“And when they had brought them, they set them before the council. And the high priest asked them, saying, "Did we not strictly command you not to teach in this name? And look, you have filled Jerusalem with your doctrine, and intend to bring this Man's blood on us!"  

But Peter and the other apostles answered and said: "We ought to obey God rather than men.” Acts 5:27-29

Salvation is akin to accepting an offer of adoption into a family. God, the Father through Jesus Christ, made it possible for all of us to enter His family as adopted children. In this way, our relationship with God is similar to a parent-child relationship. The sixth commandment, which is the first commandment dealing with human beings (but that’s a later study), commands “Honor your father and your mother so that you may have a long life in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.” Exodus 20:12. We ought to obey God as if He were our earthly father, but even more so because He is the Creator of our universe and the literal ignition of our life force. God breathed life into Adam and that is an aspect of our being that has been passed on down through the generations. Our life force, which so baffles scientists, comes directly from God. So, as He has inspired our physical lives and cleansed our spiritual lives, we owe Him far more than we can ever repay. And, He requires obedience in return for the very life He has given us. Interestingly enough, this was the very thing He required of Adam and Eve (see previous posts).

How do we obey God?

A lot of people want to make it very complicated, a set of rules to be followed to the legalistic best we can manage. But, God’s guidance is far more relationally based. He asks us to be Christ-like. By this, I mean, to follow Christ’s example. There were certain things that Christ did in His life that we can point to as milestones for us to emulate.

Christ began his ministry with baptism.
He clearly spent time in the Word (scripture).
He obeyed God rather than man.
He did things that were the right things to do rather than just what suited Him at the time.
He had good and righteous friends.
He reached out to those still trapped in their sin.
He ministered to the physical needs of others in order that He might address their more real spiritual needs.
He called His followers to remember Him.
He was willing to die for those He loved and for those who hated Him.

Thus we begin a discussion of the first steps of baby Christians. These don’t call anyone to leap buildings in a single bound. They are simple steps, tiny steps, yet they are also steps that involve a setting aside of your former life. You are God’s child now and His family lives and act in certain ways dictated by their Father.

They say a journey of a thousand miles starts with one step.  Let us begin the journey.

So you’ve admitted your disobedience to God (sin), believed that Jesus can take away that sin and confessed this transformation. You’re about to start a remarkable journey with the Creator of the Universe, a God so vast and powerful that He hung the stars in the sky and so tender and personal that He can make His temple in your heart. Man, you must have questions!

God makes some pretty powerful promises in His scripture. I’ll share a few before we move on to the Christian life.

Assurance of Salvation:

You can be absolutely certain that if you have truly given your heart to Jesus, you will always be saved.

John 14:20 – “In that day you will know that I am in My Father, you are in Me, and I am in you.”

John 10:28-30 – “I give them eternal life, and they will never perish—ever! No one will snatch them out of My hand.  My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all. No one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.  The Father and I are one.” (That last statement almost got Jesus stoned).

Held safe within the hand of Jesus (salvation), you are also safe within God’s hand. Breaking a two-fisted grip of a man is virtually impossible. Breaking the two-fisted grip of God Almighty IS impossible!

Your Sins are Forgiven: Lit I and the Father—We are one.

Colossians 2:13-14 - “And when you were dead in trespasses and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive with Him and forgave us all our trespasses.  He erased the certificate of debt, with its obligations, that was against us and opposed to us, and has taken it out of the way by nailing it to the cross.”

Dead in trespasses means spiritually dead due to disobedience to God. The uncircumcision of your flesh refers to the following of the body’s dictates rather than the Spirit’s. Because of disobeying God, our spirits died and we were all born spiritually dead. Being spiritually dead, of course we followed the desires of the only part of us that was living – our flesh (mind and body). When we recognized our error and took steps to be right with God, we became alive because of Christ’s sacrifice. This is a beautiful word picture. He took our certificate of debt and nailed it to the cross so it is no longer our problem.

You have Eternal Life:

We all have eternity. Christian, non-Christians, it doesn’t matter. Our souls are immortal and will continue beyond our mortal lives. The question is not existence, but location and status. If we die physically while dead spiritually, we will suffer the consequences for our choices. We cannot enter the kingdom of God dead, so we will enter the kingdom of Satan (he’s not as picky about his companions).

I John 5:11-13 – “And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son.  The one who has the Son has life. The one who doesn’t have the Son of God does not have life.   I have written these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life.”

Christians are made alive through Jesus, Who is Life. We have life eternally as opposed to the eternal death we were born into. We have this because God has given it to us, not because we deserve it or have done anything to get it besides accepted what God has given us.

You are Loved Unconditionally:

Some people preach a gospel that God loves all man unconditionally because God is Love. While it is true that God is the source of all agape love and that He does not want any to perish in their sins, He doesn’t fully love non-Christians in an unconditional way. He has one condition for them to step into His love. Believe on Him. Christians have done that and so are loved unconditionally.

Ephesians 1:4-5 – “… for He chose us in Him, before the foundation of the world, to be holy and blameless in His sight.  In love, He predestined us to be adopted through Jesus Christ for Himself, according to His favor and will, to the praise of His glorious grace that He favored us with in the Beloved.”

You are God’s favored adopted child, chosen. He gave His natural Son to die for your sins. How much more loved can you be?

So, now as you stand on the first step of the ladder of Christian life, you can hold some promises in your pocket for though God’s salvation is free, there are costs to count and lifestyle choices to bury.

Bury, you say?  Dead things ought to be buried, don't you think? And we will discuss that later.

John Chapter 4

Woman at the Well of Sychar

An example of admit/believe/confess is found in verses 4-42. I refer you there to read it for yourselves as it is too long to append here. The quick story is that Jesus is traveling through Samaria on His way from Judea to Galillee. Judea and Galillee were both predominately Jewish areas, but to get from Judea in the south to Gallillee in the north you had to travel through Samaria or go to the east bank of the Jordan. Most Jews so hated the Samitans that they would leave the country to avoid interaction, but Jesus didn’t follow societal rules. Being God Incarnate, He didn’t have to.

When the Assyrians carried most of the Jews off into captivity in what would become Babylon, they brought in other non-Jewish peoples to settle the land and keep the peace. These non-Jews intermarried with the remaining Jews and created a hybrid race and religion. Samaritans had worshipped on Mt. Gerizim until the high place’s destruction about 150 years before Jesus sat down at the well of Sychar.

Wells were usually located outside of the town walls on the main road. Women came twice a day (in the morning and the evening, when it was cool) to haul water into town. That Jesus encounters the woman at about noon (the sixth hour after sunrise which marked the start of the day) is significant.

Jesus asked her for water, something a ritually clean Jew would not have done. First, she was a Samaritan and second, she was a woman. She wondered aloud why He would do that. Rather than be rebuffed by her rudeness, Jesus told her that if she knew who He was, she would ask Him for a drink and He would give her “living” water. This woman was not dumb. She wanted this cool, everlasting water. But Jesus, knowing her heart as He knows all hearts, knew she had some sin to admit,

Notice that He didn’t condemn her. He stated the truth – “you have had five husbands and you’re shacked up with a lover currently”. He didn’t need to condemn her. She knew she was wrong. The laws of the Samaritans frowned on her living arrangement, that’s why she was at the well at noon, in the hot sun. Jesus merely got her to admit it. He held up the mirror for her to see the dirt on her face.  He did not need to do more.

She immediately tried to change the subject. How about that worship place? You say there, we say here ….

Jesus allowed the change of topic, but He didn’t lose sight of the main discussion. Someday, everybody would worship God in their heart, because the physical place of worship is unimportant. She admitted belief – “I know the Messiah comes and He will show us how to live.” Jesus revealed that He was the Messiah.

I might deal someday with the discussion between Jesus and His followers as they returned. The fields were indeed ripe (white) for harvest and Jesus had found His standard bearer for the town of Sychar. I think the woman stood there thinking a moment and then just left her water jug and ran into town. She couldn’t wait to confess what she had admitted and believed. “I found a man who told me all about myself and I know that He is the Messiah.” The townspeople believed her, but they also sought Jesus for themselves, so that they might know the Savior personally.

I want to note a couple of significant things in this story. Jesus did not come to the high and mighty and perfect. This woman was only slightly more upstanding than a prostitute. And, she wasn’t even Jewish. It didn’t matter. Jesus offered her living water and she accepted it. She didn’t wait and hoard her salvation experience until she had cleaned up her life. She went immediately and confessed her encounter. This so impressed the town that they came out to meet the Savior for themselves.

Salvation is not a fancy, metaphysical experience. It’s something anyone can do, anywhere and anytime. Different people do it different ways. We don’t have to walk an aisle or even bow our heads. There’s no special prayer to pray or ritual to perform. No priest confers salvation on us with words, gestures and special water. It is a simple act of yielding to God within our own hearts. Nothing else is required for salvation to be ours.

Salvation is as simple as ABC.

Anyone who has had a kindergartner knows that ABC is not as simple for them as it is for us. But, Sunday School teachers use the acronym ABC all the time for the purposes of explaining salvation.

A = admit, B = believe, C = confess

Admit
In a way, you can consider salvation as a 12-Step group for the recovering sinner. The first act is to admit something distasteful about yourself, that which is keeping you from the goal of a spiritually sane life.

For those who want to be right with God, Step One is to admit that you’re not right with God.

“But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, even the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe. For there is no difference; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.” (Romans 3:21-24)

No human in this universe is as perfect as God made us to be. That was the fault of Adam and Eve, but it is also our own choice to disobey God. We start when we’re about two and we defy our mother to touch the TV set we know we’re not supposed to touch. We do it all of our lives. To be human is to not live up to the perfection God created and to disobey Him at various turns. Some of us have more public sins than others, but all of us are sinners. None of us can boast that we don’t need salvation because salvation is like clean water that will wash our spiritual dirt away. We need salvation like we need to bathe.

And the first step to claiming the salvation God has already provided for us is to admit that we aren’t perfect like God made us to be and that we have disobeyed God. Will this be uncomfortable? Of course! Nobody likes to say “I am not right.” But all of us are wrong and ultimately, we’re better off for admitting that we’re not perfect. I have a psychologist coworker who has a sign on her wall – “Today, I must admit, perfection is not an option. What a relief!” That is a healthy place to be emotionally. Admitting to God that you are not perfect and that you have rebelled against Him is a healthy place to be spiritually.

Believe
The second step in our 12-Step program for sinners is to believe that something outside of yourself can restore you to sanity.

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

Our past behavior, our imperfection, earn us spiritual death. But God, just because He loves us, gave His son to die for us. When we evaluate and acknowledge our sin, we can also believe that Jesus can take the sin away. This does not make us perfect. It does not mean we do not sin ever again. It simply means that our sin debt has been moved to the forgiven column in God’s accounting book. We do nothing to earn this beyond accepting it. We accept it by believing it.

Confess 
The third step is to admit to someone else what we have done in our heart.

“If we endure, we shall also reign with Him. If we deny Him, He also will deny us.
If we are faithless, He remains faithful; He cannot deny Himself. “ (2 Timothy 2:12)

"Therefore whoever confesses Me before men, him I will also confess before My Father who is in heaven.  But whoever denies Me before men, him I will also deny before My Father who is in heaven.” (Matthew 10:32-33)

I included the second verse because I recently had a conversation with a friend who was certain that Matthew was not written until well after the time that Paul lived, yet Paul quotes this apparently well-known saying from the Gospel of Matthew in 2 Timothy, which I think indicates Matthew was written before that.

Now in Baptist life we highlight the activity of “walking the aisle” as a testimony of our salvation experience, but there’s nothing in the Bible requiring it. We are to confess our sin and the belief that Jesus can remove our sin to another person. We are never to deny that we’ve become believers. Our confession can take many forms. I don’t think there’s a magical formula.

I do think it is important to confess. God’s work is about transforming the human life from the inside out. If others around you don’t know that you’re a Christian, then you probably aren’t allowing Him to work all the way out to the edges of your life and God, being a jealous God, wants all the nooks and crannies to be infused with His Spirit and that often starts with the first acts of obedience -- confession and public baptism.

“No one has ascended into heaven except the One who descended from heaven—the Son of Man.  Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in Him will Other mss add not perish, but have eternal life. For God loved the world in this way: He gave His One and Only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send His Son into the world that He might condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. Anyone who believes in Him is not condemned, but anyone who does not believe is already condemned, because he has not believed in the name of the One and Only Son of God.

“This, then, is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than the light because their deeds were evil. For everyone who practices wicked things hates the light and avoids it, so that his deeds may not be exposed.
But anyone who lives by the Truth is not afraid of the light, so that his works may be shown to be accomplished by God” John Chapter 3

Nicodemus’ conversation with Jesus holds such a wealth of insight into salvation that I couldn’t just walk away from it without finishing it.

Jesus makes some very basic statements to Nicodemus, a teacher of the law and a ruler of the Jewish people. If Nicodemus had wanted to get the goods on Jesus for the High Priest, Jesus might have been in trouble, but being deity, He knew He was safe.

1. I’m the only One Who has ever gone into heaven.

2. I’m going to die as a sacrifice for everyone so that anyone who believes in Me will no longer be spiritually dead.

3. God loves humans so much that He sent Me to save you.

4. I am not here to condemn the world, but to save it

5. If you don’t believe in Me, you have condemned yourself already simply by not believing.

Anyone who thinks Jesus preached a “there are many ways” gospel obviously never read this passage. Jesus made it clear that we are all in deep-doo-doo from the get-go unless we believe in Him. If we believe in Him, we are “without condemnation”, as Paul would later explain.

Jesus explained how godly judgment works. Light came into the world, but people preferred darkness because it hid their evil deeds better. People who were willing to live by the Truth (capitalized because Truth is the person of Jesus Christ, not a neutral concept) embrace the light because their works are accomplished through God, so they are not ashamed of them. There’s no reason to hide that which is good.

When nonbelievers get angry because they feel that believers are judging them, sometimes I just want to glue this passage to their foreheads. God is not judging you. He set a standard. It is not His fault nor any believer’s fault if nonbelievers are unwilling to meet that standard. If nonbelievers feel judged it is because they are standing in darkness refusing to enter the light while insisting that God should shift the light in their direction. When I was at the point where I realized that the light was “over there” and all I had to do was walk into it, I also demanded that God shift the light over my way. The answer I got was “who are you to tell the Creator of the universe what to do?”

Well, I stand in the light today because I walked into the light. God did not shift it in my direction. He shone it where He wanted and it was up to me to align myself with Him, not the other way around.

This may not make people happy, but I’m guessing that the Creator of the universe doesn’t really need to make me happy. I’m the one who would have suffered if I had chosen to remain stubborn.

Salvation is free. All you have to do is accept it under the Giver’s terms.