Salvation? (part 2)

God loves us and Christ died for us

But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:8)

            Can you imagine a love demonstrated in such a magnificent way that it involved someone laying down their life for you? 

"Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13)

Jesus is God’s gift to us.  In the second step on the Romans Road we read the bad news concerning the sin that are an unfortunate part of each of our lives.  A requirement that none of us are exempt from, but the second part of that step begins the good news that now leads to this step: God loved us that Christ died for us.  So many words within this verse that we can just expound on and savor the goodness of what each one means. 

“Demonstrates”:  He showed it to us.  Too often we live with verbal expressions but here God’s love is revealed by a physical expression by dying for us. 

“His own love”: Literally his affections.  How splendid!  A rebellious creation, a creation that has dishonored him, disrespected Him, and disobeyed Him, yet He still loves us.  We are often quick to turn on those who have wronged us and hurt us, but God did the exact opposite.  He demonstrated His love towards us! 

“Christ died”: Romans 6:23 says that the wages of sin is death.  In dying for us, Christ paid the wages that we were never able to pay.  He died for our sins.  He wanted to take our place!  As I would say when I get a little excited, “Well glory!”  The death that is required for sin has been made in Christ.

“Towards us”, “for us”:  This makes it personal.  The usage of the word “us” in Romans 5:8 includes the usage of the word “all” in Romans 6:23.  All of us who have sinned, there is no one who is excluded, he died.  He paid the wages.  He endured the punishment and the shame of the cross because God loved us. 

For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. (John 3:16)

We must confess and believe on Christ

That if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation. (Romans 10:9,10)

There are two words that important to the process of salvation: confess and believe.  Here is what we have discovered on our journey through the Romans Road:  We have all sinned, there is no one excluded.  The penalty (or wages) of that is death, but God has offered to us a free gift of salvation or eternal life.  It is a gift that demonstrates God’s love towards us when Christ died and paid the wages or penalty for our sins.

Salvation?

(This is a continuation of understanding the basics of Christianity - I would simply entitle the series "New Beginnings")

 

To understand the meaning of salvation, one must understand what salvation is.  Dictionary.com defines salvation as “the act of saving or protecting from harm, risk, loss, destruction”.  The word “salvation” in the Biblical sense means “deliverance.”  What is it we need salvation from and how do we get it?  To answer this question, we are going to take a little trip. 

In Genesis 3, we read the account of man’s fall at the Garden of Eden.  But before we read the account, we must rewind to Genesis 2, “The LORD God commanded the man, saying, "From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die” (Genesis 2:16,17).  At this point, creation was beautiful.  Relationship between creation and Creator was in perfect harmony and fellowship.  Nothing stood in the way between the two and in all its glory, creation was perfect, until we reach chapter 3.  What changed?  What came between the perfect fellowship between creation and Creator?  The answer is one word: sin.  Sin is simply disobedience to God.  When sin entered, the relationship became separated. 

When one reads the Scriptures, the effects of sin upon creation became obvious.  In the previous chapter we read about Christianity being a relationship, in essence, it is the restoration of a relationship that has been separated.  In Genesis 2, the resulting consequence of disobedience is death.  Did you know that death is separation?  What most people argue the reasons on why God did not immediately cause Adam and Eve to die, I believe it is important to understand that death is separation.  At the moment that Adam and Eve disobeyed God, their relationship with the Creator died or became separated.  It was God’s holiness and man’s sinfulness that caused the separation. 

With this basic understanding in mind, let us now take another trip to gather a better understanding, this time to the book of Romans.  In this sixth book of the New Testament, there is a road that is found within its marvelous passages, a road that helps to bring clarity and understanding of a relationship that was separated.  Not only that, it brings to light the answer of how that divided relationship between creation and Creator can be restored.  It is most often called the Romans Road to Salvation and within these simple verses, lies the greatest story ever told in a nutshell. 

Everyone is a sinner

For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.  (Romans 3:23)

When sin became a part of the human race, it consequences had a far reaching impact, notice the word “all” in this verse.  It was not relegated to one or two people, it was spread throughout the human race like a cancer.  One of the key arguments that I have heard concerning the way to Heaven or to be in a right relationship with God is we just simply must be a good person.  In Romans 3:10, Paul writes, “As it is written, "THERE IS NONE RIGHTEOUS, NOT EVEN ONE.”  There is an importance in understanding the meaning of the word righteousness.  It is translated from the word “dikaios” (dik'-ah-yos) meaning innocent or holy.  When Paul wrote this, he was actually repeating a text from the Psalms 14:3, “They have all turned aside, together they have become corrupt; There is no one who does good, not even one”.  What a dreadful thought concerning the human race, there is no one who is innocent, there is no one who does good.  To really get what Paul is saying, it would be better understood as this, there is no one who is good enough or holy enough to be in a right relationship with God, there is no one who is good enough or Holy enough to get into Heaven.  Each one of us, no matter who we are or where we are from have sinned and each one of us have fallen short of God’s glory.  The Greek word in which “glory” is translated from speaks of praise.  Another way to view this is found in John 12:44, “For they loved the approval of men rather than the approval of God.”  Now let’s go back to the idea of Christianity being a relationship.  Being in a relationship, our desire is to honor that in which we are in a relationship with and in return we receive approbation from the one we honor or love.  The most important commandment as expressed by Jesus in Matthew 22:37 is to “LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND” and the second one is to love others as yourself.  Any action that fails to honor those two commandments is a sin.  When Adam and Eve disobeyed God, they failed to honor God and instead of praise, they suffered the judgment of God for their disobedience, death. 

The wages of sin is death

For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 6:23)

What a bleak outlook.   It is bad enough that we have all sinned, it is even worse that the wages of sin is death.  There is a payment that is required, but unfortunately, we are not able to make that payment by our own doing.  In our vain attempt in doing so, we will forced to face eternal separation from God.  It is not just a physical death that is being referred to here.  It is the spiritual and the eternal.  It is this death that occurred instantaneously at the Garden of Eden during man’s disobedience.  No hope, no fellowship, no joy.  To stop there though is to miss the blessing.  Thankfully, there is more to the verse than the revelation of that sin brings death.  For following the first clause of the verse is the word “but”.  Paul, the author of Romans, has given us the bad news, but…  What a wonderful turn of events. 

All of us have sinned and the wages of sin is death, but... 

From bad news now to good news: the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.  What phenomenal news.  Sin costs us, but God has given to us a free gift.  Sin equals separation and death but God’s gift is life!  It is reconciliation!  It is bridging the chasm that separates us from our Creator.  What is this free gift of eternal life in Christ Jesus?  The answer to that question is found at the next stop on the Romans Road.

The Heart of the Christian Life (part 2)

It is not a set of rules.

Jewish rabbis have counted 613 commands in the Law.  How often have we wandered into a church and it feels like it is more.  Too often, some wander into church and hear “Don’t do this.  Don’t do that.  Do this.  Do that.”  As the burden of rules continued to be added upon us, the joy of Christianity is lost, especially the heart of it.  It must be emphasized that the Law of the Old Testament was designed to be a blessing and not a burden.  In the time of Christ, the Pharisees heaped law upon law and made stipulations which made their religion more of a burden thus robbing what God had intended it to be for His people, a joyous blessing.  They had the tendency to make one law more important than the other.  For many during Jesus’ time, a walk with God was more like walking aimlessly through a minefield.  Obedience was more out of fear and confusion than it was out of reverence.

The Pharisees focused so much on rules and debating the issue of which law was the most important that a Jewish lawyer asked Jesus the question.  It must be noted that the intent of the lawyer was not pure as you can read in the following text:

One of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question, testing Him, "Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?" And He said to him, “‘YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND.' "This is the great and foremost commandment.”  The second is like it, 'YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.' "On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets." (Matthew 22:35-40)

Did you catch it?  Of the 613 commandments that Jewish rabbis have counted, the foundation of all 613 rests upon two important commandments as expressed by Jesus.  Both commandments are found in the Old Testament.  “Love God”, the greatest of all commandments is found in Deuteronomy 6:5.  EVERYTHING we do in our Christian life is simply an outflow of obedience to this commandment in our lives.  It is not a matter of obedience and living for God because we have to, but simply a demonstration of our love for God…we want to.  The second important commandment that Jesus taught deals with others: Love your neighbor.  This commandment is found in Leviticus 19:18.  With this important point in mind, it is now time to reveal in all its simplicity what the heart of Christianity is. 

It is a relationship.

There it is.  In all of its simple glory this is what the Christian life is.  A fact bolstered by what Jesus tells the Jewish lawyer in Matthew 22 by the usage of one simple but profound word: LOVE.  Everything we do in this Christian life is simply an outflow of our love for God.  To show love to others (our neighbors) is simply to show others the same love of Christ that has been extended to us.  In I Corinthians 13, a chapter affectionately known by many Christians as “The Love Chapter”, Paul defines love by its characteristics.  One of the characteristics of love in verse 5 says: it does not seek its own.  Another way of explaining this is to say that love seeks to please the one who is loved.  So how can we demonstrate our love?  Do you remember the 613 commands of the Old Testament as counted by Jewish rabbis?  It was God showing to His people how to love Him.  The Bible, God’s Holy Word is God showing to us how we can love Him.  As a Christian, we are in a relationship.  We simply want to honor Him, love Him, and live for Him.  We have now entered a glorious walk with Him and each day should bring a sense of desire in our hearts and mind to know Him.  It is for the sake of restoring a relationship broken by sin that Christ came to die.  Think about this for a moment, God came into this world as a man, Jesus Christ, to restore a relationship with us.  The hard part of restoring the relationship has been taken care of by Him, the ball is now in our court.

The Heart of the Christian Life (part 1)

Over the next several weeks, I will be working on a series entitled "The Basics of Christian Life"

To understand the basics of Christianity, one must understand the heart of Christianity.  It is regrettable that the heart of Christianity has been drowned out amid the chaos of doctrines and denominations.  There have been so many characterizations given to Christianity and most of those characterizations miss the mark or simply do not do justice to explaining the heart of Christianity without expounding on the characterizations given.  I am by no means a premier authority on Christianity and its doctrines.  I am simply a pastor/minister with a deep love of Christ and His words and it is my intentions to help others come to know the Christ of the Bible.  The blessings that I have had in experiencing Christ in my life is the very thing that I want others to experience as well.  I have made many choices and decisions in my life and some I have not been proud of.  There are a few that I would have to say were my shining moments such as marrying my wife, having children, and becoming a pastor, just to name a few.  The greatest moment of my life though was when I began my newfound journey with Christ and committed my life to Him in 1991.  The journey has seen its share of bumps in the road and has been far from flawless and the basics and the heart of Christianity had been lost along the way until it became renewed in my life which is certainly a danger if we are not careful in our own personal journey.  My three fold purpose in writing this booklet is simple:

1)      To help everyone understand the basics of Christianity.

2)      To help the new believer develop a basic understanding of their newfound faith.

3)      To renew the joy of each believer in refreshing our understanding of basic Christianity.

I have heard it all.  While many of the characterizations given to Christianity are not necessarily wrong, they simply do not tell the real story or meaning and therefore dampen the blessing of what Christianity is, especially at its heart.  Before getting to what the heart of Christianity is, we must first tackle the issue of what Christianity has been classified as but is not:

It is not a set religion

When I hear the expression of Christianity as a religion, it is often clumped in with Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism, etc.  In that form, that is not what Christianity is.  This fits in line with what dictionary.com has defined religion as: a specific fundamental set of beliefs and practices generally agreed upon by a number of persons or sects.  In this form religion is manmade.  Unfortunately, Christianity is a religion simply because we have made it that way.  When we start attacking each other of doctrines and opinions, we begin to make Christianity a religion and robbing the joy of what the heart of Christianity really is.

I have often heard the argument in classifying Christianity as a religion is the fact that James defines Christianity as religion. 

Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world. (James 1:27)

The Greek word “thrēskeia” that is translated to “religion” in the New Testament is found 4 times.  In James, it is the only time that the word is used to define the Christian faith, but it is interesting to know that the meaning of this word is defined as the outward expression of worship and service and not a fundamental “set of beliefs”.  What James describes here as true religion is an emphasis taught by Jesus during His earthly ministry, a fact that we will highlight later. 

It is not a set of rituals.

            “How would you explain communion?”, you may ask.  The answer is simple, communion is a remembrance.  We do these things, not because we have to, but we want to remember what Jesus did for us.  We read in Luke 22:19: And when He had taken some bread and given thanks, He broke it and gave it to them, saying, "This is My body which is given for you; do this in remembrance of Me.”  We often get so burdened by rituals that we just start going through the motions, at that point, the joy is lost.  When participating in communion, the joy of remembering Jesus’ death on the cross begins to consume our heart and soul and the partaking of the communion takes on a special meaning and significance.  When communion is demanded, the reason becomes lost. 

            There is no place in the Bible that demands that our journey with Christ be a ritual.  The word ritual itself seems to demand a certain ideology of just going through the motions.  That is far from what God intended the journey of a Christian to be.  Our journey is a wonderful expectation of hope, a beautiful experience of God’s presence, protection, and provision, and the marvelous excellence of grace and mercy.  It does not demand us but simply creates in us a desire and therein lies the difference…our attitude.  When anything we do, whether going to church, singing, teaching, preaching, giving, or whatever other service we perform in the name of Christianity starts to feel as though we are going through the motions, then it simply has become a ritual and the way God has intended it has been lost.