Salvation Teaching
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The Essential Class
The Essential Class
Outline:
Understanding Salvation
The concept of Sin and Redemption
Sin
Redemption
The role of Jesus Christ in Salvation
Today we are going to discuss salvation.
Salvation is the state of being saved or protected from harm or a dire situation.
Now in order to properly understand salvation we must understand what we are being saved from, from what dire situation do we need salvation?
Plan and simple we are being saved from an eternity separated from God and from sin.
Tonight I want to teach on salvation but in a way that is also beneficial to all of us, those who maybe are on the fence of accepting salvation from Christ, those who have and are still wrestling with understanding it and for those who have been saved for sometime how they can share salvation with others.
Last week if you recall Jon Nelson spoke about the Roman roads and how it is a great tool to lead someone to faith and we all shouted out the verses but tonight I want us to journey down the old Roman Road again but this time unpacking why we use these verses, how it relates to salvation and how we can use this to share Christ with others.
In your notes it talks about sin, redemption and the role of Jesus Christ in salvation, feel free to ignore those.
We are going to cover all of that but by going through the Roman Roads.
So stop number 1
for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
Just like the original question of what are we being saved from we must look at what is sin.
For the gospel of Jesus is good new, but that means that there is bad news to contrast.
What is the bad news?
We are all sinners.
As we read the Bible and come to understand it we will see that through every page of scripture the Bible says something implicitly or explicitly about sin.
Yet in the beginning of time there was no sin.
It did not exist in God’s perfect world.
As we read in Gen 1 and Gen 2, the creation accounts.
We read how God created everything and it was just God in the beginning he was before all things.
He predates it all because he has no beginning date.
And as we read about our beginnings, we read how God created everything good.
He created the stars, and the seas, the trees, the animals, and sun, and the lands and we see that all of creation sings of God’s glory.
And then God seeing that everything was good and it was perfect, He created man and woman, to live in harmony with Him.
Humans were given dominion over all things.
And God gave them one rule to not eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
This was the rule.
Adam knew it, told Eve about it.
And God wrapped up the week of creation by sitting back, and calling everything he had done that week good.
And it was.
And then we get to chapter three.
We don’t know the time period here but in chapter three of Genesis it begins with the serpent was more crafty than any other beast.
and that serpent had come to deceive Adam and Eve.
Let pick up in Gen 3:1-2
Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made.
He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’ ”
The serpent spoke to Eve and he began by putting doubt in her mind.
Did God really say that you can’t eat from any tree in the garden.
Which we know is not true for God told them just the one tree.
And Eve says, we may eat of the fruit trees but leave the one in the mist of the garden alone.
And Eve adds on to what God commanded— she says if we touch it we will die.
It was this rule that had a bit more added to it that the serpent used to push the doubt further in Eve’s mind.
But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
You won’t die, just by touching it.
You see Eve God is actually holding that back from you.
He doesn’t want you to be like him.
He doesn’t want you to be God.
He doesn’t know what is best.
Go on take it.
You aren’t going to die but actually your eyes will be open to right and wrong, good and evil.
And when the enemy has you in a place where you begin to not only doubt God but see God as an enemy you lose every time.
The doubting wasn’t the wrong it was the action that came because of it.
So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.
Eve took and ate of the fruit.
She saw that it was good.
For God’s creation was good and perfect and I have no doubt that this fruit was anything less then good and perfect, yet it would be through a bite of this good and perfect creation that sin would show it’s face for the first time.
Sin came into the world because of Adam and Eve’s disobedience.
I think a lot of time we hear that God punished Eve harshly all because she ate something she wasn’t suppose to.
No it was the fact that Eve disobeyed what God had said to her.
She choose herself over the good creator, over trusting in God.
I remember one time in High school, we had those dumb test— it was the SATs but it was like standardized testing.
and for breakfast my mom had told me hey, make sure that you are eating a really good breakfast you have testing today.
So I told her I’ll have a pop-tart— and she was like no you are not having a pop tart.
Get a better breakfast.
Well instead of that doing that I grabbed a pop-tart instead.
to which I got grounded.
I had to take the bus as a 17 year old which was so lame and call my folks to pick me up after sports practice.
It was 2 weeks— and you know what I told people, I was grounded because I had a pop-tart.
Which isn’t true, I was grounded for disobeying my mom.
That is why I was in trouble.
I took her words and her rule and said nah— I know better.
That is exactly what Eve did.
And ever since this moment where Adam and Eve first sinned— a sinful nature was woven into every single person who ever lived—DNA.
With only one exception which we will talk about— spoiler alert he is the savior of the world.
Sin is rebellion against God.
So as we are walking through this salvation path— we have to first understand that we all have sinned and have all fallen short of the glory of God.
Stop Number 2
For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Let’s start with the first part.
The wages of sin is death.
If we are all sinners— and the payment of sin is death then we by default as sinner deserve death.
And it is interesting that in Genesis 2 God tells Adam if you eat of the tree of good and evil you will die.
Eve says that if we touch it we will die.
Satan or the serpent says you surely will not die.
Yet God holding true to his word Adam and Eve do die.
And it all had to do with sin entering the world.
We see satan’s words as empty and even though it may seem bit extreme that because Adam and Eve sinned they deserve to die.
But it wasn’t like God did not warn them.
It was them who found themselves at the place they were not suppose to be.
As the curse came unto them part of that curse was death.
Death now entered the world.
Adam and Eve would I believe would have lived forever until sin came into the picture.
But look at how much death we have in the next couple of chapters.
Gen 4 Cain kills his brother Able.
And then in chapter 5 it says so and so lived for so many year and they died.
over and over again.
Sin was present and death followed.
The price of sin was death.
In Gen 6 we see God so repulsed by sin that he starts over.
By this time Adam and Eve had walked with God but in Gen 6 there is only one who walks with God.
The generations are so wicked that Noah was the only guy who walked with God.
I’m not 100% if Noah was the only guy, but if he was don’t you think God would have saved them too?
I think he would have.
So God has Noah build an arc and then the floods come and wipes out everyone.
And the rest of Genesis is about God’s promises to those who walk with Him.
They all committed sins against God and yet gave them all grace and mercy.
And they all died.
And then you get to Moses— and remember up to this point the law the first 5 books of the Bible that is full of rules and how one is to obey God was not written.
Then you have Moses who goes to Egypt to rescue God’s people.
And you get to the passover meal where the angel of death who was sent by God to kill the first born of all the nation of Egypt unless the blood of the lamb covered their doorpost.
Which is what the second part of this Roman Road covers.
But the free gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
The bad news was sin was in the world.
The good news was that God was going to take care of it once and for all.
Yet in the mean time the sacrificial system was put into place as we get to Leviticus.
And this was not something new.
offerings were given to God multiple times through out Genesis and Exodus.
The first one being God killing an animal to provide clothes for Adam and Eve as they were sent out of the garden.
Noah after the flood.
Abraham as he was set to sacrifice his son.
Moses presents an offering to God on behalf of the people.
and then in Leviticus we see the Lord set up the sacrificial system.
Yes the book of Leviticus does have a purpose.
Why was the sacrificial system put in place?
*In Exodus 19, we see life and glory on the mountain, with the words “you are my treasured possession; I have brought you to myself and intend to dwell with you.”
God is a holy God and we are sinners meaning that God cannot be in the presence of sin.
So he begins with giving Moses instructions about how to sacrifice and why to sacrifice.
Sin offers payment of death.
And in order to pay for your sins something had to die.
In the OT it was a lamb, a bull, some sort of clean animal that was blameless and was spotless.
It would take your place— it would bear your sin and die for you.
For us, sacrifice means giving something up or taking something on that costs us a little money or comfort or convenience.
Sacrifice in the Bible, however, is the bloody reality of a bellowing animal being butchered on an altar.
Imagine the sensory overload of this experience—the violent resistance of the animal, the spurting of blood, the feel of pulling the animal apart, the smell of its burning flesh and bones.
Imagine the emotional and spiritual impact of offering this sacrifice, knowing that it was your sin that made this death necessary.
And imagine the frustration in knowing that you’ll be back tomorrow or next week because you will sin again.
Yes, there was certainly a cost to these sacrifices.
Imagine the expense of taking the best animal in your herd down to the temple in Jerusalem just to be burnt up.
That was the animal that would have produced the best offspring, and it wasn’t easy to give up.
Imagine the time burden, especially if you didn’t live in Jerusalem.
You would have to travel and find a place to stay.
Imagine the emotional or spiritual burden as you made this trek, knowing that you would have to identify and confess your sin to the priest in offering your sacrifice.
But also imagine the burden rolling away.
When you slit that animal’s throat and watched it burn, and the priest declared your sin forgiven, imagine the sense of relief you felt.
You would think, It should be me.
I am the one who deserves to die.
But this innocent animal has become my substitute.
This animal has died so I can live.
This was good news.
This was the sacrificial system but even this would not be forever.
The consist sacrifices would have been difficult.
And the law that had been given those first 5 books of the Bible— God’s people were to follow them.
and when they rebelled against God word then they had to sacrifice to God.
Yet it still felt like it was never good enough.
That sin was always going to have the upper hand.
*We can summarize the basic problem in this way.
*The living God is holy.
*We are a sinful people in a world of death.
*But the living and holy God desires to dwell with his sinful people in this world of death.
*How is that possible? If we’re going to return to the garden of life, if we’re going to draw near to the holy God
How can we be saved from our sin?
Stop number 3
but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
God showed his love for us that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
You did nothing to deserve the love that God showed you.
The wages of sin is death and Jesus took on your sin and my sin through his perfect life.
And there is nothing we can do in our sinful state to bring about our own righteousness.
For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.
There is nothing that we can do to earn a spot in Heaven, there is nothing we can do to overturn our sinful nature on our own account.
This is way we probably all have John 3:16 memorized.
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
God loved you and wanted to dwell with us and the only way to defeat sin, that sinful nature inside of us was not to get us to follow the law better.
To just stop sinning, and be better people.
No--
if the supreme problem is sin, then what we needed was a salvation that addresses sin, not only the concrete acts of rebellion, but all of its effects including alienation and suffering and sickness and war and hate and finally death itself and hell.
The notion of sin in Scripture is the notion of what is wrong with the universe and, therefore, constitutes what it is that God is sending his Son to address.
God sent his son to address sin and to offer redemption.
We know that we would not be able to do this on our own.
That is what the law showed God’s people.
Paul speaks about this in Galatians 3.
Why then the law? It was added because of transgressions, until the offspring should come to whom the promise had been made, and it was put in place through angels by an intermediary. Now an intermediary implies more than one, but God is one.
Is the law then contrary to the promises of God? Certainly not! For if a law had been given that could give life, then righteousness would indeed be by the law. But the Scripture imprisoned everything under sin, so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.
Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed. So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.
It had to be Jesus.
And you have nothing to do it with it.
That is the good news— That before you were born, Christ went to the cross for you, to die for all the sins you will commit.
And he will be the once and for all pure spotless lamb that took your sin and covered it once and for all.
So then God could send the Holy Spirit to dwell with us.
This was the plan from the beginning.
This was never plan B this was always plan A.
That sin would enter into the world.
That humanity would never be able to bridge the gap of sin.
And because of that God would send Jesus, his one and only son.
To be born of a virgin, to live a perfect life, to never have sinned, to be the sacrifice that we did not deserve but God freely gave so that one day we could have eternal life.
This is the Gospel.
And as we go to our 4th stop
Stop Number 4
There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
If you are in Christ then you are free from the bondage of sin.
This doesn’t mean that you will stop sinning but that your sin isn’t counted against you.
Because that sin was paid for by the blood of Christ.
The wages of sin is death for those who do not follow Jesus.
But if you are in Christ then you are free.
Not to keep on sinning but to experience full freedom in Christ.
Romans (Explanation of the Text)
Paul is saying, then, that God has decided not to punish in any way those who are “in Christ Jesus.” “In Christ Jesus” (ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ) describes the realm in which believers live, the realm in which people experience “justification” and “redemption” (3:24), where they are dead to sin and alive to God (6:11), and where they receive God’s free gift of life rather than sin’s wages of death (6:23).
So how we do we receive salvation?
Stop Number 5
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.
Romans would say confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe that God did raise Jesus to life then you will be saved.
It is a confession with your mouth.
It is an acknowledgement that Jesus is who he said he is and it is a surrendering of your life to follow Him.
Peter speaks to this in Acts 2 at the end of his sermon— the people are crying out what must we do.
Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?” And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
I don’t think this is Paul and Peter not agreeing how one is saved.
Peter calls the people to repent.
Redemption is through Christ and it comes from confessing that Jesus is Lord over your life, repenting of your sin and then once you have been saved, enter the waters of baptism.
For baptism does not save you but it is our first act of living out our redeemed lives.
That is salvation, that is redemption through Christ.
When we are saved— we are a redeemed person.
We are a new creation.
From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.
When you are saved the old has past away— we are no longer the same person.
We are treasured, we were bought with a price, we are saved, we are free, we are redeemed.
Robert is going to come back up and talk about what happens after this moment of salvation.