Salvation Pt 2

Scripture: Philippians 2:12-13, 1 Peter 1:14-15, John 10:28, Romans 10:8-9, Romans 3:21-25, Titus 3:3-7, 1 Corinthians 6:9-11, Galatians 5:5-6, Philippians 3:12-14

Thank you Joe and Billy for leading us in worship this morning. Are you grateful to be here this morning, whether you’re in the room or watching online? I know I am. It’s very humbling for me, to see what the Lord is doing in our congregation, but I’m also very excited, to see where He’s taking us. I’ve had some friends here who’ve asked if they could call the state and ask Mark Richardson to make me the new permanent pastor, as opposed to the interim title. And I will tell you that I, my wife Katherine, and the state are in agreement over that. At the same time, there is process in the Church of God to becoming ordained, as there should be, right. And that process finishes up in February or March. And if the Michigan ordination committee approves me, well, then some Saturday afternoon we’ll have a wonderful celebration here as the Lord moves.

We are working through a series of sermons, teachings if you will, about what it is the Church of God (Anderson) believes, because all denominations, do not believe the same things. You’ve heard me talk about the Wesleyan Holiness Movement, and we’ll talk more about that, but as I was preparing this week the Lord whispered to me, if you will, that our Salvation conversation from last week needed a follow-up this week, so here’s the new plan, as the Holy Spirit leads.

We’ll spend more time talking about Salvation today, which in some cases is how the Church of God beliefs are different from other congregations. And of course once we’re saved, that’s not the end of God’s changing us right or as Paul wrote to the (SLIDE) Philippians, “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.” As I’ve mentioned before I can clearly remember giving my heart and asking Jesus to be Lord of my life in the basement of a Methodist Church in Grand Ledge Michigan just west of Lansing. (SLIDE)Clearly, if it took me into my 60’s to be obedient to the calling of ministry, there’s decades of the Holy Spirit, well crying over the journey and the self-centered decisions I chose, over what He desired.

All of us who’ve confessed Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior in some process of the Holy Spirit Cleansing and Gifting us. It’s part of what John Wesley, and DS Warner among others would call the Second Work of Grace, or Sanctification that by the power of the Holy Spirit, leads us into increased holiness. (SLIDE) As Peter tells us “14 As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, 15 but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, 16 since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.” I can’t speak for you, but I can tell you that I have some work to do for all of my conduct to be Holy by His standards.

(SLIDE) If the word ordinances isn’t a familiar term, that’s because it’s not how we talk to each other. When the Church of God movement formed one of the ways the word was spread was through the Gospel Trumpet. (SLIDE) And while you can’t see it here on this November 7th, 1918 copy pulled from the Church of God website, from the beginning this sentence is how the movement was described on the mast head. DEFINITE, RADICAL, and ANTI-SECTARIAN, sent forth in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, for the publication of full Salvation, and Divine Healing of the body, and Unity of all true Christians in “the faith once delivered to the saints.”

(SLIDE) Not all denominations believe or practice the same thing even if they claim Christ as Lord. And I’m not judging what others do, though I did at one point in my walk. But that kind of judgment isn’t my job or yours. I’ll leave that to a much higher power and wisdom in Heaven than I have. But God gave us the bible, hearts and brains for reason. So for example, one of the differences between what the Church of God believes and others may practice is we don’t baptize or sprinkle babies. We dedicate our children to the Lord, and then teach them in the way that they should go, so when they are ready to give their lives to Christ, they choose to become baptized out of obedience to a command from Christ.

Communion, what it means and how it is taken differs depending on the congregation. If you’re not a “member” of the Catholic church for example, you are not welcome to take communion. We don’t have members in the Church of God which believes in the Unity and Fellowship of Every Blood Washed One. Speaking of washing, consider the Last Supper. Where after the bread and the wine, the Rabbi, the Teacher, God himself in the flesh, Jesus, gets on his hands and knees and goes around the room slowly washing the dirty, disgusting, who knows what they stepped in feet of the disciples. One of whom he knew would shortly betray him, and the others he knew would deny and run in hiding for fear of their lives after the crucifixion. Some denominations have as many as 7 ordinances, or rituals they perform. We have three, though not every congregation practices foot washing these days.

(SLIDE) That leads right into preparing for Christmas and the New Year. So we’re going to talk about the Saving Mission of Jesus Christ, God’s Only Son and finish the year talking about the importance of Unity in the body of Christ. Understanding that God only really has one church, those who have confessed Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. The human trappings is what gives us so many variations of church denominations, and interpretations of scripture.

But what do we talk about every week from 1 Peter 3:15? Always be prepared to give an answer for the hope in Christ that is in you with gentleness and respect. So foundationally we believe there is a creator God. Not a little g God like the thousands the pagans before Christ came believed in and some may believe in today around the world.

(SLIDE) Wednesday night after getting home from our meal and a message, which left me in tears, I went in the house to get Katherine so we could go out in the yard and just look at sky. No clouds, amazing view of the stars, and we could see Jupiter and Uranus without a telescope. I can not see the incredible complexity of the universe, of this planet, of our human bodies even and not know that God exists. Let alone what Christ has done in my life. On the far left is a faraway system, called Ceers-2112, using the James Webb Space Telescope. It is the farthest galaxy we’ve ever seen, similar to our Milky Way, dating back to God’s creation of the universe. On the right, just the beauty of the Crab Nebula is a well-studied supernova remnant located 6,500 light-years away in the Taurus constellation.

We believe for those of us who are Christians that the Bible is reliable and is the word of God. We believe because we’ve felt and experienced the life, the healing, the hope that comes when we spend time in the word. And for those who aren’t so confident, do the research. It’s not all the variations and languages the bible’s been translated into. It’s the fact that we have tens of thousands of copies of the New Testament letters dating back to within, in some cases 30 years of the resurrection. Which by the way, just saying. If Jesus wasn’t crucified and didn’t rise again from the grave, well then there would be no Christianity. There would be no bible. And hundreds if not by now thousands of Christians wouldn’t have gladly given up their lives to defend their copies of letters that were written by Paul, Luke, John, Mark, Matthew, James and others. They wouldn’t have sacrificed their lives, as Christ did for all of us, by denying the Lord and Savior all mankind. They chose death over giving up their faith. Something I expect none of us will have to face.

We’ve discussed God’s nature. Merciful, abounding in grace, love and forgiveness for His creation, and how our nature, humanities nature is self-centered. Choose this day, and every day, whom you will serve. Just reviewing a few of last week’s scriptures, where we heard the words of Christ speaking to the Hebrews at the Temple. (SLIDE) John 10:28 28 I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. We talked about the rich young ruler asking Christ what he needed to do to be saved, as did the prison guard in Philippi when the jail walls came down during praise and worship from Paul and Silas. Paul gave instructions to the Romans quoting in part from Deuteronomy 30.

(SLIDE) Romans 10:8-13

8 But what does it say? “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart” (that is, the word of faith that we proclaim); 9 because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. That actually has two meanings, because I said last week we need to be in the word, the bible. But how does John start his Gospel? In the beginning was the word, the word was with God and the word was God. That phrase the word refers to both Jesus Christ, to the gospel, the good news and to the bible.

(SLIDE) Salvation begins when we confess out loud that we repent in our hearts for the sin in our lives by accepting Jesus Christ as our personal Lord and Savior, but we also must believe that God raised from the dead. And as I said last week, if you’re struggling with that, or as we’ll discuss in a few weeks if you know someone who’s struggling with a virgin birth, remember the man who wanted Christ to heal his child. And Jesus said believe and it shall be done, and the father replied I do believe, help me with my unbelief.

Earlier in Paul’s letter to the Romans, which he wrote around 57 AD because there were both Jews who had accepted “The Way and gentile believers. It’s not called Christianity for years, it was called the Way. But in Rome was multicultural. Jews, gentiles, Roman citizens, slaves, a very diverse body that had come to believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Clearly you’re going to have some conflict in that melting pot of a society. Not too different from the melting pot of beliefs and cultures we have here in the U.S. today. So Paul’s presenting the good news when he writes: (SLIDE) Romans 3:21-25 21 But now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. That’s the old testament, which is one of the reasons we can’t ignore the old testament right? Because the Old Testament testifies about God the Father, the Holy Spirit and prophesies the coming messiah, Jesus Christ.

(SLIDE) Romans 3:21-35 21 But now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. 22 This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, (SLIDE) 23for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified by His grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins.

That word propitiation is why I used the NIV last week, which uses the word Atonement instead. Propitiation is the first of three big words, theological words we’re going to discuss today. The Greek word translated as Propitiation or Atonement is Hilasterion (hil-as-tay'-ree-on). Now in pagan beliefs, human beings appeased the gods, with little g’s, not a capital G, with some sacrifice. Yahweh, Jehovah, required blood sacrifices to enter into the holy of holies in the temple and for the forgiveness of sin. This same Greek word, Hilasterion (hil-as-tay'-ree-on), specifically means, (SLIDE) the lid on the ark of the covenant, that contained the Mosaic law and held the presence of God. That same Greek word is used in Hebrews 9:5, but translated into “mercy seat”.

In Leviticus (16:14) during Yom Kippur, the mercy seat was sprinkled with blood so that a righteous sentence of the law had been executed, changing a judgment against that someone who had broken the law, into a mercy seat (Hebrews 9:11-15) where they were forgiven. (SLIDE) The difference between Christianity and the sacrificial practices of any other religions to make atonement, is that you didn’t shed any blood or sacrifice an animal or give something of value away on a false alter. God gave something of value, His only son Jesus Christ as a blood sacrifice that makes atonement, that justifies us in the eyes of God. (SLIDE) That brings us to our next theological word if you will as part of the Salvation that comes through Christ Jesus, and that’s Justification. DS Warner, John Wesley and others would call Justification the first work of Salvation, or the first work of Grace.

We already know how fallen we are as human beings, and we don’t even generally have to look at anyone besides ourselves to know that we may have, in some cases we know we have done things that hurt family members, that hurt co-workers, friends, that hurt ourselves even. All of us being created the image of God, so just going by the basics of what God said to Moses in giving the law, and what Jesus told the scribe about the most important commandment. God said we should have no other idols before Him. Jesus more clearly said Love the Lord your God above ALL others, and love your neighbor as yourself. All of the law and the prophets hang on these two. Not to be condemning to any of us but whatever we have done, whatever we have thought that was opposed to those two things, are sin. Very simply.

(SLIDE) So the reason Justification is the first act of grace and mercy from our Father in Heaven is because there isn’t anything we could do to earn that forgiveness. Jesus wasn’t sacrificed on the cross by us to earn God’s love, Jesus was sacrificed on the cross as an atonement for the sins of all humanity because God loved us. Do you understand the difference. We are not holy, and we are not saved by holiness, our righteousness. We are saved by God’s grace alone. Different from all other religions. As we sang last week. I couldn’t earn it. I don’t deserve it. Still you give yourself away.

We haven’t shared from Titus yet in this series. Titus was Paul’s special representative on Crete. Lord if you want me to minister on Crete, or somewhere else that’s safe around the Mediterranean, I would make that sacrifice for you. With the board’s permission of course. Paul, writing to Titus shares. (SLIDE) Titus 3:3-7 3 For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another. 4 But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, (SLIDE) 5 he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, 6 whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, 7 so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

Paul, writing to the Church in Corinth, the first letter that we know of, addresses problems within the church and the sin taking place among those who had confessed Jesus as Lord and Savior. Things we, not specifically in this congregation, but certainly in churches all over the country, or among individuals who attend a church and claim to be Christians but are suing each other, lying, cheating on their income taxes, let’s read for a moment of things that were happening then, that humanity has not much improved on since then.

(SLIDE) 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 9 Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, 10 nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. (SLIDE) 11 And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. 12 “All things are lawful for me,” but not all things are helpful. “All things are lawful for me,” but I will not be dominated by anything.

I’m going to remind you, because when we talked about human nature, we discussed how there is only one unforgiveable sin, the blaspheming of the Holy Spirit as witnesses who heard Christ teach testified in Mark, Mathew, Luke, Hebrews, and 1 John. Paul has this list of behaviors, that, once we become saved and are justified, should no longer be part of our lives. The list is not a ranking, and it is not exclusive of what can keep us from walking in holiness. “And such were some of you.”

(SLIDE) Paul uses the word sanctified here as well, which is our final theological, pardon the term, word for the day. And this is one of things that really sets us apart from others that are not part of the Wesleyan Holiness Movement. You see, there are some professed Christians, churches, denominations, however you want to refer to their practices and theology, that believe that humanity is fallen, and Jesus Christ is our savior. But that you will always be a sinner, and there is nothing that God can do to change your behavior. So you will always remain in your sin, and you may confess your sin to those who are ordained in the denomination, as opposed to confessing your sins to God directly, but that’s not what we believe in the Church of God.

Yes, when you confessed Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior with your mouth, that Jesus was the atonement for your sins, believing in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you are justified before the Heavenly father by His grace and your faith in Him. Jesus sits next to the father and says, she is mine. He is mine. They belong to me. But think in your own hearts and minds of when you first gave your life to the Lord. You became saved, you belong to Him. You don’t have to answer out loud, but did all sin leave your life. That’s what D.S. Warner, John Wesley and many others call, scripturally, the Second Work of Grace, sanctification.

Sanctification in the New Testament is the Greek word hagiasmós (hag-ee-as-mos') which is the process of advancing in holiness; of the believer being progressively transformed by the Lord into His likeness, into the nature of God through Jesus Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit. At salvation we are justified by faith in Jesus. Then, by the grace of God infused into our heart, mind and soul through the Holy Spirit, our love for God and others is made pure and complete, in ways that bear fruit as we increase in virtue, finding expression in loving, selfless actions. Putting the needs of others first, before our own selfish ambitions. Faith working outwardly through love as Paul wrote to the Galatians. Understand that at the beginning of Chapter 5 in Galatians Paul is chastising men in particular, who after receiving Christ, decided to fall back under the law and become circumcised. The point we’re applying is still truth. (SLIDE) Galatians 5:5-6 5 For through the Spirit, by faith, we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness. 6 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love.

Remember when we discussed human nature a few weeks ago, and Paul in Romans 7 was crying out about the war he was having with himself, with the members of his body. I do the things I do not want to do, and what I want to do I cannot. Wretched man that I am, who will save me. Praise God through Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior. Sanctification is the process of becoming Holy. He is holy, so we should be holy. Increasing in obedience to what God really wants in our lives and from our time on this world before we spend eternity in the next.

(SLIDE) Philippians 3:12-14 12 Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. 13 Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

That’s faith. That’s hope. That’s waking up every morning, praising the most high God. The King of Kings and Lord of Lords. That’s a reason to look forward to each and every day that God has given us on this earth as we prepare for someday seeing Him face to face, and falling down on our knees singing worthy is the lamb who was slain.

(SLIDE) So before we sing, and head into a holiday week. Here’s the questions each of us should be thinking about. Is our faith working through love. That, what is it 1st Peter 3:15 asks? Can you give an answer for the hope that’s in you? Are we pressing on. Am I, no matter my age, seeking after the things of God, or is it the things of self, that have control of me. Is holiness increasing in my life. And if so, what fruit is that bearing. What’s the evidence of increased holiness. And does that look like. Which is where we’ll start out next week, when we talk about the cleansing and gifting of the Holy Spirit, to enable us to grow in obedience to our risen Lord, Jesus Christ.