Hard Questions (Part 2)

“How Do I Actually Get Right With God?”

Questions We’re Answering:

How did people get saved before Jesus came? Is God silent if I keep sinning? If you continue in unrepentant sin, does God turn away?

MAIN IDEA

People have always been saved by grace through faith, and while sin affects our fellowship with God, Jesus is still the only way we are made right with Him.

INTRODUCTION

Tonight we’re talking about one of the biggest questions somebody can ask:

“How do I actually get right with God?”

Not how to look religious. Not how to act Christian around church people.

I mean genuinely… how does somebody who is broken, sinful, messed up, inconsistent… actually stand right before a holy God?

One of you asked:

‘How did people get saved before Jesus came?’

Another person asked:

‘Is God silent if I keep sinning?’

And another:

‘If you continue in unrepentant sin, does God turn away?’

These questions all connect.

Here’s the biggest lie people believe.

A lot of people think Christianity works like this:

Good people go to heaven.

Bad people go to hell.

So just try harder and hope God accepts you.

That is not the Gospel.

Somebody give me the gospel in a nutshell...

1. Nobody gets to God by being good enough.

Romans 3:23 NLT

For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard.

The Bible says ALL have sinned.

Not just really bad people.

All people.

You can compare yourself to somebody worse than you and feel pretty good.

But the standard isn’t other people.

The standard is a holy God.

Illustration

Imagine somebody says:

‘We’re all going to swim across the ocean.’

One person swims 50 feet.

One swims 500 feet.

One swims 5 miles.

But eventually all of them drown.

Why?

Because none of them could actually make it.

That’s humanity trying to reach God through goodness.

Nobody has ever been saved by being good enough.

That leads us to this question:

“How were people saved before Jesus?”

2. People have always been saved by faith

So what about the Old Testament?

Before Jesus came—how were people saved?

Genesis 15:6 NLT

And Abram believed the Lord, and the Lord counted him as righteous because of his faith.

Notice something important:

Abraham was counted righteous because he BELIEVED God.

Not because: he was perfect he never failed he earned it

Before Jesus came: people trusted in God’s promises they looked forward to the coming Savior

The Old Testament sacrifices were part of that picture.

God commanded animal sacrifices because sin brings death. Blood had to be shed as a reminder that sin is serious.

But those sacrifices were never the final answer.

Every sacrifice pointed forward to Jesus—the perfect sacrifice who would come once and for all.

People weren’t saved because an animal died. They were saved by faith in God and His promise of redemption.

The sacrifices were shadows. Jesus is the substance.

Hebrews 10:1–4 NLT

The old system under the law of Moses was only a shadow, a dim preview of the good things to come, not the good things themselves. The sacrifices under that system were repeated again and again, year after year, but they were never able to provide perfect cleansing for those who came to worship. If they could have provided perfect cleansing, the sacrifices would have stopped, for the worshipers would have been purified once for all time, and their feelings of guilt would have disappeared. But instead, those sacrifices actually reminded them of their sins year after year. For it is not possible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.

The sacrifices were like arrows pointing ahead to Jesus.

Every lamb sacrificed was whispering: “One day the real Lamb will come.”

And when Jesus died on the cross, He fulfilled what all those sacrifices had been pointing toward the entire time.

So before Jesus came: people trusted in God’s promises they looked forward to the coming Savior

After Jesus: we look back to the cross

The cross of Jesus is not Plan B.

Jesus was always the plan.

Romans 4:2–3 NLT

If his good deeds had made him acceptable to God, he would have had something to boast about. But that was not God’s way. For the Scriptures tell us, “Abraham believed God, and God counted him as righteous because of his faith.”

Abraham was justified by faith.

Illustration

Think about sunrise.

Before the sun fully rises, you still see the light coming.

Old Testament believers were looking toward the coming light.

We look back and see the full sunrise in Jesus.

People in the Old Testament were saved by faith in the promise of God.

We are saved by faith in the fulfillment of that promise… Jesus Christ.

So... why does God feel far away sometimes?

3. Sin damages our fellowship with God

Now here’s where this gets personal.

Because some of you aren’t asking theological questions.

You’re asking relationship questions.

Some of you are asking things like:

“Is God silent if I keep sinning?”

Some of you know what this feels like.

There may have been a moment when you felt close to God.

But then there are moments when you pray and it feels empty.

Worship feels cold.

The Bible feels distant.

And you wonder:

‘Did God leave me?’

Isaiah 59:2 NLT

It’s your sins that have cut you off from God. Because of your sins, he has turned away and will not listen anymore.

Sin affects fellowship with God.

Not because God stops existing.

Not because He stops loving.

But because sin hardens us.

Illustration

Imagine having a friend you constantly ignore.

They text, you leave it unopened.

They call, you ignore it.

Over time the relationship weakens.

Not because communication wasn’t available…

but because connection was neglected.

Sometimes God’s voice feels distant because sin has made our hearts dull.

IMPORTANT BALANCE

That does NOT mean God stops loving you every time you fail.

What about unrepentant sin?

“If you continue in unrepentant sin, does God turn away?”

We need to understand repentance correctly.

4. Repentance turns us back towards God

Repentance is not perfection.

Repentance means turning.

A change of direction.

Christians still struggle with sin.

But there’s a difference between struggling with sin…

and settling into rebellion.

Illustration

If somebody falls in the mud, that’s different than deciding to live in the mud.

1 John 1:9 NLT

But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness.

Hebrews 12:6 NLT

For the Lord disciplines those he loves, and he punishes each one he accepts as his child.”

Conviction is not rejection.

Conviction is often proof that God is still pursuing you.

If you can sin constantly without conviction, without care, without struggle… that should concern you. You’ve got some checking up to do.

5. Jesus is the only way we can be right with God.

Here’s the hope tonight:

Your relationship with God does not depend on your ability to be perfect.

Ephesians 2:8–9 NLT

God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it.

Grace means you could never earn it.

Jesus lived the life we failed to live.

Died the death we deserved.

Rose again so we could be forgiven.

Christianity is not:

‘Clean yourself up so God accepts you.’

Christianity is:

‘Jesus makes sinners clean.’

RESPONSE MOMENT

Some of you tonight are exhausted.

You keep trying to be good enough.

You fail.

Feel guilty.

Try harder.

Fail again.

Jesus did not come for people pretending to have it together.

He came for sinners.

Stop hiding your sin.

Stop pretending.

Bring it to Jesus.

Invitation

Maybe tonight your prayer is:

‘God, I’m tired of running.

I need Your grace.’

CLOSING

Nobody gets right with God by being impressive.

We get right with God by trusting the One who already did what we never could.

Grace is not permission to stay in sin.

Grace is the reason you can finally come home.