The First Letter of Peter unwraps for us how the Early Church explained the mystery of God’s plan of salvation. The heart of the message is in chapter 3 verse 18,
1 Peter 3:18 For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. (NIV 2011)
Christ suffered. This is talking about all the events from Maundy Thursday to Good Friday, from Jesus’s betrayal and arrest and desertion, through his rigged trials. Christ suffered the mocking and beating and scourging to within an inch of His life. Christ suffered the crown of thorns. And then He suffered the agonies of crucifixion hanging on the cross for three hours with nails through his hands and his feet. Christ did indeed suffer. And then he died.
The Anglicised NIV translation in 2011 is based on ancient manuscripts which say “Christ suffered for sins.” The New Revised Standard Version and the New Living Translation which I also often look at, say the same because they are based on the same original texts. It is interesting that the 1984 NIV we used for 30 years before then preferred other manuscripts which read instead “Christ died for sins”. So does the Good News Bible. However, the central message is the same. It is the cross of Christ which saves us. And “suffered for our sins” fits in very well with Peter’s central message of a Suffering Saviour. Christ suffered and at the greatest depth of his suffering Christ died. In just 5 chapters Peter refers to Jesus suffering 7 times. And it is good for us to reflect on the fact that it was not only the actual moment of Christ’s death on the cross, but all of his suffering on our behalf, which bought us salvation. Those last 24 hours were the most important hours of Jesus’s life. Not His birth. Not his profound teaching. Not his amazing miracles. Not his wonderful example of loving and forgiving. But his suffering and his death.
John 12 23 … ‘The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. … 31 Now is the time for judgment on this world; now the prince of this world will be driven out. 32 And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.’
The moment when Jesus died was the moment when the Son of Man was glorified and when the devil was defeated. It is the cross that saves us. Jesus suffered and Jesus died and Peter tells us that those were the events for which the whole of the Old Testament and the history of the Israelites were merely the preparation.
1 Peter 1 10 Concerning this salvation, the prophets, who spoke of the grace that was to come to you, searched intently and with the greatest care, 11 trying to find out the time and circumstances to which the Spirit of Christ in them was pointing when he predicted the sufferings of the Messiah and the glories that would follow.
Christ suffered and died. And he suffered and died once for sins.
The Letter to the Hebrews says exactly the same.
Hebrews 9 27 Just as man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment, 28 so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him.
Christ suffered once for sins. This was not the pointless death of an innocent victim. This was not the inspiring death of a martyr. This was the atoning and redeeming death of a Saviour.
1 Peter 1 18 For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors, 19 but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect.
Jesus was indeed the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. The sinless sacrifice. Christ suffered and died “once for sins”. Once and for all!
Bearing shame and scoffing rude. In my place condemned he stood.
Sealed my pardon with His blood. Hallelujah! What a saviour”
Amazing love, Oh what sacrifice, the Son of God given for me.
My debt He pays, and my death he dies, that I might live. That I might live!
We have already looked at how Peter expanded on this theme back in chapter 2.
1 Peter 2 23 When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly. 24 ‘He himself bore our sins’ in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; ‘by his wounds you have been healed.’
According the whole of the New Testament, here is the heart of the meaning of the cross. Christ’s suffering and death was taking away our sins, paying the price we should have paid, taking our punishment upon himself. He Himself bore OUR sins.
As the apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthians.
2 Corinthians 5:21 God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. (NIV)
1 Peter 3:18 For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous,
“The righteous” was Christ himself. Jesus did not deserve to die. He was perfect and holy and sinless.
1 Peter 1 you were redeemed … 19 but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect.
Peter knew Jesus as well as anybody. He quotes Isaiah 53:9 and applies it to Jesus.
1 Peter 2 22 “He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth.”
Sin is the cause of death. But Christ was without sin. He didn’t die because of his own sins but because of our sins.
The righteous for the unrighteous – that’s us.
1 Peter 1 14 As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. 15 But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; 16 for it is written: “Be holy, because I am holy.”
We are the ones who needed saving. Saving from ourselves. Saving from our evil desires. Saving from our ignorance. Saving from our pride and rebellion which separate us from the Holy God.
The righteous died in the place of the unrighteous, to bring you to God.
1 Peter 2 25 For you were like sheep going astray, but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.
1 Peter 5:4 4 And when the Chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the crown of glory that will never fade away.
So Jesus’s death brings us back to God and to eternal life which death can never take away! Of course Peter is writing to Christians. Those who have been brought back to God, the sheep who were wandering away but have now been brought back into the fold by Jesus the Good Shepherd who laid down his life for his sheep. Ransomed! Healed! Restored! Forgiven! All by means of the suffering and death of our Saviour Jesus Christ.
1 Peter 3:18 For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God.
The meaning of Verse 18 is fairly straightforward. Now we need to take a detour to explain verses 19 and 20, which can be quite confusing.
19 After being made alive, he went and made proclamation to the imprisoned spirits—20 to those who were disobedient long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built.
The events described in verse 19 are often given the name, “the harrowing of hell.”. Some people have misunderstood those verses. Some people wrongly think that “he went and made proclamation to the imprisoned spirits” means that after his resurrection Jesus descended to hell and preached the gospel to people who had died so that some of them could be saved. They wrongly believe that this promises a second chance for people to turn to Jesus after they have died.
That idea that this is talking about some second opportunity to be saved completely misunderstands these verses. Firstly, the word translated spirits could not mean “the souls of people who have died,” or anything like it. It refers instead to evil spirits or demons who are “imprisoned”. “… those who were disobedient long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built.” Peter here is referring back to a story found in the Book of Enoch. That is a book written between the Old and the New Testaments which early Christians would have known which is included in the Greek version of the Old Testament but not in our Bibles. The Book of Enoch tells how some angels rebelled against god and were expelled from heaven and became demons. These evil spirits were imprisoned for rebelling against God.
Peter refers to this story in Enoch again in chapter 2 of his second letter.
2 Peter 2 4 … God did not spare angels when they sinned, but sent them to hell, putting them in chains of darkness to be held for judgment; 5
The Letter of Jude looks back at the Book of Enoch as well. Jude 6 And the angels who did not keep their positions of authority but abandoned their proper dwelling—these he has kept in darkness, bound with everlasting chains for judgment on the great Day.
This story is what Peter is referring to in verse 19. When it says “spirits” it is not speaking about dead people but about demons, fallen angels. Peter says that after Christ was made alive in the resurrection, he went and made proclamation to the imprisoned spirits. The second thing to note is that the word translated as “made proclamation”. This word means an official announcement – it cannot mean “preach the gospel to give an opportunity for salvation.” The verses are telling us that after the resurrection Jesus made a proclamation of his victory over sin and death to the evil spirits held captive ready for the day of judgment. In passing, a word of caution here that this is one of the rare occasions where the Message translation actually gets it wrong. To repeat myself, these verses do not give any grounds at all for thinking that there will any second chance to be saved after death. It also gives no basis the medieval idea of purgatory as some kind of “celestial waiting room” for people before they reach heaven. This is about Christ’s victory over the devil and all the powers of evil.
Talking about the days of Noah while the ark was being built, leads Peter on to talk about Noah’s ark as a picture of salvation.
In it only a few people, eight in all, were saved through water, 21 and this water symbolises baptism that now saves you also—not the removal of dirt from the body but the pledge of a clear conscience towards God.
Though the centuries Christians have interpreted the ark as a picture for salvation. They have described the church as “the ark of salvation.” Just as Noah and his family passed through the waters of the flood safe in the ark, so believers pass through the waters of baptism to salvation in Christ. And so after his detour, Peter finally gets back to his explanation of how God saves us.
It saves you by the resurrection of Jesus Christ, 22 who has gone into heaven and is at God’s right hand—with angels, authorities and powers in submission to him.
Christians are saved from our sins by the sufferings of Christ and by the death of Christ. And then we are given eternal life as we share in the resurrection life of Jesus. He is now ascended to God’s right hand in heaven. All the angels and authorities and powers bow before him. And one day all believers will share in that glory forever.
We saw this glorious hope in the first sermon in this series.
1 Peter 1 3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you.
So Peter has explained God’s wonderful masterplan of salvation. We are saved by the death of Christ. 18 For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive in the Spirit.
And we are saved by sharing in the resurrection of Christ.
It saves you by the resurrection of Jesus Christ, 22 who has gone into heaven and is at God’s right hand—with angels, authorities and powers in submission to him.

This video discusses what it means to be “saved” in the Gospels.

https://www.facebook.com/pbthomas1/videos/10158785566658426

These are the words on the slides for this message.

“Your Faith Has Saved You”

In the story of the sinful woman who anointed Jesus, he forgave her sins and we read,
Jesus said to the woman, ‘Your faith has saved you; go in peace.’
(Luke 7:50 NIV2011)

What does the word “save” mean in the Gospels?

In the story of the healing of Bartimaeus we read.
‘Go,’ said Jesus, ‘your faith has healed you.’ Immediately he received his sight and followed Jesus along the road. (Mark 10:52 NIV2011)
Some translations say there, ’your faith has saved you.’
Including N.T.Wright’s New Testament for Everyone, the Geneva Bible and the Holman Christian Standard Bible.
The Message translates that as “your faith has saved and healed you”

In the story of the healing of the ten lepers Jesus says to the one who returned to give thanks,
‘Rise and go; your faith has made you well.’ (Luke 17:19 NIV2011)

But again in other translations we read,
“Your faith has saved you.”
N.T. Wright’s New Testament for Everyone, Geneva Bible 1599, HSCB, Evangelical Heritage Version, Expanded Bible, Lexham English Bible, New American Bible Revised,
And again the Message says, “Your faith has healed and saved you.”

Exactly the same word is sometimes translated “save”, and at other times “heal”.

σώζω (sózó) “I save”

In Matthew 15 x; Mark 14 x; Lk 17 x; Jn 6 x

Greek New Testament
Society of Biblical Literature Edition – Logos 8

English-Greek Interlinear NT
New Revised Standard Version in Logos 8
www.biblegateway.com

σώζω (sózó) has three broad meanings in the New Testament

1. TO RESCUE from danger and to restore to a former state of safety and well being

2. TO HEAL – to cause someone to become well again after having been sick

3. TO BRING A PERSON TO THE BLESSINGS OF SPIRITUAL SALVATION

TO RESCUE from danger and to restore to a former state of safety and well being
Rescued from the danger of drowning: Matthew 8:25 and 14:30
Jesus being delivered from death on the cross: Matthew 27:40 (par. Mk 15:30); 27:42b (par. Mk 15:31b and Lk 23:35b); 27:49; Luke 23:37, 39
Being brought safely through a period of danger to life (Mt 10:22 and 24:13 par. Mk 13:13; cf. Mt 24:22 par. Mk 13:20).
More metaphorically, where Jesus is like a shepherd who seeks out and saves the lost [sheep] Luke 19:10

TO HEAL – to cause someone to become well again after having been sick
Healing from diseases or deliverance from demons:
Matthew 9:21 (par. Mk 5:28); 9:22a (par. Mk 5:34 and Lk 8:48); 9:22b;
Mark 5:23; 6:56 10:52 (par. Lk 18:42); Luke 7:50; 8:36, 50; 17:19
Healing in a broad sense of doing whatever is needed to promote physical life and health.
NOTE – it can be unclear whether the meaning is “Your faith has saved you” or “Your faith has made you well” Mk 5:34 par. Lk 8:48; Mk 10:52 par. Lk 18:42; cf. Lk 8:50; 17:19.

TO BRING A PERSON TO THE BLESSINGS OF SPIRITUAL SALVATION – ‘to save’
Being saved includes the gift of eternal life. When Jesus met the rich young ruler, the phrases “Inherit eternal life” = “enter the kingdom of God” = “to be saved”
Being saved includes forgiveness of sin and rescue from eternal judgment. Jesus is to be given that name because “he will save his people from their sins.” (Matthew 1:21)
For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. (John 3:17)
For I did not come to judge the world, but to save the world. (John 12:47)

Elsewhere in the New Testament the spiritual is the predominant meaning of being saved.
And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved. (Acts 2:47)
For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith” (Ephesians 2:8)
If you declare with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. (Romans 10:9)

So σώζω (sózó) has these three senses which all overlap within “being saved”:-
rescue from physical danger (e.g. storm)
healing from physical illness (Bartimaeus)
spiritual salvation
 rescue from sin (Luke 7:52)
 the gift of all the blessings of eternal life
The gospel we preach promises us all these blessings. Jesus said to Zacchaeus,
“For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.” (Luke 19:10)
And we receive these blessings now and into eternity by putting our trust in Jesus.
“Your faith has made you well.
”Your faith has saved you.”

It is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified but whom God raised from the dead, that this man stands before you healed.
Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.” (Acts 4:10,12)
Here was the apostle Peter defending his Christian faith soon after the first Easter. And what he says is this. “Salvation comes no other way; no other name has been or will be given to us by which we can be saved, only this one.” Being saved by through Jesus Christ.
The Bible talks a lot about salvation. We find the word salvation 127 time and the idea of being saved more than 300 times in the Bible. Jesus talked a lot about salvation. And the church talks a lot about salvation. Because “being saved” is at the heart of the Christian faith. But what is salvation? What does it mean to be “saved”?
LIFEBOAT 1
A while ago we went to the historical dockyards at Chatham and visited an exhibition of lifeboats by the Royal National Lifeboat Institution. From the early simple sailing boats to recent lifeboats. Each boat showing how many times it had been launched and how many lives it had saved. Over the years many thousands of lives have been saved by lifeboats.
LIFEBOAT 2
I don’t know if you have ever been rescued at sea. I never have. But if you are on a ship which is sinking I can imagine what a relief it must be to see a lifeboat arrive and climb aboard! Maybe you are already in the icy water, being battered by the wind and the waves, struggling to stay afloat – how wonderful to see a lifeboat! And that lifeboat is to me a picture of salvation. You are pulled on board – you have been saved from the sea which was about to swallow you up. You get out of wet clothes into a dry blanket and sip warm tea you are being saved. And when you arrive on dry land you will finally be saved! You have been saved, you are being saved and you will be saved. Here is a picture of what salvation means to Christians.

We have been saved. Not from the sea and the wind and the waves but from something even more deadly – one hundred percent fatal. Saved from ourselves. Saved from our own selfishness and self-centredness. Saved from pride and greed and self-sufficiency which drag us down to our doom just as much as any stormy sea!

All the bad things we do and say and think which the Bible calls sin. They drag us down and separate us from the God who made us and loves us.

Only Jesus can save us! That is what Easter is all about
CROSS
They call it “Good” Friday because on that day Jesus Christ the Son of God laid down his life for us, so that we could be forgiven. Christ had no sin, but God made him to be sin for us so that in Him we could become the righteousness of God. (2 Corinthians 5:21) Then on Easter Day God raised Jesus to life again. Jesus is alive! So when we believe in Jesus our sins are forgiven – we share Jesus’s resurrection life!

We have been saved, and we are being saved. Just as a person rescued from drowning sitting on the lifeboat headed for shore enjoys simple blessings of being alive, warm clothes, food and a warm drink, so Christians enjoy God’s blessings. God’s presence, peace and joy. The privilege of prayer. The friendship of the church. God living inside us – the Holy Spirit! Jesus called all these things “life in all its fullness”. “I have come that they might have life, and have it more abundantly,” Jesus said. We have “eternal life”, a personal relationship with God and Jesus which not even death can take away.

Because we have been saved, we are being saved, but also we will be saved. The lifeboat has yet to reach the shore. When it does, the best is yet to come! Because being saved is not just for this life, but forever. When this earthly life is over, we have the happy certainty of being with God forever! We aren’t afraid of dying – our life will continue in heaven!

We have been saved. We are being saved. We will be saved. That is what Christians mean by salvation. That is why we are so happy to be saved!

I remember a poster of a beautiful butterfly with a Bible verse on it. It read,
BUTTERFLY
When a person becomes a Christian he becomes a brand new person inside.
He is not the same any more. A new life has begun! (2 Corinthians 5:17)

Just as a caterpillar changes into a butterfly, so when a person is saved a whole new life begins.

Amazing grace – how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now I’m found. Was blind, but now I see.

The starting point of course is for a person to realise they need saving. We all need saving – this world is a sinking ship – every one of us is doomed to ending up adrift in the ocean.
Nobody here is perfect! If I was to ask each of you to put your hands up if you agreed that there have been things in your life which you have done or said which you are ashamed of, I reckon about 90% would put your hands up and the other 10% would agree that you were lying. We have all done things we should not have done and said things we should not have said. We all need saving!

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes, one played a joke on a dozen influential people, businessmen, politicians, even clergymen. He sent them all identical telegrams, “Flee at once all is discovered!” The story goes that within 24 hours all of them had left the country!

When I was Esther’s age – I didn’t think I needed saving! I didn’t grow up in a Christian family. We never went to church or Sunday school or talked about God. . By the time I was studying science in the sixth form I was convinced that science had proved that God didn’t exist.

Then some school friends invited me along to their church youth club. I started going along to their Bible Studies as well to show them that their ideas about Jesus were all wrong. I won all the arguments, but they never got angry with me. And then one night I realised that these friends were all nice people, kind people, friendly people, the kind of person I wished I could be, but I knew I wasn’t. So for the first time in my life I prayed to the God I didn’t really believe in. It was a very simple prayer: “God change me!” The next morning I woke up and the whole world was very different. I just knew that God existed and that God loved me, even me. And somehow I knew that God had forgiven me for all the things I do wrong and all my selfishness and pride. I had begun to discover all the great things which are wrapped up in the wonderful experience of salvation

That was 40 years ago. My life is still a “work in progress” but I know that God is still changing me.”

We all need saving. We can’t save ourselves. Only Jesus can save us. We need to send out a call for help. SOS – save our SOULS. I remember another poster with a picture of a rescue helicopter winching a sailor up from a boat sinking in a stormy sea.
HELICOPTER
The caption on the poster was from Hebrews 2:3. “How shall we escape if we ignore such a great salvation?”

I watched a documentary on the sinking of the Titanic. As the unsinkable ship disappeared beneath the waves taking 1517 people to their deaths there were still empty seats on the lifeboats.

And there are lots of empty seats in the lifeboat of salvation. Some people swimming around in the water, realise they aren’t waving but drowning but STILL don’t get in the lifeboat. Other people still aboard their Titanic, thinking they are completely safe, eating their dinners, listening to the band, lounging in their deckchairs sipping their drinks not realising that the ship is sinking and that unless they get aboard the lifeboat they are doomed!

“How shall we escape if we ignore such a great salvation?”

The Lifeboat of Salvation has room for everybody. But each person has to choose to get aboard. Let me finish with a story – the parable of the two drowning men.
Two men fell into a river. One man could swim – the other one couldn’t. The current was strong and carried them towards a dangerous waterfall. One of the men drowned, the other one was saved. Which man do you think it was who survived?
The man who could not swim survived. When onlookers on the bank threw a lifebuoy to the man who could not swim, he took firm hold of it. The onlookers pulled on the rope and pulled the man who could not swim to safety on dry land.
But when the onlookers threw a lifebuoy to the man who could swim, he ignored it. He kept on swimming towards the shore but the current was too strong for him. Still he refused to take hold of the lifebuoy. So the man who could swim was drowned. But the man who could not swim was saved.

“How shall we escape if we ignore such a great salvation?”

THIS SERMON was originally part of the series “What is salvation?” Since it belongs equally well in the series on Romans I am reposting it here for anybody who missed it first time round, or who wants to be reminded of the heart of the gospel Paul preached.

16 I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. 17 For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: “The righteous will live by faith.”

What is salvation? What does it mean to be saved?

I want to explain the gospel message message this morning. And I want to do so by unpacking just a few crucial verses of Romans chapter 3 which lay out what it means to be saved, why we need to be saved, and just how God has saved us.

God’s plan of salvation

21 But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. 22 This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. 25 God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. (Romans 3:21-25 NIV)

For us to understand these verses properly I want to spell out the meaning of a few vitally important words. Righteousness. Sin. Justification. Redemption. Sacrifice of atonement.

First – righrousness. The word righteousness, and the related idea being made righteous, occurs a number of times in this short passage.

Righteousness – how can we be right with God?

21 But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. 22 This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. (NIV)
21 But now God’s way of putting people right with himself has been revealed. It has nothing to do with law, even though the Law of Moses and the prophets gave their witness to it. 22God puts people right through their faith in Jesus Christ. (Good News Bible)

Righteousness is a word which carries different shades of meaning in different places. Righteousness is that purity of character only fully expressed in God Himself, in God’s perfect righteousness and justice. By nature we human beings are not righteous – our lives are spoiled by sin. By nature we are not right with God – we are separated from God. By themselves human beings can never become righteous. But Paul talks here about a righteousness from God. It is not a righteousness which anybody can earn or deserve. It does not come by obeying the Jewish Law or any other set of rules. It is not something anybody can achieve by human effort. This righteousness before God, a right relationship with God, is God’s gift to all who put their trust in Jesus Christ.

The reason we are not righteous, and could never become righteous, is what we looked at last week. The problem of sin.

Humanity’s problem – sin

23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. (NIV)
For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard. (New Living Translation.)
We thought about the problem of sin last week. There are all kinds of actions and attitudes which we know very well are wrong when we see them in other people, but when WE do them, they’re alright! We can always justify our own actions. We see so clearly faults in other people’s lives which we turn a blind eye to in our own lives.
Last week we saw that the Bible has a word for all these wrong things people say and do and even think. All the selfish acts which hurt us and hurt our fellow human beings. The Bible word for these bad things we do is “sin.”
“Sin” is just a little word with “I” in the middle. And whenever a person puts “I” in the middle of their lives, whenever they focus only on themselves and leave God out, that is sin. We all know what sin is. And we all know that every one of us are sinners! We all know we have done and said and thought things which we should not have done!
Romans 3:10 As it is written: “There is no-one righteous, not even one; 11 there is no-one who understands, no-one who seeks God. 12 All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no-one who does good, not even one.”
23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
If we are honest with ourselves we all know that is true. We have all sinned. We all fall short of God’s standard, which is perfection. And all our sins have consequences.

Sin brings on God’s anger

Romans 1:18 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness,
Sin makes God angry
21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened
This is the essence of sin – neither glorifying God nor giving thanks to Him. Running away from God and hiding from Him. Ignoring God and pretending he doesn’t exist. That is sin.
24 Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. … 26 God gave them over to shameful lusts. 28. ….. since they did not think it worth while to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. 29 They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. … they invent ways of doing evil;

“God gave them over!” God gave them up. Human beings abandoned God so God abandoned the people He had created. He let them get on with their evil ways.
So sin brings on God’s anger and leads to God’s judgment. Sin deserves to be punished! God is a just and holy God – and judgment is the inevitable expression of that justice! And sin has other effects as well.

Sin separates us from God – spiritual death

Because God is a holy God whose eyes are too pure to look on sin, human sin separates us from God. That separation is spiritual and it is eternal – it is forever. Because even the littlest sin cuts us off from God forever.

Sin also leads to physical death

God is the source of all life. When sin cuts us off spiritually from God, it also limits our human life. Sin condemns our bodies to die.
From cover to cover the whole Bible is concerned with this one theme. How can sinful human beings escape the judgement of a Holy God? Because God’s standard is perfection – and none of us will live up to that standard!
Acts 17:30 In the past God overlooked .. ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. 31 For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead.”

How much can I get away with and still get into heaven? Absolutely nothing! Sin makes God angry and brings divine judgment. Sin leads to spiritual death and physical death. ALL have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. But the good news is that God in His grace is prepared to forgive a person’s sin and declare them not-guilty.. When a person puts their trust in Christ God gives them a gft of rightousness and this makes them righteous too.

God’s solution – justification

24 and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. (NIV)
24But by the free gift of God’s grace all are put right with him through Christ Jesus, who sets them free. (Good News Bible)

The English word the New International Version uses for this process of being made righteous is Justification. It simply means “being made just” or being made righteous. When we are justified God makes it “just as if I’d” never sinned. All are sinners. Everybody faces God’s judgment. But those who put their faith in Jesus Christ are declared righteous by God. Their sins are wiped away.

The Good News Bible translates Romans 3 using different words. It translates righteousness as being in a right relationship with God. And it translates justification as being put right with God. Instead of a person being in the wrong, God treats a person as if they are in the right. Because God takes their sin away they can be in a right relationship with God.
21 But now God’s way of putting people right with himself has been revealed. … 22 God puts people right through their faith in Jesus Christ. God does this to all who believe in Christ … 24 But by the free gift of God’s grace all are put right with him through Christ Jesus, who sets them free.

So here is the good news! God brings us into a right relationshio with Himself. And He does so by his grace. It is a free gift we can never earn or deserve. GRACE – God’s Riches at Christ’s Expense. That is the “redemption which came by Christ Jesus,” the freedom which Jesus has provided for us.

Justification is more than pardon. Judgment is getting what we deserve for our sins. Pardon means not getting what we deserve. Justification means God treats us as if we had never sinned. William Barclay wrote, “To say that God justifies the ungodly means quite simply that God in his amazing love treats the sinner as if he was a good man. Again, to put it very simply, God loves us, not for anything that we are, but for what he is.”

The story is told of a man who went abroad for his holidays driving his Rolls Royce. While he was there the car broke down. Understandably miffed, he phoned Rolls Royce who immediately flew one of their mechanics out. The mechanic mended the car and flew home again leaving the man to continue his holiday. But when he got home he was worried just how much that repair was going to cost him, so the man wrote a letter to Rolls Royce to ask how much he owed them. The reply came back promptly. “Dear Sir. There is no record anywhere in our files that anything has ever gone wrong with a Rolls-Royce.”

That is how God sees Christians once they have been put right with him, once they have been justified. As if nothing had ever gone wrong.

So now let’s unpack this wonderful redemption. Just exactly how does God set us free?

Through Christ’s death on the cross

25 God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. (NIV)
25God offered him, so that by his blood he should become the means by which people’s sins are forgiven through their faith in him. (Good News Bible)
25 God sent him to die in our place to take away our sins. We receive forgiveness through faith in the blood of Jesus’ death. (New Century Version)
25 For God presented Jesus as the sacrifice for sin. People are made right with God when they believe that Jesus sacrificed his life, shedding his blood. (New Living Translation.)

Our forgiveness comes at a terrible price – the death of Christ on the cross. It was not just the execution of one criminal among many. The Bible tells us that Jesus’s death had a spiritual and indeed a cosmic significance. Christ’s death was unique because Jesus Christ was unique – in at least two ways. Jesus was unique because he was more than a man. Jesus was also the Son of God, God Himself born as a human being. And Jesus was also unique because He was completely innocent. He had never done anything wrong. He was without sin. He had never done anything to make God angry. There was nothing in Jesus’s life separating Him from God. He did not deserve any punishment. He had no sin which would cause him to die, spiritually or physically.

So Jesus was innocent. he did not die because of His own sins – he had no sin. Jesus’s death was a sacrifice for sin in the same sense as in the Old Testament so many lambs were sacrificed. As John the Baptist said when He first saw Jesus, “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.” 1 Peter 3:18 explains it this way.
For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God.

Jesus’s death was a sacrifice of atonement. Atonement could be rewritten “at one ment”. Jesus’s death brings us back to God and makes us one with God again. And all we need to do is receive by faith what Christ’s death in our place has bought for us.

An evangelist had just finished his open air preaching service and was about to leave when a young man approached him and asked, “What must I do to be saved?” The evangelist replied. “It’s too late!” The inquirer was disappointed. “Don’t say that!” But the evangelist insisted, “It’s too late!” “You want to know what YOU have to do to be saved. It’s too late. The work of salvation is done, completed, finished! It was finished on the cross. YOU can’t do anything. Except receive as a gift by faith what Christ has already accomplished.”

So here again is how Paul explains the heart of the gospel, God’s plan of salvation.

21 But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. 22 This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. 25 God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. (Romans 3:21-25 NIV)

The only question which remains to be answered is, “Are YOU saved?”

Have you ever felt loved? Loved by a parent. Loved by a friend. Loved by a wife or husband? I want us all to realise this morning that God loves each one of us much, much more than that – more than any love we have ever experienced in our lives. God loves you more than you can possibly imagine!

1 John 3: 1. How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!

God lavished his love on us!

LAVISHED!

Eph 1:7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace 8 that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding.

Redemption, forgiveness, the riches of God’s grace, the unsearchable riches of Christ – LAVISHED upon US!!!

Like the Father’s love for the wayward prodigal son:-
Luke 15:20 So he got up and went to his father. “But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him. 21 “The son said to him, `Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’
22 “But the father said to his servants, `Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. 23 Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. 24 For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ So they began to celebrate.

“How great is the love the Father has lavished on us!”J.B.Phillips: “See what incredible love God has for us!” Great. Incredible. Amazing. Fantastic. Wonderful love of God!

I love my children Lizzie and Susie and David. I believe that I love them as much as any Father is able to love his children. But I don’t love them one thousandth as much as God the Father loves you!

Believe it – and also think about it! Imagine it! Meditate on it. Receive for yourself God’s great incredible amazing fantastic wonderful love! God loves you! God loves me! Say it for yourself, “God loves me”. GOD loves me. God LOVES me. God loves ME!

What does that mean?

God’s love is “not a senile benevolence that drowsily wishes you to be happy in your own way, not the cold philanthropy of a conscientious magistrate, nor the care of a host who feels responsible for the comfort of his guests, but the consuming fire himself, the Love that made the worlds, persistent as the artist’s love for his work, provident and venerable as a father’s love for a child, jealous, inexorable, exacting as love between man and woman.” C. S. Lewis

God shows us how much he loves us by the way he treats us and the blessings he pours out on us! We are going to think about some of those blessings this morning. They are all there in from the first letter of the apostle John.
We are God’s children

1. How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! 2 Dear friends, now we are children of God,

What an impossible miracle – Almighty and Eternal God, Creator and Ruler of heaven and earth, adopts us, mere creatures, to become His sons and daughters! Consider how great God is and how small we are!!

God has made you His child – that’s how much God loves you!

To realise just how amazing that is, remember the insurmountable problem of our sin! All the things we have said and thought and done which make the Holy and righteous God justifiably angry with us. Yet, in order to make us His children:
God forgives our sins

1John 2:1… If anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defence- Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. 2 He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.
1:8. If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.

None of us deserve to be God’s children! We could never earn our forgiveness! It’s all God’s grace!

God has forgiven your sins – that’s how much God loves you!

We have eternal life

2:25 And this is what he promised us- even eternal life.

5:11 And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.
12 He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life. 13 I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life.

3:14. We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love our brothers.

The love Christians have for each other, the love which does not come from ourselves but which God puts into our hearts, is the proof that we are indeed Christians, that we are born again, that God’s Spirit is within us, that we have passed from death to life and we now have eternal life – life in all its fullness.

3:16 This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. 17 If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? 18 Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.

Perhaps we find it hard to love each other sometimes because we don’t realise just how much God loves us!!

God has given you eternal life – that’s how much God loves you!

God is in us and we are in God

4:15 If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and he in God. 16 And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him.

3:24 Those who obey his commands live in him, and he in them. And this is how we know that he lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us.

God has shared His life with you so that God is IN you and you are IN God – that’s how much God loves you!
and this union with
God gives us victory over temptation

5:4 everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith. 5 Who is it that overcomes the world? Only he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God.

4:4. You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world

God gives you victory over the world, the flesh and the devil – that’s how much God loves you!
God answers our prayers

5:14. This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. 15 And if we know that he hears us- whatever we ask- we know that we have what we asked of him.

3:21 Dear friends, …. we have confidence before God 22 and receive from him anything we ask, because we obey his commands and do what pleases him.

Just pause for a moment and think about all the prayers you have offered over the years. Every time God has helped you. Every time God has rescued you. Every time God has guided you. Every time God has healed you. Every time you have prayed for somebody else and God in His mercy has heard your prayer and granted your request.

God answers your prayers – that’s how much God loves you!
The certainty of heaven

1. How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. 2 Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known.

The world around doesn’t understand what we are talking about but that’s because the world doesn’t know God! We know there is more to life than this life! This life is just the introduction, the foreword. We are God’s children already, but there is much much more waiting for us.

And the blessings of heaven will be much more amazing than we can imagine.

“What we will be has not yet been made known.” “Who knows how we will end up?!!” We cannot begin to imagine how wonderful heaven is going to be!!

But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.

This is our Christian hope – not just a wishy washy optimism but a happy certainty which rests on the promises of our God who always keeps His promises!

The promise of heaven is a great comfort to us when a loved one has died, or when we face illness or later years. But we should all think about heaven much much more than we do. We will be spending eternity there with God! Sometimes the reason we don’t look forward to heaven enough is because we are trapped in this world!

2:15 Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16 For everything in the world- the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does- comes not from the Father but from the world. 17 The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives for ever.

God has guaranteed you a place in heaven, with Him in glory forever, waiting for you – that’s how much God loves you!

So we know and rely on God’s love – We have nothing to fear from God.

4:16 And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. … 18 There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear,

There is nothing you can do to make God love you more! There is nothing you can do to make God love you less! His love is unconditional, impartial, everlasting, infinite, perfect! Because God is love!

And if we want a measure of God’s love we look at the cross.

Jesus laid down his life for us!

9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

16 This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us.

CROSS on letters, cards, emails, text messages, Valentine’s cards = I love you
Cross of Christ = God’s “I love you” to the world

O THE DEEP, DEEP LOVE OF JESUS! Vast, unmeasured, boundless, free;
Rolling as a mighty ocean In its fulness over me.
Underneath me, all around me, Is the current of Thy love;
Leading onward, leading homeward, To my glorious rest above.

A certain medieval monk announced he would be preaching next Sunday evening on “The Love of God.” As the shadows fell and the light ceased to come in through the cathedral windows, the congregation gathered. In the darkness of the altar, the monk lighted a candle and carried it to the crucifix, the statue of Jesus dying on the cross. First of all, he lit up the crown of thorns, next, the two wounded hands, then the marks of the spear wound. In the hush that fell, he blew out the candle and left. There was nothing else to say.

• God has made you His child
• God has forgiven your sins
• God has given you eternal life
• God has shared His life with you so that God is IN you and you are IN God
• God gives you victory over the world, the flesh and the devil
• God answers your prayers
• God has guaranteed you a place in heaven, with Him in glory forever,

And if all those things don’t convince you:-
• Look at Jesus dying on the cross – that’s how much God loves you!

Ephesians 3:17 I pray that you may have your roots and foundation in love, 18 so that you, together with all God’s people, may have the power to understand how broad and long, how high and deep, is Christ’s love. 19 Yes, may you come to know his love- although it can never be fully known- and so be completely filled with the very nature of God.

How big is God’s love? It is infinitely broad, infinitely long, infinitely high, infinitely deep. And it goes on forever. God’s love is everlasting. It is eternal.

God wants YOU to know just how much He loves you. To know the breadth and length and height and depth of Christ’s love, even though it is so big that even all eternity will not be long enough for us to know it completely. Your mind won’t be able to understand God’s love. But your heart can receive that love.

And God longs so much for you to know and receive and experience the love which he has lavished on you, God’s love which is so great and Incredible and Amazing and Fantastic and Wonderful!

We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen.
We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one Being with the Father; through him all things were made. …..
We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, who with the Father and the Son is worshipped and glorified, who has spoken through the prophets. Church of England Common Worship (2000)

Every year on the Sunday after Pentecost churches around the world celebrate Trinity Sunday, and think about that essential Christian understanding about God. We believe that God is three, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and yet at the same time there is only one God. But what does all that mean?

The understanding of God as one substance in three persons was adopted by the Council of Constantinople in 381 AD and still declared today in that Nicene Creed. C. S. Lewis said about the Trinity that it is either the most farcical doctrine invented by the early disciples or the most profound and thrilling mystery revealed by the Creator Himself, giving us a grand intimation of reality.

But the doctrine of the Trinity is often a stumbling block to people enquiring about the Christian faith. They cannot understand it! The first thing we should admit is that Christians don’t understand the Trinity either! It is a truth about God too deep for us to fathom, a “mystery”.
“We believe in God the Father incomprehensible, God the Son incomprehensible, and God the Holy Spirit incomprehensible, these three incomprehensibles being not three but one incomprehensible!”

So why do we believe in the Trinity?

WHO HERE believes in the Trinity ? God as 3 in 1 and 1 in 3? WHY???

The word Trinity NEVER appears in the Bible! Where do we find Trinity in the New Testament?

Matt 28:19 the ONLY clear reference

Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,

Deliberate Threefold Structures can be found

in 1 Cor 12:4-6: 4 There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit. 5 There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. 6 There are different kinds of working, but the same God works all of them in all men.

Spirit, Lord, God.

In Ephesians 4:4-6 4 There is one body and one Spirit- just as you were called to one hope when you were called- 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism; 6 one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.

Spirit, Lord, Father

2 Cor 13:14
14 May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.

Conclusion: – The doctrine of the Trinity does not lie on the surface of Scripture.

BUT that God is a Holy Trinity is IMPLIED in so many places in the New Testament..

The doctrine of the Trinity grew as Christians grappled with their understanding of their experiences of God. The earliest Christians were Jews, and Jesus Himself was a Jew, and the thing which always distinguished the Jews from all the other religions was their central belief that there is only one God. It is prayed in the shema every day, `Hear O Israel, the LORD our God, the LORD is one.’ (Deuteronomy 6:4)

So it was a great shock to every Jew when Jesus came working miracles, preaching the gospel and claiming Himself to be God. That was the `blasphemy’ for which He was crucified. The first Christians were those who believed that Jesus really was Immanuel, `God with us’ and worshipped Him as Lord and God. They had met with God incarnate, living as a human being (John 1:14).

Christ’s divinity and His pre-existence is recognised in the N.T. We believe Christ is God, quite apart from any specific verses about the deity of Christ, because those first Jewish Christians worshipped Jesus, when only God was to be worshipped! Then in was the Risen CHRIST who poured out the Holy Spirit into the Church in Acts 2 – and only God could send His Holy spirit.

In fact it was just as they were beginning to understand that Jesus and His Father are indeed one (John 14:6) when the Holy Spirit overwhelmed the church at Pentecost, and continued to express God’s love and power in the churches. The Jews had always used the expression `the Spirit of God’ to refer to God’s activity in the world, and it then took two centuries for Christians to recognise fully that the Holy Spirit was indeed divine, personal, and a person distinct from the Father and Son, actually the third Person of God, the `other Counsellor’ who the Father gives to represent Jesus and continue His work through the Church, as Jesus taught in John 14 and 16.

Acts 2:32 God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of the fact. 33 Exalted to the right hand of God, he has received from the Father the promised Holy Spirit and has poured out what you now see and hear.

The Father raises the Son to life, the Father gives the Spirit to the Son and the Son pours out the Spirit on the Church.

Our God is a Trinity. This means there are three persons in one God, not three Gods. The persons are known as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit and they have all always existed as three separate persons. The person of the Father is not the same person as the Son. The person of the Son is not the same person as the Holy Spirit. The person of the Holy Spirit is not the same person as the Father. If you take away any one, there is no God. God has always been a trinity from all eternity:

God is not one person who took three forms or “faces”, i.e., the Father who became the Son, who then became the Holy Spirit. This belief is false.

Nor is God only one person as Unitarians, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Christadelphians teach
The Bible says there is only one God. Yet, it says Jesus is God (John 1:1,14); it says the Father is God (Phil. 1:2); and it says the Holy Spirit is God (Acts 5:3-4). Since the Son speaks to the Father, they are separate persons. Since the Holy Spirit speaks also (Acts 13:2), He is a separate person. There is one God who exists in three persons.

Separate verses of Scripture teach us that each of the persons of God, each of Father, Son and Holy Spirit are separately called God. Each are eternal. Different verses teach us that the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit were each involved in Creation and in the Resurrection of Jesus. They each are all-knowing, each give life. Different Scriptures say that Father, Son and Spirit each make us holy, each speak, each love, each search hearts”. (VISUAL AID)

So Christians believe in God in Trinity, One God who is the Father (God above us), the Son (God with us) and the Holy Spirit (God inside us). Within his own mysterious being God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The designations are just ways in which God is God. Within the Godhead there are three “persons” who are neither three Gods nor three parts of God, but coequally and coeternally God.

Jesus commanded us to baptise disciples `in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.'(Matt 20:19) But this belief is not some complicated invention of deep thinkers to confuse us. It is simply the response of Christians who continue to experience God as Father, as Son and as Holy Spirit, and trust God even if they cannot understand.

So what is the use of the doctrine of the Trinity?

The Trinity is a Key to correct interpretation if the Bible.

In the first four centuries the churches and theologians developed a number of statements of belief called “Creeds”. The purpose of the Creeds is to help the church through the ages to interpret the sayings of Scripture. They are keys to our understanding. They preserve and maintain the integrity and the witness of the New Testament. The creeds were developed by Christians who week in week out were sharing in worship and prayer to the God who is “Three in One”. The trinitarian formula of Father, Son and Holy Spirit was central at baptism and in all declarations of faith.

So the doctrine of the Trinity helps us understand the whole Bible because it sums up the whole sweep of Scripture’s revelation about the nature of God. We could compare the texts of Bible to the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. Doctrines such as the Trinity can act as descriptions of the picture which the whole puzzle presents, even though no one single piece presents that whole picture.

The Biblical references which present an aspect of the Trinity were not necessarily understood by their authors or first readers in the Trinitarian way we understand them today. The purpose of the doctrine of the Trinity is as a framework for interpreting the NT texts correctly and to guard against heresy.

We need to remember that the doctrine of the Trinity is only a picture or a model or a metaphor for what God is really like. It is an icon, not a replica. The model is not the reality. Now `we see in a glass darkly’. The God we worship is in Himself truly incomprehensible”

And there are at least two important implications of God being the Holy Trinity.

Firstly, the Doctrine of the Trinity teaches us about God himself. God as He is in himself is community. God is not alone – in Himself He is three. And that shows us that being a person is not about being alone but about being in relationships with others. Relating to other people is not a necessary evil we have to put up with to get by in the world. Relating to others is what we were created for – it is at the heart of what it means to be a human being.

Supremely we were created to be in relationship with God. But God did not create human beings because he was lonely and wanted somebody else to talk to! God was eternally three, Father Son and Holy Spirit, in communion with Himself. God created human beings so that WE might share the eternal blessing of being in communion with Him. We said last week that Pentecost Sunday reminds us that all the wonderful blessings of salvation we enjoy are wrapped up in God’s gift of the Holy Spirit living inside us. Trinity Sunday reminds us that all those wonderful blessings of salvation come from the inestimable privilege of being in relationship with Almighty God. We have a relationship with the Father in the Son through the Spirit – that relationship with God the Trinity is what salvation is all about. John 17:3 Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.

The second implication of God being Trinity is expressed in the cost of that marvellous salvation. Salvations for human beings was only possible through the cross of Christ and it cost nothing less than splitting the Trinity in two! On the cross Jesus cried out in Mark 15:34 “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” “My God, my God, why did you abandon me?”

These were feelings of complete rejection, no apparent desertion but a real desertion. The Son had come to reveal God as the heavenly Father. He had shocked traditional Judaism by daring to address God as Abba, Daddy. But on the cross for the first time in His life Jesus cannot pray “My Father” but only “My God”. Why have you deserted me just like all my disciples have done? Why have you forsaken me? Why have you abandoned me? Why have you handed me over – just like the Jewish leaders did and Pilate did? Why have you given me up? Why have you betrayed me just as much as Judas Iscariot did? WHY have you rejected me? How those words would have pierced the Father heart of God!

Something very profound was happening deep within God Himself as Jesus was suffering on the cross. As Martin Luther said, “Christ saw Himself as lost, as forsaken by God, felt in His conscience that He was cursed by God, suffered the torments of the damned who feel God’s eternal wrath, shrink from it and flee.” The German theologian Jurgen Moltmann puts it like this. “It was a deep division in God Himself, insofar as God abandoned God and contradicted Himself. The Son suffers in His love being forsaken by the Father as He dies. The Father suffers in His love the grief of the death of the Son.”
So the cross of Christ was just as hard, just as painful, just as heartbreaking for the loving Father as it was for the obedient Son. Any father would suffer handing his son over to such agony and desolation. God the Father was not an aloof spectator at Calvary. He looked on with grief and tears that the world could only be reconciled and redeemed at the inestimable cost of alienation from His only beloved Son. That is how much God loves us!

Amazing love, oh what sacrifice, the Son of God given for me! The sacrifice of the omnipotent Father is as great as the sacrifice of the helpless Son. God’s deity is divided! The Holy Trinity, God eternally three-in-One, is split apart by OUR sin as Christ the Son shares our rebellion and separation from God the Father!
“Christ was without sin, but God made Him to BE sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God!” (2 Cor 5:21)
So the Doctrine of the Trinity reminds us of the sinfulness of sin and the greatness of God’s love. Our sin could only be dealt with at the incredible cost of splitting apart the eternal Trinity!

We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen.
We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one Being with the Father; through him all things were made.
And we believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, who with the Father and the Son is worshipped and glorified, who has spoken through the prophets.

This Thursday is a special day in the church calendar. It is Ascension Day. Forty days after Easter Day when Christ rose from the dead we celebrate his Ascension to glory.

ACTS 1:8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
9 After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight.
10 They were looking intently up into the sky as he was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them. 11 “Men of Galilee,” they said, “why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.”

When you think about Jesus – how do you picture him?
Baby in manger?
Preacher and Teacher – sermon on Mount
Healer – blind, lame, lepers
Miracle worker – walking on water or calming storm?
Triumphal entry on Palm Sunday?
Before Pilate – crown of thorns, purple robe, a reed in his right hand
Dying on the cross for your sins and mine?
After the Resurrection ?
Walking on road to Emmaus or meeting disciples in the upper room?

None of these is a correct picture of Jesus. They remind us of how He once was – but not how He is today. Because Jesus has now ascended to heaven.

Remember the first Christian martyr Stephen just before he died.
Acts 7: 55 But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. 56 “Look,” he said, “I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.”

Jesus today is not the way people encountered Him on earth. Now He is exalted on high, king of kings and Lord of Lords!

Here are some of the words Jesus Himself prayed in John 17.
“Father, the time has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you. 2 For you granted him authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him. … 4 I have brought you glory on earth by completing the work you gave me to do. 5 And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began. … 24 “Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world.
The Ascension has placed Jesus Christ back in the glory which he had with the Father before the world was. The glory which He laid aside in coming to earth has been restored to Him.

A fine Vicar I once knew called Donald Eddison was always very unhappy when Christians referred to our savior as just “Jesus”. He always insisted we should use the full title – “The Lord Jesus Christ”. Because the Lord we serve is not just Jesus of Nazareth the carpenter’s son, poet and rabbi. We serve the ascended glorified Jesus Christ, King of Kings and Lord of Lords. And He gives to us all the blessings of heaven!

“At his ascension our Lord entered heaven, and he keeps the door open for humanity to enter.” Oswald Chambers (1874–1917)

And there is something else Christ is doing for us while He is seated at the right hand of God.

Hebrews 4l14 Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has gone through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. 15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathise with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin. 16 Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.

The Lord Jesus Christ in heaven is our great high priest. He prays for us – he intercedes for us – and He is there to give us help when we need it!

I have an old friend from London Bible College called Sandy. Sandy has the distinction of having been thrown out of almost every country in the middle east for preaching the gospel. In particular there was one country where Sandy had been arrested and he was about to be imprisoned for his faith. But then Sandy played his trump card. One of his friends in his days at Oxford had been one of the sons of the King. So one phone call to his old college friend and Sandy was released – although there is another country he can’t ever go back to! But it all goes to show that it helps if you have friends in high places! And we all have a Friend in the highest of high places! Seated at the right hand of God – Jesus Christ is King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

And so Jesus is able to help us when we are in need. Not only because He has the name above all names, but because he completely understands our situation. Christ didn’t come to keep us from suffering; He came to suffer as we must suffer. He didn’t come just to keep us from being afraid; He came to be afraid as we are afraid. He didn’t come just to keep us from dying; He came to die as we must die. He didn’t come to keep us from being tempted; He came to be tempted as we are tempted. And because He has faced all the problems we face, the Lord Jesus Christ is entirely able to help us whenever we need it!

15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathise with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin. 16 Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.

We can be encouraged that the One who helps us not only understands us completely, but also has all the power and authority which could ever be needed! He is the ascended exalted King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

Ephesians 1:17 I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. 18 I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, 19 and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, 20 which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, 21 far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. 22 And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, 23 which is his body, the fulness of him who fills everything in every way.

It is that power which exalted Christ , far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come which is at work in us, in our lives. God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything and it is HE who is in heaven interceding for us! That is what we celebrate on Ascension Day!

There is a question I am sometimes asked. “Can I be a Christian without belonging to a church?”
Somebody once said. “Trying to live the Christian life without belonging to a church is just as possible and just as sensible as being:
Anybody who chooses to live completely alone on a desert island.
A student who refuses to go to lectures or seminars or tutorials.
A soldier who will not join an army.
A salesman with no customers.
An explorer with no base camp.
A seaman trying to sail a huge ship with no other crew.
An author without readers.
A tuba player without an orchestra.
A football player without a team.

We are thinking about all the wonderful blessings we have received in God’s free gift of salvation through Jesus Christ. We asked, “How much can I get away with and still get into heaven?” and realised that we can’t get away with anything! All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. But then we heard last week about God’s grace and how he puts us right with Himself through the death of Jesus on the cross – God’s riches at Christ’s Expense. Already this year we have learned about the immense privilege of prayer and in weeks to come we will think about so many other blessings of salvation and especially God’s gift to every believer, the Holy Spirit living inside us.

But so far I have been talking about God’s gift of salvation to each individual, what God has done for YOU and for ME! But that’s not the whole story. Because although God loves YOU and ME he also loves US. And salvation is not just something individual and personal. Salvation is much bigger than that. Salvation is shared and corporate. We are saved together. Saved to be part of the church!

Ephesians 5:25 Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her 26 to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, 27 and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.

Yes Christ loved you and me, but even more than that Christ loved the church – all of us together. And if we just think about ourselves as individuals we miss out on so many of the blessings of salvation, because those blessings are given to us to share together – through the church!
God’s greatest gift to us is a relationship with Himself through Christ’s death and resurrection and the Holy Spirit living inside us. But the next greatest gift God gives us is each other in the church, in the body of Christ. Church isn’t some burden God puts upon us as Christians. Church is God’s way of blessing us and bringing us his salvation!
Christians can be so individualistic. “It’s my faith and my life, and I can live it as I want to.” That is NOT true. That is the attitude of the footballer who hogs the ball instead of passing it around the team. Biblical salvation is very different. It is corporate. We are saved into the Body of Christ of which each of us is only one single part. We are part of the family of God, being built into the Temple of the Holy Spirit. We are saved together and being disciples is something we are supposed to do together. It has been that way ever since the birth of the church which we read about in Acts 2:41
Those who accepted (Peter’s) message were baptised, and about three thousand were added to their number that day.
Becoming a Christian, being baptised, led on automatically to being “added to the number of believers”, added to the company of believers – the church. Then from Acts 2:42 we read
They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer…. 44 All the believers were together and had everything in common…. 46 Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts… . And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.
To become a believer automatically means to be added to the number of believers – the church. `The church’ is not a building. The church is not an organisation. The church is a group of people, “The Body of Christ”, made up of all Christians in every age. Even if they never meet up with any other Christians, anybody who has eternal life IS a member of this invisible universal church. The church God’s “Forever Family” made up of everybody who has a personal relationship with God as their Father.

We need the church – and the church needs us. Every Christian is part of the church, the body of Christ.

1 Corinthians 12:12 The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ. 13 For we were all baptised by one Spirit into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.
14 Now the body is not made up of one part but of many. 15 If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. 16 And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body.

God does not intend us to be “solitary” Christians. In the comedy series the Addams Family there is a character called simply “Hand” because it is a disembodied hand which gropes its way around the house, answering the telephone and opening the door. But there is no such thing as a disembodied hand in the Body of Christ – every part is attached to every other part. There is no such thing as an independent ear or a freelance nose in the Body of Christ. Our discipleship is not just a private and personal thing. Our Christian lives should not be lived out in isolation but in the fellowship of the church. The church is the community of disciples and if we want to be faithful disciples of Jesus Christ we will express our discipleship by belonging to His church.

The Bible also uses the word “church” to refer to a local group of Christians meeting in a particular place, a local congregation. And we show that we belong to the universal church by playing our part in the local church. All true Christians will want to show they belong to the universal church by playing their part in a local church. Being a Christian but not belonging to any local church really would be like trying to be a football player without being part of a team!

We can easily misunderstand the ideas of “belonging to a church” or “church membership” if we think of it in the weak remote sense of membership you find used in some secular organisations and clubs. Some people treat being a member of a church just like being a member of the RAC or the AA – pay your subscriptions once a year and you can call the church out to help if you need it.. But belonging to a church is much more like being a member of a family or a member of an orchestra or a member of a football team. Belonging to a church is not a matter of privileges but of participation. It’s not about what we can receive but what we can give and what we can accomplish together.

We are all different in the time and energy we are able to devote to church life. But every Christian who is taking an active part as far as they are able in the worship and fellowship and witness of North Springfield Baptist Church belongs to this church and is a valuable part of the church. Even if your name is not yet on the membership list, even if you are not formally a member of that human legal organisation called North Springfield Baptist Church, we hope you feel at home here. If you are playing your part in the life of the church then you belong to the church. In Bible terms all Christians are members of that part of Christ’s body which meets here, all are valued members of the church. That’s the way it should be in God’s perfect plan. That’s the way it needs to be!

Billy Graham said, “Christians are like coals in a fire. When they cling together, they keep the flame burning brightly; when they separate, they die out.” We need each other as Christians – we need the church!

Belonging to the church brings us so many blessings. So what are some of these?

Acts 2:42 They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.

Teaching, fellowship, communion, prayer

TEACHING

Followers of Jesus are called disciples, and disciple means learner. If we want to learn about Jesus and learn how to follow Him we all need other Christians to help us.
In CHURCH

Believe it or not, sermons are a blessing of salvation! They are a way God can use to bless you – if you let him!

Learning in HOME GROUPS

One sermon a week is a very thin diet of the Bread of life! We need to meet to learn together, to discuss our faith and learn from each other. Dialogue teaches the parts monologue can’t teach

Learning by meeting ONE TO ONE

Some people meet in prayer partnerships or prayer triplets. Some are following the course, “Fan the Flame.” One of the greatest blessings of being part of God’s church is the ways we can learn from each other.

FELLOWSHIP – sharing a common life and caring for each other

“They were like family to each other.” (Acts 2:42 Contemporary English Version.)

SHARING COMMON LIFE
The people who get the most out of church are the people who put most into it! Church isn’t just services on Sunday! A vital part of our church life together are the Home Groups, groups for Bible Study and Prayer, caring and sharing and bearing one another’s burdens.

HOME GROUPS
When they are working properly, Home Groups embody true Christian love in friendship and community. They are the primary focus and front-line for pastoral care and the place where we discover the reality and power of prayer together. Home Groups are the place where we learn and practise true committed discipleship. Being part of a good Home Group is so exciting and fulfilling that everybody does their best to be there every week because they wouldn’t want to miss what God is doing.
CARING FOR EACH OTHER

1 Corinthians 12:25 so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. 26 If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honoured, every part rejoices with it.

It is one of the blessings of salvation to be part of a church which cares for us when we are in need. When we are sick, or grieving, or anxious, or sad, or struggling with life. But it is just as much a blessing of salvation that each one of us has the privilege and the duty of caring for others when THEY are in need. When THEY are sick, or grieving, or anxious, or sad, or struggling with life.

Fellowship and brotherly love are TWO WAY things. Jesus himself said “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” So when we think about the blessings we can receive as other people in the church love us with God’s kind of love, make sure also to think about the blessings you can GIVE by loving others. To rephrase a famous saying. “Think not of what your church can do for you – but of what you can do for your church.”

BREAKING OF BREAD – worship and especially communion

WORSHIP

Our worship together should be a blessing to God. An offering of thanksgiving and praise and adoration “to the audience of one”. But our worship is also a foretaste of the eternal worship of heaven, and that should be a blessing to us as well. For many people, the closest they ever feel to God on earth is in the middle of a glorious time of shared worship!

COMMUNION

Communion is “a means of grace”. It is the way Jesus has given his church to remember Him, to focus on his death and resurrection and the meaning of these events for our lives today. So Christians should expect to take communion regularly. Roman Catholics and Anglicans celebrate communion EVERY DAY. All Christians should give communion services a special priority because at the Lord’s Table we meet with our Lord in a very special way!
PRAYER

The privilege of Prayer is one of the greatest blessings of salvation. But we don’t always find prayer easy – sometimes it is hard work! Sometimes we don’t want to pray or can’t be bothered to pray. At times like that we need other Christians to help us to pray!

Church prayer meetings

Praying in Home Groups

Praying together one to one

3. Jesus tells us to pray together.
Matt 18:19 “Again, I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything you ask for, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. 20 For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them.”

They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, the fellowship, the breaking of bread, and the prayers. Just some of the ways God blesses us through the church.

For very many Christians in the twenty-first century the focus in their understanding of salvation has become almost entirely individual. They only care about their personal relationship with God. Biblical salvation is very different. It is corporate. We are saved into the Body of Christ of which each of us is only one single part. We are part of the family of God, being built into the Temple of the Holy Spirit. We are saved together and being disciples is something we are supposed to do together

Christians can be so individualistic. “It’s my faith and my life, and I can live it as I want to.” That is NOT true. That is the attitude of the footballer who hogs the ball instead of passing it around the team. It’s the attitude of the violin player who screeches loudly in any key he chooses, any notes he wants, ignoring the conductor and the rest of the orchestra and thinks it doesn’t matter. None of us is supposed to live the Christian life alone. We need each other. Our salvation is not just a personal thing. God gives us each other in the Church. God wants to give us so many blessings THROUGH EACH OTHER and through our life in the church.

C. S. Lewis (1898–1963) once said,

“The New Testament does not envisage solitary religion; some kind of regular assembly for worship and instruction is everywhere taken for granted. So we must be regular practicing members of the church. Of course we differ in temperament. Some (like you—and me) find it more natural to approach God in solitude; but we must go to church as well. For the church is not a human society of people united by their natural affinities, but the body of Christ, in which all members, however different (and he rejoices in their differences and by no means wishes to iron them out) must share the common life, complementing and helping one another precisely by their differences.”

Being a Christian is like being a singer in a choir. God does not want us to be soloists. He wants us to sing our part, while others sing their parts! That way we can join with the choirs of angels and the music really is heavenly!

Acts 2:42 They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer

In Romans 1 Paul says this: 16 I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. 17 For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: “The righteous will live by faith.”

What is salvation? What does it mean to be saved?

I want to explain the gospel message message this morning. And I want to do so by unpacking just a few crucial verses of Romans chapter 3 which lay out what it means to be saved, why we need to be saved, and just how God has saved us.

God’s plan of salvation

21 But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. 22 This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. 25 God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. (Romans 3:21-25 NIV)

For us to understand these verses properly I want to spell out the meaning of a few vitally important words. Righteousness. Sin. Justification. Redemption. Sacrifice of atonement.

First – righteousness. The word righteousness, and the related idea being made righteous, occurs a number of times in this short passage.

Righteousness – how can we be right with God?

21 But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. 22 This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. (NIV)
21 But now God’s way of putting people right with himself has been revealed. It has nothing to do with law, even though the Law of Moses and the prophets gave their witness to it. 22God puts people right through their faith in Jesus Christ. (Good News Bible)

Righteousness is a word which carries different shades of meaning in different places. Righteousness is that purity of character only fully expressed in God Himself, in God’s perfect righteousness and justice. By nature we human beings are not righteous – our lives are spoiled by sin. By nature we are not right with God – we are separated from God. By themselves human beings can never become righteous. But Paul talks here about a righteousness from God. It is not a righteousness which anybody can earn or deserve. It does not come by obeying the Jewish Law or any other set of rules. It is not something anybody can achieve by human effort. This righteousness before God, a right relationship with God, is God’s gift to all who put their trust in Jesus Christ.

The reason we are not righteous, and could never become righteous, is what we looked at last week. The problem of sin.

Humanity’s problem – sin

23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. (NIV)
23 For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard. (New Living Translation.)
Sin makes God angry
Sin brings God’s judgment
Sin separates us from God – spiritual death
Sin brings physical death

We thought about the problem of sin last week. There are all kinds of actions and attitudes which we know very well are wrong when we see them in other people, but when WE do them, they’re alright! We can always justify our own actions. We see so clearly faults in other people’s lives which we turn a blind eye to in our own lives.
Last week we saw that the Bible has a word for all these wrong things people say and do and even think. All the selfish acts which hurt us and hurt our fellow human beings. The Bible word for these bad things we do is “sin.”
“Sin” is just a little word with “I” in the middle. And whenever a person puts “I” in the middle of their lives, whenever they focus only on themselves and leave God out, that is sin. We all know what sin is. And we all know that every one of us are sinners! We all know we have done and said and thought things which we should not have done!
Romans 3:10 As it is written: “There is no-one righteous, not even one; 11 there is no-one who understands, no-one who seeks God. 12 All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no-one who does good, not even one.”
23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
If we are honest with ourselves we all know that is true. We have all sinned. We all fall short of God’s standard, which is perfection. And all our sins have consequenes.

Sin brings on God’s anger
Romans 1:18 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness,
Sin makes God angry
21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened
This is the essence of sin – neither glorifying God nor giving thanks to Him. Running away from God and hiding from Him. Ignoring God and pretending he doesn’t exist. That is sin.
24 Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. … 26 God gave them over to shameful lusts. 28. ….. since they did not think it worth while to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. 29 They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. … they invent ways of doing evil;

“God gave them over!” God gave them up. Human beings abandoned God so God abandoned the people He had created. He let them get on with their evil ways.
So sin brings on God’s anger and leads to God’s judgment. Sin deserves to be punished! God is a just and holy God – and judgment is the inevitable expression of that justice! And sin has other effects as well.

Sin separates us from God – spiritual death

Because God is a holy God whose eyes are too pure to look on sin, human sin separates us from God. That separation is spiritual and it is eternal – it is forever. Because even the littlest sin cuts us off from God forever.

Sin also leads to physical death

God is the source of all life. When sin cuts us off spiritually from God, it also limits our human life. Sin condemns our bodies to die.
From cover to cover the whole Bible is concerned with this one theme. How can sinful human beings escape the judgement of a Holy God? Because God’s standard is perfection – and none of us will live up to that standard!
Acts 17:30 In the past God overlooked .. ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. 31 For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead.”

How much can I get away with and still get into heaven? Absolutely nothing! Sin makes God angry and brings divine judgment. Sin leads to spiritual death and physical death. ALL have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

But the good news is that God in His grace is prepared to forgive a person’s sin and declare them not-guilty.. When a person puts their trust in Christ God gives them a gft of rightousness and this makes them righteous too.

God’s solution – justification

24 and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. (NIV)
24But by the free gift of God’s grace all are put right with him through Christ Jesus, who sets them free. (Good News Bible)

The English word the New International Version uses for this process of being made righteous is Justification. It simply means “being made just” or being made righteous. When we are justified God makes it “just as if I’d” never sinned. All are sinners. Everybody faces God’s judgment. But those who put their faith in Jesus Christ are declared righteous by God. Their sins are wiped away.

The Good News Bible translates Romans 3 using different words. It translates righteousness as being in a right relationship with God. And it translates justification as being put right with God. Instead of a person being in the wrong, God treats a person as if they are in the right. Because God takes their sin away they can be in a right relationship with God.
21 But now God’s way of putting people right with himself has been revealed. … 22 God puts people right through their faith in Jesus Christ. God does this to all who believe in Christ … 24 But by the free gift of God’s grace all are put right with him through Christ Jesus, who sets them free.

So here is the good news! God brings us into a right relationshio with Himself. And He does so by his grace. It is a free gift we can never earn or deserve. GRACE – God’s Riches at Christ’s Expense. That is the “redemption which came by Christ Jesus,” the freedom which Jesus has provided for us.

Justification is more than pardon. Judgment is getting what we deserve for our sins. Pardon means not getting what we deserve. Justification means God treats us as if we had never sinned.

William Barclay wrote, “To say that God justifies the ungodly means quite simply that God in his amazing love treats the sinner as if he was a good man. Again, to put it very simply, God loves us, not for anything that we are, but for what he is.”

The story is told of a man who went abroad for his holidays driving his Rolls Royce. While he was there the car broke down. Understandably miffed, he phoned Rolls Royce who immediately flew one of their mechanics out. The mechanic mended the car and flew home again leaving the man to continue his holiday. But when he got home he was worried just how much that repair was going to cost him, so the man wrote a letter to Rolls Royce to ask how much he owed them. The reply came back promptly. “Dear Sir. There is no record anywhere in our files that anything has ever gone wrong with a Rolls-Royce.”

That is how God sees Christians once they have been put right with him, once they have been justified. As if nothing had ever gone wrong.

So now let’s unpack this wonderful redemption. Just exactly how does God set us free?

Through Christ’s death on the cross
25 God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. (NIV)
25God offered him, so that by his blood he should become the means by which people’s sins are forgiven through their faith in him. (Good News Bible)
25 God sent him to die in our place to take away our sins. We receive forgiveness through faith in the blood of Jesus’ death. (New Century Version)
25 For God presented Jesus as the sacrifice for sin. People are made right with God when they believe that Jesus sacrificed his life, shedding his blood. (New Living Translation.)

Our forgiveness comes at a terrible price – the death of Christ on the cross. It was not just the execution of one criminal among many. The Bible tells us that Jesus’s death had a spiritual and indeed a cosmic significance. Christ’s death was unique because Jesus Christ was unique – in at least two ways. Jesus was unique because he was more than a man. Jesus was also the Son of God, God Himself born as a human being. And Jesus was also unique because He was completely innocent. He had never done anything wrong. He was without sin. He had never done anything to make God angry. There was nothing in Jesus’s life separating Him from God. He did not deserve any punishment. He had no sin which would cause him to die, spiritually or physically.

So Jesus was innocent. he did not die because of His own sins – he had no sin. Jesus’s death was a sacrifice for sin in the same sense as in the Old Testament so many lambs were sacrificed. As John the Baptist said when He first saw Jesus, “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.”
1Peter 3:18 For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God.

Jesus’s death was a sacrifice of atonement. Atonement could be rewritten “at one ment”. Jesus’s death brings us back to God and makes us one with God again. And all we need to do is receive by faith what Christ’s death in our place has bought for us.

An evangelist had just finished his open air preaching service and was about to leave when a young man approached him and asked, “What must I do to be saved?” The evangelist replied. “It’s too late!” The inquirer was disappointed. “Don’t say that!” But the evangelist insisted, “It’s too late!” “You want to know what YOU have to do to be saved. It’s too late. The work of salvation is done, completed, finished! It was finished on the cross. YOU can’t do anything. Except receive as a gift by faith what Christ has already accomplished.”

So here is God’s plan of salvation.

7. God’s plan of salvation
21 But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. 22 This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. 25 God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. (Romans 3:21-25 NIV)

A little while ago I read in a newspaper a list of modern irregular verbs – words which express the same thing in different ways depending on who you it is you are talking about.

I am a skilful driver, you are a reckless driver, he is a maniac behind the wheel!
I am generous, you are extravagant, he throws his money away.
My children are determined, your children are wilful, his children are out of
control!
I know how to express myself, you have strong opinions, he is always arguing.
I am occasionally economical with the truth, you often bend the truth, he’s a liar!
I am prudent, you know how to take care of number one, he’s a selfish so-and-so.

There are all kinds of actions and attitudes which we know very well are wrong when we see them in other people, but when WE do them, they’re alright! We can always justify our own actions. We see so clearly faults in other people’s lives which we turn a blind eye to in our own lives. Which brings me to the question for this morning.

How much can I get away with and still get in to heaven?

People used to try and live by the 10 commandments – now they only care about the 11th – “Thou shalt not get caught!” So many people live on the basis of “how much can I get away with?” And still get into heaven?

Even if they wouldn’t admit it, most people DO still think about what happens when we die? Is there an afterlife? Is there a God? They DO care about getting into heaven.That’s why, although not so many people go to church every week, and not so many get married in church, when it comes to funerals around 99% of people opt for a religious funeral. They like to hedge their bets, just in case!

We ARE spiritual beings, not just mind and body but spirit as well. We have this God-shaped gap in our lives. “Our hearts can find no rest, until they find their rest in God.” More and more people are interested in “spirituality”. The sad thing is that they look for answers in weird religions and New Age mumbo-jumbo instead of looking for God’s answers in the church. People do wonder about the afterlife, so they live their lives asking “How much can I get away with and still get into heaven?”

This morning I have good news and bad news for you – bad news first.

Bad news – you can’t get away with ANYTHING!

The Bible has a word for all the wrong things people say and do and even think. All the selfish acts which hurt us and hurt our fellow human beings. The Bible word for these bad things we do is “sin.”

Christian Tradition talks about seven deadly sins, or cardinal sins: they are: lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy and pride. Seven ways human beings can mess up. In fact there are as many ways to do wrong as there are human beings. Somebody said that “sin” is just a little word with “I” in the middle. And whenever a person puts “I” in the middle of their lives, whenever they focus only on themselves and leave God out, that is sin. We all know what sin is. And we all know that every one of us are sinners! We all know we have done and said and thought things which we should not have done! We know every human being sins, and the Bible tells us so as well.

Romans 3:10 As it is written: “There is no-one righteous, not even one; 11 there is no-one who understands, no-one who seeks God. 12 All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no-one who does good, not even one.”
23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,

If we are honest with ourselves we all know that is true. We have all sinned. We all fall short of God’s standard, which is perfection.

A newspaper once asked its readers, “What’s wrong with the world?” A famous author replied very simply,
“I am.
Yours sincerely,
G. K. Chesterton”

All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. And I am afraid there is more bad news. Because the Bible explains that human sin has consequences. Three separate and serious consequences.

Sin brings on God’s anger – our reading from Romans 1
Romans 1:18 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness,
Sin makes God angry
19 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20 For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.
Nobody has any excuse. God has revealed his divine nature through the beauty of all He has created. Human wickedness tries to ignore God’s glory – but it cannot!
21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened
This is the essence of sin – neither glorifying God nor giving thanks to Him. Running away from God and hiding from Him. Ignoring God and pretending he doesn’t exist. That is sin.
. 22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.
False Gods – idol worship. False religions. These make God angry.
24 Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. 25 They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshipped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is for ever praised. Amen.26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts.
“God gave them over!” God gave them up. Human beings abandoned God so God abandoned the people He had created. He let them get on with their evil ways.
28 Furthermore, since they did not think it worth while to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. 29 They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; 31 they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32 Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practise them.
So many kinds of sin – but people go on inventing new ways of doing evil. Doing wrong and encouraging others who do wrong. Even though they know, their consciences tell them that God has clearly said that those who sin will die.
So sin brings on God’s anger and leads to God’s judgment. Sin deserves to be punished! Some people have problems with the idea that God will one day bring people to judgment. But God is a just and holy God – and judgment is the inevitable expression of that justice!
Listen to these words of Jim Packer – the author of Knowing God
“Why do men shy away from the thought of God as a judge? Why do they feel unworthy of him? The truth is that part of God’s moral perfection is his perfection in judgment. Would a God who did not care about the difference between right and wrong be a good and admirable being? Would a God who put no distinction between the beasts of history, the Hitlers and Stalins (if we dare use names), and his own saints be morally praiseworthy and perfect? Moral indifference would be an imperfection in God, not a perfection. And not to judge the world would be to show moral indifference. The final proof that God is a perfect moral being, not indifferent to questions of right and wrong, is the fact that he has committed himself to judge the world.
It is clear that the reality of divine judgment must have a direct effect on our view of life. If we know that judgment and retribution face us at the end of the road, we shall not live as otherwise we would. But it must be emphasized that the doctrine of divine judgment, and particularly of the final judgment, is not to be thought of primarily as a bogeyman, with which to frighten men into an outward form of conventional righteousness. It has its frightening implications for godless men, it is true; but its main thrust is as a revelation of the moral character of God, and an imparting of moral significance to human life.” (Jim Packer)
So sin makes God angry and brings on God’s judgment. And sin has other effects as well.
Sin separates us from God – spiritual death

Because God is a holy God whose eyes are too pure to look on sin, human sin separates us from God. That separation is spiritual and it is eternal – it is forever. That is why if we want to get into heaven, into the presence of God in glory for eternity, we can’t get away with anything! Because even the littlest sin cuts us off from God forever.

As C. S. Lewis said “The safest road to hell is the gradual one—the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.”

Sin leads to physical death

God is the source of all life. When sin cuts us off spiritually from God, it also limits our human life. Sin condemns our bodies to die. Romans 6:23 “the wages of sin is death”

So here is the bad news. Sin brings on the anger and the judgment of the Holy God. Sin leads to death – spiritual death and physical death.

From cover to cover the whole Bible is concerned with this one theme. Judgement Day is coming – there will be a day when all the wrongs in the world are put right. When all those who have done wrong get their just desserts! How can sinful human beings escape the judgement of a Holy God? Because God’s standard is perfection – and none of us will live up to that standard! How do we know judgement is coming?

Acts 17:30 In the past God overlooked .. ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. 31 For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead.”

The Easter story is God’s demonstration to the world that there will be a day of judgment!

Good news – there is a way of escape!

Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
God has made a way of escape. We can’t get away with anything. Sin HAS TO be punished. But God has made a way for our sin to be dealt with – a way for US to be forgiven! And that way is Jesus Christ and his death on the cross.

Isaiah 53:6 All of us were like sheep that were lost, each of us going his own way. But the Lord made the punishment fall on him, the punishment all of us deserved. (GNB)

There is a green hill far away outside a city wall.
Where our dear Lord was crucified. Who died to save us all.
He died that we might be forgiven. He died to make US good.
That we might go at last to heaven saved by His precious blood.
There was no other good enough to pay the price of sin.
He only could unlock the gates of heaven and let us in.

God will forgive us. More than that God will accept us as His beloved children and give us the free gift of eternal life, life in all its fullness, because of what Jesus Christ the Son of God has achieved by his cross and resurrection!

Christians don’t claim to be perfect. BUT we don’t want to go on trying to get away with everything we can. We realise they have done wrong – and will keep on doing wrong! We realise we will never live up to God’s standard of perfection – and that we deserve God’s judgement. But with humility and gratitude we have accepted God’s free gift of forgiveness and eternal life.

John’s gospel puts it this way.
17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.19 This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. 20 Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. 21 But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God.”

How much can I get away with and still get into heaven? Absolutely nothing! Sin makes God angry and brings divine judgment. Sin leads to spiritual death and physical death. ALL have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. But hear these words of Jesus.

16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.