Christian Concepts 6: Salvation

Salvation

1 Peter 1:3-10

In a book entitled Peace Child, Don Richardson records the moving account of how the Sawi people of Irian Jaya came to understand salvation through Jesus Christ. For many months he and his family sought for some way to communicate the gospel to this tribe. Then they discovered the key for which they had been praying. All demonstrations of kindness expressed by the Sawi were regarded with suspicion except one act. If a father gave his own son to his enemy, his sacrificial deed showed that he could be trusted! Furthermore, everyone who touched that child was brought into a friendly relationship with the father. The Sawi were then taught that in a similar way God’s beloved Son could bring them eternal peace.
Learning that one CAN be saved is crucial; but understanding the process can be vitally important as well.

Salvation Itself

* Is Specifically Given ~ 1 Peter 1:3-5

• 3 new birth is GIVEN
• 4 new birth is INHERITED
• 5 shielded until salvation shows up; growth process of justification (new birth) to sanctification (becoming like Jesus)

* Is God’s System of Grace ~ 1 Peter 1:6-10

• 6 it won’t be easy
• 7 faith is tested; results in praise, glory, honor
• 8 belief is NOT based in sight
• 9 salvation IS a process
• 10 based in God’s grace, not our works

* Asks Four Questions ~

• Can you FIND salvation? YES

John 14:6: Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
Romans 10:9: That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved.

• Can you LOSE salvation? NO

Romans 8:29: For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.

• Can you FALL AWAY from salvation? NOt exactly…

1 John 2:19: They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us.

• Can you DAMAGE your salvation? YES

I Timothy 1:18: Timothy, my son, I give you this instruction in keeping with the prophecies once made about you, so that by following them you may fight the good fight, holding on to faith and a good conscience. Some have rejected these and so have shipwrecked their faith. Among them are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have handed over to Satan to be taught not to blaspheme.

Saved? Or Not? Trust in the Word – God WILL bring us to completion (Philippians 1:6: being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.) When we find ourselves in stress, trials, difficulties, remember Job’s words: “I know that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God; I myself will see him with my own eyes– I, and not another. How my heart yearns within me!” (Job 19:25-27)