The Gospel of Salvation is Nothing less than Jesus and nothing added to Him!

Don’t add works

Don’t add your sins

Don’t take credit for any of the work

Trust the simplicity of the Gospel

Lest as Eve was tempted

Galatians

No other Gospel

Faith is not a work

1 The Gospel is Simple!

2 Corinthians 11:3 CSB

3 But I fear that, as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your minds may be seduced from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ.

1 Corinthians 15:3–4 CSB

3 For I passed on to you as most important what I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures,

Do you remember the story of Naaman’s leprosy and the prophet told him to go take several ducks in the muddy waters of the Jordan. He scoffed. He held a well respected position of being a Syrian general. Why should he listen to the pipsqueak prophet Elisha. He said, I have clean waters to bathe in my home country. His servant said, master if the prophet told you to go take a fortified city, climb the highest mountain, fight against a raging sea, you would do it. But because it’s simple you reject it.

The gospel is simple enough a young child can understand sin and the Jesus loves them and died and rose again for them. Yet, the mystery of God’s love and work so deep that the greatest minds on this side of heaven have never mined all its riches. As John said Jesus did many great things beyond what is written I suppose were all the sky a parchment and the oceans ink, it would not be enough to tell of all His wonders and glory.

2 Christ does all the work and He gets all the glory for salvation!

Ephesians 2:8–10 CSB

8 For you are saved by grace through faith, and this is not from yourselves; it is God’s gift—9 not from works, so that no one can boast. 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared ahead of time for us to do.

Car illustration imagine gas paid for.

3. Faith is not considered a work by God or the Scripture. Faith is a response to Christ’s offer and provision.

Romans 4:5 CSB

5 But to the one who does not work, but believes on him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited for righteousness.

4. Faith is more than simply agreeing with a truth, it means committing to a follow a person.

Mark 8:34 (CSB)

34 Calling the crowd along with his disciples, he said to them, “If anyone wants to follow after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.

5. Works will flow from a faith that follows after Jesus.

James 2:18–26 CSB

18 But someone will say, “You have faith, and I have works.” Show me your faith without works, and I will show you faith by my works. 19 You believe that God is one. Good! Even the demons believe—and they shudder. 20 Senseless person! Are you willing to learn that faith without works is useless? 21 Wasn’t Abraham our father justified by works in offering Isaac his son on the altar? 22 You see that faith was active together with his works, and by works, faith was made complete, 23 and the Scripture was fulfilled that says, Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness, and he was called God’s friend. 24 You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. 25 In the same way, wasn’t Rahab the prostitute also justified by works in receiving the messengers and sending them out by a different route? 26 For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead.

For your reflection:

1. When you say, “I’m believing,” ask is: based on what? How confident are you that you are saved? 25%, 50%, 75%, 99%, or 100% positive.

Representative JC Watts from Oklahoma shared and preached the faith clearly all the time. I remember on impassioned speech, If ‘you’ are 99% sure you’re saved,.... You are 100% lost. Jesus completely saves but it is He alone that saves. So you are relying on that 1% in yourself, you are not fully trusting in the only one who can and does the saving!

2. Are You Acting On Your Faith?

Are there areas you feel convicted to act on and you have resisted?

How involved in serving the Lord? How much time?

How often do you talk about the Lord with unbelievers? 3x a week; 1x a week; 1x a month; 1x a year. What needs to change?

Works pleasing to God come after faith. Prior to that, it’s a sinner’s attempt to offer Jesus something

I remember a lady who was unwilling to wash she claimed she was hydrophobic but she wanted to hold people’s babies. She was very kind, she didn’t have a mean bone in her body. But she literally sweat dirt and soiled a baby’s blanket.

That couple never let her hold their child again. Why? Because the expectation was not merely being kindhearted and nice, the expectation was that she would be clean.

Your righteousness is as filthy rags.

You could never do enough work to EARN salvation.

Only Christ can do that.

The only reasonable solution to our problem can be in the form of a gift.

Imagine receiving a car full insurance, gas, title, taxes, repairs for life. Given to you and sustained by your father.

Imagine if when someone asked you who purchased the car and you answered, my dad and me. You didn’t work for the car. You didn’t pay for the car. You simply received the car.

Faith is not a work.

Contrary to some systems of belief, these would fall into a camp that wants to define God’s rule and reign as meticulous and reimagine the idiom of being spiritually dead to mean incapacitated. That you can’t think, do or act, in any way even if it was to respond to the Holy Spirit who convicts the world of sin righteousness and the judgment to come.

the Faith that saves works.

2 Corinthians 5:15 CSB

15 And he died for all so that those who live should no longer live for themselves, but for the one who died for them and was raised.