Today we’re continuing our message series called “My Salvation.” People have a lot of ideas about what salvation is all about, but we want to learn what God’s Word says about this crucial topic. Salvation is about being saved from the consequences of sin so that we can have eternal life. It’s being saved from something incredibly bad and entering into something incredibly good.
Colossians 1:13 (ESV) He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son,
The incredibly bad situation that everyone is in is the domain of darkness. This is the realm where sin and Satan reign supreme. Everyone who has never been saved lives in this realm in this life. And they will continue to exist in that realm after death in a place called hell. The realm of darkness is a prison from which there is no escape by ourselves.
In this verse, the He is God. God is the only one who is capable of delivering or rescuing us from this domain of darkness. But when a person is saved, they are transferred from this dark domain into the kingdom of Jesus Christ, God’s beloved son, the kingdom of light. The transformation of salvation occurs in this life and the results exist of eternity in the life to come.
Last Sunday, our message topic was “Why Salvation?” We talked about the problem of sin that everyone has. Everyone is guilty of sin and so lives in the domain of darkness, whether they realize it or not. Those in the domain of darkness have a broken relationship with God.
Today, my message is entitled “Salvation Plan.” We’re going to be talking about God’s plan to deal with the problem of sin we all have. When the problem of sin is dealt with, there are many incredible benefits in the kingdom God. Our relationship with God is restored to what God intended it to be. Our sins are forgiven and we have no more guilt. We are part of the awesome kingdom of God and … We have eternal life, beginning in this life and continuing forever. God had a plan to deal with sin from the very beginning, before creation, before the fall.
1 Peter 1:20 (ESV) He [Jesus] was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you.
God was not surprised when Adam and Eve fell and sinned for the first time. Jesus was ready to put God’s plan into action when the time was right. We need to understand God’s salvation plan, accept it for our own lives and tell others how they can be saved and become part of God’s kingdom. God’s plan of salvation did not begin in the New Testament, but was revealed immediately after Adam and Eve’s fall into sin. Let’s begin by looking at …
Salvation promised
God had instructed Adam and Eve to not eat of one tree in the garden of Eden, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. However, Adam and Eve, listened to the serpent and disobeyed God, thereby committing the very first sin. God pronounced a curse on the man and the woman, on humanity and on the universe because of the fall into sin. God also pronounced a curse on the serpent, who was Satan. Sin had broken humanities relationship with God and plunged us into Satan’s domain, the domain of darkness. In the serpent’s curse was God’s promise of …
God’s salvation plan
Genesis 3:15 (ESV) I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”
The enmity between the serpent and the woman meant not just that we wouldn’t like snakes. This enmity meant that mankind and Satan would be at perpetual warfare. Satan seeking to destroy all mankind, made in the image of God. In the second part of God’s promise, we see that someone in the future would fatally bruise or crush Satan’s head. That someone was Jesus Christ.
The serpent, Satan, would bruised Jesus’ heel, as Jesus died on the cross. But Jesus would rise again from the dead and destroy the works of Satan. And one day, Jesus will cast Satan and his demons, along with all unbelievers into the eternal lake of fire, hell itself. Adam and Eve were banished from the presence of God in the garden paradise. Yet we see God’s kindness and I believe a prophetic picture in …
Genesis 3:21 (ESV) And the LORD God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them.
This verse indicates that God sacrificed some animals and clothed Adam and Eve with their skins to cover up their nakedness. I believe that this is a picture of first of all the Old Testament sacrifices that made atonement for sin. And this action by God looked ahead down through the millennia to the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross, whose blood would forgive and cover our sins. The prophet Isaiah, thousands of years later, spoke of the …
Hope of a coming salvation
Isaiah 51:6 (ESV) Lift up your eyes to the heavens, and look at the earth beneath; for the heavens vanish like smoke, the earth will wear out like a garment, and they who dwell in it will die in like manner; but my salvation will be forever, and my righteousness will never be dismayed.
Isaiah looks ahead at a future that is still in the future for us, thousands of years later. In this prophetic vision, Isaiah reveals that the heavens and earth will not last forever. Nor will the people, who wear out and die when their life span is spent. But notice would is eternal, God’s salvation will be forever and His righteousness would never fail. Even though the heavens and earth will one day be destroyed by fire, those who are saved will live eternally in a new heavens and a new earth. Isaiah speaks of this hope in verse …
Isaiah 51:11 (ESV) And the ransomed of the LORD shall return and come to Zion with singing; everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain gladness and joy, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.
The ransomed of the Lord are those who have been saved and rescued from the domain of darkness. They will come to Zion, the city of God, the heavenly Jerusalem. Isiah is speaking of eternal life, beginning in this life and lasting for eternity in heaven. The joy of the saved will be everlasting. The sorrow and sighing of this life will be distant memories.
So, we see from the earliest chapters of the Old Testament and continuing with the prophets, that salvation was coming through a yet to be born Messiah. The message of the Old Testament was that keeping the laws of God perfectly was impossible. So, no one can be saved by keeping the law. This does not mean that there is no value in keeping God’s law. Yet, everyone is guilty of breaking that law in multiple ways. So, no one in the Old Testament time or the New Testament time in which we live is saved by being good enough. Those who were saved in the Old Testament were saved by putting their faith in a coming Messiah. He would be the one to bring forgiveness of sins and salvation. Many places in the prophets as …
Salvation prophesied
The Old Testament prophets spoke to the people of their time calling them to repentance and putting their faith in God. These same prophets also looked into the future and told of a coming Messiah and of an eternal future with God. These prophets still speak to us today and in them …
God calls to salvation
Isaiah 55:6-7 (ESV) “Seek the LORD while he may be found; call upon him while he is near; let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the LORD, that he may have compassion on him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.
We see that even though salvation is available to all, it is not automatically applied to all. Each person must do their part in order to receive salvation. In these verses, the prophet Isaiah instructs us to seek the Lord to call on Him. In order to seek the Lord, a person must give up their wicked ways and unrighteous thoughts, which is what repentance is all about. When someone seeks God and repents, God will pardon or forgive their sin. God calls everyone to receive His salvation, yet many do not answer His call. The prophet Jeremiah speaks of …
God made a new covenant
Jeremiah 31:33-34 (ESV) For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”
These verses speak of God making a new covenant, a different covenant than the old covenant that God made with Israel in the Old Testament. While the old covenant had the law written on tablets of stone, the new covenant would be written on people’s hearts. There would no longer be a special class of people, the priests, who only could enter God’s presence and know Him.
In the new covenant, everyone would have a relationship with and be able to communicate with the Lord. Everyone would be able to confess their sins directly to God and be forgiven. That is the new covenant that is available to us today.
Jesus taught us that God still calls to and seeks after the lost, those who are not yet saved. He calls them to seek Him and repent of their sins. Yet, people must respond to God’s call. God’s call is not simply whether you wish to go to heaven. Everyone wants to go to heaven. But in order to get there, one must repent and turn away from your sin. Just as God seeks and instructs people to seek Him, so we must do the same as believers. Moving now to the New Testament, we see that God’s …
Salvation provided
Even our calendars today are broken into two parts, BC and AD. The birth of Christ divided all of history into the time before Jesus and the time after Him. As people who live in the new covenant era, we look back on the salvation that Jesus accomplished for us by His death on the cross and resurrection. Salvation was provided and made available to everyone …
Through God’s love
Ephesians 2:4-5 (ESV) But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—
We all are guilty of sin, but God had mercy on us. God had a great love for us. These verses tell us that people who are not yet saved are dead in their sin, they are the walking dead. Yet when a person is saved, the walking dead and made alive with Christ. A person is saved, not through their own works, but through God’s grace and great love. It was God’s great love for us that caused Jesus to choose to die on the cross, that we might be saved. And when we are saved, we are …
Renewed by the Holy Spirit
Titus 3:4-6 (ESV) But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior,
Here we have a wonderful and not widely read summary of God’s salvation plan. God saves people out of his own goodness, kindness and love. People are saved, not because they do good things, but because God is merciful. God’s mercy gives us what we don’t deserve. Because of our sin, each one of us is guilty and deserves to spend eternity in hell apart from the presence of God. Yet, because of God’s great love, He saved us and renews us through the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit lives inside of every true believer and speaks to us continually. God has provided for us salvation through Jesus Christ our Savior.
These truths are something to praise God for. If you’ve been saved for a while, sometimes we forget how wonderful salvation truly is. We forget, but for God’s great love and mercy, we would still be lost, wandering in a domain of darkness like so many people. Sometimes we get angry at people who are lost, for their sin and wickedness. Rather, we must ask God that we would have His love and compassion for the lost all around us. When we contemplate the vast difference between being saved and lost, between heaven and hell, between following God and living for ourselves, it should give us a powerful motivation to reach out to those who are not yet saved.
God loves each and every person that He has created with a deep and powerful love. He loved Adam and Eve even after they sinned. God had a salvation plan to save people from their sin and restore them to a relationship with Him. He promised that plan to Adam and Eve before they even left the garden of Eden.
The prophets prophesied of a coming salvation and a new covenant. We are privileged to live in the last days, the time of the new covenant. A time when we can look back at what Jesus accomplished through His death and resurrection. Salvation is available to all who repent and put their faith in Jesus.