How Our Salvation Works - Genesis Part 27

You know, for my message today, I sat in front of a laptop computer, and I typed my message in, and then I hit a button, and it printed out exactly what I typed in. What an amazing machine.

I love this machine. Now, if you were to ask me how it works, I don't have the slightest idea in the world how it works, but it works, and I'm happy for that. And isn't that true of so many things in our world?

I mean, we flick on light switches, but if someone were to ask you, well, how exactly is electricity made, and how does it travel through the wire to get inside your house? Most of us couldn't answer that question. My point is that the many of the things in life that bring us a great benefit, we use them, we enjoy them, but honestly, when it comes down to how they really work, their mechanism for working, we really don't have the foggiest idea how they work. Well, I bring that up because I have learned that this same thing is true so often with us as followers of Jesus Christ when it comes to our salvation in Christ. We know we have it. We enjoy it.

Well, hopefully, we're telling other people about it everywhere we go. But when it comes down to the actual mechanics of why it works and how it works, we really don't understand that. To put it another way, how does believing in Jesus Christ as my Savior make me righteous in God's sight? How does it enable God to blot out my sin? How does it allow him to take me a sinner into heaven?

Well, this is what we want to talk about today. We're going to resume our study, as I said, of the book of Genesis in chapter 15. And right here in this chapter, God explains to us the actual mechanism that makes our salvation in Christ work. And this is one of the most exciting truths in all of the Bible. It's so exciting that when I got into it, I said, You know what?

One week is not enough. So I'm going to do a four part mini series entitled Our Salvation in Jesus Christ. And today is part one entitled How Our Salvation Works. So are you ready? Ready? Okay, here we go.

A little bit of review. Remember in Genesis 14 that Abraham went and rescued Lot, his nephew, and all the people of Sodom and Gomorrah from an invading army. And now here in Genesis 15, Abraham has returned home to the city of Hebron in Canaan in the Promised Land.

So let's pick up. Here we go. Genesis 15, verse one. After these things, the word of the Lord came to Abraham in a vision, saying, Do not be afraid, Abraham.

I am your shield and your very great reward. And Abraham said, Oh, Lord God, what will you give me since I remain childless? And the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus.

Since you have given me no children, my household servant is currently serving as my heir. Now hopefully you remember back in Genesis chapter 12, when Abraham was 75 years old, God said to him, verse one, Leave your country and go to the land I'll show you the land of Canaan, and I will make you into a great nation. Later in that same chapter, verse seven, and the Lord appeared to Abraham and said to your offspring, I will give this land. So twice God has already promised Abraham that he's not going to be childless. But now we've moved to Genesis 15. Ten years later, Abraham is now 85 years old, and he still doesn't have a child. Now, I think we can all relate to Abraham's dilemma, right?

I mean, 85 year old men can father children, but it's not something you see every day. In fact, you know the definition of an optimist, right? An optimist is a 92 year old man who marries a 26 year old woman and buys a seven bedroom house right next to an elementary school. That is an optimist.

I thought that was hysterical myself, but all right. Hey, Abraham is 85 cotton pick in years old. So it's totally understandable that here in Genesis 15, he asks God for some clarification for some reassurance. And God says, verse four, Then behold, the word of the Lord came to Abraham, saying, This man Eliezer, your household servant, will not be your heir, but a son who comes forth from your own body.

He shall be your heir. God says, Abraham, I promised you a natural born heir, and I'm going to give you a natural born heir. Now we need to stop right here and take a look at some archaeological findings because they bring enormous corroboration of the veracity of the Bible right at this point. Between the years of 1925 and 1941, archaeologists excavated at a city in northern Mesopotamia, modern day Iraq, named Newsy. And here at Newsy, they found thousands of clay tablets detailing all of the social customs of the day at the time when the Bible says Abraham lived around 2000 B.C.

And one of those customs that we discovered was this, that if a married couple was childless, they could adopt one of their household servants to be their heir. And that is precisely what we see Abraham and Sarah did right here in Genesis 15 with this man Eliezer. Now someone writing 1000 years later in 1000 B.C.

or 500 B.C. and making up mythical stories about a mythical man named Abraham, the way critics of the Bible say happened. Folks, they would never have written this information down about Eliezer because they never would have even known this custom existed in 2000 B.C. Only someone writing Abraham's true history in the time of Abraham would have had any idea about this adoption custom that existed in that day. So you know what we say? Say it with me. The more they dig out of the ground, the more the Bible proves to be right.

But there's more. In these same tablets from Newsy, we find that if this childless couple later goes on to have a child of their own, the adopted servant was immediately stripped of his inheritance rights and they were automatically given to the natural born child. And so here in this chapter, when God says Eliezer is not going to be your heir, God was not being unfair to Eliezer. He was not being unethical to Eliezer. He was not being illegal with Eliezer. This was standard operating procedure at the time of Abraham and everybody knew it.

So once again, I'm going to give you a second chance. The more they dig out of the ground, the more the Bible proves to be right. Verse five. Then God took Abraham outside and said, Look up at the stars and count them if you can.

So shall your offspring be. And friends, here comes next one of the most important verses in all the Bible. Verse six. Then Abraham believed God and God credited it to him, to Abraham as righteousness. And this verse is so important.

Let's dissect it for a moment. It says Abraham believed God. What did Abraham believe? He believed God's promise that he and Sarah were going to have a son. And in response, God credited it.

What? He credited Abraham's willingness to believe what God said to him. That is to Abraham as righteousness. God at that moment granted Abraham a righteous standing in the eyes of Almighty God.

And all of this happened. Don't miss this now, because simply because what did the verse say? Abraham what?

Believe God. Abraham didn't do anything. Abraham didn't merit anything. Abraham didn't perform any kind of religious rituals. Abraham didn't get baptized.

Abraham didn't give up smoking. Abraham didn't get circumcised. Abraham didn't join a church. Abraham didn't send in his weekly love offering, and he didn't eat fish on Friday. Abraham didn't keep the Ten Commandments. Abraham didn't volunteer at a soup kitchen. Abraham didn't shovel his neighbor's driveway. And Abraham did not leave a small carbon footprint. What did Abraham do?

Abraham believed God's promise, and God credited it to him as righteousness. Do we all see this? Yes? Okay. Now, friends, this verse, Genesis 15, 6, explains to us exactly how the plan of salvation for the human race works.

You say, well, Lon, I mean, I see the verse, but you know what? I'm not sure I really, really get it. Okay, no problem. We're going to explain it to you a little more, and you will get it, I promise.

But before we do that, we have a very important question we need to ask. You didn't forget the question, did you? No? Hey, out there at Loudon and Prince William and Bethesda, you didn't forget, did you?

No. Okay, so this is my welcome home, Lon. Welcome back.

So what? All right. So you ready?

You ready? Here we go. Come on now, everybody.

One, two, three. So what? How sweet it is. All right.

You say, yeah, Lon, I don't really 100% get it. It's not quite clicking for me. All right, let's go into the New Testament, and we'll help it click. Here we go. Romans chapter 4 in the New Testament. The Apostle Paul here is discussing this very issue, God's plan of salvation, how people get saved, how we get our sins forgiven, how we become righteous in God's sight, how we get admitted into heaven, and he uses this verse, Genesis 15, six, to explain it.

Watch. Verse 1. What then shall we say, Paul says, that Abraham discovered about this matter?

What matter? Well, about how God's plan of salvation works. Verse 2, for if Abraham became righteous in God's sight by means of human works, he, Abraham, would have had something to boast about. But Paul says, that's not the way it worked.

That's not how it happened. That's not how Abraham did it. Watch verse 3. But what does the scripture say, Genesis 15, six, about how Abraham became righteous in God's sight? It says, and Abraham believed God, and it was counted. Abraham's faith was credited to him as righteousness in God's sight.

Now, I said earlier that without a doubt, this verse, Genesis 15, six, is one of the most massively important verses in all the Bible, and its massiveness is centered around the beautiful word was credited. His faith was credited as righteousness. The New American Standard says, was reckoned as righteousness. The King James says, was counted to him as righteousness.

The New King James says, was imputed to him as righteousness. But all these translations are trying to capture for us the rich meaning of the same Greek word. The Greek word is the Greek word logizmae, and it's a key Bible word.

It appears 11 times right here in Romans chapter 4. And let me explain it to you because, friends, when we get what this word means, we get how the plan of salvation for the human race works. So logizmae is a banking word. It's a bookkeeping word. It's an economic word.

But it's not a complicated word that only CPAs and accountants can understand. If you have a checkbook, you understand the meaning of logizmae because logizmae simply means to make a deposit into someone's account. You say that's it.

That's it. Folks, every time you get a paycheck and you endorse it and you fill out a deposit slip and you take that deposit slip to the bank and you deposit that money in your account, you have just logizmaed your bank account. You have just made a deposit into your bank account.

And hey, if somebody else that you didn't even know got a hold of one of your deposit slips and anonymously deposited $10,000 into your checking account, they would have just logizmaed your bank account. You say, well, Lon, I got to tell you what, I don't know much Greek, but I just learned enough here today to learn to pray, Dear Lord Jesus, send somebody by the logizmae my account. Amen. All right. Well, the good news of the Bible, my friends, is that if you've trusted Christ as your savior, God already has logizmaed your account and mine.

Let me explain. The Bible says that we all have a spiritual bank account in heaven. The Bible also says that we all start life with that account reading zero, empty, unrighteous. Romans three, verse 10. For there is none righteous.

No, not one. Romans 3 23. For all of us have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. What's worse is that the Bible tells us there's no way that any of us can make a deposit into that account by our own human actions or effort. Isaiah 64, verse six says that all our righteous acts, our best human works, are like filthy rags in God's holy sight. Friends, to put it another way, it's not just that you and I don't have any deposit slips for our heavenly bank account.

It's that even if we did, we don't have anything to deposit anyway. And that's bad because the Bible says that anyone who goes out into eternity with their account reading empty will experience God's full wrath against their sin and will be separated from God forever in hell. But wait a minute. There's some good news coming. There's some good news coming. And the good news of the Bible is God has made you and me a promise. Remember he made a promise to Abraham about a son.

Remember that? Well, God hasn't made a promise to you and me about a son. He's made a promise to you and me about heaven and eternal life and forgiveness of sin and salvation. Listen to his promise. Romans 10 13. Everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Listen to his promise. John 3 36. Whoever believes in the son, that means the Lord Jesus himself has eternal life. Listen to his promise.

Act 16 31. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. Now, I'm going to say the most important thing that I'm going to say in this whole message. If you don't get anything else, you make sure you get the next 30 seconds of what I'm going to say.

Listen now. When we believe God's promise about our salvation and when we are willing to believe in Jesus Christ, just like Abraham believed God's promise about a son, God credits our faith to us as righteousness. God imputes our faith to us as righteousness. God accounts our faith as righteousness in his sight, just like he did for Abraham. You say, Lon, you sure that's correct?

Oh, I'm positive. Listen to Romans 4 23. These words, Genesis 15 six. It was counted to him as righteousness were not written for Abraham only. Say the next four words with me, but also for us.

Watch to whom God will also credit righteousness if we believe in Jesus, whom God raised from the dead. You got it. You got it. Now, think what this means. This means that the day I committed my life to Jesus Christ, God took out his big ledger book in heaven and he started going down the SS. He went, you know, Smith, Snyder, Sobel, Sakowski, Solomon, Solomon, Solomon. There it is. Lon Neil, born August 24th, 1948, 64. Pay attention.

All right. In Portsmouth, Virginia, Jewish male blue eyes talks a lot. That's him. And God looked next to my name in that ledger. And guess what? It read empty, empty zero. But because I had just trusted Jesus the way God told me to, God took out a little slip of paper with the word righteous on it. And God put that piece of paper right next to my name over top of the word empty. Let me tell you two great things about that piece of paper. Number one, it's opaque, meaning God has agreed never, ever to see through that piece of paper for all of eternity. And let me tell you the other great thing about that piece of paper.

God puts it on with super glue so that nobody or nothing can ever remove that slip of paper. Not my sin, not my failures, not my stupidity and not even the devil of hell himself can ever remove that slip of paper from next to my name. Praise the Lord.

Huh? And friends, if you have believed in Jesus Christ as your Lord and savior, God has done this very same thing next to your name in his ledger book. So let's summarize what have we learned today? We've learned that God's plan of salvation for the human race operates on the principle of imputed righteousness. And how does imputed righteousness work?

What's that mean? It means that you and I don't become righteous. We're still sinners through and through. It means instead that God has credited our account. God has imputed to us righteousness, not a righteousness that you and I earned in any way with our own effort or our own human activity. No, no, but a righteousness that Jesus purchased for you and me on the cross and a righteousness that God, by his grace, deposited in our account as a free gift. And now, since next to our name, it reads righteous, God declares that all of his judgments against our sin are over.

They're satisfied. And you and I are paid in full. We can go to heaven because we're paid in full. We can be reconciled to God because we're paid in full. God can be our Heavenly Father and we can be his children.

We're paid in full. Do we see this? Does this get even on Amen or clap or something? That's how God's plan for salvation of the human race works right like that, friends.

It's all about that slip of paper going on next to your name. Now, one final thing before we stop, and that is please notice who this offer of imputed righteousness is open to. Romans 4, verse 5 says that God offers to justify, to declare righteous, the ungodly.

How awesome is this? God doesn't say to us, hey, go get godly and then I'll put righteousness in your account. No, no. God finds us standing there in our filthy rags and he doesn't say to us, hey, go see a tailor, would you?

No. He says, hey, standing there in all those filthy rags, I will cover you with the robe of the righteousness of Christ for free if you'll just let me. And you know, the really sad thing is that so many people won't let him. And I have a theory as to why. It's because in order to let him do that, you and I have to be willing to admit that our account reads empty. And I think that our world is full of people who aren't prepared to admit that. I mean, they are sure that there must be something in their account. I mean, with all of their baptism and all of their church membership and all of their keeping the sacraments and their Jewish ancestry and their philanthropy and their hajj to Mecca and their good life and all their good deeds, they're sure there must be something in their account. God says, sorry, there isn't. And it isn't till we get to the point that we're willing to admit our account is empty that we're open to God's offer. I tell you, the greatest day of my life was the day I admitted that my account read empty in the sight of a holy God and that there was no hope. There was nothing I could do to ever fill it. And I took God at his word that he would fill it for me if I would just believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.

I'll tell you, that happened in March. Nineteen seventy one and praise the Lord. Forty years later, my account still reads righteous.

It still reads full and it's going to read full and it's going to read righteous for all of eternity. That is the deal God made with me. Praise God for that, huh?

Amen. Now you say, well, Lon, this is great, but I just have one final question, and that is, why would God do this for me? Well, I can only give you the answer the Bible gives, and that is because he loves you. That is because he cares about you. That is because he's totally committed to you and intensely compassionate about you. You know, this summer I was having my devotions in Psalm 40 one day and I came across the verse.

I'm sure I've seen it before, but it never hit me like it hit me this summer. Here's what it says. Psalm 40 verse 17, it says, As for me, I am poor and needy, but the Lord takes thought for me.

Unbelievable. The Lord of the universe takes thought for me. Folks, I can't tell you why he does this.

I don't have an answer for that, but I'm sure glad he does it. And I want to tell you, I don't care what circumstance you're in. I don't care how tough the times are. I don't care how bad you're struggling.

I don't care how difficult your times are right now. My friends, the Lord takes thought for you every moment of every day, and he proved it. He proved it by sending Jesus to the cross so he could create this plan of salvation for you and me. Don't you ever doubt God's love. There's no reason to. Now, let me say, if you're here today, you've never trusted Christ as your personal savior. Friend, I want you to hear me clearly. You dare not go out into eternity with your account reading empty.

The result of doing that would be so catastrophic that you can't even imagine it. And, you know, friends, it's so unnecessary. God standing with open arms saying, I'll fill your account if you just let me. But you've got to humble yourself and admit it's empty. And you've got to humble yourself and admit you can't fill it yourself. You've got to humble yourself and throw yourself on the mercy of God and ask him to fill it for you. But if you're willing to do that, God says, hey, I filled it for Abraham. I filled it for Solomon.

I filled it for thousands and millions of other people through the centuries, and I'll fill it for you. We're going to give you a chance to do that right now. Let's pray with our heads bowed and our eyes closed. I'm going to lead us in a very short prayer where we're just going to tell God the very things we've talked about. So I'm going to pray out loud. You pray silently. And if you want to change systems for how you're planning to fill your bank account, here's your moment.

Let's do it. You pray silently. Lord Jesus, I come to you today to admit that my bank account reads empty in your sight. And to admit that all my good deeds to try to fill it up are like filthy rags in your holy sight.

And so today I give up that approach. And instead I do what Abraham did. I believe your promise that if I'm willing to trust Jesus and what he did for me on the cross, you will fill my account to overflowing for me. And so today I invite Christ into my life as my personal savior. I surrender my heart and my life to him. And I give up all attempts to become righteous on my own. Instead, I trust you to put that slip of paper next to my name. In Jesus name, I pray and Father, I want to pray for the folks that prayed that prayer that even as they sit here today, you would confirm to them that when you make a promise, you keep it.

And that if they were sincere, you just went down to their name and superglued that label right next to them. Lord, for those of us here who know Christ, encourage our hearts that you take thought about people like us every day. Thank you for creating a plan of salvation that we couldn't mess up if we tried.

One that works because you do it, not us. And help us revel in imputed righteousness every day of our life. And we pray these things in Jesus name. And what did God's people say? Amen. You