FACT #4: We must have a genuine, obedient faith to be saved.
Everyone seems to know that faith saves us, but few seem to realize that only a certain kind of faith will save a person.
First, the Bible teaches us that, ”…faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ [or God’].” (Romans 10.17)
Let’s notice a quick Biblical example of that…
Acts 16.30-34
[The Philippian Jailer speaking to Paul and Silas] ‘Sirs, what must I do to be saved? So they said, ‘Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your household.’ Then they spoke the Word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house. And he took them the same hour of the night and washed [their] stripes. And immediately he and all his [family] were baptized….[and] he rejoiced, having believed in God with all his household.
Please notice carefully what happened here:
First, the Philippian jailer had no clue on what to actually DO to be saved. So he appealed to God’s authoritative spokesmen (“called upon the Lord” through them) and asked them: ”…what must I do to be saved?”
Please remember what Paul said to Romans (10.17) that “…faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.” The problem is that he hadn’t yet “heard the Word of God.”
So, they first heard the Word of God, then believed the message of Truth, and then they were immediately baptized for the forgiveness of sins (I’ll speak more about this momentarily).
But in saying that they “believed,” we must understand that not every type of faith will result in a person’s salvation.
In the Scripture is described dead faith, fake (counterfeit) faith, lukewarm faith, useless faith, shipwrecked faith, and then obedient faith.
And make no mistake: The Bible is clear that dead, fake, lukewarm, shipwrecked, or useless faith will not result in your salvation.
I would like to ask you a question: What good is it if a person claims to have faith but has no obedient action? Can such faith save him?
Well, James asked the same question:
James 2.14
What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him?
“Of course not!” most today would say. “Works or deeds do not earn your salvation!”
But James responded differently. He explained (v 17) that non-obedient faith was a dead faith, that faith without obedience was entirely unimpressive to God since even demons believe in one God (v 19), that faith without obedience is useless and dead (v 20,26), that those who believe in this false doctrine are spiritual fools (v 20), and that our obedience is not limited to deeds of benevolence, but also includes the requirement to WORSHIP GOD (vs 20-24) [please recall that Jesus implied (Jn 4.24) that we must worship God in Spirit and in Truth, and the Hebrew writer commanded (Heb 10:25) that Christians must not forsake the worship assemblies of God’s people].
And to make matters even worse, as noted previously, James had already explained in James 1:22 that the person who thinks it’s OK to merely listen to the Word, but not actually put it into practice, is simply deceiving himself–in other words, essentially lying to himself into believing that putting the Word into practice is not significant enough to do.
And James was far from the only inspired writer to teach that saving faith is an obedient faith. In Romans 1.5 Paul essentially defined saving faith as an “obedient faith.”
In John 14.15 Jesus said that “If you love Me, you will obey what I command.”
Then again in verse 23 He added : “If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching.”
Also, in Jesus first major sermon of His ministry (the so-called “Sermon on the Mount”), He clearly explained that a “Lord, Lord” faith–or to put in another way, a “faith-alone-without-obedience faith”–will cost us our eternal salvation, and that people who actually believe they can mock God by claiming Christ is their Lord and then fail to put into practice His teachings, are spiritual fools in the most dangerous sense (see Mt 7.21-27; Lk 6.46-49).
And the list goes on and on and on of Biblical passages that speak to the absolute criticality of obeying the Word of God.
FACT #5: We must CONFESS Jesus Christ as “Lord” to be saved
Rom 10:9-10 ESV
…if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.
Notice that we must do more than merely believe in our hearts that Jesus is our Savior.
We must also verbally confess Him as the Lord of our lives, meaning, we are His servants, meaning, we will obey what he says.
Luke 6.46
Why do you call me “Lord, Lord,” and DO not do what I say?
Servants OBEY (rather than IGNORE) their Lord, and that means doing deeds, as has been discussed previously.
FACT #6: We must also REPENT of our SINS–meaning regret our sinfulness and turn from them to God
First, in Luke 5.32 Jesus said: “I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to REPENTANCE.”
Peter said (to those who seemed interested but hadn’t yet accepted Christ):
Acts 3.19 ESV
(1) Repent therefore and (2) be converted, that (3) your SINS may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord…
From these two verses it should be abundantly obvious that repentance is vital to our salvation, since Jesus actually left heaven and came to earth in order to call “sinners” to “repentance”–not to mention the fact that Peter said people needed to get rid of their sins “blotted out” in a hurry.
And for anyone who still doesn’t think repentance is important to one’s salvation, Paul added:
2 Corinthians 7:10
For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death.
So–in order to be saved–we must repent of our sins.
There are three pivotal words in these verses that we must have a very clear understanding of: “Repent,” “be converted,” and “sin.”
(1). The definition of the Greek verb for “to repent” is simply: “To change one’s mind.”
(2). The definition of the Greek verb for “be converted” means: “To turn to”, implying, “to turn to God’s will, or simply “what God wants you to be doing as recorded in the Scriptures.”
(3). And the Biblical definition of the verb “to sin” is found in 1 John 3.4 which says: “Sin is a transgression of the law” (or some say, “sin is lawlessness.”)
Please understand this:
Without a law to violate, it is IMPOSSIBLE TO SIN. And anyone who says he has not sinned is a liar, and the truth is not in him (1 Jn 1.8).
So, we are certainly under law as Christians in the Christian age. But what law?
Paul taught in 1 Corinthians 9.21 that although he certainly was not under the Law of Moses–which he spent an enormous amount of time discussing in order to convince the unbelieving Jews of his day–he certainly was: “under law to God and to Christ.”
Then James referred to this law that we all are under, and which is found in the NT, as the “perfect law of liberty,” or ”the perfect law that gives freedom,” depending on the translation.
So when we violate the teachings of God in the New Testament, we SIN against God. But untold millions in the world today simply don’t think they have sinned against anybody– much less against “God” (“if He even exists,” some say).
And the reason they don’t think they’ve sinned against God is that they have no clue about what God’s will is, because in the approximated 8760 hours the live each year, they can’t seem to rake together a mere 20 hours to read the New Testament even once with an open heart to truth.
So, “sin” is just to violate any teaching of God as found in Scripture.
And when we understand that, then we understand just how great our sins are against God.
For example, it is sin to not put God first in our lives (Mt 6.33), it is sin to not continually grow in knowledge of God’s will (Col 1.10, ignorance of God’s will cannot forever be an excuse), it is a sin to not obey the Bible’s teachings (Mt 7.26), it is a sin to not assemble together with true Christians (Heb 10.25), it is a sin to not worship God in spirit and truth (Jn 4.24), to love one another (Jn 15.12), to learn to love even our enemies (Mt 5.43), to lie, cheat, steal be sexually immoral, to hate, to hold grudges, to not control your anger, to get drunk, lack self-control (implies removing addictions)–and on and on and on we read of ways that we’re expected to be growing as Christians.
Paul said simply that we must “find out what pleases the Lord.” (Eph 5.10)
And Jesus said this:
Matthew 16.25 NKJV
Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.”
The word “life” there I believe refers to both one’s literal life and lifestyle–or whatever would
threaten our pathway to eternal life.
My friend, sin is what separates us from God. (Is. 59.1-2). If we don’t change our minds and turn our lives over to God and call upon Him for our salvation with a sincere heart of faith…we will not be saved.
Isaiah 59.1-2
Behold, the LORD’s hand is not shortened, That it cannot save; Nor His ear heavy, That it cannot hear. But your iniquities have separated you from your God; And your sins have hidden [His] face from you, So that He will not hear.
Finally, when God blots out your sins, they are forever forgiven–and there is no limit to the amount or type of sin that the blood of Jesus Christ is not capable of forgiving: Murder, rape, any imaginable sexual sins, greed, hatred deceit, or the like, can and will be forgiven by God if you sincerely turn from them and call upon God for your salvation, will all your heart.
Man’s Critical Role in his Own Salvation:
Introduction
Verses
Facts 1-3
Facts 4-6
Facts 7-9
Facts 10-12 (Conclusion)