HOW YOU GET SAVED

1) KNOW YOU ARE A SINNER

Romans 3:23: “For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God”

Ecclesiastes 7:20: “For there is not a just man on earth that doeth good and sinneth not”.

Romans 3:9-10: “…we have proved both Jews and Gentiles that they are under sin. As it is written: There is none righteous, no not one.”

Like everyone else you and I are sinners In all of human history there has been no perfect, just, sinless man, save one – the Lord Jesus Christ. The rest of us have come sadly short of the glory of God. That is, we have all failed to become what God intended us to be.

QUESTION: But what is the GLORY OF GOD?

Well, for one thing, God’s glory is that He has never sinned. None of us can say that. We sinned from the start. Our parents didn’t have to teach us to lie, steal, answer back and disobey. That came naturally. As Psalm 51:5 says: “I was born in sin and shapen in iniquity”. Mum and Dad had to teach us NOT to do things that are wrong, and years later we are still learning the same lessons.,

The truth is that we are all sinners, unable to stop sinning by our own strength.

2) KNOW THE ETERNAL CONSEQUENCES OF SIN

Romans 6:23: “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life”.

James 1:14-15: “But every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his lust and enticed. Then when lust has conceived it bringeth forth sin, and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth DEATH”.

From these two verses we see clearly that the result of sin is DEATH.

QUESTION:  How many DEATHS do we die as a result of sin?

The short answer is that there are TWO DEATHS for an unsaved sinner. Let us study the word of God, the King James Bible, and see.

The first man and woman to die were Adam and Eve, and we see that both spiritual and physical deaths occur to them as the Bible story unfolds. Before they sinned God had warned them not to eat the forbidden fruit:

Genesis 2:17: “For in the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.”

Yet Adam went on from the day of his sin to live physically for hundreds more years.

Genesis 5:5: “And all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thiry years and he died.”

So how true was it that he would “surely die” in the day he ate of the forbidden fruit? The answer is that in that day he died spiritually. That is, that the spirit that God had put within him at the moment of his creation died within him. Do you know that that is what happens to us? Yes, God puts a spirit into each one of us when we are born:

John 1:9: “That was the true Light which lighteth every man that cometh in to the world.”

Numbers 16:22: “O God, the God of the spirits of all flesh”. (And see also Numbers 27:16.)

But what do we do with that spirit? We kill it. By lying, cheating, refusing to own up to our wrong doings, by insisting on having our own way. We turn from God and become selfish and disobedient. We refuse to:

Hebrews 12:3: “Be subject to the Father of spirits and live”.

Rather than admit we are wrong, we turn away, rebel against God and our spirit DIES. Like a radio that is switched off, our spirit is now “dead”; it can neither hear from God nor communicate with Him.

Isaiah 59:2: “But your sins have made a separation between you and your  God, and your sins have hid his face from you that He will not hear.”

The following passage of scripture explains the process in which our spirit, which has been given to us by God, actually dies. This happens because we allow it to be replaced by another spirit – the spirit of disobedience.

Ephesians 2:1-3: “Wherein in time past ye walked, according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience. Among whom we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.”

You see, spiritual death occurs before physical death takes place. Spiritual death takes place when our sin separates us from God. Within a short lifetime physical death follows. This is when our body is separated from our spirit. The spirit returns to God who gave it but the body and soul are destroyed in the grave.   As this next verse states: Ezekiel 18:4: “The SOUL that sinneth, it shall DIE.”

To reiterate: Adam died spiritually (i.e. his spirit was separated from God by sin) the day he ate the forbidden fruit. But his soul and body lived on for 930 years. At his physical death his body and soul died but the spirit in him returned to God. The same process occurs to every human being since Adam. And once dead men and women stay dead unless they have come to saving faith in the Lord Jesus Christ during their lifetime. Only belieivers have the Lord's sure and certain promise of resurrection. (See John 6:47 and 11:25-26:

    I am the resurrection andf the life; he that belieiveth in me, though he were dead yet shall he live.

QUESTION: WHAT HAPPENS TO YOU IF YOUR SPIRIT IS DEAD TO GOD WHEN YOUR BODY DIES?

Answer: You perish under the judgement of ETERNAL DEATH, as outlined below:

2 Cor. 4:3: But if our gospel be hid it is hid to them that are lost.

Revelation 21:8: “But the fearful and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone.”

You now know the eternal consequences of sin. If you don’t want to suffer them then heed the gospel, turn to God, admit your sin, thank Jesus Christ that He died to pay for sins, and ask the Father to quicken you to new life in his Son. When He does the following can become true of you:

3) YOU RECEIVE THE FREE GIFT OF ETERNAL LIFE

As Romans 6:23 clearly teaches “the wages of sin is death”. But we don’t have to die by being destroyed for ever. There is a way out. Romans 6:23 also says “the gift of God is eternal life”. That’s right. You can have life, God’s life, life that will never die as a free gift.  So how do you receive this wonderful gift?

The short answer is found in Acts 16:31: “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved, thou and thy house.”  Ephesians 1:13 says believers at Ephesus first “trusted (in Christ) after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel (good news) of your salvation.”

So to be saved we need to trust in Christ and to do that we need to hear the gospel of our salvation. It is clearly set out in 1 Corinthians 15:1-4:

“Moreover brethren I declare unto the gospel which I preached unto you, which ye have also received, and wherein ye stand.By which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain.For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for us according to the scriptures; And that He was buried and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures.”

So the gospel is that Jesus Christ, the God-become-man, who was born as a baby at Bethlehem, paid the price for our sin when He died on the cross. But He didn’t just die. He was buried (our sin with Him) and He rose again so that we could have new life in Him - life, that doesn’t sin and makes us one with God.

Romans 6:4-5: “… we are buried with Him by baptism into (his) death; that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of God the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted in the likeness of his death we shall also be in the likeness of his resurrection

4)  YOU ARE QUICKENED

Ephesians 2: 4-5:  For God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith He loved us hath quickened us together with Christ (by grace ye are saved).

Yes, God loves us fallen sinners so much He quickens – that is, makes alive in Christ - anyone who asks Him to do so. And you can ask Him by personally putting your trust in Jesus Christ as the Saviour who died for you and thereby receive Him as your Lord, i.e. Master).

5) YOU ARE SAVED BY GRACE

Good works won’t put you right with God; they won’t get you to heaven. Give all you have to the poor, get water baptised and take communion or the Mass as often as you like but none of these things can save you. Salvation is the free gift of God. It is “by grace”, for the word grace itself means a free gift.

Titus 3:5:  Not by works of righteousness we have done, but according to his mercy (that is his free pardon and forgiveness), He saved us by the washing of regeneration (that’s being given new life) and renewing of the Holy Ghost (that’s being given a new Spirit – the Spirit of His Son).

6) YOU ARE SAVED BY GRACE THROUGH FAITH

Grace is the free gift of God’s salvation to all who will receive it. But it can only be received “by faith”. That means that a sinner wanting to be saved must believe that Christ died for his or her sins and that God will save him, quicken him, give him new life, and put the Spirit of His Son Jesus Christ into him the moment he believes.

Having faith means believing that God says what he means in Scripture and does what He says. Christ died for your sin and will save you when you admit you are a sinner, need to be saved, and call upon Him to do so.

Here’s how you do your part: You call, you ask to be quickened, you believe Christ died for your sins and rose from the dead and you confess Him as Lord.

Romans 10:13: “Whosever calleth upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.”

Romans 10: 8-9: “The word is nigh (near) thee, even in thy mouth and in thy heart: that is the word of faith which we preach. That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thy heart that God raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.”

You will then learn that you have been “baptised”- that is “placed into” – the death, burial and resurrection of Christ (Romans 6:3, 1 Corinthians 12:13), so that you too can die to sin, have your sin buried, and rise to walk in new life in and with Christ Jesus the Lord. You are now a member of the Body of Christ (1 Cor. 12:13) and do not need to be water baptised, confess your sin, or join a denominational church to remain saved. However, you are required to “continue in the faith”, to be “not moved away from the hope of the gospel”, to “keep in remembrance” what the Apostle Paul has told us is the “gospel of our salvation”. (See 1 Cor. 15:1-4, Eph. 1:13, Col. 1:23). It’s a whole new way of life with you in Christ and Christ in you, and all “by grace through faith (Eph. 2:8-9).

Ephesians 2:8-9: 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.