The Order Of Salvation (Part2)

If you would, bow with me in a word of prayer again. Fathers, we come now to your word, to hear what you have for us. I pray that you would instruct our hearts. Unless the Lord teaches our hearts, the preacher preaches in vain. So we pray that you would strengthen those of us who know you, that you would give us health and strength in this new life that we have in Christ.

And I pray that as we talk about these things, that those who don't know you as the merciful Savior you are, that they would hear the gospel and turn. Be at work in our midst and glorify your name. Amen. Last week we looked at the beginning of the order of salvation, the first three steps, which were election, calling, and regeneration. today will be very similar.

It's just going to be a very quick outline. Each of the things we talk about could be whole books. In fact, there are many books written on each of these topics. So we're doing a survey. I hope you'll have questions. I hope you'll search out the Scriptures and look for people who can help you find those answers.

But we want to take a big look at what God does to save us. So we're walking through the order of salvation. You had a handout last week. I think I saw it. Is it in the bulletin again today, the order of salvation? Yeah.

So you have those nine steps there, and you can see the arrow pointing upward. It finishes up with next week, let's see, sanctification, perseverance, and glorification. But today we're looking at the middle three, which are conversion, justification, and adoption. And in thinking about the reasons why we do this, I thought one, we talked about some of those reasons last week, and I thought another reason is this.

I don't know about you guys, but when I'm on a long trip, I like to have maps. And not just so I don't get lost, but I like to know how far it is to the next stop. I get really antsy in the car. When it's really bad, I'm counting the mile markers. Because I know what exit it is where we get off. We don't have GPS, so we just use the gazetteers and the atlases and the mile markers still.

This is kind of the same. looking at a map on a long trip can be really helpful for us to know how far we come and how far we have to go and where we are just what going on I hope it strengthens us and encourages us even as we in these messages unfold the gospel It's like looking at a map on a long trip. Today we're going to look at conversion, justification, and adoption. Last week, the main theme that tied the three themes last, the three ideas last week was God did it.

God saved us. He elected us. He called us out of our sin and our death, spiritual death, and He regenerated us. He gave us new life and ears to hear the gospel. We summarized it with Titus 3, 4 through 5. But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, He saved us.

Those first three steps are totally and completely God's doing in our lives. So this week, the first step we look at is conversion. and this is where we see the merciful work of God in our lives first surfacing. This is something that we participate in and we experience. We even have the sense that we choose to come to Christ in conversion. That's a real experience.

But all the work that God's been doing, it surfaces in conversion. And conversion is described this way. We willingly respond to the gospel call, repenting of sin and placing our faith in Christ for salvation. The next step is justification. This is a consequence of faith. And justification is an instantaneous, right away, legal act of God in which he declares that our sins are forgiven and Christ's righteousness is our own.

Now, if that statement doesn't stun you, you need to read it again and think about it some more. All right, God instantaneously declares our sins forgiven, and Christ's righteousness is our own in justification. And finally, we'll look at adoption, and adoption is another step taken by God. He changes our identity and our relationship to himself by making the one he has justified his child.

And it's an act of God in which he makes us members of his family. The reason I ran through all three of those with just brief definitions is because as we read our chapter today, it's Romans 8, it's one of the greatest chapters of the Bible. You could spend years in this chapter thinking about it, praying about it, living it out, rejoicing and giving thanks for the promises in this chapter We going to look at the first 17 verses and I want you to have your lenses on looking for justification as we defined it conversion as we defined it and also adoption as we've defined it here.

I think you'll see those in this text. And here it goes. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. We just sang that. No condemnation now I dread. Jesus and all in him is mine.

Do you see justification? In that line. There's no condemnation now for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law weakened by the flesh could not do. By sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh.

And for sin he condemned sin in the flesh. In order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us. Who walk not according to the flesh but according to the spirit. For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit.

For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law. Indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. Did you see conversion, the idea of conversion in that section? there are those who walk by the spirit and they're who have their mindset on things of spirit and those who have their mindset on things of the flesh it's a picture of conversion we're going to talk about that in just a minute here and then uh that verse nine you however are not in the flesh but in the spirit if in fact the spirit of god dwells in you anyone who does not have the spirit of christ does not belong to him but if christ is in you although the body is dead because of sin the spirit is life because of righteousness.

If the spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his spirit who dwells in you. So then brothers we are debtors not to the flesh to live according to the flesh for if you live according to the flesh you will die but if by the spirit you put to death the deeds of the body you will live. For all who are led by the spirit of God are sons of God.

For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear but you have received the spirit of adoption as sons by whom we cry Abba Father the spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God and if children then heirs heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him We not going to spend a lot of time looking at that text because we doing more of a systematic study We're going to be jumping around again this week, like we did last week. But I want you to just note here, and keep it in mind, that we see this order of salvation being worked out in the scriptures. And even at the end of that, in verse 17, there's the idea of perseverance and glorification, which we'll look at next week.

But we see justification. There's no condemnation left for us if we're in Christ Jesus. He was. God condemned sin on the cross. There's conversion. No longer are we people with our mindset on the flesh and on the things of the flesh.

We are people with our mindset on the spirit and things of the spirit. And then there's adoption, starting in verse 14. God's spirit doesn't make us enslaved to sin or enslaved to anything, except maybe love, except maybe to Christ, the one who sets us free. We're slaves to righteousness. but the spirit that we have is a spirit of adoption. The spirit by whom we cry, Abba Father.

So let's start in with conversion. We'll talk about conversion here for just a few minutes. I want to ask you some questions. And I want you to think about these and see if you can answer in your own mind quickly but give it some thought. What is the difference between a believer and a demon? both know things about the gospel. Right?

The difference is one is God's friend and the other is God's enemy. What about Zacchaeus and Herod? If you've been reading through Luke, what's the difference between Zacchaeus and Herod? Both of them desired to see Jesus. but one received the Savior and the other abused the Savior. What about John and Judas Iscariot? Both of them listened to Jesus' teaching for three years but one was his beloved disciple and the other was a devil.

It really becomes clear that knowing things about the Bible, being interested in Jesus, and sitting under good teaching for a period of time are not what saves us. we're saved when we repent and believe this is called conversion conversion is a two-part action you can see it in the definition there we willingly so that god's sovereign work in our lives regenerating us and calling us having elected us before he said let there be light all of those things it surfaces and we willingly respond to the gospel. And what that looks like is we repent of sin and we place our faith in Christ for salvation. Repent and believe.

It was John the Baptist's message. It was Jesus' message. It was the Apostle Paul's message. It was the Apostle Peter's message. Repent and believe. We're doing a book, a study on repentance in Men of Faith.

And so what I'm going to tell you today is just barely scratching the surface of all that we're learning and wrestling with this idea, but I want to highlight a couple things for you for what repentance is. To repent means to change your mind about something. To repent means to turn directions. We read it in Ezekiel 18. There were those who were doing wicked things, and they turned and did good, and they found life, right?

And then there were those who did righteous things, and they turned and did wickedness, and they died. Both of them repented. One repented in a better way than the other. But in both cases, there was a changing of the mind, a turning of the ways based on that changing of mind. When we think about repentance, a lot of times we just say it's confession. But it's not just confession.

There are people who can confess their sins who don't repent of them. Repentance is to renounce, well, we're going to get to it, but it's to renounce my sin, to renounce every fiber of my sinful being, it's a negative action it's a letting go of something it's a turning away from something do you remember how we described sin last week? it affects our whole persons Ephesians 2 we carry out the deeds of the body and the mind it's not just my mind that sins when I sin it's not just my eyes that sin when I sin it's not just my mouth that sins when I sin rather the sin of my life is simply the fruit of my sinful heart. Apart from Christ, I am a sinner And people aren sinners because they sin People sin because they sinners Look at Isaiah 55 It one of my favorite invitations to the gospel that we going to pick up in verses 6 and 7 Isaiah 55, 6 and 7.

Seek the Lord while he may be found. Call upon him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his top three sins. Is that what he says? Let the wicked forsake the things that are kind of bringing destruction to his life, but he can keep his pet sins that are more socially refined. No, he says, let the wicked forsake his way.

And he goes on and emphasizes, and the unrighteous man, his thoughts. There's no part of me that's off touch when I repent and believe in Christ for salvation. It's my whole person that repents. Not just parts of me, not just certain sins. Although it might be particular sins that we repent of. and as we go through this ongoing process of being in Christ, we do repent of particular sins.

But saving faith happens when we repent of our sin, of the way we've been going, of the thoughts we've had, of our sinful heart, for which there's no cure apart from the gospel. Let him return to the Lord that he may have compassion on him and to our God for he will abundantly pardon. my entire course of life was set on destruction so God pled with me turn and live second thing we need to recognize that our greatest offense in sinning is not toward one another but it's toward the holy God who created us I'd like to direct your attention to 2 Samuel chapter 12. And like last week, if you don't know where all these books are, you're slow getting there, don't feel like you're failing if you're not turning to all these pages.

But those of you who want to, turn to 2 Samuel 12. And those of you who would rather, you can listen along. I'm going to start in verse 9. We know the story. David committed adultery with Bathsheba, had her husband killed. David is the man after God's own heart, supposedly.

He's the king of Israel. And he does this atrocious thing. Nathan comes and rebukes him. And it's a great story. You can read it sometime. But I'm going to pick up in verse 9.

This is what Nathan says. In response to David sin Now did David sin against people Absolutely he did He killed one committed adultery with another He sinned against his whole nation But the first thing Nathan says to him in verse 9 why have you despised the word of the Lord to do what is evil in his sight? And David picks up on this in Psalm 51 verse 4.

He says, against you, talking to the Lord, you and you only have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight. That's not to say we're off the hook from repenting and confessing our sins to one another and forgiving one another. It just means that saving faith, conversion, has to do with a repentance that recognizes my offense is against the holy God who created me.

If we only live in a horizontal plane, if we're only worried about what other people think of our sins, and we're only concerned about getting their approval, we don't know what it means to be saved because we don't know what it means to have sinned. But here's the thing, after doing this negative action of repenting, remember this is our whole person who's repented, we must then entrust ourselves entirely to Jesus. Because where else will we turn?

What are we going to fill our thoughts with? Who's going to guide us if we've renounced everything we were? What way are we going to walk? This is the introduction of faith. Repent and believe. Repent and have faith in Jesus.

Our dog, Brady, when she was a young dog, like a year and two old, she would jump. If there was a ledge, she was going to jump on top of it. If it was less than six feet, she would try to get up there. We were at Debbie's grandma's house, her farmhouse, and she had a back porch area with a stairwell down the side, and there was a half wall, like a four-foot wall or something, and the stairwell was on the other side.

And our dog thought that was a ledge to jump onto. too. So she assumed that was the case, right? Jumps, and she repented. But too late. She yelped before she hit anything. She yelped as soon as she saw that there was nothing there to land on except stairs, like eight, nine, ten feet down, wherever she would land.

She repented. She changed her mind when she saw the situation she was in, but she had no hope to change her course. So when we repent, when we repent of our sin we need to change our course and trust in Jesus Faith in Jesus means you believe his way of doing life is the right way That why faith we going to talk about being justified by faith We're justified by faith alone, but faith is never alone.

A justifying faith is a faith that has fruit. That's why when John would preach and when Paul would preach, they would say, repent and bear fruit in keeping with repentance. Because we've given up the course we were on with the fruit we were getting then, the fruit that, the fruit was death. when we were living in our sin. And now that we are in Christ, the fruit we get is righteousness and it leads to life.

So faith is not simply understanding an idea or even just accepting that idea as true. Saving faith involves receiving the truth in an active and ongoing way. If I've given up my own ways, where does that lead me? Which way will I go? Who will guide me? And in this frame of reference, we hear Jesus say, come to me. all who labor and are heavy laden, you're getting that fruit that produces death in your life, come to me and I will give you rest.

Take my yoke upon you. And learn from me. For I am gentle and lowly in heart and you will find rest for your souls. Have you ever seen a monkey trap? I've shared this with some of you, but it's just such a good illustration for what it means to repent and believe. I want to share it with those of you who maybe haven't heard it.

A monkey trap, I guess, I've heard you can do the same thing with raccoons. I don't know. But if it's true, we can have fun here too. What they do is they find, the person who's doing this, the tribesmen or whatever, will find a coconut and split it and put something inside of it, like an orange. and then they'll tie the coconut back together and bore a hole in it that's big enough for a monkey to put its hand in but not big enough for the monkey to pull its hand out with the orange.

Make sense? And what will happen is the monkey will reach in there and grab this fruit and the monkey won't let go of that fruit for anything and the tribesman can come up and just grab the animal. The monkey's going ballistic, trying to get away but it can't let go of what it's grabbed onto. So you see, let's say there's a tree right there that the monkey could scurry up and be safe.

Repent and believe means drop the orange and run up the tree, right? Drop your sin. and run to Jesus and be saved. Why hold on to what you can't have anyway? What's only going to lead to your death? Repent and believe. Conversion.

Justification, then. This is one of my absolute favorite topics in the Scriptures. Romans 3 blows my mind. But before you turn to Romans 3, I want you to look at a problem. I'm going to set this up. justification with a problem that we have in our thinking. First look at Proverbs 17, verse 15.

Proverbs 17, verse 15 says, He who justifies the wicked and he who condemns the righteous, both alike are an abomination to the Lord. hold that thought or keep your finger there and I'm going to read Romans chapter 4 verse 5 and to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly his faith is counted as righteousness when God saved me I was a wicked person who he declared righteous and he did that by condemning the only righteous person who ever lived But Proverbs 17.15 says, whoever does that is an abomination to the Lord. So something has to have happened between Proverbs 17 and Romans 4.5 to explain this. And that is in Romans 3, among other places.

But Romans 3 was really clear. Paul says it this way in 2 Corinthians 5.21, For our sake God made him who knew no sin to be sin. For us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. That's justification. But how does God do that? How does God justify sinful people and remain a just judge?

To justify, by the way, means to declare righteous. A lot of people have a definition of justification that means it's just as if I never sinned. And that's partway true. I think it's better to think of justification as righteous in God's sight. It's not just that you're innocent. It's that you're positively righteous. is that you've actually done everything right.

Not just that he doesn know you or that you have a blank slate Romans 3 starting in verse 21 But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law although the law and the prophets bear witness to it, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. mystery solved, although there's still a mystery, because Jesus is a pretty mysterious, in some ways, character. God made flesh, died for my sin, I'm in him now by faith.

There are big things to understand, but anyway, we understand partway here by seeing what God did. Verse 25, well, through the redemption of his blood, that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, that's a satisfaction for God's wrath, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance, he had passed over former sins.

It was to show his righteousness at the present time so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. Jesus is the reason. It's because God himself took our sin and gave us his righteousness. That's justification. Jesus takes my sin and I get his righteousness. And I get that.

Romans 3 says three times in verse 22, 25, and 26, how do I lay hold of that? I'm justified by faith. Justified by faith. So we saw in conversion that that faith is how I lay hold of the new life in Christ, right? That's believing faith is a faith that follows repentance. I repent and believe.

I follow. I trust myself to him. And now we see this faith is what God looks at to credit to our account Christ's righteousness. It's an amazing doctrine. So Romans 4, the next page in my Bible, Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift, but as his due. And to the one who does not work, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness. just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works.

Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin. Abraham is the great example In chapter 15 verse 3 it says Abraham believed God and God credited to him his righteousness That where you get the idea that God credits righteousness to those who believe We don't have to work for our own righteousness.

Christ is our righteousness. And the thing about that in Genesis 15 is, this is before Abraham had done anything. All he'd done is just believed. Justification. God makes us righteous in his sight through faith. Third, adoption.

Notice last week when we looked at regeneration, we saw God almost like a physician who resuscitates a dead body. Or brings it to life. In justification, God is our divine judge who in his courtroom, he extends mercy and pardons our sin. when we have faith in Christ. And now in adoption, we see God as our Father. Now, I've met people who think that God is the Father of all people.

And that can be true in a way, because He's our Creator, right? We all have our origin in Him. But it's not true in the sense that we talk about it with adoption. this sense in which God is our Father is a special relationship between God and His redeemed it's a special privilege of the Spirit-led people remember in Romans 8, 14-17 all those who have the Spirit of God are sons of God it's a special privilege to call God our Father for those of us who have faith in Christ and who are led by His Spirit this is the next step in the order of salvation and I want to turn your attention and maybe you want to turn your Bibles to John chapter 1.

We're going to see what I think is the common theme for today and that is faith. We saw that it's faith that's involved in our conversion. We saw that it's faith here that justifies. And in John chapter 1, verse 12, well, I'll start in verse 11. Jesus came to his own and his own people did not receive him, but to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God. so we see also that adoption being God's children is a part of faith of receiving Jesus and believing in him adoption is an act of God in which he makes us members of his family I'm really thankful to Wayne Grudem.

I'm reading his systematic theology book, and he has this thought. It's a speculation, but I think it's a helpful one. God didn't have to do this. Couldn't he just have justified us as the supreme judge? Couldn't he have? we would have been right before him at that point but he goes a step farther he doesn't want to just be our judge who justifies us he's our father who loves us and we see we see in this that God has lavished his love and his grace upon us in a way God had to do it because he's so full of mercy and grace and so John writes in 1 John chapter 3 verse 1.

See what kind of love the Father has given us that we should be called children of God. And so we are. To wrap up with this, again, this is so brief. It's so just minimal. But I'm hoping you're seeing the steps in the order of salvation. I hope it helps you see the map of salvation so you can share it more effectively, so you can understand what's going on in your own life better.

But to summarize here today, Let's look at some benefits of being God's child. I'm going to go through these kind of briefly, quickly, so hang on. Being a child of God comes with benefits, and I have seven of them listed. I'll try to say them slow enough that you can write them down if you'd like to. First, we are able to relate to God as our Father. Our relationship to God is as Father now, not just as creator, judge, or any other way.

He's our Father. Galatians 4, 6-7. And because you are sons, God has sent his Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father. So you are no longer a slave, but a son. And if a son, then an heir through God. And Jesus told his disciples to pray like this.

Our Father in heaven. That was pretty much unheard of in a Jewish prayer. Until Jesus taught his disciples to pray that way. But it's not just in terms of requests. this relationship that we have with the Father now is more than just asking needs from our Father. Matthew 5.16 In the same way, let your light shine before others so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.

Fathers get some glory when their kids do well, right? We have that relationship with our Father now. Second, so we relate to God as our Father. God relates to us as His children. I'd like to read for you Psalm 103, verses 13 and 14. God relates to us as His children.

Psalm 103, verses 13 and 14. As a father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him. For he knows our frame. He remembers that we are dust. We have his special compassion, his special pity, his special understanding like a father with his child. In Matthew 7, 7 through 11, I was rebuked by this passage.

I woke up and Ellen was crying and I had a lot to do the next day and she was having, she usually has pretty good nights, but honestly, you might not know it, but honestly she does. but this night was not good and I had a ton to do the next day and she wouldn't stop crying I remember praying, God just please quiet her down, let her rest God, bring peace to her body why? well it was selfish, I wanted my sleep but instantly I was reminded I could hear God's word where Jesus says in Matthew 7 if you who are wicked know how to give good gifts to your children won't your father know how to give good gifts to his children he relates to us as children as his children we get his special attention his special compassion third and related to that point we get his loving discipline This is a benefit of being a child of God of being adopted We get his loving discipline not his wrath, not the wrath of a judge against whom we have committed offenses, but the discipline of a father who loves us. Hebrews 12, 5 through 6, and have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons. My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by him.

For the Lord disciplines the one he loves and chastises every son whom he receives. So third, we get his loving discipline. Fourth, we have an inheritance. 1 Peter 1, 3-4 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead and into an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, unfading, kept in heaven for you.

We have an inheritance. We don't have the inheritance that we were getting from our forefathers who brought us sin, because there's an inheritance from sin also, right? But we have God's inheritance now. We have the inheritance that's imperishable, undefiled, and unfading. God's inheritance for his children. Fifth, we read this in Romans 8, we have his spirit.

His Spirit is received by His children and His Spirit leads His children. And that's a whole other topic of discussion, a topic of understanding and searching the Scriptures. But that's something children of God have that other people don't have. It God Spirit living in them They take hold of God Spirit and are led by God Spirit Sixth we are able to imitate our Father and learn His ways Don't we see this in father and son relationships, that the son learns from the father, learns what the father does, from his instruction, but also just by watching and participating in what the father does.

And so Paul writes in Ephesians 5.1, therefore be imitators of God as beloved children. and seventh because we are all adopted by God that makes us brothers and sisters it makes us family in Christ when we say that that's one of those things that Christians say like how you doing brother or we say things like we're all brothers and sisters the world says similar things like the whole world is one family there's a sense in which that's true but not in this sense and I just want to emphasize the special nature of this I don't have any single reference for this because you'll see this throughout the New Testament. That believers are referred to as the brothers. And in the Greek word adelphoi means brothers and sisters.

Siblings in a family. Siblings in a household. So we need to take that seriously. Our adoption, it brings us this blessing. And we need to understand this, that we are siblings in Christ. That should characterize the way we relate to one another.

Right? So, in conclusion, today we've looked at conversion. Repent and believe. We've looked at justification. Have faith in Jesus and you will be justified. You will be made positively righteous through Christ because he took your sin And know what it means to have fellowship with God through his spirit as his child Know that.

It's yours if you're in Christ. I hope this look at the map today, the map of our salvation, will help you rejoice in God's mercy. I hope it will give you endurance for the road ahead. And I look forward to concluding with you next week, the last three steps. So let's pray together. Father, your grace and your love are amazing.

I pray even now, God, as we conclude this message, that your word would take root in our hearts and that it would grow and bear fruit for your glory. Father, I pray that for anyone here who has not come and the kind of repentance and faith which are the hallmarks of entering into life with Christ, that you would bring that understanding to them and open their eyes to see your gospel. Father, I pray for those of us who are on the road, who are walking this order of salvation in our day-to-day experiences.

Please help us. Help us, Father, to endure well, to persevere, understanding your work in our lives and rejoicing in it. I pray for your protection now. I pray for your guidance according to your word and according to your spirit and according to the love you've expressed to us in Christ. Amen.