Did you hear the story of Army Sgt. Sirvantis Dennis, 27 years old? It seems that Friday his task force with the Third Infantry Division engaged the enemy as they neared Baghdad. They took cover behind armored personnel carriers and Humvees and trained their weapons on the Iraqi troops 300 yards away. There were bullets flying by them and banging into the metal of the trucks. Suddenly a rocket-propelled grenade flew underneath a truck, skipped off the ground and struck Sgt. Dennis right in the chest, hitting his ammunition pouch. It bounced off his bulletproof vest without exploding. There were four other soldiers standing nearby that should be dead, but were all unscathed. Sgt. Dennis had a cut in his right hand caused by the rocket’s fins. Five soldiers were SAVED!

And the story of Jessica Lynch is amazing – that she would be saved from Iraqi control in Nasiriyah. She will go back to her home town of Palestine, W. Va where everyone has been praying for her. And the bad news is that Michael Kelly, editor at large of the Atlantic Monthly, was killed Friday in a Humvee accident.

What do we mean when we use the word, "saved?" What is "salvation?" We have seen numerous examples of "physical" salvation in Iraq. But what is God’s salvation? What do people mean when they say that they have been "saved?" "Salvation" is the word that describes the incredible work of God in rescuing us from eternal damnation in hell. But it is more than that. Salvation is the beginning of a brand new life, that grows and develops forever.

It’s like the Passover. What do you think about when you think of the "Passover?" If you asked a Jewish person what Passover meant to his people, he would probably say, "we were rescued from Egyptian slavery at that time." That is true. But that is only the beginning of the story. How often does a Jewish person say, "that was the beginning of our new life with God, the beginning of our life in the wilderness, the beginning of God’s covenant with us, God’s Tabernacle, God’s priesthood and sacrifices, where we entered a new land that God had provided for us. THAT’S what the Passover means!" The same is true with the word, "Salvation."

So let’s talk about what Salvation actually is, and then how we enter it.

Salvation means that God forgives me of my sins and saves me from hell. But look at how Jesus described it to Nicodemus in John 3: There was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. 2 This man came to Jesus by night and said to Him, "Rabbi, we know that You are a teacher come from God; for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him." 3 Jesus answered and said to him, "Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." 4 Nicodemus said to Him, "How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born?" 5 Jesus answered, "Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. 6 "That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. 7 "Do not marvel that I said to you, 'You must be born again.' 8 "The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit." 9 Nicodemus answered and said to Him, "How can these things be?" 10 Jesus answered and said to him, "Are you the teacher of Israel, and do not know these things? 11 "Most assuredly, I say to you, We speak what We know and testify what We have seen, and you do not receive Our witness. 12 "If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things? 13 "No one has ascended to heaven but He who came down from heaven, that is, the Son of Man who is in heaven.

Jesus claims that Nicodemus needs a new birth. What rescues one from hell so that they can see the kingdom of God is the new birth. Nicodemus, a religious leader, needed birth. Jesus could have put this command in the realm of the negative, and said, "you won’t see the kingdom of God until your sins are forgiven," until you are rescued from the kingdom of darkness." Those would be true statements, but He didn’t do that. He could have put this command in the realm of Nicodemus’ responsibilities and said, "you won’t see the kingdom of God until you repent, until you humble yourself as this little child." That would have been true. But Jesus is talking about the big picture; He gives Nicodemus a description of salvation that packages all the parts into one clear picture: SALVATION IS NEW BIRTH. It includes forgiveness of sins and many other things, but it is actually a real, live BIRTH!

Think of what it means to be BORN:

A. Salvation means that you become a new person — a spiritual person. I hold in my hands my grand-daughter, Maeve. She is only a month old, but she is a PERSON. Contrast her with Gretchen, sitting on the pulpit here. Gretchen is a beautiful porcelain doll who looks almost real. Her eyes look real, her hair looks real, the look on her face is realistic. But Maeve has LIFE. Gretchen looks close, but Gretchen does not have LIFE. She has a mouth like Maeve, but she can’t use it. She has arms like Maeve, but Maeve can move her arms, and see and hear and cry. Even though Maeve is lying here in my arms, not moving, we know that she is alive. The minute she was born you could tell that she was a person. As soon as she came into the world she could swallow. Do you know how incredible that action is? I think that it takes 23 muscles operating together in the right order to swallow. Maeve had that ability when she was born. Think of what it takes to suck. What do you do to suck on a straw? Try it. What is it that is happening? Do you know where you learned to do that? It came with life. It was one of the blessings that came when you were born, along with 10,000 others.

The spiritual world is an exact parallel. When you trusted Christ as Savior, you were born again into a new world, a spiritual world. You were given life, eternal life, which doesn’t mean only life that doesn’t end, but it means God’s kind of life. Life on a new plane, a spiritual plane. You are now a new creation, where old things have passed away and everything has become new. And you are totally equipped to function as a "person" in this new world. You don’t have to pray and plead with God to give you a mouth, or an eye or an ear. He already has. Instead, you need to learn to use what God has given you at birth – by sucking on the milk of His Word, by talking to Him in prayer, by learning to think His thoughts. The command to "newbies" in Christ is to GROW.

B. Salvation means that you become a part of a family — the family of God. Babies aren’t born in test tubes. We think some day that we are going to do that, but I doubt it. Normally it takes a Mother and a Father to have a baby. And God has provided those parents for a reason. Babies can’t make it on their own. Neither can new believers in Christ. Everyone who trusts Christ becomes a member of the body of Christ, the family of God (John 1:12). God provides parents, Spiritual parents for a reason. And Salvation includes brothers and sisters, and cousins, and aunts and uncles, and you can bet that this family is one giant family.

Isn’t it interesting how you can meet a Christian in a far away land and immediately have a special connection to that person? It’s because you are in the same family. It’s like accidently meeting your physical brother in some distant land.

The point is that babies cannot make it on their own, whether they were born at Holy Cross Hospital or at Belcroft Bible Church. All newbies need parents, and brothers and sisters and relatives to hold them, and encourage them, and help them and guide them in the little practical things every child needs to learn. God knows this and has automatically given every believer a family at birth.

C. You become a promise with great potentiality — New Life cries for growth. Maeve was born with a will, with strength, with an ability to express herself, with a set of desires that have to be met. New life promises great potential. This baby could become the President of the United States of America. Can you imagine Barbara Bush holding George W. forty some years ago and making that statement, without even dreaming, probably, about what has happened? Every baby, because she is a "person," has unlimited potential. As the children used to sing, she is a "promise," she is a "possibility," she is a great big bundle of "potentiality." Contrast that with what Gretchen can become! Gretchen has already become all that she can be!

Salvation then is new LIFE. It is not a doctrine that you subscribe to, although that is part of it, it is not a church you join, although that is part of it, it is not a list of commandments that you set out to obey, although that is part of it. The reason one subscribes to the doctrine and joins the church and obeys the commandments is because one has life – not in order to get life. What has happened over the past 2000 years is that we have put the cart before the horse, and we are telling Gretchen that she needs to learn to nurse, and eat something and move around – before she has life. As a result, people get the wrong picture of what Salvation is. They see it as a creed or club, or organization that you join, with a bonus, heaven, thrown in for joining. They see it as a commitment to be good, or better, to follow God, to love their neighbor. Jesus’ point is that salvation is nothing less than a new birth, a new person, a new potential. And until you have been born everything else is superfluous.

Jesus said in John 10:9: "I am the door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture. 10 "The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly." Jesus said in John 6:35, "I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst." Jesus said, "I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life" (John 8:12). Again Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me" (John 14:6). His interest is in giving life. He wasn’t here to start a new religion; He wasn’t here as a great teacher. He provides life!

Do you see the difference? It is possible to have a church where all the porcelain dolls are lined up on the shelves, looking their very best. People come, people go, people do religious things, but no one has life, everything is dead. And sometimes a church like that is easier to be in because porcelain dolls do not require the maintenance that living, growing people require. Life can be messy. Brothers and sisters can make life difficult. But that is what it means to be SAVED. It means a brand new life – with all the stuff that life entails. It means spiritual capabilities that you have never had before, spiritual motivations you have never felt before, spiritual relationships you never experienced before, as well as problems you didn’t expect.

Are you SAVED? Do you really have LIFE? Can you point to a time in your life when Jesus Christ made a new creation out of you? When He gave you spiritual life? That’s what He wants to do for you.

II. We ENTER this NEW LIFE by FAITH

To whom does God give the gift of new life? In the physical realm you had nothing to do with the life God gave you. God chose your parents, the time and location of your birth. He likewise appoints the time of your death and many of the challenges you face day by day. But the commands in Scripture show that you have a responsibility in connection with the new birth.

The picture of how a person comes to experience salvation is given in a little historical example in John 3:14-15: "And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15 "that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life." The "as" in verse 14 introduces us to a picture that was developed in the Old Testament. It was a small event in the history of Israel that was recorded back in Numbers 21. Here is the passage beginning in verse 4: Then they journeyed from Mount Hor by the Way of the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom; and the soul of the people became very discouraged on the way. 5 And the people spoke against God and against Moses: "Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and our soul loathes this worthless bread." 6 So the LORD sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and many of the people of Israel died. 7 Therefore the people came to Moses, and said, "We have sinned, for we have spoken against the LORD and against you; pray to the LORD that He take away the serpents from us." So Moses prayed for the people. 8 Then the LORD said to Moses, "Make a fiery serpent, and set it on a pole; and it shall be that everyone who is bitten, when he looks at it, shall live." 9 So Moses made a bronze serpent, and put it on a pole; and so it was, if a serpent had bitten anyone, when he looked at the bronze serpent, he lived.

Jesus says, "there is a comparison between what Moses did in Israel’s history so that his people could be saved from a snake bite, and what I will do so that everyone who believes in Me can be saved from the snake bite of sin. Let me point out three important issues that come into focus through this picture.

A. Salvation develops out of a NEED.

The children of Israel were dying from the bite of "fiery serpents." These were small snakes whose venom caused your temperature to rise to extremes. People were dropping like flies and many died, verse 6 says. In the panic of their need people came to Moses admitting their sin, and asked for God to take away these hot snakes.

Before an unbeliever can be saved he must be awakened to the horrible situation he is in. A sleeping man in a burning building doesn’t realize the danger he is in. What will it take to get him out? An awareness of the horrible situation he is in. A person with a painless brain tumor may think himself to be in perfect health, right up to the day of his death. And this is what happens to so many people who go on their way without Christ, without realizing the fire in the building or the spreading of the tumor – into a Christless grave. Do you speak about Christ to people around you? It may be the way God wants to introduce them to their need.

A sinner needs to be convicted of the awfulness of his sin. This is not just a "mistake," this is not just a "blunder," this separates you from God, this puts you in the target zone for the cruise missiles of God’s wrath. David says in Psalm 51, "my sin is ever before me." With a convicted heart he saw his sin in all its ugliness and hideousness, and it made such an indelible impression on him that he couldn’t get away from the thought of it. "My sin is EVER before me." "Whatever I do, wherever I go, my sin looms large on my mind."

So many people around us are like Nicodemus. They are "good," they are "religious," they have spent time "pursuing religion," they try to "obey the ten." They don’t understand why they of all people should have to be "born again." After all, Nicodemus was "the" teacher in Israel (3:10), and if anyone had it together, the rabbi should. Think of what is happening in John 3: Jesus is telling the teacher in Israel that he needs to be born again in order to become a true Jew — because he is a sinner and under the judgment of God. Jesus is telling "genuine" Jewish people that their Jewishness is not "genuine" enough — and they need to be born again.

That’s the point: you can have so much without having life. You can be so close to real life that you can deceive yourself into thinking that you ARE REAL. You go to church, you were born into a Christian family, you’ve learned the language, you know how to act, and you look the part. But being born in a Christian family doesn’t make you a Christian any more than being born in a new car showroom makes you a Cadillac. Salvation comes to those who recognize their NEED and turn personally to Christ.

Have you ever acknowledged the seriousness of your need? Apart from Christ, what you need is not a minor course correction, it is a whole new life.

B. Salvation develops out of A REPORT – A report that announces what God has done. The amazing fact is that GOD HAS DONE SOMETHING ABOUT YOUR NEED! A serpent had been lifted up and made a conspicuous object for all the needy people. The report went out that salvation was available to those who would look at the snake on the pole. I doubt that anyone would have even thought of going outside their tent and looking for a pole with a snake on it in their feverous and weakened condition — until the announcement came. And then some believed the report, and responded, and got up and went out of the tent and strained their eyes to try to see the snake on the pole — and were amazingly saved from the snake’s bite.

The report is what introduces you to the work of God. God has provided for your need through the death of His Son on a cross. "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of man be lifted up," Jesus said. Here is the primary reason for Christmas. Jesus came to earth to be made sin for us, to take sin away. He had to be made a curse to rescue us from the curse. He came to earth to be our Sacrifice, to die in our place, so that we could live. Thus 3:17 says that He came into the world not to impose a sentence on the world as the judge, but to bring salvation as the Sacrifice. Jesus did not come into the world as a Rabbi or a prophet, even though He was both, but He came as the Sacrifice for our sin, so that as a result He could give life to the world. "I am the door, by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved."

What an incredible message! What a statement of God’s love and genius. Have you heard that message? Have you thought about that message, that Jesus Christ came to earth to be the Sacrifice for YOUR sins? He had to be lifted up on a cross for you to ever experience spiritual life. And He was lifted up and offers the new birth to you and anyone who will "look and live."

Why do people die and go to hell if Jesus has already paid the price for their sin? Because, thirdly, a pardon has to be accepted.

C. Salvation develops out of your RESPONSE –

1. The command is to "LOOK." Were people healed who refused to look? Suppose someone didn’t believe it could work; suppose some Israeli scientist thought it was a scientifically inadequate answer to try to heal a physical problem with nothing more than a look at a pole. Their salvation depended on their response. They had to LOOK. John 3 18 says the same thing about us: 18 "He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. Notice that the issue is your response to the message. The one who believes is not condemned and the one who refuses to believe is condemned. And why is the non-believer condemned? Because of his sin? No that is not the issue any more; Christ has paid for that; the issue is his lack of response to God’s command to believe.

God promises us salvation if we will (1) realize our tremendous need for it; (2) understand the report that Christ died on the cross to pay for our sin as our substitute; and (3) believe on the name of Christ, by turning to Him and admitting to Him that we are a sinner and asking Him to save us.

2. The only acceptable response was to "LOOK." The Israelites could have done many other good things — visited the doctor, drunk more water, cut their skin where the fangs of the snake went in and sucked out the venom. But the command was very specific – LOOK. There are many religious activities a person can accomplish today. But the command is to "believe," to "call upon the name of the Lord Jesus Christ." The command is for a private, personal, specific response to God Himself. You turn to God as a sinner in need, you cry out to Him to meet your need. You trust Jesus Christ to forgive all your sins and give you new life. It’s not that you ask God to help you do what you are going to do to get better. It’s not that you promise Him great works. You come as a helpless person with a high fever, who can’t do anything, and cry to Him. You come in all your ugliness; you don’t fix yourself up to be more presentable. You come, as the song says, "Just as I am."

Someone wrote David Hunt and said: "I’m confused about how one gets saved. As a Catholic, my favorite catechism stated: "What is necessary to be saved?" And the answer was, "You have to be baptized, belong to the Church established by Jesus Christ, obey the Ten Commandments, receive the Sacraments, pray, do good works and die with Sanctifying Grace in your soul." That seemed to impose a hopeless burden. If I missed Mass and died with that mortal sin upon me before I could get to confession, I would be lost forever. Since leaving Catholicism I’ve only become more confused by the contradictory teachings among Protestant denominational churches. Some say baptism is essential for salvation, others that it isn’t. Some say that holiness or speaking in tongues are necessary, others say no. How can I know the truth?"

Hunts answer: "Your very question `What must I do to be saved?’ was asked of the apostle Paul. His concise answer is the truth you seek: `Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved’"(Acts 16:30, 31).

Paul said nothing about baptism, church membership, penance, Mass, Mary or other saints, good works, or anything else. Salvation comes through faith in Christ and nothing else. To suggest that more is needed is to deny the Bible’s clear teaching that Christ is the only Savior of sinners. Never does the Bible suggest that Christ can only partially save us, and it is up to us . . . to make up for what Christ couldn’t or didn’t do. If Christ was not able to complete our salvation, then it would do no good to look elsewhere for supplemental help (quoted from In Defense of the Faith, 293).

Salvation is new life. It means you become a person in a new realm, the spiritual realm. It means you become part of a family, it means that you are a promise with great potentiality. And it arises out of a NEED, it arises out of a REPORT of what God has accomplished to meet that NEED, and it arises out of your personal response to that report – a response of turning to Jesus Christ and receiving Him as your Savior from sin.

Do you have Salvation? Are you sure that you have new life? God wants to give it to you today.

04/06/03, BBC am

01Salvation.MEF - 07/23/03