Shine Bright Church, Tucson, Arizona
SESSION ONE: The PLAN of REDEMPTION and CHRIST in the SCRIPTURES
SEPARATION Between Sinful Man and The Holy GOD:
Our problem as human beings is that we are born spiritually dead; we have physical and mental life, but no spiritual life. Without life in our spirits, we can have no fellowship with God or even know God for who He is.
A) SPIRITUAL DEATH
It is sin that brings death
EPHESIANS 2:1
And you He has made alive spiritually (quickened), who were dead in trespasses and sins;
ROMANS 6:23a
23 For the wages of sin is death . . .
A trespass is when you fall into sin. It’s like when you are walking and then you trip and fall. To sin, in this verse is “to miss the mark” – like when you are shooting at a target and you not only miss the bulls eye, you miss the entire target!
If anyone were to live perfectly righteous before God, and obey the Law of God – like the Ten Commandments without fail in action or thought, they would not miss the mark, but hit it.
The only Person to ever hit the mark (a bulls eye in fact!) and live perfectly holy and sinless is Who? Jesus Christ our LORD! See JOHN 8:46; 14:30; 1 PETER 1:19.
In EPH 2:3 it says that we were “children of wrath” before we were saved; and “children of disobedience” in vs. 2.
When did spiritual death begin? At the beginning, in the Garden of Eden:
GENESIS 2:15-17
15 Then the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and keep it. 16 And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, "Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die".
God told Adam that the DAY that he eats of the forbidden fruit, he would surely die. But did he? After he and Eve his wife ate of the fruit, they were still alive, they had children and they lived for hundreds of years afterwards (people in those days lived much longer lives than we do today, it was natural for them to).
ROMANS 5:17
17 For if by the one man’s offense death reigned through the one [Adam], much more those who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.)
So what happened? They died spiritually – their spiritual hearts were dead because when they sinned, they were separated from the ONLY True Source of Life, that is, the LORD God of all creation. Our spirits were living at the time when God created us, but when Adam sinned, he, Eve and all of us his children were separated from His Spirit (1 COR 15:22). Just like if you were to uproot a flower from the soil, or take a fish out of water, or remove an astronaut from his space ship – in each case, you remove the living creature – the flower, the fish, the astronaut from the place they need to be in order to live.
The world is full of pain and struggle and hardships – all kinds of suffering and that is because of the curse of sin; these are the consequences of being separated from God!
ISAIAH 59:2
But your iniquities have separated you from your God;
And your sins have hidden His face from you, so that He will not hear.
ROMANS 3:19-20, 23
19 Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. 20 Therefore by the deeds of the law no one will be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin.
23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
When you get your pay check, does your boss gift wrap it for you? No, of course not – because you earned that money by working for it. Receiving a gift is different because you don’t pay anything for it. It’s free and given to you by someone else who paid for it, and wants you to have it because they love you.
ROMANS 6:23
23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
When did spiritual life begin? At the resurrection of Jesus Christ (JOHN 14:6)!
We have all sinned and as a result of that, we have earned death – we pay for the sin ourselves with our own death. BUT the gift of God is ETERNAL LIFE in Christ Jesus our LORD!! Jesus offers us spiritual life, represented by what He called “living waters” in these verses:
JOHN 4:10
10 Jesus answered and said to her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.”
JOHN 7:37-38
37 On the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. 38 He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.”
“. . . out of his heart . . .” it says. For simplicity’s sake we can say that heart and spirit mean the same thing. Refer to the diagram above and understand that it’s from the heart that we receive Jesus Christ (EPH 3:17), that we invite His Spirit in Who brings spiritual life through salvation, and that these “living waters” flow from there!
Remember, the true source of life – all life, is God our Creator. To know God personally as our Father, to have His Spirit indwelling us, is to have eternal life:
JOHN 17:3
3 And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.
B) SINFUL MAN IS UNABLE TO SAVE HIMSELF
1. We are not saved by any ‘good’ works of our own:
TITUS 3:5
Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit,By His mercy He saved us, bringing to us new spiritual life (“regeneration”) and new spiritual relationship with God as our Father (“renewing”). How awesome is that?!
It can’t be by any works of our own, because sinners can only produce sinful works – that are unacceptable to God. What we think of as our best and highest righteousness, to God, are “filthy rags”:
ISAIAH 64:6
But we are all like an unclean thing, And all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags; We all fade as a leaf, And our iniquities, like the wind, Have taken us away.
It is the blood of JESUS that saves us from trying to work for our salvation by our own “dead works”:
HEBREWS 9:14
14 how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?
MATTHEW 7:17-20
17 Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. 18 A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. 19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20 Therefore by their fruits you will know them.
2. We are not saved by any religion either:
The Pharisees and Sadducees were VERY religious in the Jewish religion, but look at what Jesus had to say to them:
MATTHEW 23:25-28
25 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you cleanse the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of extortion and self-indulgence. 26 Blind Pharisee, first cleanse the inside of the cup and dish, that the outside of them may be clean also. 27 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but inside are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness. 28 Even so you outwardly appear righteous to men, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.
If you were to dress a dog up to look like a pig, complete with a teeny, curly tail and cloven feet, teach it to squeal and roll around in the mud, would that dog suddenly become a pig?
Jesus told the Pharisees that they are so busy cleaning the “outside of the cup” but the inside is still dirty! Have you ever wanted to drink out of a dirty cup? Me neither! The same idea Jesus expressed to these religious leaders about sepulchers – they were often painted with gleaming white paint, with pretty sculpture on them, but they were tombs! They contained dead, decaying, rotten, stinky bodies! That's what our lives are like without Jesus - spiritually decayed, stinking, rotten, dead!
Here is something else that Jesus said to these religious leaders:
MATTHEW 15:7-9
7 Hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy about you, saying: 8 ‘These people draw near to Me with their mouth, And honor Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me. 9 And in vain they worship Me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’”
John the Baptist had similar things to say to these religious leaders:
MATTHEW 3:7-10
7 But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, “Brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? 8 Therefore bear fruits worthy of repentance, 9 and do not think to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I say to you that God is able to raise up children to Abraham from these stones. 10 And even now the ax is laid to the root of the trees. Therefore every tree which does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.
I think it’s safe to say, that religion just can’t do anything to bring salvation to us, amen?
What about living a 'good', moral life?
Well, we still have the same problem, don’t we?
ROMANS 3:10-12, 23
10 As it is written: “There is none righteous, no, not one; 11 There is none who understands; there is none who seeks after God. 12 They have all turned aside; they have together become unprofitable;
There is none who does good, no, not one.”
JAMES 2:10
10 For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all.
How many sins does it take to reveal whether or not we are a sinner? Just one! That’s why James here says that even if we were to keep the WHOLE Law – but fail on just one point, THAT would be enough to condemn us! So it doesn’t matter how moral a person is, none of us are perfect, except for JESUS! And THAT is why we must seek salvation from HIM and no one else!
We may actually do a lot of good and charitable things; but we still have a sin nature to deal with, and sins that we commit, are in reality high treason against the Holy Throne of God! In ancient and medieval days, treason against a king was usually punishable by death!
How much more are we guilty before the KING of Kings, and LORD of Lords, the Holy One!
No one would ever think of going before a judge and say, "Sure, I murdered that person, but hey, I've done a lot of good for the community too!" Be that as it may, he still committed murder and by the just law he must be punished for it!
C) JESUS IS THE ONLY WAY TO SALVATION
True belief in Christ
ACTS 4:12
12 Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is no other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.
16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. 17 For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. 18 “He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. 36 He who believes in the Son has everlasting life; and he who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.”
The BIBLE talks about “belief” and “faith” but in a very special way. It’s not just believing certain things to be true, it’s to rely upon them, and trust them with your very life – that is the sort of faith that changes our lives! That is the sort of belief God is looking for people to have in JESUS!
He then took a wheel barrel and walked it across and back again, and the crowd went wild! He asked them, “How many of you believe I could put a person in this wheel barrel and push them across this wire?”
The crowd applauded and shouted encouragement to the acrobat. He then pointed to one person and said, “You! Young man, do you think I can do this?”
The young man nodded, and said, “Yes, I believe you can!”
“Alright son, hop in, let’s go across!”
But the young man just turned pale and kept still. He looked at those falls and they looked so dangerous! Even though he believed with his mind, he wasn’t willing to rely on the acrobat, entrust his life to him, to get him safely across and back again.
When we express true belief in Jesus, we are entrusting to Him our very lives, and are counting on Him – ONLY Him to get us safely all the way to heaven! THAT is true, saving faith!
ACTS 16:31
31 So they said, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your household.”
Trust in, rely on, commit your life to . . . the LORD Jesus Christ and He will save you, and change your sinful life to a holy life – day by day, bit by bit, gradually over your life time.
When we are truly saved, God is not just our Creator, but also our Father – our Abba (“Daddy”) Who loves us so dearly, that when we approach His throne of grace in time of prayer, He opens His arms wide and calls us to come sit on His lap and fellowship with Him!
EPHESIANS 3:12
12 in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through faith in Him.
Access: think about that word - You and I don't have access to see the Queen of England, or the President of the United States; HOWEVER, as Christians we have ACCESS to the throne of the LORD God of all creation by means of prayer! AWESOME! We can do so confidently only because we approach Him with the righteousness of Christ placed upon us and are therefore completely presentable to His Holy Eyes (ROM 12:1)!
HEBREWS 4:16
16 Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
ROMANS 5:19
19 For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so also by one Man’s obedience many will be made righteous.
And finally – let’s consider one single word in the following passage about Abraham’s faith and what the result of his faith was:
ROMANS 4:20-25 (The words impute, reckon and count occur in this chapter 12 times, and have the same Greek word used here)
20 He [Abraham] did not waver at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strengthened in faith, giving glory to God, 21 and being fully convinced that what He [GOD] had promised He was also able to perform. 22 And therefore “it was counted to him for righteousness.” 23 Now it was not written for his sake alone that it was imputed to him, 24 but also for us. It shall be imputed to us who believe in Him who raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead, 25 who was delivered up because of our offenses, and was raised because of our justification.
To “impute” is something that bankers and accountants do a lot. What this word means is that something that belongs to someone is credited to another. Let’s say I’m a millionaire and I loaned you $10,000 and today is the day you need to repay me. Do you have my money? No?
You are in some serious debt, but no worries!
I’m going to have you sign over your debt to me – I will pay it for you! Your debt is imputed to me! Now you no longer have the debt. But that’s not all! I am also going to provide for you access to all of my bank accounts, so that all my money is at your resource! My wealth is imputed to you!
That is exactly what the LORD did for Abraham, and for all of us that have faith in God’s promise, and believe that He is able to do for us: by sending Jesus to die for our sins, we are forgiven of our debt, because HE PAID IT FOR US!
And – He also gave to us the riches, and the glory and the purity and holiness of His own righteousness for our VERY OWN!
See EPH 2:7; 3:8; COL 1:27; 2:2.
Now when the LORD GOD sees us, we who have received Jesus as our LORD and Savior, He sees no debt of sin upon us, but instead, sees the righteousness of Christ upon us!
ROM 3:22; 5:17; 10:4-6; 1 COR 1:30; PHIL 1:11; 3:9.
PRAISE the LORD saints! This is the GOSPEL! This is good news!!
HOMEWORK:
This week, please read through ROMANS Chapters 6, 7 and 8.
I look forward to seeing you all again next time when we will talk about the FUNDAMENTALS of the FAITH! Doctrines, or Biblical truth that talks about the Trinity, the Bible being the true Word of God, and much more!
Until then, the LORD bless and keep you all in JESUS NAME!
Ray Comfort: 3 Minutes to Live
