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October 09, 2005
What Must I Do to be Saved?
Psalm 24 / Numbers 21: 5 – 9
John 3: 1-19
October 9th, 2005
For the next several weeks, I’m not sure now just how many, I want to change my preaching from its focus on books of the Bible or on great doctrinal statements such as the Nicene Creed, to explorations of great questions that arise from life. This morning I want to explore the question, “What must I do to be saved?” This question marks the start of the Christian way. We will think of it along with the question, “Have I been born again?”
We have all heard the terms “born again” and “saved” used frequently in this land. You have heard the term “born again Christian” that tries to distinguish between a real Christian and a Christian in name only. Perhaps you’ve been asked by an ardent Christian friend, “Are you saved?”
Both “born again” and “saved” are good Bible terms. Paul wrote, “For by grace you have been saved through faith, it is the gift of God, not of works lest anyone should boast.” In a sense might say the answer to the question, “What must I do to be saved?” is, “There is nothing I can do to be saved.” Salvation is a gift of God. The “doing” part of being saved is simply receiving it, of accepting it.
But it is fair to ask, “How do I receive salvation, this gift of God?” To receive it is to do something, even if it is simply to extend our hands to accept the gift. When I reach out my hand and receive it, I take it to myself. What happens when I do that?
In the passage from John that we listened to a few moments ago Jesus said to Nicodemus, “Unless you are born again, [or born anew], you cannot see the kingdom of God.” Being born is something that happens to a baby. The baby is totally passive. It doesn’t do a thing except move along the birth canal as the mother pushes her out. Then the baby starts to take part in life. It must feed. It must breathe. It must move its little arms and legs. We are somehow pushed out when we are born again; it is a new start. But we must then do something too.
The term “saved” makes it seem that God does everything. But “born again” puts us in the role of the newborn child. The baby plays a significant role in its own life from that point on. Some babies don’t thrive.
One day back in the mid nineteenth century an ardent layman approached the Bishop of the local cathedral on the streets of Durham, England and asked him, “Brother, are you saved?” It was a day when evangelicalism was surging in England and there was no little suspicion of the established Church in England. This ardent fellow saw the bishop’s attire and wasn’t impressed. He wondered, “Is he even a Christian?” So the layman asked the bishop, “Are you saved?” He expected a simple yes or no answer—and probably expected to be rebuffed.
The bishop happened to be Bishop B.F. Westcott, one of the giants among those who have written commentaries on the Gospel of John, a copy of which I’ve owned for years and cherish. He replied, “My friend, I was saved when Jesus paid the penalty for my sin on the cross; I am being saved by the power of His life; I shall be saved when I see Him as He is.”
What a good answer. Because the Bible speaks of salvation in all three ways. There are three aspects to this relationship with God called “salvation.” It shows how close is the connection between “salvation” and being “born again.” It’s not strictly correct to say that these three aspects refer to something past, something on-going, and something yet to come, but maybe it is helpful to think of salvation in this way.
If I have trusted in Jesus Christ, I was saved when Jesus died for my sins on the cross. I am being saved being made more healthy, sound of soul by the power of His life. I shall be saved when I see Him face to face—for then I shall be changed completely. And I enter into all of this when I am “born again.” This is the promise of the Gospel.
Something indeed happens when you or I pray to receive the gift of God’s forgiveness. No matter how helpless our prayer, a transaction is made between heaven and earth when with helpless faith, so helpless we feel we don’t even have any faith at all, we pray, “Lord Jesus, forgive me of my sin. I accept you as my Savior and Lord.”
But then we enter a new life that is a way of life. And this life makes demands of us. When we call Jesus, “Lord,” it means starting a discipline of life where we impose on ourselves ways that do not come naturally. It can lead to remarkable community and personal life. But it is not like falling off a log. NOT AUTOMATIC. “Work out your salvation with fear and trembling,” Paul wrote, “for it is God that is at work in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure.” The fear and trembling is not because God is not to be trusted, but because any of us who try, realize how the old self is still alive and fights tooth and nail with the new self that God is beginning to reshape from the old self—as we try to obey Him. Almost no part of reforming our ways comes easy. Paul wrote at one point, “I pommel by body and subdue it, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.”
Disqualified? Are God’s expectations so high of how we live as new creations that if we do not try we may be disqualified—after being born again?
It is good that we ask questions like this. I get the feeling that it is unwise and unbiblical to create airtight doctrines from selective use of the Bible that does not include the cautioning words the Bible includes too.
Charitably we like to think of the Christian way as a way with a very wide gate. We love the word “inclusive.” And indeed, all kinds of people may go through the gate that leads to life. But Jesus taught us that the gate is narrow and few there are that find it. This is a sobering word. Will we listen to it in terms of how we have thought of entering the way of Christ?
Perhaps it is, as C.S. Lewis proposed, that to the presumptuous person the Bible speaks severe words of warning, and to the fearful person the Bible relieves the fears by saying, “This is the will of my Father who sent me that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up at the last day.”
But Jesus also said at least twice of those who face difficulty in following Him, “the one who endures to the end shall be saved.” Then what of those who do not endure? What of those who give up? What of those who want the label, “Christian,” but are interested in the demands of the Christian life?”
Jesus said, “Not every one who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ but the one who does the will of my father in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord Lord’ did we not prophesy in your name, and do many mighty works in your name? And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you evildoers.”
What Jesus said He said of those who thought that calling Him “Lord” was spiritually significant. While it is true that the New Testament tells us that we may know that we have eternal life, the basis of our certainty is not just the promise of God and the certainty of our trust in God. It is a knowledge based on the evidence of our love of brothers and sisters in Christ as well as His promise. The two cannot be separated if the Bible is our guide.
My dear people, there is not a problem that can arise between us that cannot be solved if we take this to heart. There is not a difficulty within a family or within a congregation that cannot instantly dissolve if we take to heart that we prove we love God when we love one another—and act like it.
The third aspect of salvation is the promise of being made fully as we ought to be. Once again we read in I John 3: 2, “Beloved, we are God’s children now; it does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. And every one who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.” This is what Bishop Westcott had in mind in saying, “I shall be saved, that is, made fully healthy, when I see Him.” Then will come the love between one another we’ve looked for all along.
Well, these are the three aspects of how the Bible teaches us about being saved. But I have not mentioned in particular the passages of Scripture we have read. Jesus referred to the passage in Numbers when He spoke to Nicodemas in our reading from the Gospel of John.
In the course of Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemas when he told him about being “born again,” he illustrated what belief is by referring to the time in Israel’s wilderness wandering when God sent fiery serpents in response to their incessant complaining. It must have been a bit like living in Arizona as suburban sprawl invades the territory of rattlesnakes. Everywhere the Israelites walked there was the danger of being bit by a poisonous snake. God told Moses to make a bronze snake and put it up on a pole. Anyone who simply looked up at that bronze snake was instantly healed of the poison.
Nicodemas knew that story well. But he had never thought that it had anything to do with Jesus. Nor could he have known anything about this. He did not know that Jesus would be lifted up on a cross, on a pole, the way Moses put the bronze snake up on a pole. Jesus was telling Nicodemas that trusting in Him for the “new birth” was as helpless an effort as looking up at that snake on a pole.
And so it is. But we read of this story much later, after Christianity has become a great part of our culture. In the years since Jesus spoke to Nicodemas that night, a great society called Christendom has developed and the simple things Jesus taught us have often gotten lost in the shuffle. We have joined our societies called “Presbyterian,” “Methodist,” etc., but have we taken to heart what Jesus said? We have asked great questions of the ways of God and tried to put together answers to our questions based on the Bible. But the big question that we must all answer is, “Are you saved?” “Have you been born again?”
Today in Chicago, at this very hour, thousands of men and women are running the Chicago marathon. Once again, our son is in that number. To be allowed to run that marathon you must start at the beginning, and be registered, and have a computer chip on you that is read by devices placed along the way. These make sure that runners take no short cuts but run the prescribed route from beginning to end. It is easy to start. It is hard to run. It is a great joy to finish.
I wonder if we have all started, or perhaps if we have thought we could slip into the number of those who are running, and then run by our own rules what we want to call the “Christian life?”
One of our members called me this week after reading the title of this morning’s message, to tell me that it wasn’t until one of his children realized he had to start the Christian life at the beginning, by actually asking God to forgive him his sins, and to receive the gift of salvation—that he did so. It is possible to merge into the crowd of those who attend church and never personally get into the race of the Christian life at all.
And so I ask you this morning as I asked myself one morning when I was nineteen years old, “What must you do to be saved?” Trust in Jesus Christ to forgive your sin—which means acknowledging that in fact you are a sinner. And then run with endurance the race that is set before you. And in due time you will wear what the Bible calls “the crown of life” which God has prepared for those that love Him.
Until we have begun this race, we are not in it. Unless we are running, we have removed ourselves from it. And only if we continue do we have the assurance of receiving from God the great gift of wholeness that He offers us. I pray that I have well begun, that I am in the race for the duration, and that I shall receive the crown of life. And I pray that you may too.
Perhaps you need to begin because you have not yet. Perhaps you have lapsed in the running of the race. If so, let this prayer be yours: O Lord, our heavenly Father, thank you that Jesus died to grant me forgiveness of my sin. Forgive my sin and give to me the will to follow Jesus so that He is my Lord and Savior. And grant me the grace to continue to follow Him my whole life long so that at the end I may find wholeness. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
Stuart D. Robertson, Pastor
Faith Presbyterian Church
West Lafayette, IN 47906
Posted by faithpres at October 9, 2005 09:30 AM