3 - Lesson 1: Salvation, Part 1

Well, welcome to our School of Discipleship with the introduction to discipling. We're glad to have you with us. We appreciate you paying attention in class and coming each week. I hope if you have, if you grab your copy of Growing in Grace.

That is the tool that we use here to disciple people when they first come into church or we first get to meet them. They're maybe a new believer or maybe they've just come to Christ from someone from our ministry witnessing to them or maybe someone that you know.

What we're doing is going through that book and as we go through this book, we're going to be looking at each lesson. I'm going to give you the answers to the blanks and I'm going to give you some tips on how to teach this.

This is not me teaching so much in the sense of how I would actually disciple, but it's going to be me explaining to you how you could use this tool to disciple and throughout teach you some things to look for and things to do when you are discipling someone.

These classes are going to be more practical in nature, but we're going to also be teaching some things. As we go through these lessons, you're going to see that some of them you may say, well, they seem pretty basic.

We actually used to call this Principles of Christian Belief and that was its original name because they were the basic principles and principles that we would think that every Christian would know. One of the things we've discovered though is that not every Christian does know some of these basics and that's the thing.

This book was actually developed when I was at my first church, which unfortunately does not exist anymore, which is Gospel Light Baptist Church. The leadership there developed this. We had those of us who were in leadership, we had a base copy and we worked on it and added chapters, removed chapters, rewrote chapters, and we've kind of gotten to a way that different ones of us like it.

I say different ones of us because we all kind of use this book. Some of us have changed it around. I know some people that like to put different lessons in different orders and this is the way we have it for you.

We are going to go through it in the format that we have. You can pick up a copy if you don't have a copy at our store at store .strivingforeternity .org. You can pick that up if you don't have a copy, if you are an enrolled student, which means you went to that website down there and enrolled, you should already have a copy, which I hope.

And if you'd open your copy, remember the way we explain for you guys to use this is, and I encourage you guys to do this as well, is that by now I hope that you took lesson one and you did lesson one in pencil.

This is designed for you to be able to hand this book to someone and they should be able to get most of the fill in the blanks on their own. And then what you do is you would sit down with them and you would work with them for maybe, I would set aside at least an hour and a half each week to go over the lessons.

The lesson itself, if you just teach straight through it, should take you maybe an hour at most. But what I often encourage you to do is when you sit down with someone that you're discipling, you want to spend some time to answer any other questions that they may have.

Maybe they've been reading the Bible for the first time and they may have some really basic questions. They may have some really hard questions. You never know. But you want to be able to work with them and help them grow.

Don't make this just somewhere, okay, we sit down for an hour and we teach this lesson, we get through the lesson, we're done and we leave. This is you pouring yourself into their life, learning from them, teaching them as well.

So we are in the class right now of an Introduction to Discipling. And as I said, we're going to be using through this, this book called Growing in Grace. Now I want to give you the introduction to each of the lessons that we're going to look at here.

This is basically the outline of the book, of the lessons that we have. We have 12 lessons in the book and you can see that they're kind of broken down into 12, sorry, in three different categories, Receiving God's Grace, Living God's Grace and Sharing God's Grace.

And you see how they've kind of been labeled there as the chapters. And so we are going to start with the first lesson in our book, the lesson of salvation, which is called Reconciling with Our Lord. Reconciling with Our Lord.

And so as we go through this, I want to encourage you now, if you did your homework, meaning that you went through the book and you filled it in in pencil, now would be a time to get your pen out and get those answers ready.

So, what we're going to deal with now is we're going to look at the lessons that we have. And if you see in your book, I'm going to just read through some of this and give you some of the fill in the blanks.

We're going to look up some of the verses that we have and hopefully we can even maybe learn some things or find some different verses or new verses that we can use when sharing what salvation is. This is not so much a witnessing lesson, but let me explain to you why the first lesson is salvation.

The first lesson when we first had this written was the Bible. That was the first lesson in prayer. And there was one lesson that was on the topic of salvation on witnessing, which was the last chapter.

And we discovered that oftentimes people would come into the church or someone would say they're a new believer and we'd sit down with them and realize that they're not a believer at all. And so, we had written up this first lesson and put it in the beginning basically so that if you go through this lesson and someone after this lesson doesn't have a clear understanding of the gospel, that becomes something you want to keep coming back to.

You don't want to assume then that they're a believer. Okay? So, if you look here, we have an introduction paragraph here that says, what is your relationship to God? Your answer to this question is a matter of spiritual life or death.

And we got to see it, is that important? When you're explaining this to someone, you need to communicate that it really is that important of a question. Alright? So, these are the things I would end up emphasizing as I go through this with someone, is to point out, this is an important question, it's the most important question.

Some think that they cannot, again I'll continue reading now, some think that they cannot know until they meet God. At that point, I would ask the person, depending on who they are, how much I know of them, have you ever thought that?

Did you ever think or do you think that you can't know for sure where you'd spend eternity until after you die? Some people may be new believers but still think that way and that helps you. What you're doing in that is you're gathering information because you want to help disciple them, you want to help teach them, and so you need to gather information.

Remember, discipling is not preaching, it's not one directional, right? You're communicating back and forth, so you want to ask questions and gather information, you want to use that information to help them grow spiritually.

So, you can ask them that, looking back in our book now. However, God, through His Word, has told all of humanity the way to Him and through His Son provided that path. This lesson, we will discuss the need, the way, the blessings, and the assurance of salvation.

Now, if you have someone that says that they really don't know if they can know for sure that they're going to heaven until they die, it could be that they're very immature if they just got saved. And so, you may want to then emphasize more at the end of this, on that last one when we talk about the assurance, you may want to focus on that a little bit more, okay?

So, that's how we would go through that. So, let us begin with the need, that is the Roman numeral 1 in the book, the need for a relationship with God. Now, I understand that this term relationship, and sometimes I like to explain this, that people talk about having a relationship with God, and you sometimes hear people share the gospel in such a way that they make it sound as if God made you because He was missing something, like God had a human-shaped hole in His heart and just needed to make people to fill that void.

Not. God does not need us. He doesn't need a relationship with us. He is relational, but He had a relationship within the Trinity. He did not need us. We need Him. Important distinction to make, alright?

So, here's going to be the question that we ask here under the need, what is the spiritual nature of all men? What is the spiritual nature of all men? Now, here are the verses, and when you do this study with someone, you want to make sure to look up the verses and have them read to you.

Why? Even though they've read these verses, we hope, to fill in the blanks, you want to get them to read the verses again because the more they can read it, the more that you can end up being in a situation where they're retaining it.

Why have them read it versus you read it to them? The more senses that you use, the more you're going to retain something. And so, what you want to do is you want to make sure that you are retaining as much as you can, alright?

Or that they are. And so, I encourage them to read, so I ask them the questions, I have them read the verses again, and then we look at their answers. So, let's look at this. The question again is, what is the spiritual nature of all men?

And our first verse that we have is Romans 3, 10. And it says, as it is written, none is righteous, no, not one. Next, we have Romans 3, 23. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. And then we have Isaiah 53, 6.

We all like sheep have gone astray, we all have turned to his own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. So, what is the spiritual state of all people? Well, the spiritual state would be sinful.

Now, there's several answers that you can have here in a sense. You might have someone that would say sinful. That's the biblical terminology. You might say not righteous. That's true based on the text.

They may have seen in Romans 3, 23, all sin, so they may get to sin. Sometimes they may say they fall short. If they say something like that, well, they fall short, you may want to say, what does it mean to fall short?

The term for sin means to fall short of God's glory. To aim at a target, it's actually an archery term. You aim at a target, you aim at a location, and you miss the target, you miss the spot. Two more passages that you can look with this.

You can also see Ecclesiastes 7, 20. Surely there is not a righteous man on the earth who does good and never sins. And then you can also look in Isaiah 64, verse 6. We have all become like one who is unclean.

And all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment. We all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away. Now, I want to point out one thing here. Now, in the old King James, this thing would say, speaking of this polluted garment, it would say, you know, it says that is a filthy rag.

The polluted garment, I'm going to be a little graphic, but I want you to see how God views our righteous deeds, the things we think we do that are righteous. He sees them as a menstrual rag. That is the terminology used there.

It's sometimes good when you look at that passage in Isaiah 64, verse 6, to mention that. Now, why is that? And at this point, I would, sometimes I point that out, and I may ask them that, even though we haven't gotten to that point yet.

But I want to dialogue, remember? I also want to teach, why is it that God looks so down on our sin? Why is it such, you know, these things we think are righteous, these things we think are good, why is it that God looks down on them in such a graphic way?

Well, the answer is that what most human beings don't do, when they think they've done something good, they're comparing themselves to other people, not to God. Think about this. If a person is trusting in their righteous works, their righteous acts to get them to heaven, they think they're going to do something good to earn heaven, compare that to God Himself leaving heaven to become a man, and in doing so, dying on a cross.

To be a slave unto death. You see, when you compare those two things, me walking an old lady across the street, or opening a door, doing something nice for someone, something like that, compared, I mean, whatever I might think is a righteous act, comparing that to what God did on the cross, my righteous act pales in comparison.

In fact, it is offensive because Christ God Himself died in our place. That is how serious it is. And for me to say, but God, I know you did that, look at what I did, me, my works. You see, God's going to say, look at the work I did.

And when humans go, no, look at the work I did, God, in that comparison, we see the difference. And so, I will sometimes explain that so that they understand how sinful sinful is. What is sin? It's to miss the mark.

It means to break God's law in any way, in word or thought and deed. And so, you want to explain that to your student. They're unrighteous, as someone said, was an answer. That's a perfectly fine answer.

The answer you want to give them is sinful, and you want to explain what sinful means, to miss the mark, to be a criminal on God's side, to be unrighteous. Now, the question that we have now is in Ephesians 2 .5, what else does the Bible say about the spiritual nature of all men?

Well, it says this in Ephesians 2 .5, even when we were kind of sick in our trespasses, no, no, when we were weak, no, no, no, that's not what it says, wait a minute. Even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive in Christ by grace, you have been saved.

So, what does that tell us? Another reality that we see is that all men have a nature of being spiritually dead, spiritually dead. You'll sometimes see people that will fill in dead, because that's what they see there.

And I would encourage them to add in the word spiritually dead, because obviously, they're not physically dead. So, what does death mean? This may be a good time for you to explain that. Death means to be separated.

We think of physical death. Physical death is when our spirit, okay, our soul is separated from our body. That's physical death. Spiritual death is when we are spiritually separated from God. And eternal death is when we're separated from God for eternity.

There's three levels of death. We're going to get to those maybe in a later lesson. But we see that in this case, what you want to do is you want to explain what spiritual deadness is. Now, why did I jokingly say it's not sick or weak?

The Bible talks about us being spiritually dead. In other words, we can't revive ourselves. We are not God. We're not Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ could lift himself from the dead, both physically. He can do that.

You and I cannot, and you and I cannot do it spiritually either, all right? They may not understand all the implications of that, and maybe some of you who are teaching this understand in a greater way the depth of the arguments that are being made in that.

But even in this, when you're teaching someone new, you want to help them in their way of understanding, leading them to even a deeper theology. Though they may not understand it, you don't want to jump too deep, okay?

You don't jump into explaining how, you know, if you remember the lessons in our systematic theology class when we talked about total depravity and things like that, you don't need to get into all of that.

They can understand what it means to be spiritually dead, that they're spiritually separated from God. Let's look at the next question here, letter B, and it says, how does God respond to sinners? Now, this may surprise some people.

But let's look at what the scripture says. God is a righteous judge and a God who feels indignation every day. Now, this is a case, it says God feels indignation every day. Now, this was, I use this, the New King James Bible was what was used for this.

If you have a different translation, this may be a time where you see some of that pop up. In the New King James, it says God is angry with the wicked every day. And so, you can point that out and you can see if, you know, it says that God is a righteous judge and God feels indignation.

But it doesn't say there with the wicked. This is just one time where, and you're going to see this throughout, a couple times where a translation may make it easier or harder for them to get the blanks filled in.

But the blank right now, and we may end up updating this for the ESV because more people use ESV now, and so we may end up updating these. But the answers will be pretty much similar. But God is angry with the wicked every day.

And that's what we see from that passage. That's important to explain to them because most people are told that God loves them and has a wonderful plan for their life. That God has this love that He would never do anything against their will and He would just tell them everything they want to hear.

That's against the thinking of the Bible. They don't think about God as an angry God, and He is. And notice the context there, and I usually try to point this out to a student. The context is it's because God is a just judge or a righteous judge.

That's why He feels the indignation. That's why He's angry with the wicked every day. Because of the fact that He's a just judge. So don't just argue that He's angry. Those that profess atheism argue that.

They think of Him as just, He's angry and punishing them because they're such wonderful people that what they do is they separate God's justice from His anger. And they just focus on His anger. You don't separate those two.

God is a just judge. That is why He feels the indignation with the wicked every day. So let's look at letter C. What is the penalty that God has placed on sin? What is the penalty of sin? Well, we see that the wages of sin is death.

But the free gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord. Now, it says here that the wages of sin is death. But did you notice that it talked about eternal life? Therefore, the wages of sin is the eternal death that is spoken of.

Not physical death. The reason that it's important is because now that we believe in Christ does not mean we're not going to suffer physical death. What we won't suffer any longer is eternal death. So we are in a state of deadness spiritually.

And if we remain in that state, when we die, we suffer an eternal death. Now, that may seem hard for some people to understand. So what you may want to do is explain. A little analogy that I often use is that if someone was to threaten my life, the police are going to tell them to stay away from me.

If they threaten the President of the United States' life, they're going to go to jail. Why? The difference was that the threat was the same. The difference was who you threatened. The President of the United States is seen as more important than me.

Therefore, when you break a law against an infinitely holy, just God, it carries with it an infinite consequence. And that is the death that's spoken of. We also see in Revelation 21 and verse 8,. But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for the murderers, the sexually immoral, the sorcerers, and I would stop at that point and tell a student that a sorcerer comes from the Greek word, where we get an English word, pharmacy.

Okay, pharmacia is the Greek. It's the idea of dealing with drugs. That's what a sorcerer was. Then let me continue, idolaters. And notice that I would point out, it says all liars. So all these long lists, and it's all liars.

And what does it say? Have their portion, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death. So the penalty not only is eternal death, but it is the lake of fire.

The second death, the eternal death. Now, why is it the second death? The second death, because to get there, you had to physically die once. So you have the physical death. That's your first death. And you then have the eternal death, the second death, where you get tossed into the lake of fire.

Okay, so the penalty that God has placed upon sin is death and ultimately the lake of fire. All right, now, look at this paragraph that I have here. And this, you may want to explain to a student. Even though God is a loving God, He also is a holy God who hates sin.

We hope at this point, they can fill that in, that they see that God hates sin. Either a person's sins are covered by the sacrifice of Christ, or they are exposed before God, and He will judge them because God will have no sin in His presence.

And this is Psalm 5. For you are not a God who delights in wickedness. Evil may not dwell with you. The boastful shall not stand before your eyes. You hate all evildoers. God hates all evildoers. He does.

But notice what it says there. There's a thing that people get confused with on this. Some people share the gospel and they say that the reason we have to be cast out of heaven, we have to go to hell is because God can't be in the presence of evil and sin.

Let's be careful with that. If you read the book of Job, you'll see that Satan entered into God's presence. That would be problem number one. Obviously, demons can have some access to heaven and can stand before God.

And so he can be in their presence. He's going to have evil people on the judgment. They stand in their presence. And therefore, God can be there. But this is a dwelling. He's going to not keep them there.

However, there's a little thing you got to remember. Some people argue that because of this, they say, well, see, what hell is, hell is a place where God's presence isn't, where God is not. Well, let's stop and not use bad language.

God is omnipresent. He's everywhere present. Therefore, God is in hell. I hope that doesn't shock any of you. It might. But you may want to explain that to a new believer so they understand God's everywhere.

God is in hell. The difference is God's relational presence is not there with the individuals. They're there feeling his wrath. And so there is that difference. Why? Because God hates sin. All right. Let us look.

We're going to look here at letter D. Is it possible to save ourselves? That's a question you want to ask them. All right. The answer, I think, will be clear for all of us that it's a no. And I hope those of you who are taking notes got that one right.

But let's look at the passages. Titus 3, 5. He has saved us not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy and the washing and regeneration and washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit.

Ephesians 2, 8, 9 says,. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not of your own doing. It is a gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. And so in those you see that it is not possible to save ourselves.

We cannot do enough work. We can't earn it in any way. You want to emphasize that point, especially if you have someone who you're not sure if they're a believer. You want to emphasize that. Make sure they comprehend that and understand why.

Letter E. Who has provided a way of salvation? You can turn to the most memorized passage in the world, and that's John 3, verse 16. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever should believe on him, believes, whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

Also you see Romans chapter 5 and verse 8, and it says,. But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. So who has provided a way of salvation? God has. Now you may get the answer Christ, and that's perfectly fine as well.

God and Christ are the same, right? So God is the one who provided salvation, specifically through the Son. God planned it. The Son provided it, okay? So you could see Jesus, Christ, or God as a legitimate answer there.

Now, who can be saved? Who can be saved? That is a question. Look, we already saw this in Romans 5, but we see it here clearer in Romans 10. We see it clearer. For everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved.

Everyone. If we go back to the Romans 5, and then go back to John 3 .16. Yeah, John 3 .16. It's whoever believes. So John 3 .16, whoever believes in Romans 10. Put that one up. Thank you. Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord.

Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord. One more is John 1 .12. But to all who did receive Him, who believed in His name, He gave the right to become a child of God. Now notice, not everyone is a child of God.

Do you see that? Only those who receive Christ have the right to be called a child of God. Those who receive Christ, those are the ones. So the answer is, who can be saved? Whosoever. But whosoever what?

Whosoever receive Christ. Whosoever believe on Christ. Whoever puts faith in Jesus Christ, that's who. Now there becomes a debate. I don't think if you're speaking to a new believer that they're going to understand it.

But there's a debate that some would have where they say, you know, who did Christ die for? Did He die for only those who believe or did He die for all? If you're dealing with a new believer and they've heard that, you may not want to get into that discussion.

You don't want to get sidetracked. Especially if you don't think they're a believer, okay? You want to make sure they understand what salvation is. You could say that's something for later. We could get into that more and discuss that at a later time if they're getting, if they're emphasizing it too much.

Chances are if you're dealing with new believers they don't understand those things. The other caution is you don't want to start getting into that either. Too much, right? You want to explain the text but don't get them bogged down.

You can easily get a new believer confused and in over their head where they start going, I can't, I can't understand any of this. You don't want them to get discouraged. You want to keep it at a level that they're going to understand.

So you need to know the person you're discipling, okay? All right, so we looked at the need. Let us look at Roman numeral number two, the way to a relationship with God. The way to a relationship with God.

And letter A there says repent. That's what John the Baptist was saying, repent and believe. And that's what Jesus was saying. And so we see this in 2 Peter, 2 Peter 3 .9, the Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness but is patient toward you not wishing that anyone should perish but that all should reach repentance.

And if you look at your book, you see it says the Lord is long-suffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but all should come to and the answer is repentance. Now you may want to explain what repentance is.

But what we've done there is so that your student would know, we gave you some paragraph there in your book and it says, kind of defines it, repentance is simply turning away from whatever else you trusted in for salvation as well as for your sin and trusting in God and turning to trust in God.

So it's a turning, it's a change of thinking is technically what the word means. You're changing your thinking from trusting in yourself as a good person, your good works, your heritage being, I trusted in the fact I was born Jewish and that's what I thought would get me to heaven.

You're turning from trusting those things to trusting in Christ. Okay, it is a changing of your mind and a surrendering of your will. In other words, you're willing as it says in Galatians 2 .20 to die to Christ, to be crucified with Christ, to give up everything.

That's what this idea means. The Greek word for repentance is metanoia. That's not important and you don't want to be teaching the students that. But it has the idea of a change of thinking and what we understand from that is that that is where we begin to act out.

So when you change your thinking, you change your behavior. So it's a submitting to God as well. You cannot have a relationship with God if you do not see your sin as severe in God's eyes. It is a turning from sin and self and turning to God.

One cannot turn away from sin and self without replacing it with something to turn to. This is why you often see people that will turn away from one addiction and just go to a different addiction. There's something missing.

You're putting something off. You have to put something on. And that's what we end up seeing. So we want to explain what repentance is. They have to understand. This is why you go through this slowly.

You want the student to understand how serious sin is. Sin is serious in God's sight. When they understand that, you need to explain why they must turn away from trusting themselves, trusting their heritage, trusting their works.

They need to trust in God. At this point, you want them to understand why it is only God that can save them. Take your time through this. Explain through this. I'm giving you the pointers in how to teach through this.

That means I'm teaching this longer than I would if I was working with a student, possibly. Which is why it may take us two lessons per lesson. Because not only are we trying to fill in the blanks for you and look up the verses, but I'm trying to give you pointers in how you can disciple somebody.

So, the first step in a way of a relationship with God is to repent. Coinciding with that is receive. Repent, receive. Repent, receive. Notice they both start with R. Kind of easy for you to remember.

You get it? Repent, receive. Okay, one must... What must one do in order to be considered a child of God? What did we read? They must receive Christ. Okay? In order to have the right to be called a child of God, they must receive Christ.

That's the answer there. Now, how does one receive Christ? Good question and I'm glad you asked. Romans 10, 9 and 10 says this. Because if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.

For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. For the scriptures say, everyone who believes in Him will not be put to shame. For there is no distinction between Jew or Greek.

For the same Lord is Lord over all, bestowing His riches on all who call on Him. For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. Okay? So, how does one receive Christ? Well, there's two things mentioned really in Romans 10, 9 and 10.

It is confess and believe. Confess and believe. Those are the two. Confess, believe. All right? That's what we're going to do. We're going to confess that Jesus is God. Why is that important? Because as God, He can pay the eternal fine.

You may want to explain that. As God, we have to recognize that He is, that Jesus is God, meaning that He can pay the eternal fine for us. We have to believe He rose from the dead because that's what vindicates everything He said.

That's what proves He's God. It vindicates that He's God. And it vindicates that He has the authority to offer us the forgiveness of sin. So, the resurrection becomes very important. Okay? So, at this point, you want to explain to them that they have to receive Christ.

They have to confess. Confession also would entail confessing your sin before a holy God, asking forgiveness. If you look there, I have a paragraph that says, If we see our need as a sinner and call upon God in prayer, believing that Christ died and rose for us, receiving Christ as Lord and Savior of our life, He said that we shall be saved.

Now, saying that is this. Now, you get into a theological debate. Uh, Andrew, you're saying that a person must do this. Yes, because the scriptures command a person to repent and receive Christ. Can they do that apart from the work of Christ?