Accept Jesus Christ as your PERSONAL Savior

Introduction

This is your gentle reminder, congregation, of something you probably already know, but that’s why we’re reminding you that next Sunday begins our next teaching quarter. And so I want to pause right now to thank our teachers, those from this past quarter, those who will be teaching and have been feverishly preparing for the next quarter. We’re all of those who have been a part of our wonderful teaching program here. And I think everybody knows your assignment for the next quarter. And if you’re going to be in the auditorium class, we will be studying the subject of the spirit world. It’s a study I’ve done before in other places, a study I did enjoy. We’re going to kind of delve deep into that spiritual realm and those spiritual beings.

We’re going to talk about God the Father and Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit and angels. But we’ll also talk about the dark side of that spirit world, Satan and demons and demon possessions and really kind of almost every facet of that spirit world. And I’m looking forward to that quarter and hope that you will be a part of that if you’re in the auditorium class. We’re doing things a little bit different. We don’t have a book that we’re going to hand out. You’ll have a book, hopefully, by the end of the quarter, but we’re going to hand out each lesson in preparation for the next one. And so if you’re going to be a part of the auditorium class, there are sheets on both of the tables in the foyer.

So grab lesson one on your way out. We’ll do kind of an introduction to the spirit world. And then we’re going to look at the concept of God in three persons. That’s difficult to describe and to illustrate concept of there being one God, and yet at the same time there’s somehow three: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. So that’ll be lesson one. And again, please grab a copy of that if you’re going to be in an auditorium class. And you can grab that on your way out.

And today’s question is, are you old enough? Are you old enough to remember having to go to bed and go to sleep not knowing something? Maybe a question such as this. You’re watching a movie, and someone says, What else has he been in? Someone says, Oh, what are the lyrics to that song that go like this? Or do you remember who won the 1976 World Series? There was a time in which such questions would be asked, and you would just have to go to bed not knowing the answer. And sometimes that would keep you up at night, trying to remember what was that. That’s before the invention of the internet and our smartphones. Now we just instantly, when those questions are asked, everybody reaches in their purse or in their pocket and grabs their phone and goes to the magical answer box of Google.

Now I’m not saying that just because you Google it, you end up with the right answer. But odds are you can find the answer, and you just instantly now you know all those things that you used to worry and fret about and just not know. But there’s oftentimes in which not only do we not know something, but the second question is this have you ever known something to be true that wasn’t really true? Again, if if you’re my age, you can remember not knowing stuff and having to go to bed with that ignorance, but you also probably remember this axiom of truth from our childhood, and that is that if you went swimming less than 30 minutes after you ate, you were probably going to die.

That was just a in my childhood, that was sure way to die is eat and jump right in the creek or the pond and go swimming. There’s other things that we just accept as truth that just aren’t really true. Did you know this that Napoleon really wasn’t a short guy? On average, he was probably taller than most Frenchmen of his time. But we’ve just accepted that almost historical truth that Napoleon was a little short guy. And sometimes that ignorance, believing something to be true when it’s not really true, creeps into the religious realm. You know this, don’t you? That three kings did not visit Jesus at the manger when he was born. We don’t read of three kings visiting him at all. There were three wise men, but they didn’t visit him at the manger.

He was possibly as old as two years old when they came and visited. And we don’t really know how many they were. And so you see, it’s very easy to kind of not know stuff, but it’s also equally easy to know stuff that’s not really true. And sometimes that’s okay. It’s okay to not go swimming 30 minutes after you eat. It’s okay to think Napoleon was short. But sometimes that which we know to be true and is not true, can actually be pretty dangerous. And that is certainly true when it comes into the spiritual, biblical realm. You’ve heard this phrase, I know. It’s a phrase that is generally spoken of and accepted in the religious world, and that is if you want to be saved from your sins, if you want to come in contact and in fellowship with God and Jesus Christ, then you need to accept Jesus Christ as your personal Savior.

You ever heard that?

That’s accepted as truth in the religious world, but the problem is that’s not the truth. There’s no biblical premise for the idea of praying some kind of sinner’s prayer. We might offer this illustration to counter that thought. The Apostle Paul, before he became an Apostle Paul, before he became a Christian, was known as Saul of Tarsus. And remember, Jesus confronted him on the road to Damascus, told him, after he had blinded him, told him to go into the city and wait there, and somebody would tell him what he needed to do. That somebody turned out to be a man by the name of Ananias. When Ananias finds him three days later, after he had been blinded and his whole world had been turned upside down, this devout religious man had found that he was completely wrong.

He was fighting against God rather than for God, and that he was not persecuting a ragtag bunch of ridiculous followers. He was in fact persecuting the Son of God himself. And the text tells us that this man was praying. And I want to profit that if anybody could have prayed through for salvation, it would have been Saul in those three days. I can’t imagine how long and how fervent and tear-filled and repentant those prayers were. But when Ananias approaches him and finds him praying, he says, And why are you waiting? Arise and to be baptized, wash away your sins, calling on the name of the Lord. There was a man who was praying, but he was told to do something else. And so what we sometimes believe and maybe accept as a long time truth isn’t always the truth.

1. Scripture Calls Us to Follow Christ, Not Just Accept Him

And so let’s talk about this phrase. Accept Jesus Christ as your personal Savior. Let’s talk about what that phrase means and how it can be understood in the biblical sense. We’ve talked about this common phrase and how it is heard and how it’s often understood in the religious world. But we have something more powerful. Get ready for the groans, the corny part of the sermon. We’ve got a better search engine than Google. Let’s go to the Word of God and see what it says about how we can be saved from our sins and what it really means to accept Jesus. And so let’s talk about what that truly means. First of all, we need to understand that Scripture calls upon us to follow Christ, not just accept him.

The plaintiff cry of Scripture is not follow, is not accept me, it is follow me. And there is a difference. It’s more than just semantics, because accepting Jesus is kind of passive. But following Jesus is inherently active.

Being read in our Bible reading there in Matthew chapter 16, would you turn back there? Matthew chapter 16. After Peter had made what we sometimes call the great confession, when asked of Jesus, who do you say that I am? Peter says, You’re the Christ, the Son of the living God. So, in a sense, Peter accepted Jesus. He accepted who Jesus was. He was the Christ. But then, when further pressed, Jesus begins to talk about what he must suffer, his crucifixion and the events surrounding that. And Peter dares to confront Jesus and says, No, Jesus, that’s not going to happen. And then Jesus turns it around on him. Are you in Matthew chapter 16? Peter took him aside, verse 22, and began to rebuke him, saying, Far be it from you, Lord, this shall not happen to you.

We might say of Peter on this day that he understood and accepted the person of Jesus, but he failed to understand and accept the mission of Jesus. So he wanted to accept Jesus, but now Jesus is going to tell him what he needs to do. But he turned and said to Peter, get behind me, Satan. Get behind me, my adversary. We’ve talked about this in another lesson, but it bears repeating here. What Jesus was saying to Peter, Jesus wasn’t saying, get away from me, Peter. He was saying, get behind me. Peter was out in front telling Jesus how things were going to be, and Jesus is telling Peter how things are going to be. You don’t need to be in front of me, telling me what to do, Peter.

You need to be behind me. So get behind me. You are an offense to me. You’re not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men. And Jesus said to his disciples, if anyone desires to come after me, that’s the same word when he says, get behind me. Get behind me, Satan, Peter. And if anyone desires to come behind me or after me, see, we are to be followers of Jesus. Let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. Acceptance is passive. Following recognizes that we are to be his followers, that we’re to be obedient to him, and that we’re doing something in our service to Jesus Christ.

2. Conform to Christ, Not Conform Him to Our Liking

Is that we are called to conform to Christ and to his image rather than trying to conform him to our liking. Again, isn’t that what Peter was doing here? I accept that you’re the Son of God, but I don’t accept that you have to die upon a cross, that you have to suffer and die. But Jesus was saying to Peter, Peter, follow me. You’re not the leader, I’m the leader. Follow me. And so in the same sense, if we are to, if we want to call it accepting Jesus, I would call it following Jesus, then we need to understand that we are to conform to him rather than trying to conform Jesus and the idea of Jesus, the idea of a Christianity, the idea of the church, into something of my liking.

This will challenge us. It will challenge our preconceptions, and it’ll war against our desires. True Christianity means that we not just accept Jesus, but that we follow Jesus. I’ve said before that this is a bit of a hyperbole hyperbolic statement, but I think it’s generally true of the religious world. That everybody wants a Savior. But nobody wants a Lord. We want a Savior. We want our sins washed away. We all want to go to heaven when we die. But do we accept Him and follow Him as our Lord? Which means that He doesn’t just wash away our sins and punch our ticket to heaven, but that He as our Lord gets to tell us what to do.

Jesus calls upon His followers to be transformed, to be changed. And to truly follow Him means that we have to allow ourselves to be confronted by Him. And then conform to Him. Look with me in the book of Romans, chapter 8. Romans 8 is a list of the blessings that are ours if we’re in this relationship. But it also speaks to us to the responsibility. Romans chapter 8 and verse 29. The apostle Paul says, Romans 8 29, for whom he foreknew, that’s God, whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. We are to be conformed to the image of his son. Paul would use similar language later in this book and talk about being transformed, not conformed to this world, but transformed into that.

3. Called to Serve, Not to Be Served

A change takes place. That involves storming the will and changing who we are, not into some better version of ourselves that we might want to be. And it doesn’t mean modeling and modifying and changing religion and Christianity to suit me. It means that I’m going to open up the word of God. And I’m going to say, show me who I am to be. Tell me, and I’ll do your bidding. We also understand that the idea of accepting Jesus as our Savior, which truly means following him as our Lord, means that Jesus has called us to serve, not to be served. Again, much of the religious world and religious rhetoric emphasizes the blessings of God. We love to talk about what God has done for us, what God is doing for us, and gloriously what he has prepared for us.

And don’t misunderstand me.

But the same scripture that talks about the way God blesses us and what he has done and will do for us also emphasizes the way of the cross. In that passage where Jesus was chastising Peter and telling him to get where he belonged, behind in a following position, he says, if anyone would follow me, he must take up his cross, deny himself, and follow me. The emphasis there is not upon the blessings that God bestows upon us, as great as they are. But the emphasis upon what we are to do for him and in turn for others. Now it is true that God serves us. In fact, Jesus would say of himself in Matthew chapter 20, that the Son of Man, the most common way of describing himself, did not come to be served, but to serve.

That we too are to be servants, that we’re to be humble and serve God, which means serving others. Jesus calls us to follow him in a life of servitude. And the biblical concept of salvation, which is so greatly misunderstood in our religious world, and is it possible that it’s also possibly misunderstood by us as well? That the biblical concept of salvation does more than look over its shoulder at its sinful past and recognize that we’re now washed clean. The biblical concept of salvation does more than look at our present. The biblical concept of salvation looks also to the future and to what we can be, and to the outworking of our salvation. I want to look at two passages of scripture, starting in Ephesians chapter 2.

4. Saved From Sin, Saved for God

We need to understand that the true, full meaning of our Christianity, of accepting Jesus or more properly, following Jesus as our Savior and Lord, I’m turning to Ephesians chapter 2, means that not only have we been saved from sin, we have been saved for God. Let me say that again. The true essence of what it fully means to be a Christian means that not only have we been saved from sin, but we’ve been saved for God. Jesus’ blood washes away our sins, which means at some future date I get to go to heaven. But if that’s the sum total of our view of Christianity, we’ve missed so much. Now again, don’t misunderstand me. That’s a part of our Christianity. But Jesus has washed away our sins and cleansed us and made us a new creature, not just so that we could set on the sidelines until heaven comes, but he has saved us for God.

He has saved us so that we might be conformed to His Son, that we might serve. Look what Ephesians chapter 2 in this passage that talks about us being saved by the grace of God, not by our own works. Notice his conclusion in Ephesians 2 verse 10, for we are his workmanship. What we are is because of him, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. We have been created. Now, I don’t know whether that’s talking about the creation of Genesis chapter 1, or whether that’s, I think probably talking about our creation when we became new creatures, when we have been washed and cleansed and made new and whole again, that we were created in Christ Jesus for good works.

God washed us from our sins so that we could be somebody and do something good. Look how Paul put it to his young friend Titus in Titus chapter 2. Titus chapter 2. Let’s start our reading here in verse 11. Titus 2, verse 11 says, For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. Now he’s talking about the obvious subject of salvation, that is again, he repeats, by the grace of God. But to what end? To what purpose? Teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lust, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age, looking for the glorious hope, the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for himself his own special people, zealous for good works.

Do you see how Paul to Titus there combines both concepts? Yes, he has washed us, we have been saved by the grace of God, so that we can look forward to that blessed hope and the glorious appearing. In a word, we can look forward to heaven. But he also says that that’s not the only purpose.

That we might be zealous for good works. So we don’t just accept the blessing of salvation. We accept the confirmation into being like Jesus, to being servants, to being those who die to our own selfish, sinful wills and whims. And we’re conformed to his image now. So that we might live godly and righteous lives in service to God and to our fellow man. You see, it’s more than just simply semantics to say that the New Testament hasn’t just called upon us to accept Jesus as our personal Savior. The plaintive cry of the New Testament is to follow him.

Conclusion

But have you accepted every part of him that Peter had failed to do later in that chapter? Are you truly following him? Has it transformed your life in every sense of the word? Has it transformed your life morally and ethically? Has it transformed your life in the area of love and grace and forgiveness for your fellow man? As it transformed your life that you’re zealous for good works, serve God and your fellow man. Because then and only then have we really accepted Jesus as our Savior.

And in verse 6, as you therefore have received Christ Jesus, the Lord. So you’ve received Him. I guess that’s a synonym for accepting Him. You’ve received or accepted Jesus the Lord. So walk in Him. See, it’s more than just passively receiving, rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith as you have been taught, abounding in it in thanksgiving. Then he would go on to say in verses 11 and 12 In Him you were also circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ, which he describes in verse 12, buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the working of God who raised him from the dead.

That’s what it really means to receive Jesus, to accept him. It’s to follow him, to be immersed in him, to be washed of our sins by his blood, by the act of baptism, having believed in him, confessed our faith and repented of our sins, and realizing that again that we’ve it was more than just being washed from our sins, but we have been washed for service to him, to walk in him, to serve in him, and to follow him. Would you follow him this morning? Can we help you in the beginning that walk of not just accepting him, but obeying him and following him and accepting him as your Lord and ruler? Can we help you in that way anyway this morning? Then let it be known as together we stand and as we sing.