Our Incredible Salvation - 1

We begin a new season where we bring out all of the New Testament phrases about how incredible our salvation really is.

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Hello, everyone, and welcome back to Jeff's Bible Trek. This is season four, and this is the first episode of this brand new season entitled Our Incredible Salvation. Now let me take you back to how this series came about. Over a year ago, I was reading through the New Testament epistles of Paul and Peter according to the Life Journal reading plan, and something began to stick out to me. I began to see a series of amazing statements about what the death and resurrection of Jesus has obtained for us. Now, I I think I know what you're thinking right now. You're thinking, didn't you already know that, Jeff? Well, yes. In a general sense, I did. But when you start focusing just on these statements, they begin to leap off the page. So I've spent the better part of a year cataloging all these statements by New Testament writers in preparation for this series. Now keep in mind this is not an exhaustive review of such statements, but it's pretty close. Lately, I've been reading the New Testament and an increasing number of Old Testament books in the Passion Translation. And after walking with Jesus for 48 years, I can tell you this Bible is one of the best things that has ever happened to me. Verses that I've read for years have come to life in a new way. I have a new, fresh excitement about the Word of God that's unmatched in my life in a long time. Now, I don't have time to go into why the Passion has had this kind of impact on me. I just suggest this. Pick your favorite passage in the New Testament and go look it up online to see how it reads. Search for the Passion Translation on your favorite search engine and go from there. Now, if you don't want to do that, just listen carefully to the verses I'm going to read in these episodes. One of the best things about the Passion that everyone who reads it talks about is the footnotes. It is filled with footnotes that explain things in a way you've never heard before. I said all that to say this. The Passion translation is the version I'm going to be using in this study. It's found on the UVersion app, in case you want to follow along. So let's get started. We're going to be looking at the epistles in order, starting with Romans, which just happens to have the largest amount of information about our incredible salvation. It's kind of like Paul's doctoral thesis. Oh, and fair warning, there is a strong chance that I will get a little bit excited during this series. The passages I'll be covering do have that effect on me for sure. But I'll try to stay in control, honestly. There's a paragraph in the introduction to Romans in the Passion Translation that says this, and I quote, Paul wrote Romans to communicate the grand themes of God's grace and glory, encapsulated in the gospel. No one comes into glory except by the grace of God that fills believers with his righteousness. Our clumsy attempts to please God and our works of religion are totally unable to make us holy. But God is so kind, compassionate, and gracious that he shares his righteousness with all who receive his son, Jesus Christ. He causes his faith-filled ones to be made holy by his grace and glory. Paul wrote his letter to clearly articulate this message, to explain why he preached it, and to show how it should impact Christians in their daily life and community. Paul begins this journey into our incredible salvation right in chapter one. I'm starting with verses sixteen and seventeen. And here's how they read. For I am thrilled to preach that everyone who believes is saved, the Jews first, and then people everywhere. This gospel unveils a continual revelation of God's righteousness, a perfect righteousness given to us when we believe. And it moves us from receiving life through faith to the power of living by faith. This is what the scripture means when it says we are right with God through life-giving faith, which is a quote from Habakkuk 2.4. I mean, get the picture here. We receive Christ, the Holy Spirit enters our life, and the power to conquer sin is unleashed in us. It's like taking the leash off of a dog that has a squirrel in its sights. That power has been unleashed in us. That is a powerful result of our incredible salvation. Paul says he's thrilled to preach the gospel. It's not like he has to, he gets to. You know, we don't have all the revelation God wants to unveil to us on day one or day anything for that matter. There is a lifetime of revelation available to us until we draw our last breath. Next, Paul talks about a perfect righteousness given to us at the new birth. Righteousness is a huge subject in Romans and other parts of the New Testament. So it bears a definition. And I'm going to try to do this without using religious or churchy phrases. Righteousness is the character or quality of being right or just. It was formerly called rightwisess, kind of like likewise, but right-wise. Righteousness is the dealing of God with sin and with sinners on the ground of the death of Christ. In other words, it is a result of our incredible salvation. It is the means through which we are brought into right relationship with Almighty God. It is not attainable through obedience to any law or by any merit of our own or any other thing, but faith in Christ. This next point is huge. The person who trusts in Christ becomes not just contains, but becomes the righteousness of God in Christ. Something we could never achieve by ourselves. This in itself is a priceless piece of our incredible salvation. But wait, there's more. Verse seventeen ends with saying that righteousness moves us from receiving life to possessing the power of living our lives by faith. God didn't just provide salvation to us and then pat us on the behind, saying, Well, there you go. Good luck. No, He continues to cascade His grace and power into our lives. So this righteousness that we receive when we experience the new birth continues working within us every minute of every day, infusing us with power to overcome sin in our lives and grow more into the likeness of Christ. See, that's righteousness. It's far more than just a word on a page. The next verse I want to call out is chapter three and verse twenty four. It says, and I quote, yet through his powerful declaration of acquittal, God freely gives away his righteousness. His gift of love and favor now cascades over us, all because Jesus, the anointed one, has liberated us from the guilt, punishment, and power of sin. Man, when God imparts his righteousness to us, he makes a powerful declaration of acquittal over us. I would like to actually hear that if I could. This word cascades appears in the Passion Translation numerous times. The picture is of you at the bottom of a waterfall, and the water just continually cascades in layers and buckets down over you, drenching you in the benefits of your incredible salvation. And this verse finishes by saying that God has liberated us, liberated us, like being set free from a prison, liberated us from the guilt of sin, the punishment of sin, and the power of sin. That is how incredible our salvation is, folks. There are a couple of passages in the fourth chapter of Romans that I'd like to look at. The first is in verses six through eight. Quote, even King David himself speaks to us regarding the complete wholeness that comes inside a person when God's powerful declaration of righteousness is heard over our life. Apart from our works, God's work is enough. Here's what David says. What happy fulfillment is ahead for those whose rebellion has been forgiven, and whose sins are covered by blood, what happy progress comes to them when they hear the Lord speak over them, I will never hold your sins against you. And that last piece was a quote from Psalm thirty two. You know, I think unknowingly, some of you may think your salvation isn't enough, that you need to do more. If that's you, let the following phrase echo in your mind God's work is enough. Jesus said from the cross, it is finished. You know why? Because it's finished, it's enough. You got the whole package when you gave your life to Christ, including the cancellation and removal of your sins. Man, speaking of that liberation from prison, your record was expunged. Wow, that was that is glorious. The other passage in chapter four that I want to look at is verses twenty-two to twenty five. Paul is making the argument that as a result of Abraham's obedience to God, righteousness was credited to his account. I quote. And this declaration was not just spoken over Abraham, but also over us. For when we believe and embrace the one who brought our Lord Jesus back to life, perfect righteousness will be credited to our account as well. Jesus was handed over to be crucified for the forgiveness of our sins, and he was raised back to life to prove that he had made us right with God. Again, I would love to have heard that. Now it's a mystery, but it's also true that everything credited to Habra, I'm sorry, everything credited to Abraham, it's hard to say, flowed through the cross and onto us when we came to Christ. The promises that God made to Abraham also flow through to us. See my first season on kingdom promises for more on that. And then there are two steps in that last sentence that took place in his death and resurrection. First, he was handed over to be crucified for the forgiveness of our sins in his blood. And second, he was raised from the dead as proof that he made us right with God. Now that'll preach for a month of Sundays. After his blood was shed, he rose from the dead and presented his blood to the Father, as it says in Hebrews 8:3, as proof that anyone who gives their life to Christ will now be made right with God. That is powerful. Now we're going to meander through the fifth chapter of Romans. These next few chapters are worthy of reading almost every verse in this season because there are so many facets of the diamond that is our incredible salvation. So here are verses one through five, and I quote: Our faith in Jesus transfers God's righteousness to us, and he now declares us flawless in his eyes. This means we can now enjoy true and lasting peace with God, all because of what our Lord Jesus, the Anointed One, has done for us. Our faith guarantees us permanent access into this marvelous kindness that has given us a perfect relationship with God. What incredible joy bursts forth within us as we keep on celebrating our hope of experiencing God's glory. But that's not all. Even in times of trouble, we have a joyful confidence, knowing that our pressures will develop in us patient endurance. And patient endurance will refine our character. And proven character leads us back to hope. And this hope is not a disappointing fantasy, because we can now experience the endless love of God cascading into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who lives in us. Now let's summarize what we just read. First, putting our faith in Jesus transfers God's righteousness to us. Now, for those of you who handle your own bank accounts, you understand this concept. Let's suppose you need to pay a large bill and you don't have enough money in your checking account, but you do have enough in your savings account. So you sit down at your computer or on your cell phone and transfer money from your savings account to your checking account. And then you take your hands off the keyboard, you sit back in your chair, and you say, That is enough. Well, God did the same thing for us. There wasn't enough in ourselves, in our own account, to obtain righteousness. But when we asked Jesus into our lives, God sat down and transferred righteousness into our account and said, That is enough. This account, however, was not in a bank, but it was in heaven. Thank God. Next, God now declares us flawless. Look, this won't be the first time in this season we come across this word flawless. So we need to define it. It means having no defects or faults, especially none that diminish the value of something, having no discernible blemishes or shortcomings. Wow. This is the declaration of God over our lives if we're in Christ. He's saying to us, When I look at you, I see no defects or faults. There's nothing I see that diminishes your value in my eyes. Think about that for a minute. That's quite a bit different than the way we see ourselves sometimes, isn't it? Next, we can now enjoy true and lasting peace with God. Hmm. Peace with God. The picture here is that we were once estranged from God. Paul says we were at enmity with him. Peace with God means we, well, quite simply, we patch things up with him. You know, the interesting thing I've seen in my life is I've known both non-Christians and Christians who do not have peace with God. Non-Christians may have seen or heard things about God during their life, or think that God was or is unjust in a particular situation. Well, Christians can think the very same things. I myself went through a spell in my Christian life when I was angry with God, it lasted almost 10 years. In both cases, Christians and non-Christians, the answer was and is forgiveness. One of the most powerful things in all of the universe. The non-Christian needs to be forgiven by God of their sins. And in many cases, the non-Christian will need to forgive God for the feelings they held toward him as they're getting saved. And the Christians, well, the same thing. They need to forgive God for whatever supposed wrong we thought he did to us and receive forgiveness from God. That was the answer for me. Now we're not finished covering this verse, but uh because forgiveness is such a powerful force, I'm going to end this episode right here. But first, I'd like to challenge everyone in the sound of my voice to please, please search your heart to see if there is a place where forgiveness is needed. There is so much at stake. So God bless you and your search, and we'll see you the next time.