certain way before we accept them.
SO - what happens is that we assume that that is the way that our relationship with God functions. We assume that we need to do something to get into the club that we need to act a certain way or do certain things in order for God to love us.
The passage says that Salvation, or being saved, is not a reward for the good things that we have done, so none of us can boast about it. We do not have to do anything to belong to God's family and be saved.
ONLY BY FAITH]
Q29 - How can we be saved?
A29 - Only by faith in Jesus Christ and in his substitutionary atoning death on the cross.
So we can only be saved by believing, not by doing any good work or even being a good person. We must have faith. But what is faith?
Truly believing means to be able to confidently say, "Yeah, that is true." To have faith in Jesus is to know that Jesus lived the life we could never live, died the death that we deserved to die and rose from the grave giving us new life, both now and for all eternity, and truly being able to say, yeah, that is true, i belive that and want Jesus to be the leader and forgiver of my life.
So we know that only by faith in Jesus Christ, but then there is a second half to our answer. Only by faith in Jesus Christ and his substitutionary atoning death on the cross.
WALK THROUGH SLIDES - ONLY ONE WITH A CLEAN SHIRT
In the book of galatians what Jesus did for us in his substitutionary atoning death on the cross is explained really well. It is on the screen for you to read.
I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
IT IS NO LONGER I WHO LIVE, it is no longer you who lives, our dirtiness, our sin, our mess-ups are no longer counted against us. The Son of God loved us enough to give himself up for us. What an amazing gift.
Q29 - How can we be saved?
A29 - Only by faith in Jesus Christ and in his substitutionary atoning death on the cross.
Maybe you are here today and you’re thinking, wow, I do not think I am united to Christ. Maybe I am one of the people that will be separated from God in hell. And if you are thinking that I would encourage you to talk to your lifegroup leaders today. There is a way to be saved, and it is only through faith in Jesus Christ and his substitutionary atoning death on the cross.
Maybe you are here and you know this and believe you are united to christ. Well now it is time to start sharing the Love of Jesus with others.
We are commanded to live this new life in obedience by:
1. love God with all that we are. This is the first and greatest testimony.
2. Love those around us more than we love ourselves.
3. Share the good news so that more people will become disciples.
4. Baptize and teach those disciples to start back at 1.
Before we head off to lifegroups lets pray