Video transcript below
Welcome back to the Basic Bible Concepts. So this is probably the most important concept of all of them because this actually explains how we appropriate the gift of the substitute to our own lives. In other words, how we are saved. People talk about knowing God and being saved and they come into my office. I ask them, have you been born again? Have you been saved? I use those terms interchangeably and they’ll give me explanations like, well, I’ve always known God or yeah, I was born in the church or my parents went to church, I went to church or I was baptized. And it’s always very important for me to explain to them this is not something that happens by osmosis or because you have some knowledge. This is a transaction that takes place because Christ made a payment, but that payment must be appropriated to our own life. And so when we talk about that, like for example, if I bought you tickets to your favorite college basketball game, and I laid them on the table and I said (I don’t name any colleges unless I offend anyone), but I laid them on the table and I said, hey, I bought you these tickets and you never picked them up off the table and never went to that game. Then that gift was never received by you. You acknowledged it. You may have been excited about it, but you never appropriated it. And that’s the same way with salvation. So we need to first get rid of some untruths about how salvation is acquired.
As we talked about in previous lessons, we talked about man’s solution, we talked about a lot of untruths like for example that we have to work to be saved to appease God, right? We are appeasing the bear, remember that example? So first of all, we need to understand that salvation is by grace through faith. And in order to understand the fact that works cannot save us, we need to understand some principles about grace and works. First of all, we need to understand that they are mutually exclusive, OK? The Bible says in Romans 11:6 – And if by grace, then it is no more of works. Otherwise grace is no longer grace. But if it be of works then it’s no longer grace, otherwise work is no longer work. I mean it’s pretty simple, right? And I’d like to use examples of people in my office and my cell phone. I hand them my cell phone. I said I’m going to give you my cell phone. And this is a gift. All you have to do is reach out and take it. And so if they take it and then I say, oh, but wait a minute, I want you to go wash my car, which is a pretty good tradeoff, right? Washing the car for a $1000 cell phone. Pretty good trade off, but it’s no longer a gift is it? And even though it took just a small amount of work, it was no longer a gift. By the same token, if I said oh and if you offend me, if you do something that offends me, I want the cell phone back. Well that was never a gift to begin with and they never really possessed it because it was contingent on something they had to do.
The Bible totally explains this whole principle, for example in Galatians 3:10-14 the Bible says: And all who depended on the law, in other words, who are seeking to be justified by obedience to the law, are under a curse and doomed to disappointment and destruction. For it is written in the Scripture. Cursed, in other words, doomed to eternal punishment, is everyone who does not continue to abide by all the books of the law and practice them all, and that’s in Deuteronomy. That’s quoting Deuteronomy 27:26. In other words, you have to follow the whole law or you’re doomed. And Galatians goes on to say. Now it is evident that no person is justified, in other words, brought into right standing with God, through the law. For the Scripture says, the man in right standing with God shall live by and out of faith, and he who through and by faith is declared righteous, and in right standing with God shall live. So you know, James 2:10 says: For whosoever shall keep the whole law and yet stumble in one point he is guilty of all. So the Bible says, look, you either have to keep the whole law, which we know from prior concepts we can’t do, right, or there’s going to be grace. And so we know that grace and works are mutually exclusive and you can’t mix them up. You know you were saved by grace. You can’t plea bargain with God. You don’t say Ohh you know what? I’m going to do all these things for you and you need to give me eternal life. No, that’s not the way it works.
Another thing about being saved by grace, and let me just read Isaiah 64:6, it says: But we are all like an unclean thing and all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags. So the Bible says even the good things that we do are filthy. And that actually goes back to what we talked about in the concept about the Body, Soul and Spirit and the nature of God. And if you want to, you can listen to those earlier concepts. But we don’t have the ability to do good works because we are sinners, we are in need of salvation.
The Bible also talks about the reason that salvation is by grace is because that excludes boasting, because we cannot do anything. As Ephesians 2:8-9 says: For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. So that kind of lays the foundation that we cannot work our way to heaven. And there’s no such thing as salvation by grace and works, right? Because they don’t mix.
So then what must the sinner do? Because we know we’re sinners. We’ve learned about that. So to be saved, first the Bible says that we have to hear the gospel. We have to hear the gospel, the message of God and the message of salvation from sin through the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. And this is the gospel. It is the way, the means that we are saved from sin. And we heard about that in the last concept when we heard about the concept of the substitute or God’s solution. You know, Paul wrote in First Corinthians 15:1-4, it says: I declare to you the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received and in which you stand, by which you are also saved. And then he goes on to say that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, and that he was buried and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures. So that’s the gospel. And when we hear the gospel then we know of God’s righteousness as we talked about. We know God exists and that we are separated from him. And we know that we have a need because we learned in the Law of Sin and Death that we are all sinners and violated the perfect God. In fact, the Bible spells it out for us. It says in Romans 3:10, As it is written there is none righteous, no, not one. And this is actually a quote from Psalms 14:3. So, Old Testament, New Testament it was very consistent.
But you know what? God desires us. This is the beautiful thing. We’re a bunch of sinners and God desires us. He wants to have fellowship with us. In First Timothy Chapter 2: 3-4 it says: For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior; Who desires all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth. So we can trust him because he desires us. When someone desires you, they do everything they can to be with you. And that’s what God did. Jesus went to the cross and he was killed for us. He went through hell for us. He was separated from his father for us. Yes, he desires us, and we know we can trust him because the Bible says God doesn’t lie. In Titus 1:2 it says, in hope of eternal life, which God, who cannot lie, promised us before time began. And what’s amazing is that God doesn’t discriminate. He doesn’t care what your race is, where you come from, who your tribe is, what color you are, what profession you are. The Bible says anyone can have salvation. In Romans 10:13 it says; For whosoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. Wow, you know, It’s so amazing that we talk about, you know, people being exclusive, Christians being exclusive. We’re not exclusive. Jesus wants to save everyone. He draws everyone to his salvation. He is the most inclusive being we will ever know because he provided a way. He died for us, right?
So when we talk about the idea of, well, how does this happen? Well, first what happens is the Holy Spirit draws us. He draws us. God draws us into this desire to know Him and you know when we talk about the clearest verse about God drawing us to salvation is John 6:44, where Jesus says, No man can come to me, unless the Father who sent me draws him. And you know the Greek word there is HELKUO. For anyone who wants to know that literally means to drag. And so this is clearly a one sided affair. God is dragging us to him and saying, Look, you need me and he gives us the ability to respond to his drawing. That’s the whole point. We, in other words, know the tickets are on the table and he gives us the ability to recognize that we need this.
So when he draws us to him, then the other part that needs to happen is that we need to know that we can believe him. Like I said before, you know, if I tell a client, look, I’m going to do your trust and you need to pay me $2000. If they don’t believe me, they’re not going to pay me $2000. Well, if we don’t believe God, we’re not going to trust him for salvation. But when we hear the truth and the Spirit draws us, then we have a sense of our need. Our sense of our need is magnified even more. There’s, in other words, the gap in our heart.This hole, this God shaped hole, in our heart is revealed to us for what it is and we see it as truth.
I remember when Christ drew me to him. I was standing in church and I remember just thinking, wow, I need to surrender to him because I have resisted too long and I could feel the Holy Spirit is drawing me. And I knew I needed him and it was like, wow, I want to receive him. And that’s where I was. And I knew I was a sinner. I absolutely knew I needed Him and the way I’ve been living was in violation of his love. And I didn’t want to live that way anymore. And that’s called repentance. Paul talks about repentance in Second Corinthians 7:9-10, he says, Now I rejoice, not that you were made sorry, but that your sorrow led to repentance. For you were made sorry in a godly manner that you might suffer loss from us in nothing. For godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation, not to be regretted.
You know a lot of people say to me, well if salvation is free, then I can just go do whatever I want to once I get it, right? Because I know I’m not going to hell after that. No, that’s not the way it works. When you are drawn to God, you’re drawn to his love. And love is so powerful that when we accept his gift of salvation, we know we are loved. And when you love somebody and you know you’re loved, you don’t want to violate that love. So when you receive the gift of salvation by grace through faith, then you have a new nature, which we’re going to talk about in the next video and you desire to do what’s right. You desire to please Jesus because he did so much for you and he still does. So repentance, that comes from God, gives us the desire to live differently because we have Christ nature in us.
And so what is it that we have to do? Well, we have to believe, right? And this is not a belief just that God exists. Because you know that James 2:19 says, You believe there’s one God. You do well, even the demons believe and they tremble. You know what? A lot of people believe in God that haven’t accepted him as their savior. It’s different. Believing is not a work. The Bible says in Romans 4:5, But to him that does not work, but believes on him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness. God saves those who believe in him. And now let me just read some scriptures about that. John 1:12-13 says, But as many as received him, to them he gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in his name, who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. And this again is so powerful, because when we believe that Jesus’ gift of salvation is offered to us freely, and we believe he will give it to us, we receive it. We ask for it, knowing that He cannot lie. Then we receive this eternal gift of salvation. And Christ saves all those who call on Him.
You know, it’s so beautiful, John 6:40 says. And this is the will of him who sent me, meaning the Father, this is Jesus talking, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him may have everlasting life. That’s the life of our soul and our spirit, to be with God forever. And you know, I love this verse in Romans chapter 5:10 that’s where Paul writes, He says, For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more having been reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. And not only that, but we also rejoice in God, that through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation. We are reconciled to God by Jesus Christ.
And you know Jesus has the last word here, he said in John 5:24 Truly, truly, I say to you, he that hears my word and believes on him that sent me has everlasting life and shall not come into come condemnation, but is passed from death unto life. If you have not received Jesus Christ as your Savior, you are spiritually dead, and we’ve talked about that. But when you believe and receive the gift that he offers you, you pass from death to life. Your soul and spirit will never die and will never again be separated from God. And you want to walk in what Paul calls the newness of life. And the next video we’re going to talk about walking in the New Birth and walking the Christian life.
We would love to hear your thoughts about this devotional. Did God speak to you or challenge your daily walk with him? Or is there a topic that you would like Kimberly to cover or expound on? Please share with us in the comments below.
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