Andy Woods - Soteriology 05: One Condition for Salvation

evening everybody we have notes for tonight does anybody need a copy of the notes we are in the midst of a series of studies on the doctrine of salvation and tonight we're going to start a section that I think is very important the section that we're doing here is God's one condition of salvation I have a picture of Lewis very chafer there the founder of Dallas seminary one of my theological heroes and that's what he entitles this God's this section rather God's one condition of salvation so you see the other things we've covered so far last week we talked about salvation words and now we're in Roman numeral five on our outline God's one condition of salvation so here's kind of a lesson overview that we're going to go through tonight we're gonna look at some misconceptions regarding how to share the gospel there's a lot of bad verbage out there and then I'll show you what the Bible teaches very clearly it says it almost two hundred times and then we'll talk we'll take a look at why God has set salvation up in this way why has God conditioned salvation on faith alone and then we'll talk very briefly about what does it mean to believe in Christ I'll give you some synonyms for the word believe and then we're gonna look at what saving faith is not and then I'll show you what you have to believe in exactly to be saved and then I won't just leave you with a bunch of theory I'm gonna give you an evangelistic model that mirrors or replicas the theology that we're talking about in this lecture and then on the last part of that outline I'll sort of hint at what we're going to be talking about next time because you're gonna have some questions as I present the material you're gonna say well that's not right because of this passage over here or that passage over there and I'll tell you do not fear I will be covering those passages in detail just not tonight so one of the things that I do when I teach soteriology the doctrine of salvation at the College of biblical studies you know in a classroom of maybe 20 people is I say okay pretend somebody is in the back of your car and they're dying of a heart attack and you're rushing them to the hospital you don't have the opportunity to teach the whole man sin salvation class to them they're gonna die at any minute and you're really not sure if the person that's in the back of your car dying of a heart attack being rushed to the emergency room is a Christian and you know I say some of you may be in this circumstance someday so you need to think about this how would you lead that person to Christ what would you tell this lost person to do and what I do is I spend almost a half an hour on this the students will raise their hand and and offer up suggestions and I'll write it on the board and I'll have a great a long list of things that people come up with and I basically do that to show them that all the answers that they've given me except for one are incorrect and you'll find in the evangelical world today there's a lot of misunderstanding regarding what is Nessa sorry to be saved if you get the opportunity to share the gospel with someone what exactly do you focus on in terms of what they need to do to be saved so there is something floating around out there these are poor word choices by the way called the ABC method and that method advocates three steps the a stands for admit you're a sinner the B stands for believe in Jesus and the C stands for confess so you hear that a lot from people other very poor word choices that are out there are confessed Christ deny yourself yield to Christ surrender to Christ sorrow you got a shed a few tears so people need to cry a little bit right make Jesus Lord of your life ask Jesus into your heart forsake all and follow Christ receive Christ accept Christ invite Christ into your heart and these are just buzz words that we toss around but as we start studying this today you'll see that these buzz words have have almost no when we rephrase that they have no support in the scripture so before I get to the right answer why do we think this way well we think this way largely because of the influence of Charles Finney Charles Finney is the man who is credited with leading the Second Great Awakening in America and Charles Finney was what was called a revivalist and Charles Finney did a lot of good but he brought in some baggage I think to the way we do evangelism he says you do whatever you have to do to induce people to convert so if that means you use guilt then you use guilt that means if you want to darken the lights then you darken the lights if you want to use dry ice I don't know what special effect you want to use you use that but you you induce conversions through human means and that's basically what Charles Finney taught he had a huge impact in America because of the Second Great Awakening so in the 20th century in the 21st century we find ourselves today using all of these word choices that really aren't found in the Bible at all in terms of leading people to Christ and the reason we use these things as we've heard other people use them and the reason other people use them is they've heard others use them and the reason they themselves use them is we're all living in the wake of Charles Finney so what I'm trying to do and what dr. chafer is so good at with this one condition of salvation is he's getting us back to the biblical text because the Bible actually answers this question what does the Bible say what is necessary for an unsaved person to do in order to enter into a relationship with God so those are the wrong answers the correct answer is you focus on the word believe there are as I'll show you close to 200 passages not a small number write the teach that justification before God is conditioned on faith by itself faith alone and this is what the Protestant reformers called Sola fidei the whole Protestant Reformation really was fought over this issue and a few other issues Sola means alone that's a latin word fidei means faith faith alone and the Bible from cover to cover teaches this it's very clear when you actually start studying the text instead of listening to all the evangelical babble out there that salvation is conditioned on faith alone now let me just give you some very well-known passages probably one of the one of the wealth most well-known passages is Genesis 15 verse 6 I have it there at the top of the screen this is how Abraham his name at that time was Abram entered into a saving relationship with God Paul of course quotes this in Romans 4 and many other places but it says then he that's Abram believed in the Lord and he reckoned it to him as righteousness so when you look at that verse you ask yourself well what did Abram do what was the one condition that he had to meet and it's very clear he did one thing believed in the object of faith that was revealed to him at that point in time so faith God's one condition of salvation now the Gospel of John says this 99 times I hope you know that by now we spent three years in John at this church yeah hopefully we at least learn this that 99 times John's Gospel holds out the word believe as the one thing the lost sinner must do to enter into a relationship with God John's Gospel is very significant because John's Gospel is the only gospel let me rephrase that it's the only book in the New Testament written to unbelievers we know that from John 20 verses 30 and 31 which says these things are written the Jesus through these various signs that Christ is the son of God I'll show you the versatile later and that by believe you may have life in his name that's John's purpose statement so when John uses that terminology it's very clear that he is writing primarily to people who don't know Christ he is writing to people who have not received the gift of life and he's weaving his material together to teach them how to be saved so it's different than Romans obviously great salvation truths are found in Romans but Romans was written to the church at Rome a believing Church it's different than Corinthians Corinthians was written to the church at Corinth they're called Saints and as you go through the New Testament you'll see that every book as far as I can tell is written to believers John's Gospel being the exception it's written to unbelievers and so that's why we really need to start taking our evangelistic keys from John and John 99 times holds out faith by itself as the one condition that the lost sinner must satisfy so you all know John 3:16 right and as I read some of these verses ask yourself what's the one condition for the lost person for God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever what believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life one condition therefore the lost sinner which is to believe John 5:24 truly truly I say to you he who hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and has passed out of death unto life what causes a person to receive eternal life what moves a person from spiritual death to spiritual life you'll notice again it's one verb one condition which is to believe if you've got your Bible with you let's look at a few more take a look at John 6 verses 28 and 20 9 John chapter 6 verses 28 and 29 therefore they said to him what should we do that we may work the works of God that's what lost people always want to know what do we have to do and Jesus in verse 29 answered and said to them this is the work of God that you what believe in whom he has sent end of story one verb again to believe notice and we're not going to go through all 99 verses but I just want to give you a flavor of this biblical reality notice that John 6 verse 47 Jesus says truly truly I say to you he who believes one condition 1 verb for the lost sinner believes has eternal life pretty simple notice John 16 verses 8 and 9 which is a description of what the Holy Spirit is doing in the world right now you know the Holy Spirit is active in the world doing something in the hearts of unbelievers he's not trying to fix them of drug addiction he's not trying to stop them from using swear words he's not trying to stop them from gambling or looking at pornography or spousal abuse what what he's doing you know does he do that with the believer of course he does that's called progressive sanctification I'm talking about with the unbeliever he's not interested in that he's not interested in morally reforming an unbeliever what he's interested in is convicting the unbeliever to the point where they will exercise their volition to believe in Christ John 16 is a wonderful verse on that I wish we had time to go into these verses in detail we did in our John series by the way which you can find on our website but it says there in John 16:8 and when he comes that's the Holy Spirit Jesus in the upper room speaking he will convict the world concerning sin righteousness and judgment and then it goes on and it defines what sin righteousness and judgment are concerning sin now does it say sins no it doesn't says sin hamartia is a singular noun concerning sin because they do not believe in me concerning righteousness because I go to the Father and concert' verse 11 concerning judgment because the ruler of the world has been judged what is the Holy Spirit trying to convince that's what convict means convince convince the unsaved world of to believe in Jesus and once they believe in Jesus they will experience positionally the righteousness of God and they won't be judged with Satan is the Prince of this world who's going down other than that the Holy Spirit is not trying to do anything in an unbeliever other than to convict them to the point where they trust in Christ so if you are being used by the Holy Spirit to evangelize and you start talking about a bunch of other stuff your lingo is not consistent with the agenda of the Holy Spirit we need to cooperate with the Holy Spirit is already doing in their hearts which is to get them to believe so when you evangelize as I'll show you in just a minute we focus on that word believe of course the purpose statement of John's Gospel is very clear on this John 20 verses 30 and 31 it explains why John wrote this whole book therefore many other signs Jesus performed in the presence of his disciples which are not written in this book but these have been written so that you may what believe that Jesus is the Christ the Son of God and that by believing you may have life in his name so one of the things you'll run into is you'll run into honest seekers and they'll say this you know I'm interested in investigating the claims of Christianity I've never read the Bible before what book of the Bible do you recommend I start with now were you going to send them numbers Leviticus you send them to John because John is tailor-made for the unbeliever it's a record of Christ's signs which about seven of them are recorded which reveals Christ's identity as the Christ by the way Christ is not Jesus last name we don't refer to him as mr. Christ Christ means The Anointed One the Messiah the mashiac in Hebrew so these signs reveal that Jesus is the Christ the Son of God and they're not he's not just giving us a theology lesson he wants the unbeliever to respond to the message of Christ's teaching by believing in Christ so once again you see the focus just on this word believe Acts leaving John for just a moment acts 16 verses 30 and 31 I have it there at the bottom of the screen this is the Philippian jailer circe - speaking to Paul and Silas sirs what must I do to be saved don't you wish your evangelistic opportunities were that easy I mean you just ask the question which is life's most important question by the way because how you answer it depends on where you spend eternity sirs what must I do to be saved they said that would be Paul and Silas believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved so once again when event when evangelistic opportunities are recorded in the book of Acts just like John's Gospel the focus is always on belief take a look very quickly at Romans 1 verse 16 Romans chapter 1 verse 16 Paul says for I am not ashamed of the gospel for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who what believes to the Jew first and also to the Greek notice Ephesians 2 verses 8 9 this is another one of those verses that we commit to memory very early in our walk with Christ Ephesians chapter 2 verses 8 and 9 for by grace you have been saved through what faith one verb through faith and then it goes on this is not of yourselves it is the gift of God not as a result of works so that no one can boast and you might be familiar with the book of Hebrews chapter 11 and verse 6 which says without faith it is what impart yeah it doesn't even say difficult without and without faith it is impossible to please him so faith in the object of faith which I'll talk about in just a moment is the only condition that must be satisfied by the lost sinner now how frequently does the Bible say this Lewis Sperry chafer rights because upwards of a hundred and fifty now I think his number is very conservative there I think it's more closer to 200 because upwards of a hundred and fifty passages of scripture condition salvation unbelieving only and what we have done because of the influence of fini in our evangelistic methods and tracks we want to put aside the 150 to 200 passages and we want to find the one remote obscure passage and build evangelism around that and that's kind of a silly way of doing things if we want to be biblical so that basically is what I mean by believe or faith God's one condition of salvation now you have to start to think try to think the way God thinks and you have to ask yourself why has God done it this way why has he conditioned salvation on this one verb why has he designed it in such a way that the lost sinner can only come into a relationship with him through faith by itself and I think there are at least five reasons why God has orchestrated the plan of salvation this way so here they are faith is nonmeritorious now what do I mean by meritorious meritorious means I can merit something from God through a work now if we know anything about God at all we know that he is not interested in our good works by which we curry his favor or try to curry his favor God has no interest in that in fact Isaiah 64 and verse 6 refers to our good works as what filthy rags so any work that's inserted into evangelism other than to believe is to God a filthy rag faith on the other hand is the one thing a person can do which is not a good work in the eyes of God and I get this from Roman four versus four and five look at this it says now to the one who works his wage is not credited as a favor but as what is due so if you log in two weeks on your job and you get a paycheck for it you don't say to your boss thank you for the gift because you put in sweat to get that paycheck right so now to the one who works his wage now to the one who works his wages not credited as a favor but what is due but to the one who does not work but what believes in him who justifies the ungodly his faith is credited as righteousness in other words what romans 4 verses 4 and 5 is saying is in the mind of God the only thing a lost sinner can do which is not a work nonmeritorious is to believe that's the only thing that God will accept so reason number one faith by itself is nonmeritorious reason number two is faith gives us grace and not works notice Romans 11 verse 6 Paul says but if it is by grace it is no longer on the basis of works otherwise grace is no longer grace so what is grace grace is unmerited favor and the only thing that gives us that grace is faith alone in Christ alone and if we teach some other message then it's no longer grace because grace is unmerited favor and if I insert anything into the equation other than faith as as far as what we must do then I've just unintentionally created a merit system and if I've created a merit system grace unmerited favor is no grace so number two faith is by grace and not by works number three why has God set up salvation in such a way that the only thing he will accept his faith number three faith alone maintains God's glory in the book of Isaiah chapter 42 and verse eight you'll see a very strong statement there concerning the zeal of God for his own glory Isaiah 42 verse 8 God says I am the Lord that is my name I will not give my glory to another nor my praise to graven images God certainly shares a lot of things with us but there's one thing he's not going to share and that's his glory that's what Isaiah 42 verse 8 says now think about this for a minute if my salvation is based on what I do then who gets part of the credit I do look at what I did look at what I accomplished look at what I achieved so you can teach the gospel 99% accurately but insert one single work in it you've just created a merit system which is no longer Grace and it gives man part of the bragging rights and this is why the gospel is always challenged by people because they want to do something to earn favor from God lost man always thinks that way because of the of pride if I can insert myself some way some form or substance then I get part of the glory but you see God has set up the whole thing in such a way that man gets no glory because the only thing that's nonmeritorious is faith that's the only thing God will accept and there's a fourth reason God has set it up this way just made reference to it faith eliminates boasting take a look if you could at Romans 327 just for a minute book of Romans chapter 3 verse 27 one of the things we learn is that when we all get to heaven no one's gonna be bragging no one's gonna be singing Frank Sinatra I did it my way kind of thing Romans 3 27 and God has designed it this way Romans 3 27 where then is boasting it is excluded by what kind of law question mark of works question mark no but a law of faith so God has set up salvation in such a way that all of the glory goes to him man gets none of the credit man has no bragging rights and this is why God won't accept anything other than faith alone the Ephesians 2 verses 8 and 9 passage that we read just a moment ago for by grace you have been saved through faith it is not of yourselves it is the gift of God not now not as a result of works look at that last clause so that no one may what boast or brag why is God set up salvation this way because it eliminates boasting and then the fifth reason that God has set up salvation by faith alone is God is interested in maintaining the offense of the gospel God has designed the gospel in such a way that it is an offense to sinful man God wants it to be an offense the reason it's an offense is because the lost sinner who always wants to because of pride contribute to his salvation learns that he can contribute nothing and that's a blow to the ego that's a blow to pride and God has designed salvation in such a way so as to wound and he's intentionally wounding the pride of lost humanity and this is what Paul is teaching in Galatians 5 and verse 11 now remember the Galatians were mixing works circumcision with faith and Paul confronts them and Paul says but if I brethren if I still preach circumcision why am I being persecuted then the stumbling block that's a translation of offense the stumbling block of the cross has been abolished Paul says if I make the gospel this way faith plus a work like circumcision then the offence of the gospel has been removed because now you have a gospel that appeals to man's pride God doesn't want that God wants to wound man's pride and so that's why he's designed it in such a way that the only thing we can do is the one nonmeritorious thing available to us which is to believe so you look at these reasons here about five of them and you start to understand why God has set up salvation on the basis of faith by itself faith is nonmeritorious if you insert a work it's no longer grace faith maintains God's glory faith alone eliminates boasting faith alone maintains the offense of the gospel so moving on in our outline here let's move to the next issue what is saving faith I mean we've used the word believe in faith and seeing how dominant this subject is in the scripture what what do we mean by believe exactly well ii believe the greek verb pistou o believe the noun form pista s-- faith means basically one thing it means to trust here is vines Bible Dictionary of Greek words and it says this pistou o to believe also to be persuaded of and hence to place confidence in to trust signifies in the sense of the word reliance upon not mere credence it is most frequently in the writings of the Apostle John especially the Gospel he does not use the noun pista s-- but of the writers of the gospel he uses the verb pistou o John does 99 times so when we say faith or believe what are we talking about here to be persuaded of something to the point where you place your trust in that object so synonyms for the word believe or faith you remember what a synonym is it's the same meaning different word here are some synonyms to trust do you have confidence in to depend upon or to rely so so synonyms of believe or trust confidence dependence upon reliance in Jesus alone for one's eternal destiny or the safekeeping of the soul let me say that again what what is saving faith trust or confidence or dependence or reliance in Jesus alone for one's eternal destiny or the safekeeping of the soul so that's basically what believe means and see that's the type of thing to communicate to the unsaved person because you you're gonna throw the word believe Adam and your unsaved person doesn't know anything about a Greek language or most most of them have no biblical teaching at all they don't know what it means to believe and that's where you can take the word believe and put it into words they can understand like to trust to rely upon to depend upon now we all trust and rely upon a lot of different things don't we the fact that you sat down in that chair was an act of faith was it not you were trusting that that chair was manufactured properly and it was going to hold you up when you sat on it so what I'm saying is we use we use trust in all areas of life and God has designed it so simply that all the lost sinner must do is rely depend trust place their confidence in which are synonyms for believe in the promises of Christ and Christ alone for their salvation that's what the Holy Spirit is convicting them of as I speak he is he is convicting them to trust in Christ alone so if you come at the unbeliever with the message of don't smoke don't you don't go with girls who do get rid of your tattoos cut your hair get a job you know all of these kinds of things you're coming at them with the wrong message you're not cooperating with the message of the Spirit the message of the Spirit is to get them to believe in Christ so that's what saving faith is now what is saving faith not if saving faith is trust in Christ and Christ alone what is saving faith not saving faith is not mere intellectual assent there's a lot of people walking around Houston and walking around the world for that matter and I know this for a fact because I was one of them for the first 16 years of my life I was one of these people I knew stuff about Jesus in fact if you questioned me about Jesus I could probably give you right answers about a lot of things I knew he was Jewish I knew he was born in Bethlehem I even knew that he was born of a virgin I even knew that he died on a cross and rose from the dead but you see at that point in my life prior to the age of 16 it was all data facts information it wasn't until I heard a presentation of the gospel and was invited to believe or trust in that message not until that occurred did I did I get actually get saved so knowing things about Jesus you know atheists know things about Jesus knowing things about Jesus doesn't save anybody a couple of verses on this you may know James 2:19 talks about the demons James says you believe that there is one God he's being kind of sarcastic here you do well the demons believe also and shudder and right now in the ranks of the demons they know all kinds of things about Jesus in fact if you gave them a quiz the demons they could they could pass the test with flying colors but they are not trusting in Christ for anything their belief the way it's defined here not the way it's defined in John but the way it's defined here is just intellectual assent here is Matthew 8 verses 28 and 29 it says when he came to the other side into the country of the gadarenes two men who were demonically possessed met him and then dropping down to verse 29 it talks about what this man was saying these men were saying is the demons inside of these demon-possessed individuals was prompting them they that's the demons cried out saying what business do we have with each other son of God have you come to torment us before the appointed time you'll notice that the demons understood that Jesus was the son of God you know so they're Christology doctrine of Christ was very good you noticed that they had a pretty good eschatology doctrine of the end they knew there was a final judgment coming they knew that they were on the losing side of history but you see it's all facts and information in the mind there's no volition of the will to trust in what Christ has done and see this is what you have to get across to the unbeliever you can know a lot of stuff like an encyclopedia and spit out all kinds of facts but that doesn't save it's not until knowledge moves into trust in the message that a person actually gets saved this is an Ephesus in acts 19 Paul had a huge ministry there in Ephesus on his third missionary journey he started performing miracles and the seven sons of sceva said hey that looks like fun we want to do some miracles we saw Paul cast out demons so we want to do that so these seven sons of sceva who were unbelievers cornered a demon in a house which is not the smartest thing to do and they tried to exercise or cast out this demon and the man in whom these demons resided arose and gave the seven sons of sceva such a beating that they ran out of the house bloody and naked but what's interesting is what this demon through this individual this demonized person says notice what the demon says the evil spirit answered and said to them I recognize or know Jesus and I know about Paul but who are you guys so notice that this demon knew who Jesus was this demon knew who Paul was but obviously these aren't saved it's just facts and information in the intellect so all of this to say that faith is more than filling one's head with data there's nothing wrong with data data is only a first step data has to move into trust or a person has never actually saved a few illustrations on this you may have heard of Charles Blondin according to this reports he's the one that could WoW the crowds because he would walk across a tightrope suspended over Niagara Falls he would do it holding things he would do it with people on his back sometimes according to the legend he actually was able to push a wheelbarrow across this tightrope suspended over Niagara Falls and the crowds would gather there on the banks of the shore and were amazed at his ability to do this and one day he calls out to the crowd and he says do you all think I can push this wheelbarrow across this tightrope suspended across Niagara Falls and they all said yeah you can do it we've seen you do it and Blondin says okay which one of you wants to get into the wheelbarrow see once you get into the wheel well it's no longer just intellect right now you're actually trusting your life to Charles Blondin and people it's to be a Christian to be saved they have to move away from intellectual knowledge into trust I like to talk about George Washington one of my favorite characters in history I could tell you a ton of stuff about George Washington I could tell you about his farewell address I could tell you about his favorite verse of scripture I could tell you about his Mount Vernon estate his wife Martha I could tell you about how he was almost killed and he got home from battle and there were bullet holes through his coat he was miraculously spared I mean I could just go on and on about information about George Washington but you see I'm not trusting George Washington for anything he's just a man of history and a lot of people have this attitude about Jesus they're he's just a man of history in their minds it's not until you actually trusting Jesus with your soul that you're that you become a believer another illustration I like to use is the airplane when you get on an airplane it's no longer just information and facts right you're trusting that that pilot knows what they're doing that they are gonna that that they've been trained properly that they put enough gas in the tank that they know how to read a compass and know how to fly an airplane so boarding that plane now people like to say well there's just a little bit of faith and then there's the real faith but you see the Bible never makes that distinction you're either on the plane or you're not I mean you could be on the plane with sweaty palms as I am many times nervous but the fact of the matter is I'm on the plane and you've got to at some point trust in Christ just like you would an airplane pilot and so that's what saving faith is now I'm not one of the hotly debated issues is what what is the content of saving faith what exactly do you have to believe about Christ and there's a movement in what are what's called the free grace circles where they are shrinking what has to be understood by the unbeliever some will say you don't even have to believe Jesus is God we had a fellow even at our house in Dallas who tried to convince us that all you have to do is believe Jesus you can even believe Jesus is Michael the Archangel and may I just say that I don't think any of these new views that are coming out that are shrinking the content of saving faith or accurate I think there are certain things you have to believe about Jesus obviously you as an unbeliever don't have a fully orbed Christology yet but you have to believe that Jesus has the power to do what you're trusting him for right I mean if you're trusting him for your eternal eternal destiny you have to believe that Jesus has the power over your soul if you trust it to him so you have to in some way shape or form understand that Jesus is deity or God so a verse that I now there are three verses I like to use when we get into this discussion of the content of faith one of them is John 8:24 it's very clear Jesus says this therefore I said to you you will die in your sins for unless you believe that I am he you will die in your sins see the word believe okay so far so good what do they have to believe in that this audience had to believe that Jesus was the I am what is the I am the I am a go a me in greek goes right back to Exodus 3 verse 14 which is a divine name that God disclosed himself through to Moses who shall I say sent me Moses says to God God says Moses you tell him I am sent you that's why at the end of that chapter John 8:58 Jesus claims the title I am again and the Pharisees who knew the Old Testament backwards and forwards knew exactly what he was doing he was claiming to be God and because they were unbelievers to them that was idolatry and so that the end of the chapter is very clear they John 859 they picked up stones to stone him because Leviticus 24 verse 16 I believe it is says if a mere man claims to be God he's to be stoned to death so the Pharisees thought that Jesus because I didn't believe he was God was blaspheming so there was no doubt in their minds what he meant when he used the expression I am so the lost sinner must understand something about the deity of Christ you have to believe that Jesus has the power to do what he is claiming to do for our salvation of course the end of John's Gospel reveals answers this question the content of saving faith this is there for many other signs Jesus performed in the presence of the disciples which are not written in this book but these have been written so that you might believe believe what that Jesus is the Christ the Messiah the Son of God and that by believing you may have life in his name so what do you have to believe you have to believe Jesus is the Messiah if I'm reading this right you have to believe he's the son of God do you fully understand the doctrine of the Trinity when you get saved probably not but you have to believe that Jesus has the power to do what he says he would do for you so you have to have some kind of awareness knowledge understanding of the deity of Christ and then another verse to me that's very helpful when we talk about the content of saving faith is first Corinthians 15 verses 3 & 4 Paul writes now I make known to you brethren the gospel which I preached to you which you also received in which you stand so he's dialing back to how he was with them originally when they were unbelievers and he led them to Christ by which also you are saved if you hold fast to that which I preached to you unless you believed in vain and then he's rehearsing what he shared with them for I delivered to you as of first importance first importance means the basics I gave to you so that you could be saved I delivered to you of first importance what I also received from the Lord that is what that is Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures that he was buried and that he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures so what were the things of first importance that Paul delivered to them so these people could be saved he taught them that man is a sinner because he says our sins he taught them that Jesus is the savior to their dilemma he taught them that Jesus died as their substitute on the cross and he taught them that Jesus was raised from the dead he also taught them that these things happened in accordance with Old Testament prophecy so when you're dealing with an unbeliever and they're confused about who Jesus Christ is these are sort of the things you want to focus on man is a sinner Jesus is the Savior Jesus died as your substitute Jesus rose from the dead according to Old Testament prophecy and then as you're sharing with them you're praying that the Spirit of God as you're talking is exercising his Ministry of convicting them of their need to believe in Christ so and beyond that you would focus on other things like he's the Messiah he's this of God if you have time you might even focus on the fact that he is the great I am he is deity in other words he has the power to do what he claims he'll do which is taking you to heaven give you the gift of life and take you to heaven when you die no one can do that other than God so having said all that let's come up with a evangelistic model that I think incorporates all of this theology that we have been talking about at Sugarland Bible Church we emphasize a five pronged approach let's see Lynn do we still have all that stuff in our Sunday school rooms did Lynn leave the room I thought I saw her in here Lynn monster man oh oh there she's up there no that's my wife yeah five five things that we focus on and they're they're designed like a hand you can see this in all of our Sunday School rooms points 1 2 3 & 5 or just education you're educating unbelievers about things point 4 is you tell them what they have to do once they have the knowledge so you'll notice that what they have to do is one thing after you have explained to them points 1 2 3 & 5 so the first two points are bad news the last three points are good news you talk to an unbeliever about the bad news which is you are a sinner before a holy God you focus on sin now you know do you have to get them to admit that they're a sinner do you have to put them through all these extra steps no what you have to do is ask the Lord to use you as his vehicle communicate this truth to them you're not asking them to do anything you're educating at this point and if you want a verse on its Romans 3:23 is very very good so it's for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God then you focus on a second piece of bad news so you got to get a man lost before you get him saved right first two points as the Spirit of God uses you gets them lost helps them recognize their lost because your average person out there in America doesn't think they're lost because they're successful and they've got 2.5 kids and they've got two cars in a driveway and their house mortgage is almost paid off they don't see themselves as lost you have to as the Lord uses you convince them that they're lost so then you focus on the penalty for your sin is death good verses on that or Genesis 2:17 what God told Adam the day you eat thereof of the forbidden tree you shall surely what died another excellent verse is Romans 6:23 which says the wages of sin is what death so here you can use the criminal illustration if you don't want to do the time don't do the crime now the unbelievers will say well I don't do bad things every day well guess what there are people on death row right now that don't do bad things every day the reason they're on death row is they did bad things one day so all it takes is one infraction one murder makes you a murderer right one lie makes you a what a liar so now you move into the good news and the good news is that God in His infinite love provided His Son Jesus Christ who died for you and paid your sin in penalty an excellent verse on this is Romans 5 and verse 8 which says but God demonstrates his own love toward us that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us so here you're communicating to them what Jesus did in their place to remedy their dilemma and now you move into the one thing they're supposed to do after they get the information piece of good news number two you can be saved from hell by believing now when you use the word believe they won't know what you mean unless you define it form believe needs to be fleshed out for them so they understand the concept of dependence you can be saved from Hell by depending on Christ alone to save you excellent verses on this we won't read them again we read them earlier our Ephesians 2 verses 8 and 9 for by grace you have been saved through faith gift of God it is not of yourselves lest any man should boast and now if you have time you can explain to them what grace means unmerited favor what faith means to depend what it means to receive a gift if it's coming to you as a gift you see if you tell your kid your kid who's 16 yeah I've got a I've got a gift for you in the driveway it's a brand-new car it's a free gift when you're gonna start making payments on it that's not a gift anymore right we understand what a gift is a gift is a gift it's a free that's the nature of a gift so you communicate to them that the nature of a gift and you don't attain it by works and I use the chair illustration a little earlier to talk about what it means to believe you're depending on something you know you could use the Charles Blondin tightrope example and then once you're confident that they've trusted in Christ now people always say well don't you got to make them say a prayer of some kind we'll be covering this in our next session but prayer a prayer doesn't save anybody it's faith alone in Christ alone that saves there are no biblical examples of people with every head bowed and every eye closed as we like to say praying a saving prayer of faith now is it wrong to pray a prayer no it's not wrong as long as they understand that the prayer doesn't save that's where people get confused I said the prayer I'm saved that's not what saves what saves is dependence on Christ that's what saves now if you want to express your faith through a prayer then go for it but the prayer is optional see it's not required in the moment you put on them they have to pray is the moment you've inserted something into evangelism that God never requires and we do this because we heard other people do it this way and we go and I showed you the source of this it was Finney that taught all these types of things but they're not found in the Bible so after you're convinced that they have trusted in Christ and he moved to the last piece of good news and you you want to assure them that they are saved and have eternal life and this is where you teach the assurance of salvation because if salvation came to them as a gift what could they do do to undo the gift nothing because you're their salvation depends upon whose promises God's can God lie no he can't and God many times in his word some of these verses we've gone over John 5:24 John 6:47 asurs the lost center that they have the gift of eternal life at the faith if nothing else you could quote to them first John 5 verse 13 which says these things I have written to him who believe in the name of the son of God so that you may what know you have eternal life and if you don't educate them in this realm right off the bat what is going to happen to them is they're gonna go home they're gonna be on a euphoria probably of some kind and then the sin nature is gonna prop up and they're gonna sin they're gonna go back to taking a drink of the alcohol or smoking a cigarette or having a lustful thought or whatever and they're gonna think I'm not saved and they have such little doctrine under their belt they don't understand that the assurance of salvation and eternal security and the devil is gonna work overtime in their minds convincing them they're not a Christian but you see if you take the time to explain to them that their salvation depends upon Christ and not your performance therefore you can be assured of your salvation at this very moment you're gonna you're gonna head the devil off you're gonna minimize the the negative influence that the devil has in their minds when I first got saved I went through the euphoria and I had such a poor doctrinal understanding because I was basically a new Christian I went home I woke up the next day I've moved off into sin and I said I just undid the whole thing when in reality there's nothing I can do to undo it because I because it's not my performance that got me in the door see if it's not my performance think they got me in the door then how can my lack of performance kick me out of the door you follow so that's why this last step of giving them some kind of assurance of salvation is important so hopefully that's a model you can use and next week the next time we're together we're gonna go through those passes are all thinking of don't you have to pray a prayer to receive Christ don't you have to confess Christ don't you have to experience emotional sorrow and I'll show you the passages that people use to teach these kind of ideas and that they're not really understood in proper context so that's what I mean by a response to problem passages all right we're done unless y'all have questions you can go pick up your kids at this point and we'll open the floor for Q&A if you have any thoughts or questions yeah bill you

Channel: Andy Woods' Unofficial Channel

Views: 6,525

Rating: 4.8756475 out of 5

Keywords: andy woods, condition, conditions, salvation, osas, once saved always saved, eternal security, abc, believe, confess, acknowledge, farag, jd, soteriology

Id: dXGhQKNVaY8

Length: 66min 14sec (3974 seconds)

Published: Fri May 24 2019