Have you ever been in a situation where you needed to “be saved” from something? What happened? How did you feel needing to be saved? How did you feel having been saved?
I’ll never forget the day I almost drowned. My brother and I were out in a pond in a canoe near Thunder Bay, ON. I was 10 years old at the time and our family was visiting friends and I was wearing corduroy pants, sweatshirts and rubber boots that went up to my knees! No lifejackets of course…it was the ‘70s when station wagons had rear facing seats. Safety certainly wasn’t #1. Anyways, it didn’t take too long for my brother Edwin to start rocking the canoe and over we went. I didn’t know how to swim and the water was filling my boots like an anchor and I was going down. Then out of nowhere, the father of the home came running to the pond, stripped down to his briefs, dived in and rescued me. He was my saviour that day.
Salvation is not just a dry weary religious word; it’s a wonderful word of freedom, peace and wholeness. This is the good news of Christmas to a weary, embattled, stressed out world. So, what is salvation? Salvation means deliverance from danger and death. However must people in our western world aren’t too worried about being saved from danger and death on a day to day basis and so the conversation goes…’have you been saved’ and the response, ‘ I didn’t know I was drowning…’
However the sad reality is that many people are drowning around us in silence. One only needs to look at the recent incidents of suicide in Ontario and Quebec that have led to greater legislation and anti-bullying laws in our schools. There are children and youth and they do need to be saved.
We either have the good news or we don’t. We either have the message of hope and salvation or we don’t.
There is a message of salvation getting out there and they are using our terms.
Lady Gaga is offering a message of redemption to her fans. She tells them to let go of their insecurities about self identity and tells her audience to free themselves. “I want you to reject anyone or anything that ever made you feel that you don’t belong” She refers to her followers as ‘little monsters’ and in return she is called ‘mother monster’ She sings ‘Born This Way’ and the message, ‘love yourself at all costs,’ through countless images of eroticism. She promotes death as a spectacle and uses a ‘messiah complex’ to draw attention to herself. She recently wrote a song titled Judas expressing her ongoing love for Jesus betrayer.
Here’s the thing -
Christianity is a religion of rescue. It is designed for the desperate. It is for people who have a craving for something more than they can eke out of life by themselves. Walter Henrichsen
It is not a message of self- love. It is about loving someone who really did die for you. He will not be silenced and his love is too broad to be concealed. It was a real cross with real nails and it was in real time. He died a physical death for actual sin resulting in genuine salvation. He is the Saviour of the world and His Name is Jesus.
So, what is our message of salvation?
However, as we will see today, salvation is so much more than ‘fire insurance’ as some people equate the decision to putting our faith in Jesus Christ to.
Salvation in Jesus is experienced through forgiveness of the penalty of sin.
Luke 7:36-50 – Jesus accepts a dinner invitation from one of the religious leaders in the community and a woman arrives on the scene who is creating quite a scene in the family home. The people living there are hoping that Jesus will deal with the ‘situation’ because it is feeling really awkward in here. They think to themselves, ‘why is he letting this happen... doesn’t he know that we are all feeling really uncomfortable with this sinner…most likely a prostitute in our midst.’
It was an extravagant display of love.
Here’s the problem, many who have grown up in the church, myself included, can all too easily forgot just how precious our forgiveness really is. I’m a good human being…there isn’t much to forgive here.
The sin of self righteousness was even more hideous to God than the blatant outright sinners who knew just who they were because it isn’t as obvious, but it goes right to the core of who we think we are.
Then that type of thinking leads us to looking at our neighbours and say the same thing and saying ‘their good human beings’ when in fact they desperately need a Saviour as well.
To the extent that we come to grips with the sin that we have been forgiven from will be expressed through the measure of our love. The saving grace of this story is found in this woman’s overwhelming sense of realization of what she knew about herself and what she knew about Jesus.
1 Corinthians 1:18 For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
They don’t know that they are drowning in a sea of unbelief, a pool of their own righteousness and extravagant acts of love will always look like foolishness to those who don't understand.
2 Corinthians 2:15 Our lives are a Christ-like fragrance rising up to God. But this fragrance is perceived differently by those who are being saved and by those who are perishing.
Ephesians 2:8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith--and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – there is nothing that you can do to make yourself acceptable before God.
1 Timothy 1:15 Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners--of whom I am the worst.
2 Timothy 1:9 who has saved us and called us to a holy life--not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time,
In the Christian doctrine of salvation, we are saved from “wrath,” that is, from God’s judgment of sin (Romans 5:9; 1 Thessalonians 5:9). Our sin has separated us from God, and the consequence of sin is death (Romans 6:23). Biblical salvation refers to our deliverance from the consequence of sin and therefore involves the removal of sin.
Salvation in Jesus is experienced through freedom from the power and domination of sin
John 17:17 Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth.
Romans 6:14 For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace.
Romans 8:2 because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death.
It was just last night that I was reminded again about how powerful the deliverance that Jesus can give and that the Spirit of God can sustain to enable people to walk completely away from an addiction cold turkey, a day and night transformation.
Salvation in Jesus is experienced through deliverance from the presence of sin and into the presence of God – our protection
There were a couple of signs in particular, though, that brought the reality of the ‘salvation’ of the Lord home to several people.
1. The children of Israel felt like a death sentence was in their rear view mirror. They had just begun their exodus out of Egypt and Moses stands in front of the sea and tells them to not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the salvation of the Lord today! Exodus 14:13
We don’t have to wait till we get to heaven to experience the power and presence of Jesus.
2. In the familiar story of Luke’s Gospel, the angels made the pronouncement, Luke 2:11
Today in the town of David a Saviour has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord.
Buddha: “Work out your own salvation. Do not depend on others.”
Author & former Czech President Vaclav Havel: “The salvation of this human world lies nowhere else than in the human heart, in the human power to reflect, in human meekness, and in human responsibility.”
Charles Francis Potter, On Humanism (1930): “Improvement [salvation] comes from within. No person or god can save another person.”
I was reading about a church that was quoted…If its got to be, its up to me… really?
He is our Saviour – one who alone is able to bring redemption and who alone has the power to redeem.
Romans 13:11 And do this, understanding the present time. The hour has come for you to wake up from your slumber, because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed.
How do we receive salvation? We are saved by faith. First, we must hear the gospel—the good news of Jesus’ death and resurrection (Ephesians 1:13). Then, we must believe—fully trust the Lord Jesus (Romans 1:16). This involves repentance, a changing of mind about sin and Christ (Acts 3:19), and calling on the name of the Lord (Romans 10:9-10, 13).
A definition of the Christian doctrine of salvation would be “The deliverance, by the grace of God, from eternal punishment for sin which is granted to those who accept by faith God’s conditions of repentance and faith in the Lord Jesus.” Salvation is available in Jesus alone (John 14:6; Acts 4:12) and is dependent on God alone for provision, assurance, and security.
The Takeaway
How did Christ come to deliver us from the world?
He came to deliver us from self love and self worth to God’s love and God’s worth through the death of His Son on the cross.
Why do I need to be saved…I work hard, I’m a good person. A Saviour doesn’t mean anything unless you know you are going down...
What kind of extravagant act of love is the Saviour calling you to today?
He’s not looking for a polite and proper response. It is the kind of love that pours itself out for another.
Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. John 15:13
