“How Are We Saved?” – Genesis 15:1-6

If you were here last week you might remember that I started off with a made-up story about a wealthy man who promised to pay off your mortgage in full and all you had to do was tell other people about him so he could help them too.  Well, last week was the end of the sermon series on Heaven and today we begin a new series but I want to use that same made-up man again as today’s opening illustration.

Today we find out that the man who promised to pay off your mortgage in full did not just pay off the mortgage of the house you live in now.  No, he also paid off the mortgage on a much, much nicer house.  In fact, he has paid for and given you a beautiful mansion in a beautiful part of town.  He has paid for movers to move your stuff in if you want it but the house is already furnished with the nicest of everything and all you have to do is go there and then, as you go, tell other people about him so he can help them too.

Now, you don’t have to be a great theologian to understand that in this illustration, the man is God and the mansion is in Heaven, right?  You should be thinking about Heaven and how wonderful it is going to be a lot lately.  We just spent two months looking at what the Bible says Heaven is going to be like and hopefully you are looking forward to it even more.  This illustration should make your ears perk up because hopefully you recognize a similar scenario that will be played out there.

The only problem is, how do we know for sure that we really are going to get that mansion in the beautiful part of town?  Do we know how to get there?  Do we know how to tell others how to get there and what is the proof of it all?  What proves that we really know any of this for sure?  Those are some big questions.  In fact, they are the ultimate questions that anybody can and should ask in their lives.  They are the only questions that really matter.

So, we are going to ask those questions in the next month or so as we talk about how to get to Heaven.  We saw how incredible Heaven is going to be and we know we want all our friends and loved ones to be there with us but what proof do we have that we really are going there? 

As we talk about this, we will use some terms that need to be explained.  If you were moving from one house to the other, you might say you are moving or being transferred or you are leaving, packing up, whatever.  They all mean basically the same thing.  You were living in one place and now you are going to live in another place. 

In our study for the next month, we might talk about becoming a Christian, being born again, becoming a disciple of Jesus or starting our walk with the Lord.  We all know what those are supposed to mean.  They’re all good but I really like the word “saved”.  What are we saved from and what are we saved to?  Well, ultimately, we are saved from our old lives, living in sin and going to Hell.  We are saved to a new life, a full life in Christ that leads to Heaven.  Feel free to say “amen” right there.

When my sister, Suzy, was a little girl, she became a Christian – she got saved – and she wanted to tell her friends about it.  So she asked her friends sitting around the lunch table in elementary school if they had ever been saved.  One little boy spoke right up and said, “Oh, yes.  I have been saved.”  My sister was so excited to meet another believer until he went on to tell about how he had fallen out of his dad’s fishing boat one day and his dad saved him from drowning.

That’s good but that’s not what we are talking about today and I think we all know it.  Right?  Well, today’s sermon is entitled, “How Are We Saved?”  That’s where we have to start and the answer is actually pretty simple.  In fact, the Apostle Paul puts it one sentence.  In Ephesians 2:8, he says, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith”.  You need to memorize that if you haven’t already.

We are saved by grace and through faith in Jesus Christ, right?  But I have a question.  How were the Old Testament saints saved?  How were people saved before Jesus came in the New Testament?  Have you ever thought of that?  Well, let’s turn to the very first book of the Bible and let’s see.  In Genesis 15, Abraham is still called Abram.  God had not changed his name yet but Abram was wealthy and powerful and had everything a man could ask for…except a son and this was a big problem.

He had no heir to his fortune.  He had nobody to carry on his name and while he had lots of servants, Abram was getting to be an old man and his wife Sarai was now too old to have children as well.  It looked pretty bleak for old Abram…until, well let’s look at Genesis 15, verses 1-6 and see what God does and what Abram does.

Genesis 15:1-6 ¹After this, the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision: "Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your very great reward." ²But Abram said, "Sovereign LORD, what can you give me since I remain childless and the one who will inherit my estate is Eliezer of Damascus?" ³And Abram said, "You have given me no children; so a servant in my household will be my heir." ⁴Then the word of the LORD came to him: "This man will not be your heir, but a son who is your own flesh and blood will be your heir." ⁵He took him outside and said, "Look up at the sky and count the stars-if indeed you can count them." Then he said to him, "So shall your offspring be." ⁶Abram believed the LORD, and he credited it to him as righteousness.

A week or so ago I was in bed sound asleep in the middle of the night when I heard a very plain whisper coming from the living room which is right next to my bedroom.  “Alexander… Alexander, is that you?”  As you can imagine, I jumped up out of that bed in a hurry and I was scared to death!  Obviously, somebody is in my house.  I heard them plain as day and they can’t be but a few feet away from me.  My heart was pounding out of my chest and I’m trying to figure out what to do when another voice answered and I realized…it was coming from the TV.

Somehow, just the sound, not the screen of my TV came on all by itself and it was just the perfect volume and at the perfect time in some movie for me to hear some actor whispering.  I promise this is a true story.  It scared me to death.  I don’t know how it happened but from now on, when I’m done watching TV, I mute it and then turn it off.

I wonder if that is how Abram felt when the word of the Lord came to him as it says in verse 1.  Maybe that’s why God said, “Don’t be afraid” right at first.  I’m sure Abram needed to hear that.  I know I would.  But God goes on to tell Abram some very big news.  He tells him that he is going to be a father.  Now, this is big talk.  In fact, it’s impossible since he and Sarai are both well past normal child-bearing years.  But the really amazing part of this passage comes in verse 6. “Abram believed the LORD, and he credited it to him as righteousness.”

Yes, it’s pretty amazing that Abram believed God but it’s really amazing that God credited that belief as righteousness because that word “righteousness” means simply to be right with.  It was originally a legal term that meant to be straight or square.  We say today that if somebody pays us the money they owe us that we are now square.  We’re even.  Everything is good between us.  Because Abram believed God, God said, “We’re good.”

What that tells me, first off, is that Abram had no righteousness before this.  He may have been a good person.  He may have been nice to his mama and walked little old ladies across the street and maybe even his good deeds outweighed his bad deeds but he had no righteousness apart from God’s grace and through faith that God was telling the truth.  That’s how Abram was what we would call “saved”.  He was saved by grace and through faith – faith that God was telling the truth, faith that God would send the Messiah, faith that there was life after death and that it was Heaven for Abram because of that faith.

Now, I want you to see that we have a lot in common when it comes to this.  He might have been born 4,000 years ago on the other side of the planet but God saves us in a similar fashion.  First, see that God draws us to Himself.  Jesus Himself said in John 6:44 that “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him.”  That word “draw” literally means to drag like the disciples dragged their nets when they were fishing.

We obviously have to respond but everything about salvation is from God and by God.  God revealed Himself to Abram in a vision.  Abram didn’t go looking for God.  He wasn’t trying to contact God.  God drew Abram to Himself.  Why does God need to draw us to salvation? Simply put, if He didn’t, we would never come.  The natural man has no ability to come to God, nor does he even have the desire to come. Because his heart is hard and his mind is darkened, the person not drawn by God doesn’t desire God.  Romans 5:10 says that we are actually an enemy of God.  Therefore, it is only by the merciful and gracious drawing of God that we are saved.  (www.gotquestions.org)

So, first God draws us and then He starts to use us.  We have free will and even when God draws us to Him, we can still reject Him.  We can make any number of excuses.  We can say we don’t understand enough or that we are scared or that we don’t believe it or whatever we want.  One excuse is as good as another.  But once we show some faith and decide to allow God to be Lord of our lives and we are saved, then God starts to use us. 

That is a mark of every believer.  If you want to know whose cows those are out in the field, just look at the brand.  If you want to know whose disciples we are, look for God to work through us.  For Abram, God had a plan to use him and his descendants to bless the whole world, but He started with Abram.  The whole nation of Israel comes from Abram.  Jesus Himself was born in Israel.  All Israel was blessed because of the covenant God made with Abram and the whole world has been blessed since then.

Did you know that when Spence Sliver first invented the sticky-note for his company, 3M, that 3M originally had no use for it?  They couldn’t find any use for paper with adhesive on the back and couldn’t imagine that anyone would ever pay money for it.  It wasn’t until one of Sliver’s co-workers grabbed one for a bookmark that its usefulness was realized.  Now everybody in the world has sticky notes in every shape and color and size.

We all wonder sometimes why God allows some things to happen to us.  Why does God do this or allow that?  Wouldn’t a loving God shield His children from that kind of hurtful thing?  We can’t imagine how something like what we are going through could ever be useful…until one day, usually years later, when somebody we know is going through the exact same thing and God puts us in their lives at just the right time so we can help them because we have gone through it.  You see it happen all the time if you watch for it.

God used Abram to change the world and He might use you to change the world as well.  But maybe God just uses you to change your world.  One of the ways that we know we are saved is that God is using us to make some impact on this world for the sake of God’s Kingdom.  No, you are not Billy Graham.  You will probably never preach to thousands of people.  You may never see a great spiritual revival in the company you work for.  But you may be used by God to change that one person who goes on to change the world.  You may be the only one in this world that can bring the Gospel to your grandchild or to your best friend.  Billy Graham can’t do that.  Only you can and if you truly are a believer; if you truly are saved then part of the proof of that is that God is using you somewhere.

After God draws you to Himself and you are saved, He then starts to use you and then the other proof of that is that God starts to change you.  How many of you can relate to the Apostle Peter?  Man, I sure can.  He was constantly saying something or doing something wrong or just flat dumb.  You know what I mean?  In Matthew 17, Jesus is transfigured and meets with Moses and Elijah from the Old Testament.  Nothing like that had ever happened before or has happened since and what does Peter say?  “It’s good for us to be here.  Want me to put up some shelters for y’all?”

Don’t you know Jesus just wanted to put His hand over Peter’s mouth?  When Jesus was washing the disciples’ feet, (John 13) Peter first says, “No way, Lord!” to which Jesus said, “Well, then you have nothing to do with me.”  So, then Peter says, “Well then wash me all over!”  “No, Peter, just your feet will be fine.” Then Peter chops off a guy’s ear and Jesus has to heal it.  It was always something with this guy.

But in Matthew 16, Jesus asks His disciples who people were saying that He was and they responded that some said He was John the Baptist or Elijah or someone else.  But then Jesus asks, “Who do you say that I am?”  Then, don’t you know the disciples all cringed when Peter opened his mouth to speak but Peter wisely says, “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.”  Yes!  Way to go Pete!  Jesus said, “Good job, Peter!  This was revealed to you by my Father in heaven.”  Those are my translations by the way.

Peter was changed.  Yes, about two minutes later Jesus had to tell Peter, “Get behind me, Satan!” but Peter was constantly undergoing change.  He wasn’t perfect.  He still messed up.  Shoot, he even went on to deny Christ three times but you can’t say that Peter wasn’t changed because of his relationship with Jesus.  It’s the same with us.  It was like that for Abram and the other saints in the Old Testament who were saved by grace and through faith.  It was like that for the disciples in the New Testament who walked with Jesus and it is like that for us when we have a relationship with God through His Son Jesus.

He loves us too much to leave us like we are.  In fact, Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5:17 that we are “new creations”.  As my friend Scott Parrish says, Jesus didn’t come to make bad people good.  He came to make dead people alive!  Before Jesus, we were dead in our sins, slaves to sin and dead to real life change but Jesus came so that we might have a full and abundant life (John 10:10) which is completely different from what we were before and if you are not constantly undergoing change then something is wrong between you and God.

God first draws us to Himself, then He starts to use us and change us and if that is not obvious in your life then I want you to think back to that moment in time when you first got saved.  Not everybody can remember a date and that’s okay but you should be able to pinpoint a time in your life when you felt God drawing you to Him and you came to God in faith and asked for His forgiveness of your sins and by His grace He forgave you and started using you and changing you.  If you can’t remember that time, then maybe this is that time.

You will have no lasting peace or joy in this life without Jesus and no way to Heaven but through Him.  By His grace and through faith in Him, accept His free gift today as the music plays.