What Does It Mean To Be Saved?

Good Morning, My Friends.  Pam and I had a great weekend.   The weather was perfect so on Saturday, after cleaning up our hot-rod (2002 Thunderbird convertible), we sported around downtown St. Charles and ended up at our favorite Grassy knoll in Frontier Park overlooking the river  for a picnic.  Awesome.  Yesterday was the opening concert of our sixteenth season for The Saint Louis Wind Symphony.  That too was awesome!!  So, all in all it was a great weekend, and as soon as I finish my blog I’m giving myself the rest of the day off to sit on the deck  to read or snooze.  Life is good…

I had a plan for my message today, but I saw a posting on Facebook earlier that completely changed my direction.  A friend of mine, Mark Wuestenberg, posted a powerful clip this morning portraying a man hanging from a cliff and the verse read, “Before man can be saved, he must first learn he cannot save himself.”  The power of the visual and the truth of the verse prompted me to change direction and write about that very subject.  Unfortunately for those who have never been exposed to the truth of God’s word…they do not even realize they are living in sin and in need of a Savior.  They are just living their life according to the standards of this world; doing what “everyone else” is doing while being completely oblivious to the truth found in Romans 6:23, “For the wages of sin is death…” (I will complete this verse later in this post because the completion of the verse is the solution to the condemnation).

As I have talked about in previous messages, the insurmountable obstacle standing between man and an eternal relationship with God is SIN.  And what is sin?  When used as a noun it refers to a state of being, meaning living a life separated from God.  As a verb it means being disobedient to God’s standard (The Ten Commandments, or the Law).  For an example, let’s go back to Genesis (2-3) and to the creation.  Man was created in God’s image; for his pleasure and for his purpose.  Man was created spiritually connected to God, but that changed when Eve was tempted by the serpent (Satan) and disobeyed God’s warning: “You may freely eat any fruit in the garden except fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  If you eat of this fruit you will surely die.” (Genesis 2: 16-17)  But Satan, as he always does, offered an appealing alternative to God’s plan: “You won’t die the serpent hissed.  God knows your eyes will be opened when you eat of it.  You will become just like God, knowing everything both good and evil.” (Genesis 3:4-5) In other words you won’t need God.  You can be your own God.  (FYI…that is the same lie Satan uses today)

Through that one act of disobedience sin entered the world because man took the focus off of God’s will and put the focus on satisfying his own will.  That was the original sin and that caused the spiritual connection between God and man to be severed.  As a result of that action, Adam and Eve were cursed and put out of the garden, so consequently every generation following inherits the same curse that befell Adam and Eve.  We are now born spiritually separated from God, meaning our focus is on “us” and not on “Him”.

Let’s look at the delivery room in a hospital as an example.  When a baby enters the world, what is its first action?  It cries.  Why?  He/she wants something… to be held, to be nursed?  In other words, the first thing a baby becomes aware of is itself.   People can go from the cradle to the grave, and if the focus of their existence is all about “ME” and satisfying their own lustful passions and desires, that “state of being” is referred to in God’s Word as sin (or our sin nature.)  Again, all that means is we live our life to satisfy Me!  We don’t need God; we are our own god. (sidebar: I find it interesting that what the Bible refers to as our “sin nature,” our culture refers to as our “human nature.”)

Before man can understand the necessity for a Savior, he has to first come to understand his own state of being, and living in a fallen world makes this a challenge We learn our thoughts and our patterns of behavior from what we see and hear going on around us. The sad reality is… most people aren’t even aware  they are living in sin because most people today are ignorant (uninformed) of the truth of God’s word.  Satan, the god of this world, has done a great job of clouding their minds to the truth.  2 Corinthians 4:4 states: “Satan, who is the god of this world, has blinded the minds of those who don’t believe. They are unable to see the glorious light of the Good News. They don’t understand this message about the glory of Christ, who is the exact likeness of God” 

Apostle Paul knew the answer.  “Don’t conform to the behaviors and patterns of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think.  Then you will know what God wants you to do, and you will know how good and pleasing and perfect his will really is.”  Romans 12: 2

Remember, God has a plan and a purpose for each one of us.  Regardless of who you are or what you are doing now, if God is not part of your life you are not experiencing life to the fullest.  As stated in the previous scripture, God’s plan…his will for our life, is both pleasing and perfect.  When we are in line with His will, he promises to bless us abundantly.  Jesus said in Matthew 6:31-34, “So don’t worry about having enough food or drink or clothing.  Why be like the pagans who are so deeply concerned about these things?  Your heavenly Father already knows all your needs, and he will give you all you need from day to day if you live for him and make the Kingdom of God your primary concern.” 

While the connection between God and man was severed by man’s sin at creation, the good news is…that connection can be restored any time man is ready to repent…meaning, becomes ready to turn from our plan and ask God what his plan is for our life.  As the prophets of old proclaimed, “turn from your sins and turn to God”. (Matthew 3:2).  The history found in the Bible clearly shows that when man is in line with God’s will, he is blessed; when he is out of line with God’s will, there are consequences that follow.  In Malachi, God even challenges the people to trust in Him; “Try it!  Let me prove it to you!”  (Malachi 3:10).

Unless man becomes aware of God’s truth and His love for us, we can go from the cradle to the grave and miss out on God’s amazing plan for our life.  As I have said in every previous message, God is love and God wants a relationship with us…an eternal relationship with us.  The only thing standing between us and that eternal relationship is the issue of SIN!  Man had from creation to 2000 years ago to find a way to achieve God’s standards laid out for us in the 10 Commandments, but continued to fail time and time again.  Therefore in Romans 5: 6,9 it states, “When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners.  And since we have been made right in God’s sight by the blood of Christ, he will certainly save us from God’s judgment”.

The statement “While we were utterly helpless” is powerful.  That means in God’s eyes we were totally incapable of meeting his standard through our own effort.  And why was that?  Because we were, and are, sinners!  It’s vitally important you see this difference.  We are not sinners because we sin; we sin because we are sinners.  We don’t necessarily get up in the morning and say, “humm, I think I’ll sin today.”  We don’t do that, but our nature (our sin nature – or as our culture calls it, our human nature) is to live with the emphasis on “ME”.  That is how we instinctively live when we are separated from God.  Again, this means that we live our life not to bring honor and glory to Him, but to ourselves.

It would seem that unless some transformation takes place in us, we are programmed, so to speak, to live in a state of sin.  That is absolutely correct. And  Romans 6:23 is also correct, “the wages of sin is death”. But because of God’s loving kindness and because he wants an eternal relationship with us, he provided THE answer to man’s dilemma with sin.  The whole verse reads, “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.” 

God’s plan for our salvation is perfect.  He knows that man is weak and that we are slaves to our sin nature.  He also knows we live in a fallen world; we live in our fleshly bodies; and that we have to contend with Satan, who mocks all of God’s standards by offering the delights of our worldly self.  Therefore He gave man (mankind) a Savior to do for us what we have proven since creation we are incapable of doing for ourselves. And that is…conquering sin.  When we are in Jesus Christ (meaning when we have accepted Him as our Lord and Savior), we are a new creation…our old nature (self) is taken away and we have a new spirit (the Holy Spirit) living in us, empowering us to become the person God created us to be.  So why do we need to be saved?…to save us from ourselves!  This is the only way we can attain eternal life.  Jesus said, “no one comes to the father but through me.” (John 14:6)

So my question to you is….Have you accepted God’s free Gift of Grace?  Is Jesus Christ not only your savior, but also the Lord of your life…and what does that mean?

Let me know your thoughts about this, and I’ll see you again next week.

May God Bless ya,

Dan Presgrave (a.k.a. Pastor Dan)