Sermon Notes
Last Sunday, I shared THAT God has plans for you – a plan for salvation, eternity, prosperity, etc.
God’s plan of salvation is for us and through us.
Before this, here is a basic question about salvation:
First, are you clear about this? Are you saved? Really? Are you assured of this?
- If your answer is “no”, is there any reason you reject this offer of salvation?
- If your answer is “yes”, how much and in what way does that salvation affect your daily life and lifestyle and attitudes and worldview and purpose and interests?
This morning, about this basic plan of God, I hope and pray that all of us may become very clear about this matter of salvation. It is very basic, but the final goal.
- Acts 16:31 -”Believe in the Lord and you will be saved.”
- Phil. – “Continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling”
- 1 Peter? “Continue to work out your salvation…”
The whole purpose of this life is salvation.
It is a new birth, becoming a child of God, it is becoming a new creation. Regeneration, rebirth, union with Christ, justification, sanctification, glorification.
Characteristics of salvation and how to do it is very simple, not hard, eternal, not temporary.
- “If you confess with your mouth”
- “Jesus is Lord” with your mouth. very simple.
- “And believe in your heart”
3 times repeated.
If we have a mouth and a heart, we can be saved. If you have these things, it’s enough to be saved. There are no other conditions. It is so easy and free.
This is the paradox of salvation.
Here are 6 reasons and grounds why it is so easy and so free:
Some people cannot understand or rejects the gift of salvation because it’s too easy and too free – they want something hard, something to pay for salvation – thing there must be a price or a catch.
#1 – The Love of God (is greater far…)
- God IS love.
- God is Spirit.
- God is light.
Everything God has IS love and is FROM love.
God wants all of us whom he loves to be free and love him.
- John 3:16 “For God…”
- John 3:17 “God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him.”
He wants anybody and everybody to come to repentance through him.
#2 – The Power of God (He is Creator)
God is omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent. He can do anything, anywhere, anytime he wants.
It is not you and I who save ourselves, but God who saves us.
In the matter of salvation, we are passive…God is active.
In the job of salvation, if God has 80% of all powers to save us, then God needs to ask us 20% of our powers to save us. If He has 99.99% power, he needs to ask us 0.01% from us. But, since God has 100% of power, he does not need to ask us – he is Almighty God – able to save all of us with no input from us.
#3 – The Price Jesus paid is sufficient (once for all)
“It is finished” = “salvation is finished, all you need is complete”
Not only for our sins, but for the sins of the whole world.
Jesus already paid the price for our salvation.
- Salvation is free, it’s free, it’s free.
- But…not cheap.
It’s so very precious.
Why is it free? Because it is priceless.
Example – Isaac
He enjoys food, clothes, house – for free.
He does not pay Daddy…
Somebody pays for everything for him.
If we go to Lotte Department store, how much do we pay for the elevator? Free.
But the owner of that building paid very much to install it.
Like this, it doesn’t cost you and me anything for our salvation, but it costs the provider, God, the price of the blood of His one and only Son.
It’s free for us, but super expensive for God.
If we need to pay something to get salvation, that means that Jesus’ death is not enough. But it is really MORE than enough.
It is all already paid on the cross.
#4 – Absolute need of Salvation of all Humans
Every person on Earth needs salvation, forgiveness of sins – is there any person on Earth who cannot say “No, I don’t need that.”
The sick needs healing, the lonely needs a friend, the sinner needs forgiveness.
- Romans 3:23
- Romans 6:23
Also, “Just as a man is destined to die once and after that face the judgment…”
All human beings need salvation, absolutely.
No one can escape the needs.
#5 – Before salvation, at that time we were completely dead.
Ephesians 2:21? “At that time, you were dead in your sins…”
Following the kingdom of the air, the kingdom of wrath.
At that time, we were dead.
“At that time, I was dead.”
Not almost dead, not nearly dead, but totally dead.
As long as you think you can do something to save yourself, you can actually never be saved by the power of God.
At that time, we were totally powerless.
That’s why God is providing salvation so easily and free.
#6 – To make all humans unable to say “Excuse me…” and unable to boast about our salvation
In evangelism, many people say, “Excuse me…I’m too busy for that…the church is full of hypocrites…some Christian hurt me…”
There are many excuses…
The DNA of “Excuse me” is running in our veins – Adam and Eve started it.
- In the Garden, God said, “Why did you eat?”
- Adam said, “The woman made me do it.”
- Eve said, “The snake made me do it.”
(Adam basically blamed God – “the woman YOU gave me…” i.e. “if you never gave me that woman…”)
All excuses.
On that day, the final day, nobody can say before God, “Excuse me.” All of them will be speechless.
Romans 1:18,19,20
“Since the creation of the world, all of God’s qualities, his divine nature,…have been clearly seen, so that men are without excuse.”
“It is by grace, through faith that you have been saved, so that no one can boast.”
- For the unsaved, they cannot say “Excuse me”
- For the saved, they cannot say “I can boast of my salvation”
God made salvation so easy and free.
v. 13 “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
Let us call “Jesus is my Lord”
Toward the outside, for somebody to hear.
Also do you believe in your heart?
Jesus died for my sins, and rose again and is alive in Spirit?
We can see again 4-5 times “how”
- “How can they call on the one they have not believed in?”
- “How can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard?”
- “How can they hear without someone preaching to them?”
- “How can they preach unless they are sent?”
- “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!”
This is the paradox of salvation.
It is so free and easy, but after we receive the easy, free gift of it, asks ALL we have – to commit all we have for Jesus, to take the gift to others. This is the mystery, the attraction, of salvation.
We are saved so easily, so freely.
But that salvation demands not optionally, but absolutely to commit all we have to Jesus Christ for the salvation of others.
Matt 13:44-45 “The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field – when a man found that treasure in the field, he went and sold all he had and bought the field in his great joy!”
When a merchant found a great pearl, he went and sold all he had to buy that pearl.
When saved, you commit, sell, give away, your whole life for that gift.
Jesus sent his only son Jesus to preach the message of salvation so that people could accept the gift of salvation, and that person is then sent to preach that gift to others, then the next is sent to preach to be saved, and he is sent, preaches, saves, he is sent, preaches, saves, etc, etc.
1 -> 2 -> 4 -> 8 -> 16 ->32 -> 64 -> 128 -> 256 -> 512 -> 1024 -> etc
This is the chain of salvation.
It does not mean that baptism is not important – it is, to follow Jesus, to show your new life – but God did not send Paul to baptize but to preach.
If we go to the office to work, to make money, to study, to teach, – but inwardly, before God, to yourself, to God, we must say all the time, “Christ did not send me to teach English, to make money, but to preach the gospel of salvation.”
Can you say that before God, to yourself, honestly, definitely?
This is a sign that you are truly saved.
Paul confessed, “if I preach the gospel of salvation, I cannot boast, because I MUST preach. If I don’t, woe is me…I consider my physical life worth nothing to me if only I can finish the race and complete the task given to me, – to preach and save others.”
This is God’s plan of salvation for you and from you to others.
Let’s pray.
