How Do I Get Saved?

 

 

 

One of my first questions in talking with someone about the church is to ask if they are saved or not?  For most people, the answer to that question seems to be lower on their list of concerns. I usually have to start with “why don’t you use music?”  It then progresses to “How do I join your church?”  That’s usually where I get to ask my question.  Most unchurched people have no idea how to get saved and most churched people don’t seem to have all the teachings about how to get saved.

 

Nothing else about a church matters if you are not saved, so let’s look at what the Bible teaches about “getting saved.”

 

PRAYER

 

I.       The Dating Relationship

A.   Will you go out with me?

1.                 Most people don’t wake up one day and decide to get saved.

2.                 They have to come in contact with the gospel and let it go to work on them.

3.                 For some that is quick like many examples we see in the Bible, for others it takes time for the gospel to really hit home.

4.                 I call it flirting with Jesus.

B.   Going steady

1.                 Most people in the world end up going steady with Jesus.

2.                 They know about him, they believe in him.

3.                 They think about him during Christmas and Easter, but that is really all the further they take the relationship.

4.                 I got a call about a former friend of mine who passed away last week.  He was a person I had spent a lot of time on trying to get him to realize he needed a much deeper relationship with Christ than he had.  For several years we had long talks about Christianity and what that commitment means and I one point I thought he would make a deeper commitment.  Sadly, as far as I know, he never got past this dating relationship with Jesus when he died.

5.                 There is an interesting story about a man who fits this description in the Book of Acts.  READ Acts 24:22-25

6.                 How many of your friends, neighbors, maybe yourself that thought these very same words in your hearts?

7.                 What will it take to change the gospel of Christ from a convenience to a conviction?

II.    The Engagement

A.   Will you marry me?

1.                 For all of us who are married, we followed the same basic pattern.

2.                 First we dated, then we got serious, and finally came the day when one of us popped the question.

3.                 Most of you know that Helene and I have a very unique courtship.  Most of it was from 6000 miles apart.  I will never forget the day I proposed to Helene.  I flew over to Honolulu and the guy sitting next to me was a member of the church from Memphis.  I told him what I was planning to do and he agreed to video tape me as I proposed to Helene in the airport.  If you want to see a very romantic man proposing to his fiancée in front of a hundred people come over to our house sometime and I’ll show you the video.

4.                 At that point in time, I made a commitment to Helene, but not a complete commitment.  Even though we were engaged and planned to be married, she didn’t take on my last name at that point in time.

5.                 Neither the government or anyone else considered us a married couple at that point.

B.   Engaged to Christ

1.                 So many of the religious world stress asking Jesus into your heart and then you are saved.

2.                 Asking Jesus into our hearts has Biblical merit

a)                "Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest, and repent. Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me." (Revelation 3:19-20, NIV)

b)                For salvation to have any effect on us we must open our hearts to Christ and allow him to come into our lives and cleanse us.

3.                 What gets forgotten is that this isn’t the end of the process.

4.                 My friend I told you about in the beginning of this lesson was living with a woman for the last three years.  Even though they made a serious commitment to each other, when he died, she didn’t get his social security or anything because she wasn’t his wife.

5.                 Asking Christ into your hearts without finishing that decision with baptism is like getting engaged and never having the wedding ceremony.

6.                 It’s a huge step forward in your commitment to Christ, but it isn’t enough to make you the bride of Christ, which is what a Christian is.

III.  The Marriage

A.   Wedding ceremonies

1.                 On April 18th, 1992 Helene and I became husband and wife.

2.                 In that ceremony, several very important things happened.

3.                 During that ceremony, she went from Helene Chung to Helene Dillinger.

4.                 That ceremony announced to everyone around that we made a life long commitment to each other.

5.                 That ceremony showed that we were no longer two individuals, but one couple.

6.                 That ceremony cemented our relationship.

7.                 The ceremony alone doesn’t make a marriage.  If that were true everyone who went through a wedding ceremony in a play or wedding would be married.

8.                 It’s that ceremony coupled with understanding that makes a marriage.

B.   Baptism, God’s wedding ceremony.

1.                 F. LaGard Smith wrote a book describing the parallels between a wedding and baptism.  It’s a great book, because it takes something we understand and shows how baptism works in the spiritual sense.

2.                 Baptism coupled with the understanding behind it is God’s version of a spiritual wedding.

a)                We take on the name Christian.

b)                We announce to everyone around that we are making a life long commitment to each other.

c)                 Baptism cements our relationship.

IV.Putting It All Together

A.   What you need to know

1.                 That you are a sinner

a)                Rom 3:23 tells us all have sinned and fallen short of the Glory of God.

b)                Rom 6:23 tells us the wages of sin are death.

2.                 Sin separates us from God

a)                Is 59:1-2

3.                 Nothing we do can close that Gap

4.                 Because of sin, God brought Jesus into the world to reconcile us with Him through his sacrifice and death.

5.                 To receive that act of grace we need to repent and have our sins washed away in baptism

a)                Acts 22:16

6.                 That new birth like physical birth means a life of maturing.

B.   What you need to do

1.                 Peter told the Jews about what they had done to the Messiah in Acts 2.  Upon hearing that the Bible says many were convicted and wanted to know what they needed to do to be right with God again.  Peter told them to repent and be baptized.

2.                 Paul asked the same question of Ananias after his encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus and got the same answer in Acts 22

3.                 The Philippian Jailer asked that question and got the same answer in Acts 16

4.                 Example after example in the book of Acts showed people who understood the sacrifice of Jesus and the gift of grace being offered associated baptism with them.

5.                 It’s something so easy to understand, but man has worked so hard to confuse everything about this wonderful experience.

6.                 Earlier this year I baptized a lady who really felt she was saved even though she hadn’t been baptized.  We studied for a while and she decided that she would be baptized but still wasn’t convinced of its necessity.  When she came out of the water, her first words were, “wow, I really do feel different!”

7.                 There is something about that act with the knowledge and understanding of what Christ as done for us that affects us in a very visceral way.

8.                 Have you been saved yet?