Untitled Sermon

The Next Step Beyond Salvation - Beyond the Cross of Christ

Now that I’m saved and expressing FAITH and LOVE…Where do I go from here?

Reminder: Before we can go BEYOND salvation, 1. make sure you are of the FAITH 2. and you have LOVE (for Christ and the Church). (Remember: Love for your brother in Christ is fruit that follows faith.)

Doing what is harder: Expressing God’s Love

- Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith.

2 Corinthians 13:5 ESV

Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you fail to meet the test!

- The main point of this passage is to warn the reader not to have an unbelieving heart like some the Children of Israel. They were known to other nations as the people of God but they died in the wilderness because of their hardness of heart.

Hebrews 3:12–19 ESV

Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end. As it is said, “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.” For who were those who heard and yet rebelled? Was it not all those who left Egypt led by Moses? And with whom was he provoked for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness? And to whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest, but to those who were disobedient? So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief.

So where do I go from here? I know I’m saved and that I have faith and love.

Plainly stated we are on...

A Pursuit To “Know God”

Paul in shares the STEPS to KNOW God (again BEYOND salvation). I want to explain it briefly with 3 passages and have it fully explained through the course of the lesson.

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- and this is eternal life...

- His divine power has granted...

- Are we beginning to commend ourselves again?...

MAIN PASSAGE:

Ephesians 1:17–19 ESV

that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might

“…that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ,

Paul explains in what it takes to know God. I want to be able to explain what Paul is talking about.

Paul has SPECIFIC prayer requests in verses 17-19

In the pursuit of knowing God we need to have WISDOM.

In the pursuit of knowing God we need to have WISDOM.

WISDOM - Something that we need to be shown that needs to be REVEALED.

WISDOM - Must come from above.

WISDOM - How can we have something revealed that we desperately need? Only through the work of the Holy Spirit.

WISDOM -

Wisdom from the Holy Spirit has to be SPECIFICALLY revealed to me in order to have an intimate relationship with God.

There is something that we need to be shown that needs to be revealed. That must come from above.

Paul’s specific prayer for the believers in Ephesus is that the work of the Holy Spirit would reveal wisdom so they can know God.

The Work of the Holy Spirit

Possible passages to share...

- and this is eternal life...

John 17:3 ESV

And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.

- His divine power has granted...

2 Peter 1:3–4 ESV

His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire.

- Are we beginning to commend ourselves again?...

2 Corinthians 3:1–18 ESV

Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Or do we need, as some do, letters of recommendation to you, or from you? You yourselves are our letter of recommendation, written on our hearts, to be known and read by all. And you show that you are a letter from Christ delivered by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts. Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God. Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God, who has made us sufficient to be ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. Now if the ministry of death, carved in letters on stone, came with such glory that the Israelites could not gaze at Moses’ face because of its glory, which was being brought to an end, will not the ministry of the Spirit have even more glory? For if there was glory in the ministry of condemnation, the ministry of righteousness must far exceed it in glory. Indeed, in this case, what once had glory has come to have no glory at all, because of the glory that surpasses it. For if what was being brought to an end came with glory, much more will what is permanent have glory. Since we have such a hope, we are very bold, not like Moses, who would put a veil over his face so that the Israelites might not gaze at the outcome of what was being brought to an end. But their minds were hardened. For to this day, when they read the old covenant, that same veil remains unlifted, because only through Christ is it taken away. Yes, to this day whenever Moses is read a veil lies over their hearts. But when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.