26.41 When you try to save yourself…

God cannot save you when you are trusting yourself for Salvation.

Here is the prelude to the famous and oft quoted John 3:16

Now there was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews; ² this man came to Jesus by night and said to Him, “Rabbi, we know that You have come from God as a teacher; for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him.” ³ Jesus answered and said to him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

⁴ Nicodemus *said to Him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” ⁵ Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. ⁶ That which has been born of the flesh is flesh, and that which has been born of the Spirit is spirit. ⁷ Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’⁸ The wind blows where it wishes and you hear its sound, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going; so is everyone who has been born of the Spirit.”

⁹ Nicodemus answered and said to Him, “How can these things be?” ¹⁰ Jesus answered and said to him, “Are you the teacher of Israel and do not understand these things? ¹¹ Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know and bear witness of what we have seen, and you do not accept our witness. ¹² If I told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things? ¹³ And no one has ascended into heaven, but He who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. ¹⁴ And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up; ¹⁵ so that whoever believes will in Him have eternal life.

J Vernon McGee posited, “The reason why the gospel is not preached today is people believe they are good.” Believing you are good spiritually on your own merits is where self-confidence and self-empowerment are based on a secular world view. This is not a new notion but it remains strong among those who attend church. As one of my friends told me, “People can get hung up on a belief that they need continued Sanctification to be saved.” He goes on further to describe the tensions and anxiety striving to be saved creates, along with its corresponding competitiveness, self-pride and ego as a person continues to believe its their ability which contributes to getting God’s approval.

The problem is when there is not a clear definition of the gospel and being “born-again”, people will naturally believe they need to do some work to earn their salvation. Our natural tendency is to believe we need to do something on our own merit to earn something valuable. The problem is we generally start with an idolatrous idea of who God is, a God who sends His perfect son, an infinite being, to die for the sins of the world on a cross and yet continues to burden people to vie for acceptance.

This obstacle is often exacerbated by churches when they take a social club approach to the teachings of God, God’s Holiness, man’s unholiness, and the very damning conflict that condition creates. As people have been indoctrinated to this un-Bibilcal torrent of: “believing in themselves: without any serious consideration of the glories and realities of God, the end result is a confidence that emanates from their self-worth and their inherent goodness.

“If you could mess up your salvation, you would.” – John MacArthur. Hence, that is a truthful quip based on doctrine, the reason why we must allow for God’s solution of Grace.

People believe they are good, that something that most “normal” people with a worldly perspective would agree to. The stark truth, is you may be a great inventor, a caring parent, a courageous soldier, a genius philosopher, but spiritually, without being covered by the righteousness of Christ, you are a blind, depraved, unregenerate, and possibly a wolf in sheep’s clothing, faithful only unto yourself. That’s a tough sale for the average pastor: to reveal the stark truth as revealed by the inerrant Word of God when the same given pastor is mightily motivated to show acceptance on a human level and grow their congregation.

In other words, it’s not the general motivation for someone who attends church to get a military boot camp indoctrination when church is expected to be full of sheep grazing peacefully away from the gates of hell (do not tell that to the churches in Nigeria). Pastors are unwilling to become the Gunnery Sergeant Hartman of Christianity despite the dire message that without Christ, you are on a path to hell and that the Way of Christ is, simply put, is, in fact, the Greatest News on Earth.

The gravity of the need for the Gospel is of such magnitude, it’s not an overstatement that new believers at a church or Western society at large needs a spiritual Basic Training. The essentials of the Christian education would cover the spiritual awareness of a Holy God and its opposite: the fallen state of human beings. It would be shocking, not unlike the treatment of new recruits in USMC Basic Training.

But Christians are known for their Love, right? Not something that would be at the top of the list for the Marine Corps, though there is a strong argument that there is quite a bit of brotherly love and agape love when one is willing to put themselves in harms way for the man fighting beside him.

We are not saved by the Law

There’s a fundamental problem faced by every human being and that is God has shown us the Law by way of conscience, historic revelation, divinely inspired writing, and through the preservation of the history of those who in faith, followed the instructions of God (and the lessons of those who did not). In the worldly sense, we live our lives under the Law without thinking. Unless you are a sociopathic hater of people, which unfortunately there are many, we can survive in our own little worlds by exceeding the requirements of the man made laws that govern us.

With God and our spiritual health, It’s not by the “goodness” of our works but the virtue of the One whom we have faith in and provides His blessing.

 Just as Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness, ⁷ so know that those who are of faith, those are sons of Abraham. ⁸ And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, proclaimed the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “All the nations will be blessed in you.” ⁹ So then those who are of faith are blessed with Abraham, the believer.

¹⁰ For as many as are of the works of the Law are under a curse, for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law, to do them.” ¹¹ Now that no one is justified by the Law before God is evident, or “The righteous shall live by faith.” ¹² However, the Law is not of faith; rather, “He who does them shall live by them.” ¹³ Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”— ¹⁴ in order that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we would receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. – Galatians 3 :6-14

If anything, the Bible, when taken seriously as a window to the truth of who God is, we really need to begin to be confronted with the reality that God is HOLY, Righteous, and in order to be JUST, He must punish man for sin for which the wage is death and eternal separation.

 Now we know that whatever the Law says, it speaks to those who are in the Law, so that every mouth may be shut and all the world may become accountable to God; ²⁰ because by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for through the Law comes the knowledge of sin. -Romans 3:19-20

The Law serves as necessary and severe moral guideline, it is good because it is a guide for those walking in Christ. As King David wrote in praise, “Oh how I love Your law! It is my meditation all the day.” (Psalm 119:97) and yet the law also stands as the unsurpassable means of achieving redemption with a Holy, Morally Perfect and Just God. It is naturally severe for this matter of helping us get a grasp of how sin will eternally separate unsaved man from God. This is why God has from the beginning made faith in Him the criteria for salvation and righteousness.

So unlike what critics often say about being saved by faith, believers take a very serious stance towards obeying the law inasmuch the spiritual rot of worldly flesh allows us to do so as we are transformed spiritually by the Spirit. Our Christian walk is a process of Progressive Sanctification, which is difference from the spontaneous Sanctification that occurs in Justification when our faults are covered by Christ’s righteousness.

Being Saved by Grace come with Transformation

You who are acutely aware of your imperfections should be delighted. We are all imperfect except for God, Christ and the Holy Spirit who are One in perfect goodness and unity.

Of course, one who is born-again will not remain in their same sinful state. As previously mentioned, being born again sets forth a transformation by the Holy Spirit. which causes us to becomes aligned with God, the evidence of which is seen through fruits of the Spirit and God’s glory and not the fruit of our personal works.

¹⁷ Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.  – 2 Corinthians 5:17

One of the Apostle Paul’s many comparisons between life before and after being saved has to do with becoming an heir, a child of God and that is significant when it comes to salvation.

However at that time, when you did not know God, you were slaves to those which by nature are no gods.⁹ But now, having known God, or rather having been known by God, how is it that you turn back again to the weak and worthless elemental things, to which you want to be enslaved all over again?  – Galatians 4:8-9.

You, being born-again, are a brother, a son, a sister, a daughter in the royal family. In God’s royal family there are no screw ups. Being chosen by God, which is every believer who trusts Christ, you can stop acting like an unemployed beggar and begin to act in gratitude in the light of the Grace received.

You do not need to “earn it” or work for it as if you were still under the Law and had no relationship with God. Believe in Him! God reached out to you and saved you as though being born alive through a barren womb (saved by God’s grace alone, not by the flesh!).

For it is written,

“Rejoice, barren woman who does not give birth;
Break forth and shout, you who are not in labor;
For more numerous are the children of the desolate one
Than of the one who has a husband.” – Galatians 4:27

Just like when Abraham and Sarah were promised by God a son when it was impossible without a work of God. She and Abraham were old and they learned to trust God. They had Isaac by the grace of and for the glory of God. This is another way of explaining the divine intervention in how Jesus spoke to Nicodemus saying:

 “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. ⁶ That which has been born of the flesh is flesh, and that which has been born of the Spirit is spirit. ⁷ Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’⁸ The wind blows where it wishes and you hear its sound, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going; so is everyone who has been born of the Spirit.” – John 3:5-8

This is the basis for eternal Liberty (which I will venture to write of some other day) as made possible through the Grace of Almighty God through the work of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Trust in the Lord Jesus Christ!

For a one minute explanation of the Gospel from the late Pastor John MacArthur, watch this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCP9UcC7BzE

For a review of the Ten Commandments: https://www.challenyee.com/the-ten-commandments/

ACT LIKE MEN a short talk given by John MacArthur (click on the link)

All quoted excerpts have footnotes removed, usually from Legacy Standard Bible (LSB), sometimes from New International Version (NIV), on rare occasion the Amplified Bible (AMP).

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8-21-2024