Be Saved

Be Saved

(Ephesians 2:4-10; John 3:1-21)

7 pm, Sunday, June 23, 2013; Drive-In Service; J G White

(copied/edited from March 18, 2012)

It is interesting what people will say about Jesus and Christianity. I've heard a few wild ideas through the years. There is a book out now called “Jesus Is _____.” The authors have a website set up, which says: Everyone has an opinion of who Jesus is. That's why this website exists: as a platform for people to express who Jesus is to them. There are a lot of concepts about Jesus, and what His message of salvation really is.

I remember a memorial service reception a year ago, where a young woman spoke about her grandmother-in-law, who had then been dead for about four weeks. The young woman got tearful when she sort of pleaded that the ashes be buried so the deceased would not have to wander purgatory, but would rest in peace.

To me, it would be a strange world if all you needed to do to get into heaven was have your body or ashes buried. Might make the undertakers and the cemeteries happy!

Today, it is not clear what the message of Jesus is. Is it clear what Salvation is?

How does one get saved?

How does one enter the Kingdom of God?

How does one inherit eternal life?

I remember once, a woman spoke to a church member of her deceased mother, and hoped both she and her late mother would be in heaven together one day. “How do I get to heaven?” the person asked. The church member said: “Well, you need to be a good person and do what God wants...” Or something like that.

Wrong answer again, eh? Am I right? Be a good person and get to heaven is the wrong answer, in our Faith. Rely upon our good God and trust in the Saviour, that is the better answer.

Of course, it's not completely as simple as that, is it. We have in Matthew 25 a parable of Jesus Himself, that speaks of the final judgment. He talks of those feeding the hungry, quenching the thirsty, welcoming the stranger, clothing the naked, caring for the sick, visiting the prisoner. “Just as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me,” says the King in the story, representing Jesus. And then, to others, “Just as you did not do it to the least of these, you did it not unto me. And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

We tend to emphasize that right living flows out of a right relationship with God, which God makes possible by the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, the Son of God. To be saved one must rely upon the Saviour.

To Be Saved is a key, a linchpin, a big idea and main idea of our Faith. Without salvation from Jesus Christ, our spirituality and our religion are lost, and mere shadows of the real thing. In our evangelical tradition, we have often spoken of being saved as something that happens at a certain, definite point in a person's life. I got saved on such-and-such an occasion. Being saved is the starting point. “You must be born again,” as Jesus tells Nicodemus the Jewish religious expert, one special night long ago. To be connected with our own personal Faith we stay in touch with our beginning – how God reached us, and how we responded to Him. How we were saved.

Yet is it just the beginning of the race of life, that can be run victoriously as we rely upon Christ for our salvation.

We can recite quite a litany about salvation just from a few richly-packed verses from Ephesians 2. (Do you have a car Bible, like I do?) Turn there if you like. Notice...

Salvation is by grace.

Salvation is through faith.

Salvation is not of your own doing.

Salvation is the gift of God.

Salvation is not the result of works.

Salvation is not for us to boast about.

So... we are what God has made us.

We are created in Christ Jesus.

We are created for good works.

Good works are prepared for us beforehand.

Good works are to be our way of life.

For those initiated into the language and ideas of the Bible, these words are profound and meaningful. To those outside of Faith in Christ, they are not understood the same way. The words we use for our Faith, the Bible we quote, might be almost a different language form some people. It might as well be Greek.

Example of jargon... I was on a field trip a week ago, and in the woods we found an interesting and rare species. The opposite blades were sessile, the red calyxes also sessile, in small whorls, with inferior ovaries, and five pointed green and red sepals. A very exciting find; I'd never seen it before! It was Triosteum aurianticum, of the Caprifoliaceae family.

Did you understand me? It was a rare wildflower – Feverwort, or Horse Gentian, of the Honeysuckle family of plants. If I spoke your language – your words and terms you use everyday – you might understand me. So too when we explain Jesus. We must reach people who need Him in their terms.

We all have people in our lives whom we would say are “not saved.” They are not Christians, they have not taken basic steps to put their lives in God's hands, or they have rejected the commitment they once made or the things the Lord did for them. These people are in our homes, in our families, down our hallway or street. They are our co-workers, our fellow students, our facebook friends. They are also perfect strangers: the faces we pass by each week but don't know the names, and the chance encounters around town.

We want to know how to reach them. How to pray for their salvation. How to speak with them. How to show them Christ is real in us. Who to introduce them to to guide them. What book or movie or event or blog to recommend to them. What church event to invite them to and bring them.

Sometimes the results of our attempts have been mediocre. In many cases, we are deeply concerned for a few certain people, some very close to us, whom we want be saved and find new life in Christ. Some seem like tough customers.

This seems hard today. I know it is. The days of the revival tent meetings, the tracts handed out, the door-to-door visits of lay evangelists are over. I think that even the days of invitations to church services, or evangelistic “crusades” or to watch television religion are over. Most of this is rejected; people are inoculated against it. Much of it is ineffective today.

This is the day of social media. It is a day of Christianity being one minority among many. It is a day when people will meet Christ when they meet Christians, where they work, where they shop, where they learn, where they play, where they retire.

It is at the grass-roots that people will find and be found by the Lord, and get saved, and become disciples of Jesus. Our programs, of the Churches, must equip us to be the evangelists, the missionaries, the personal spiritual trainers of others. It happens out there.

So we must learn to speak of salvation in ways that will be understood by those who hear. And they must see the example and evidence of our saved lives. When salvation is real, it will attract & impact.

There is more than one ministry group out there that I've heard claiming to be “making a certain sound.” The point is that they are not making an uncertain sound, not giving an unclear message. You might want to turn to 1 Corinthians 14:7-8.

A year or so ago I traveled down to Clyde River to buy a rusty, musty musical instrument. It is painted purple. It weighs maybe 100 pounds. It is a stringed instrument. Can you guess what it is? It is a simple harpsichord. It looks like a small piano, with 57 keys. It had but a few, rusty strings in it. I started putting new strings on the harpsichord, but they were not tuned, and the bits that pluck the strings are in bad shape. My harpsichord is still making very uncertain sounds.

While writing about the spiritual use of prophecy and speaking in tongues, Paul says: It is the same way with lifeless instruments that produce sound, such as the flute or the harp. If they do not give distinct notes, how will anyone know what is being played? And if the bugle gives an indistinct sound, who will get ready for battle? Paul's point then is that our speaking about the Lord together needs to be clear and understandable.

We might feel led to go beyond this teaching and see that our messages to people in West Hants today need to be clear and true, not uncertain or confusing.

We can't speak in King James language anymore and expect to be respected for the spiritual sound we maketh. I still see signs along the road that say “Prepare To Meet Thy God.” I saw a sign outside a Church that announced Sunday service, and also: “Compline.” I bet there are Anglican Christians who don't know what that is, not to mention passers-by.

We cannot speak with allusions to scripture and expect the general population to know our shibboleths. Good Friday is about Jesus Christ being executed? Easter is about Jesus coming back to life after three days in a tomb? We cannot assume that everyone in our neighbourhoods knows such facts. Fewer are aware of who Paul was, or Moses, or Lydia. So we meet people with a clean slate, ready to explain the most basic things, and not think them dumb.

We cannot speak with an attitude of superiority to those who do not have much time for traditional religious forms. As sure as we may sometimes feel about how right we are about the Lord and His saving work in Jesus Christ, we need to be sure to love and care for those who don't make the same claims. Remember Jesus, who once, seeing a great crowd, had great compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd.

We cannot speak with judgment about right and wrong, in moral or spiritual issues, when those listening will reject such thinking from people who are clearly not living perfect lives. We've visited the Ten Commandments a couple times already this winter. What would you do if it became known that I, the Senior Pastor, had committed murder last week? Or had been stealing, lately? Or was having some affairs this year? The skids would be put under me, eh! Those commandments are just four or five words each in Exodus 20. But what if I said, “Whew, I haven't had a day off in a month.” I'd get applauded. Yet the command to keep the Sabbath holy goes on for sentences: about 80 words. No one can approach others with an air of judgment.

And it is so important for us to be very clear about what salvation is, in our day and age, for the sake of those around us. It is time for a new clarity about this key concept in our Faith. It is a priority for us to live the saved life, and we must speak the language of our neighbours when we are witnesses of what the Lord has done. Our words can be clearer, and our actions, our lives. Jesus is _____. What do you say?

Saying this well is our mission. Let us pray.