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Last week, we saw that salvation
provides a deliverer for the captives, a substitute for the condemned, and a
healer for the sick.
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We learned trust in the saving power of the cross and you have salvation.
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This morning as we continue to
explore what it means to be saved, we are going to look at two more questions.
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Let's start with why we need salvation.
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Three important facts or reasons
exist for why we need salvation.
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The first important fact is that God is holy and humankind is sinful.
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Habakkuk
1:13 tells us that God is "pure and cannot stand the sight of evil."
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That God is holy means that he is
completely separated from evil and sin. God
cannot look at wrong.
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God is holy, but humankind is
sinful. Romans 5:12 tells us, "just
as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death
spread to all men because all sinned –" (ESV).
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All of us are sinners because we are
descendents of Adam, the first sinner.
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The second important fact is that God lives in heaven, and human- kind must
go to hell.
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Heaven is the place where God the
Father dwells. When Jesus taught his disciples to pray, he taught them to say, "Our Father in heaven" (Matthew
6:9).
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Psalm
11:4
also teaches that God dwells in heaven. "But the Lord is in his holy Temple;
the Lord still rules from heaven. He watches everyone closely, examining every
person on earth."
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God lives in heaven, but humankind
must go to hell.
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Ephesians
2:3
says, "By our very nature we were
subject to God's anger, just like everyone else."
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Last week we learned from John 3:18
that sinners are already condemned.
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The final resting place for sinners
is eternal separation from the God of heaven.
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The third important fact is: God loves humankind, but we hate God.
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Romans
5:8
tells us, "God shows his love for
us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." And John 3:16 also clearly says that God
loved the world so much that he gave his only Son.
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However, we hate God. John reveals
the thoughts of Jesus about this: "And this is the judgment: the light
has come into the world, and people love the darkness rather than the light
because their deeds were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the
light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed"
(John 3:19-20, ESV).
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Although God sent the light of truth
into the world, we rejected the light because it shows our wickedness.
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God is holy separated from sin. God
lives in heaven and we must be eternally separated from God. God is angry with
our sin, but he loves us enough to send his Son to save us.
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That brings us to our second
question: what does salvation mean?
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The best way to understand what
salvation means is to look at five words that present what salvation is all
about.
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Our first word is regeneration. Regeneration
means to be born again. It refers to the spiritual birth that happens when God
grants faith in Jesus Christ.
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Let's look at John 3:1-8. "There was a
man named Nicodemus, a Jewish religious leader who was a Pharisee. After dark one evening, he came to speak with
Jesus. 'Rabbi,' he said, 'we all know
that God has sent you to teach us. Your miraculous signs are evidence that God
is with you.'
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Jesus
replied, "I tell you the truth, unless you are born again (or born from
above) you cannot see the Kingdom of God."
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"What
do you mean?" exclaimed Nicodemus. "How can an old man go back into
his mother's womb and be born again?"
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Jesus
replied, "I assure you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being
born of water and the Spirit. Humans can reproduce only human life, but the
Holy Spirit gives birth to spiritual life. So do not be surprised when I say,
'You must be born again.' The wind blows wherever it wants. Just as you can
hear the wind but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going, so
you cannot explain how people are born of the Spirit."
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This new birth that Jesus spoke
about with Nicodemus is for the sinner because without the new birth the sinner
cannot see the kingdom of God.
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But there is hope! Jesus said that
sinners can be born again, receive a new life from above, from the Spirit of
God.
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Nicodemus thought Jesus was talking
about physical birth, but Jesus was talking about spiritual birth.
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To enter the kingdom of God, one
must be born of the Spirit. That is regeneration and it is a spiritual birth.
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Regeneration
is not something we do. It is a miracle of new life given by the Holy Spirit.
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Our second word is redemption, to redeem. To redeem means to purchase, to buy
something.
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In order to buy something, someone
has to pay the price.
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Peter 1:18-19 tell us, "For you know that God paid a ransom to save you
from the empty life you inherited from your ancestors. And the ransom he paid
was not mere gold or silver. It was the precious blood of Christ, the sinless,
spotless Lamb of God." (NLT)
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The price of freedom from slavery to
sin was the precious blood of Jesus Christ. The price of redemption was the
blood of Christ.
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Today if you trust Christ for your
salvation, then you need to know that Christ bought your life with his blood.
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You are not your own, you were
bought at a price.
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The result of your redemption is
that you are no longer a slave to sin.
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You are set free so that you may
live to the praise of his glory. That is redemption.
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That brings us to our third word, remission. Remission means to lay something aside or put it away.
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We've all heard of people who had
cancer, where it doesn't look good for them, they're going to die, but suddenly
the cancer goes into remission.
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It stops growing, starts shrinking,
and they get their health back and it's like their cancer has been put away or
laid aside.
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What we mean by remission is the
putting away or laying aside of our sins.
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Because our sin separates us from a
holy God, our sin needs to be laid aside, put away because it is an impossible
barrier, an overwhelming obstacle to our relationship with him.
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Hebrews
9:22 says, "In fact, according to the law of Moses, nearly everything was
purified with blood. For without the shedding of blood, there is no
forgiveness." (NLT) Older translations use
remission rather than forgiveness, but they refer to the same thing.
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When we talk about remission of sin,
what we are really talking about is forgiveness.
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The only way we can be forgiven of
our sins is through the shed blood of Jesus Christ.
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Christ's shed blood put away our
sins. Our sins were literally nailed to Christ's cross. The Lord Jesus took the
penalty we were supposed to pay for our sin in his body on the cross so that we
could be forgiven.
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That is remission.
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Our fourth word is justification. To be justified means to be declared righteous. In salvation, God
declares the sinner righteous or right with God.
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How is it possible for God to
declare a sinner to be righteous? How is it possible for a sinner to be
justified before a holy God?
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Can God change the reality that we
have sinned? Is God going to erase and rewrite our personal history in order to
declare us righteous?
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Let's take a closer look at
justification to find out.
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Very closely related to
justification is remission. We've already noted that remission and forgiveness
go hand-in-hand.
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Because Christ took upon himself our
sins and died in our place, the penalty for our sins is laid aside and our sins
are forgiven.
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Acts
13:38-39 say, "Let it be known to you therefore, brothers, that through
this man forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you, and by him everyone who
believes is freed from everything from which you could not be freed by the law
of Moses." (ESV)
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It is only the death of Christ that
makes forgiveness of sins possible, and that is because all our sins were laid
on Christ, and he was punished in our place.
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God can justly declare us to be
righteous because our sins are forgiven. Justice was satisfied in the cross of
Christ.
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The other part of justification is
God credits righteousness to the believer; that is imputation.
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To impute means to credit to a
person, so when God imputes righteousness to us it means that he credits us
with righteousness.
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Without Jesus Christ, do we have a
righteousness of our own? No.
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Every one of us is a sinner. We have
no righteousness of our own.
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The incredible thing is that God
justifies us when we believe because Jesus Christ died our death and gives us
his righteousness.
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Romans
5:19 says, "For as by the one man's disobedience the many were made
sinners, so by the one man's obedience the many will be made righteous."
(ESV)
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The punishment that we deserve for
our sin, Jesus Christ took upon himself so that his righteousness can be
credited to our accounts.
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Because God has forgiven us through
the cross and has credited to us the righteousness of Jesus, he can declare us
justified.
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That brings us to our fifth word, reconciliation. To reconcile means to
restore to friendship or harmony.
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Reconciliation implies that two
groups or persons are in conflict with each other.
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Remember that God loves humankind,
but we hate God, which is exactly why we need to be reconciled to God.
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Humankind hates God and needs to be
restored to friendship or harmony with him.
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However, since humankind hates God,
we reject the reality that Jesus paid for our sin.
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Corinthians 5:17-18 say, "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old
has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through
Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of
reconciliation" (ESV).
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Only those who are born again, born
from above, by a miracle of the Holy Spirit embrace what Christ accomplished in
the cross.
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Until God renews and regenerates a
person, giving that one new life, he or she can never trust Christ as Lord, and
continues to hate God, and will bear the penalty of sin upon him or herself.
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The key to salvation is
reconciliation with God.
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Salvation is bigger than fire
insurance faith. Salvation is greater
than just escaping hell.
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Salvation is not all about heaven.
Salvation is about being reconciled to the One who made you.
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Heaven is not the goal of salvation;
God is.
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That is what reconciliation is all
about to renew and restore our friendship with God.
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Salvation's
point is not heaven; salvation's point is reconciled relationship with God.
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