Salvation, God’s Way 10/11/2020

Greetings Grace and peace to you in the name of God our Father the Son and the Holy Spirit. May God continue being with you and your family. We wake up in the morning knowing that God has blessed us to open our eyes another day.God bless us with so much we think that God is obligated to do so, and we don’t look at it as a blessing. Most of us only see materialistic things that God give us as blessing. Materialistic blessing is all some of us are interested in. When it comes to being materialistic we think that God is our personal genie, we give God a demotion. God is in no way obligated to bless anyone and He is certainly not our personal genie. God bless us all because he love us and is able to pull , or stop blessing anyone as he please. The entire world share in some common blessings, saints and sinners alike. God bless us with air we need, water we all need, Sun light we all need. We rarely even think about it.God has given us so many blessing but there is one that without it life wouldn’t be worth living. Salvation.
Prayer: Lord God thank you for this opportunity to share your word with your people. Lead guide and direct me, fill me with your Holy Spirit, that I may do and say that which is pleasing to you. Thank you Lord, Amen
What is salvation? What does it mean to be saved? Save in it’s simplest form means to deliver. Salvation means deliverance. When we talk about being a Christian we are talking about salvation, deliverance from sin and the penalty of death and eternal existence in hell and damnation and suffering.
How do one obtain salvation?
In the Book of Acts Paul and Silas were put in prison for preaching this very gospel and delivering a woman from a demon. They were taken into custody, beaten and thrown into prison. Let’s pick up the story in Acts 16:25.
“And at midnight Paul and Silas prayed, and sang praises unto God: and the prisoners heard them. And suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken: and immediately 23 all the doors were opened, and every one’s bands were loosed. And the keeper of the prison awaking out of his sleep, and seeing the prison doors open, he drew out his sword, and would have killed himself, supposing that the prisoners had been fled. But Paul cried with a loud voice, saying, Do thyself no harm: for we are all here. Then he called for a light, and sprang in, and came trembling, and fell down before Paul and Silas, And brought them out, and said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved? And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house” (Acts 16:25-31)

Philippians jailer asked what can I do to be saved. Paul and Silas could have told the jailer anything. But what they said was believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shall be saved. You and your household. Believe an be saved. Was they telling him the truth or not. Either they told him the truth or they did not. There can be no in between, They gave him a clear and simple message, he did not misunderstand, He believed in Jesus Christ and God saved him Amen.

Jesus shared the way of salvation with Nicodemus the Pharisees sought out Jesus and Jesus Told Him you must be born again. Then Jesus told him in the simplest of terms how to be born again.

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believe in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. He that believe on him is not condemned: but he that believe not is condemned already, because he hath 24 not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God” (John 3:16-18).

The condition is to believe and the promise from God the Son is that you will have eternal life. Either Jesus told Nicodemus the truth or He did not.If a person put their trust in Jesus at this very moment will God save them now or at some point in time? Jesus was very clear when He Said “verily verily I say to you he who believes in me shall have ever lasting life. Either Jesus is lying or He is not.
what do you believe? You life is dependent on your answer to this question.

“For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9). Grace is the undeserved favor done  without expectation of return. The absolutely free expression of God’s love. God literally saved us by His Grace Amen. He saves us based on the work Jesus did going to the cross.

God’s holiness and Justice had to be satisfied, our sin had to be paid for,  yes a terrible price had to be paid. Jesus paid for us at Calvary by dying on the cross.While he was hanging on the cross He declared it is finished and he hanged His head and gave up the ghost. The payment has been made in full, there is nothing else to pay. The debt has been satisfied, He died in our place as our substitute so we would not have to and then three days later God raised Him from the dead.

Here in is love, not that we loved God but that God loved us and sent His Son as a propitiation for our sin ( 1 John 4:10). Jesus was our satisfactorily payment for our sin. Jesus satisfied the justice required by The Father, sin had to be paid for. Christ paid it in full the only thing left for us to do is to trust in Christ for our salvation, when we believe in Christ God saved us right then and there. This is the most valuable blessing of all. Have you believed in Jesus so that you may receive this wonderful blessing of the gift of eternal life. There is only one way. Jesus said I

Am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to my Father unless by me (John 14:6). There is nothing added to it.

Salvation includes all the redemptive acts, justification, redemption, grace, propitiation, imputation, forgiveness,sanctification, and glorification.

Through faith, the requirement is only to believe in the work of Jesus Christ Not of your own.  Not by any work you do but entirely dependent on the work of Jesus Christ. So no one can boast about earning his or her way.

SalvationI is the gift of God, gift here means a present. A gift is free.

“But not as the offense, so also is the free gift. For if through the offense of one many be dead, much more the grace of God, and the gift by grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ hath abounded to many.(Rom 5:15)

The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ.(Rom 6:23).

The gift didn’t cost us anything, but it cost God everything. Amen!!!

Have Faith in Jesus Today, Amen

God Bless You

Rev. Reginald Stevens