The Biblical Worldview on Salvation: Viewing the World Through Scripture

The following message from Pastor Greg Laurie is made possible by Harvest Partners, helping people everywhere know God. To find out how to know God personally, go to knowgod.org, K-N-O-W, knowgod.org.

Hey, would you do me a favor? Share this message with someone who needs to hear it. We want to have a biblical world view. So many voices around us telling us what to think, what to believe.

Pastor Greg Laurie says, resist that. Don't just go with your emotions because your emotions can mislead you. Don't just go with your heart because your heart can mislead you. Certainly don't go with culture because that will mislead you. Go with the Bible.

It will never take you in the wrong direction. Learn to think biblically. We live in the information age. Facts and figures fly at us faster than we can absorb.

And opinions, suppositions, rumors, and innuendos come screaming at us from every form of media, especially social media. Where do we find an escape? Today on A New Beginning, Pastor Greg Laurie points out our respite is right in the pages of God's Word. Not only do we find solace, we find a soothing salve of Scripture. Today let's ponder on things above. We are in a brand new series right now that we are calling World View.

And I will explain it a little bit more in a few moments. But the title of my message is The Biblical World View on Salvation. So I want you to turn in your Bibles to Philippians chapter 2.

Philippians chapter 2 is our text. And sometimes people ask me, Greg what happened to your hair? They do ask that. But after that they will say, why do you do these crusades? Because you know honestly they are a lot of work. There are months of prayer and planning and more prayer and more work and money and more prayer that is involved.

Our team works tirelessly putting in hours and hours. Why do we do this? It is a very simple answer. We do this so people can be saved. So people can be saved from their sin because when it is all said and done there is nothing more important than people coming into a saving relationship with Jesus Christ. Do you agree with that?

I hope you do. Nothing. You know sometimes people will say, no the most important thing is feeding people who are hungry or clothing them. Or it is helping people who are addicted to drugs or alcohol to get off of the substances they are on. Or maybe to put their marriages back together. All those things are very important. But the most important thing is having people change their eternal address from a place called hell to a place called heaven.

And here is the thing. If that happens I believe all these other areas of life will sort themselves out. If you put Christ at the forefront of your life He can heal your marriage no matter what you are going through.

If you put Christ at the forefront of your life He can restore you and you don't have to be into the influence of any drug or any other thing. So this is why we do what we do. And I love the word saved. Saved. Salvation.

Because that is exactly what happens. And by the way that is a biblical word. It is used many times. In fact in Romans 9-10 it says, If you will declare with your mouth, Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe, and you are justified, and it is with your mouth you profess your faith, and you are saved. When Peter was preaching on the day of Pentecost he said to the people gathered, be saved from this perverse generation. Then later on in Acts 2 we read, The Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved. Then in Acts 2 21 it says, Whoever will call upon the name of the Lord will be saved. Hebrews 7 25 says He is able to save completely those who come to God through Him. It is a perfect description.

Because that is what it is. You are being saved. It is a phrase we would use if a lifeguard rescued a person.

Or if a firefighter ran into a burning building and brought someone out we would say they were saved. I just watched a video of a special forces guy. He used to be in special forces. Who has now gone over to the Middle East in a volunteer position.

Because he heard of some of the atrocities being committed by ISIS against civilians. And in this video it shows him with his other friends who are volunteers running into a hail of bullets to rescue a little Iraqi girl that was caught in the crossfire. He put his life on the line.

His fellow soldiers gave him covering fire. And thankfully he returned with that little girl. He saved her. And then when he was interviewed he said, I did it because of my faith in Jesus Christ.

I love to hear stories like that. But literally he saved that girl. And when we go and share our faith and someone believes in Jesus literally if they put their trust in Him they are being saved in the truest sense of what that word means. Well we are in this new series. We are calling it World View. And the objective of this series is to help us to learn how to think biblically. See everybody has a world view.

There is no question about that. And your world view is influenced by many things. It is influenced by culture. Your upbringing. Your education or lack thereof. The books you read or the lack of books you read.

The media you expose yourself to. And a world view is comprehensive. It will affect every area of your life. From your personal morality to how you spend your money to your politics to how you vote even.

It affects everything about you. And so what we want to have is a Christian world view. And more specifically we want to have a biblical world view.

The only way to have a biblical world view is by studying and memorizing Scripture and spending time in it each and every day so we run everything through a biblical grid and we ask ourselves the question what does the Bible say about this. Because sometimes people have an emotional world view. They base their views on how they feel. And you don't want to do that because your emotions can mislead you. You know sometimes people will say well I just go with my heart because the heart wants what the heart wants.

What the heck does that even mean? Let me tell you something about your heart. The Bible says it is deceitfully wicked above all things.

Who can know it? So don't just go with your heart because your heart can mislead you. Don't just go with your emotions because your emotions can mislead you. Certainly don't go with culture because that will mislead you. Go with the Bible. It will never take you in the wrong direction. Learn to think biblically.

C.S. Lewis said and I quote, I believe in Christianity as I believe that the Son has risen not because I see it but because by it I see everything else. That is how we have to view life. Through the lens of Scripture. Through the eyes of a follower of Jesus Christ. And I want to talk about the biblical view of salvation. But let me take a quick poll. How many of you would describe yourselves as being saved? Raise your hand if you can. Ok that is almost everybody.

Very good. That is very important that we are saved. Again what does it mean to be saved?

So I want to kind of drill down a little bit into this because we throw the word around but do we understand it? Back to Romans 10 again. If you will declare with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart God raised Him from the dead you will be saved. For it is with your heart you believe and you are justified and it is with your mouth you profess your faith and are saved. So one of the great benefits of salvation is God justifies us. So what does that mean?

That is a word we may use and repeat but we don't necessarily understand it. One aspect of justification means that God has forgiven you of all of your sin but even more He has removed all of the evidence of your sin as well. Now that is important because we have all done things we wish we had not done.

Right? We have all said things we wish we had not said but God can forgive us of our sin if we repent of it and not only does He forgive us but then He forgets our sin. God says in Hebrews 10 17, I will never again remember your sins and lawless deeds.

Now let's understand God is omniscient which means He knows all things. So it is not like God is literally forgetting things but it means that He is choosing to not hold those things against you. Sort of like when you are having conflicts with your spouse and marriage and they bring up something you did like 30 years ago. Remember that time you said this to me?

Seriously that was 30 years ago. Can you just let it go? See that is what it means to forgive and forget that you don't keep an account of all those things and bring them up over and over. So God says I choose to no longer remember that thing that you did that was a sin against me and affront to me. I love this passage in Jeremiah where God says, There will come a day when you will look high and low for a sign of Israel's guilt and you will find nothing. Search nook and cranny for a trace of Judah's sin.

You will find nothing. These people that I have saved will start out with a clean slate. That is what God does for us. That is what it means to be saved.

I have a clean slate. My sin is removed. Now if that is all salvation was.

If that is all justification was that would be more than enough. No wonder the Bible calls it so great a salvation in Hebrews 2-3. But that is not all there is because in addition to that God has placed the righteousness of Jesus Christ into my spiritual bank account so to speak. The Bible tells us in Philippians 3.9 being found in Him not having my own righteousness which is from the law but that which is through faith in Christ the righteousness which is from God by faith. You see I am a righteous man.

You say, Greg I don't know. I saw how you drove earlier today. Wait. I didn't say I always do righteous things. But I am positionally righteous before God.

And this is true of every Christian. Because the day I believed He removed my sin. He forgave my sin. He forgot my sin. He removed every trace of my sin. And in the place of that He put the righteousness of Jesus Christ.

That is what it means to be justified. We know salvation is a gift from God. So what does it mean to work out our own salvation? Well Pastor Greg answers that next. In a new book Pastor Greg Laurie recalls his friendship with Dr. Billy Graham. He had this ability to connect from the beginning to the middle to the end of his ministry.

I remember seeing him in New York at his final crusade and flushing meadows there. And I remember he just looked at the crowd and said God loves you. And then he would turn to another part of the crowd and say God loves you. I read somewhere that what young people want and need from older people is first they want to be loved. And you want to be loved. And the Bible says God loves you. God loves you.

God loves everyone here tonight. He lived what he preached. He lived what he preached. There weren't two Billy Grahams.

He was the same in private that he was in public. And he was the godliest man I've ever met. The new book Billy Graham, The Man I Knew, from Pastor Greg Laurie.

Yours for a gift of any size at Harvest.org. Well today Pastor Greg is giving us a correct view of sin, salvation, and our standing before God. We're developing a biblical world view. Let's continue.

Here's the problem. We know these things. We say these things. But do we live like saved people? Because sometimes you don't see the impact of one's salvation on a person's lifestyle.

Or on their choices. They'll say oh yes I love the Lord. But they'll do things that seem to contradict that. They'll say oh yes I'm saved. But you wonder are they really saved? And I think if a person has really met God there will be evidence in their life. If a person has really come into this encounter with Jesus Christ you will see the results. And this is sort of the transitional moment of what I'm talking about here. Where I want to talk about working out your salvation.

Which will bring us to our text in Philippians. And here's an illustration that will help us to understand it. I read recently in USA Today that there's a lot of lottery tickets that have never been claimed. In fact this article said there were 46 million dollars waiting for people that bought a ticket and technically won some of that money. But never received it. Because they never brought their ticket in. They missed the deadline.

And they say this happens every year. They have millions of dollars that is never collected. A few years ago there was a 25 million dollar prize here in California that went unclaimed. And by the way this is not an endorsement of the lottery. In fact I hope you don't spend your money on lottery tickets.

But I'm using this merely as an illustration. I read about a man in Pennsylvania who read about time running out on a 20 million dollar lottery prize. And he wondered wow I wonder if I bought that ticket. Apparently he had bought quite a few. So he went through a bunch of old boxes and sure enough he found the winning ticket and brought it in one day before it expired. And in many ways God has given us something well far greater than a lottery ticket.

Worth far more than millions and millions of dollars. It's salvation. So what I want to do is I want to take hold of or live out what God has given to me. So let's look at Philippians two verse 12. Therefore my beloved as you've always obeyed not as in my presence only but much more in my absence work out your own salvation with fear and trembling for it is God who works in you both to will and do of his good pleasure. Work out your own salvation.

What does that mean? It means only you can work out your salvation. Wouldn't it be nice if you could hire someone to work out for you? You say you know what I don't want to work out. You have to go work out for me. But you can't do that. You have to go work out for yourself. So work out your own salvation. This is not something someone else can do in your place.

This is something you must do for yourself. It's a personal choice but Paul throws in an interesting thought here in verse 12. Therefore my beloved as you have always obeyed not only in my presence but more in my absence. Basically Paul is writing to the believers here in Philippi from a prison.

He's been arrested. And he can't go and be with them as he was in the past. And so he misses them and they miss him. So basically he's saying now guys I'm not with you but I still want you to work out your own salvation. I think the New Living Translation is helpful here where Paul says dearest friends you are always so careful to follow my instructions when I was with you and now that I'm away you must be even more careful to put into action God's saving work in your lives.

So here's what Paul is saying in effect guys. You need to grow up spiritually. You can't build your spiritual life on me. Don't even for a moment think you guys can go into spiritual cruise control if I'm not personally there for you because it's God that works in you not Paul. I'm not doing the work in your life.

God is doing the work in your life. Now I bring this up because sometimes we can allow people to take the place of God in our life. I'm not going to church if so and so isn't speaking. I only go when he speaks.

Well I'm not gonna do that because I don't know that person. I only like this person and we can become far too willing to put a person in the place of God. We can allow our hearts as one said to become idol factories. A husband chooses to not go to church because his wife doesn't go anymore. Or maybe the kids don't go to church because their parents don't go anymore. Listen you need your own relationship with God. Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. You say but Greg my parents were hypocrites or I saw a hypocrite in church. Yeah get over it.

Grow up. Put your faith in Christ and follow him. So Paul's saying it can't be all about me being there with you because I won't always be there with you but the Lord always will be there with you. So work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.

As I misunderstand this Paul did not say work for your own salvation because salvation is a gift of God. And by the way this is a gift that grows more valuable with the passing of time. Isn't it interesting how things that were so valuable on the day you received them have no value now.

And that which didn't have as much value has become more precious to you now. For instance you may have gotten a gadget. Oh it was the cutting edge gadget.

You were so excited when you got it. But now as you look at that cassette player it makes a nice doorstop. It's a nice nostalgic item you know.

Or eight track player or whatever it is. See it's outdated but maybe that little drawing your child did for you that you just put away in a box has become more precious to you with the passing of time. Salvation is like that. The longer we live the more valuable we see it is. It's not that it becomes more valuable.

It always was. But we are just discovering the value of it. Because the salvation God gives us saves us from our past, our present, and our future. First it saves us from our past. The sins we've committed.

The wrongs we have done. It's removed. It's taken away. It's erased.

We've been given a clean slate as I pointed out. But now it saves us from our present. The power of sin in my life.

I have God's power to overcome it. And lastly it saves me from a future judgment. So that's why the Bible calls it such a great salvation. You see the value of it more and more with the passing of time. And so Paul says work out your salvation.

Don't work for it. It's a gift to you from God. Ephesians 2 says by grace you've been saved through faith.

Not of yourselves. It's the gift of God. Pastor Greg Laurie with insights on the gift of salvation, but how we need to work it out in our lives. And there's more to come from this message here on A New Beginning called The Biblical Worldview on Salvation. Now we realize sometimes interruptions happen as you listen to the Bible. But the Bible doesn't. The Bible doesn't. The Bible doesn't. The Bible doesn't. The Bible doesn't. We realize sometimes interruptions happen as you listen to these studies.

Well you can hear what you miss by going to our website harvest.org. Well Pastor Greg we're so happy to make available your brand new book called Billy Graham The Man I Knew. And in it you talk about some of Billy's early days preaching and how sometimes it didn't go very well.

And you said in the book that you've had a few times when you first started it didn't exactly make the highlight real. What would you say to a young person who feels called to preach and teach but they're just wondering if they have what it takes? Well I would say I think of the words of the Lord to Moses who had something of a speech impediment and tried to get out of being called to represent him. And the Lord said I'll be with you. And I think you know you just have to take steps of faith and be willing to leave your comfort zone to let God use you.

And nobody starts out perfectly. And Billy had his hardships and challenges and difficulties one time he got up to speak and pretty much took every sermon he had ever come up with and give them all in one time and it was over within like nine minutes. And it reminds me of one of the times I spoke in front of Billy. They asked me to be on his board of directors and I was there at a table and there sat Billy Graham and Cliff Barrows and other legends of the Graham team and they asked me to do a little devotion.

And all I remember is going into an altered state of consciousness. I mean here I've stood in stadiums and preached to thousands of people but I've never been more intimidated than I was speaking in front of Billy Graham himself. And he was very affirming and very encouraging but he was Billy Graham. And when you're starting out serving the Lord if you're a preacher or just sharing your faith you're gonna make mistakes but that's okay.

You know just give it your best shot and learn from your mistakes and press on. And that's what Billy did and in fact he became a brilliant orator, the master communicator but he never lost touch with who he was. A farm boy from North Carolina and God raised him up to be the greatest evangelist not only of his lifetime but in my opinion the greatest evangelist in human history. So that's why I wanted to write a book about him and it's called Billy Graham the Man That I Knew.

By the way that title came from Franklin Graham. I've written other books on people you may have heard of like Steve McQueen and Johnny Cash. I wrote a book called Steve McQueen The Salvation of an American Icon. I wrote another book called Johnny Cash The Redemption of an American Icon. So it was my intention to call this book Billy Graham The Making of an American Icon. Franklin said to me, Daddy would not want to be called an icon. I said really?

He says no. You shouldn't call it that. You should instead call it Billy Graham the Man That I Knew. And I said that's a good title. So we had already done the cover art and it was on its way and we redesigned it and were able to change it to this title and he was a man I knew and I got to know him well and he never disappointed me.

And that's quite a thing to say but it actually is true. Well it's a landmark biography on Billy's life with exhaustive painstaking research that literally took years. In spite of how well Pastor Greg knew Billy personally he found out so much more during that in-depth research. And you'll benefit from these deep insights so we hope you'll get in touch for your own copy of Billy Graham The Man I Knew. We'll send it to say thank you for your donation of any size. Your donation makes a huge difference not only in being able to bring these studies your way but also reaching out with the gospel just as Billy Graham did.

We saw more than 150,000 decisions for Christ in 2020 in the middle of the pandemic. And it's because listeners like you said yeah Greg I want to help that kind of outreach happen. So thank you for your investment right now and to thank you tangibly we'll send you a copy of this brand new biography Billy Graham The Man I Knew.

Just write a new beginning Box 4000 Riverside, CA 92514 or call 1-800-821-3300 We're here to take your call around the clock so again dial 1-800-821-3300 or go online to harvest.org Hey everybody Greg Laurie here personally inviting you to join us for what we call Harvest at Home. It's a Bible study. It's a worship service. It's church in your home. Maybe you're not able to get out to your church right now. If so join us for Harvest at Home. People are listening in from around the world.

Listen to this. We have seen thousands of people make a commitment to follow Christ. So join us this weekend for Harvest at Home at harvest.org Well next time more insight from Pastor Greg's message called The Biblical Worldview on Salvation. Join us here on a new beginning with Pastor Greg Laurie. This is the day, the day when life begins The preceding message from Greg Laurie was made possible by Harvest Partners helping people everywhere know God. Sign up for Pastor Greg's free daily email devotions at harvest.org