Do You Know Being Saved Means?

Introduction

Jn 3:14-17 ““As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up; so that whoever believes will in Him have eternal life. “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. “For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.”

It is hard to appreciate something I don’t know the true value of.

Sometimes the problem we maybe having in our Christian walk, is that we don’t understand the depth of what being saved means

For some of us being saved is coming on Sunday and maybe midweek

If we are to experience the true joys of our status in Christ it’s incumbent that we appreicate what being saved means to us. (Let’s be honest, we know when we truly value something) - What does it mean to value something? - Let’s better our understanding of what it means to be saved!

It will change:

Our worship

Our evangelism

Our ministry

Our disposition toward God

I won’t throw it away:

I know its worth

I know what it does

I know how it benefits me

I know what’s at stake if I give it up [there’s a war for your soul]

The Backdrop

Num 21:6-9 “The Lord sent fiery serpents among the people and they bit the people, so that many people of Israel died. So the people came to Moses and said, “We have sinned, because we have spoken against the Lord and you; intercede with the Lord, that He may remove the serpents from us.” And Moses interceded for the people. Then the Lord said to Moses, “Make a fiery serpent, and set it on a standard; and it shall come about, that everyone who is bitten, when he looks at it, he will live.” And Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on the standard; and it came about, that if a serpent bit any man, when he looked to the bronze serpent, he lived.”

The people brought this on themselves

There came an intecessor

God STILL makes a way for them to be saved

The Similiarity

Rom 5:6-9 “For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him.” Rom 5:10 “For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.”

Even though we brought this on ourselves WE HAD A MEDIATOR BETWEEN GOD AN MAN, THE MAN JESUS CHRIST!!!

APPRECIATE Your Salvation

DEFINITION:

understand (a situation) fully; grasp the full implications of.

recognize the full worth of.

#1 - It Saved You

Jn 3:17 ““For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.”

You were in danger and God delivered you

You were in rubbles and God rescued you

You were in peril and God pulled you out

God took you from the darkness and put you in the light

Many of us don’t see this because we don’t see how bad SIN is. - “I knew it was bad, but I didn’t know how bad”

Sin grieves God (Gen 6:6) - related to a word that means to carve a piece out of something

SIn distances God (Isa 59:1-2)

Sin angers God (Rom 1:18)

This!!! Is what what you were saved from

#2 - It Sanctifies You

Jn 3:15 “so that whoever believes will in Him have eternal life.”

To sanctify means:

Establishes value (your worth it) - 1 Jn 4:19 “We love, because He first loved us.” Jn 3:16 ““For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.”

Establishes ownership - 1 Cor 6:19 “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own?”

Establishes usefulness - God doesn’t set apart anything that He does not plan to use

Establishes a presence in God’s space

#3 - It Secures You

Jn 3:15 “so that whoever believes will in Him have eternal life.”

Your salvation is secured, and you need to grasp this, and APPRECIATE THIS

“Learn to appreciate what you have, until time makes you appreciate what you had” - Unknown

1 Peter 1:4-5 “to obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.”

Eph 1:13-14 “In Him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation—having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is given as a pledge of our inheritance, with a view to the redemption of God’s own possession, to the praise of His glory.”

On God’s side: There is security

Rom 8:31 “What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us?”

Jn 10:12 ““He who is a hired hand, and not a shepherd, who is not the owner of the sheep, sees the wolf coming, and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them.”

On My side: There must be faithfulness

Heb 2:3 “how will we escape if we neglect so great a salvation? After it was at the first spoken through the Lord, it was confirmed to us by those who heard,” verse 1, He spoke of “drifting away”

Heb 3:12 “Take care, brethren, that there not be in any one of you an evil, unbelieving heart that falls away from the living God.”

Heb 4:1 “Therefore, let us fear if, while a promise remains of entering His rest, any one of you may seem to have come short of it.”

Heb 10:26 “For if we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins,”

My unbelief, unfaithfulness can cause me to walk away from the thing that has saved me. - If I do that, what’s there to save me???

If the people decide NOT to look at the serpent. . .they would not be saved!