Unmatched Salvation (Part A)

To be uncertain about the things you should be sure of is not a virtue. It's a liability.

It drags you down. Uncertain about God's commitment to protecting your salvation. You shouldn't be wondering about that as you grow in the ways of Christ.

You should be looking again. How can this be something God can use? My assurance. Hell's not trying to contribute to that.

Bends all of its energy trying to strip you of that. But for now, let's join Pastor Rick in the book of Romans chapter 8 with today's edition of Cross Reference Radio. I was going to title this...I love this part. And maybe we should switch it, but... Our salvation, the plan of God's salvation in the gospel is unmatched. And I think all believers of Christ love this. If when you're singing worship songs to Christ or you're in a congregation and people are worshipping the Lord in song, if you're saying, I don't get it, then you haven't got it. Then you don't understand what God wants to do with you. But you've got a chance.

You've got a lifetime. And for those of us who do understand God's plan for bringing people into heaven and keeping us there, it is just very remarkable. It is amazing. It is using the word in a true sense. It is awesome. I say it like that because of course in our society the word awesome is abused and it's lost its meaning.

And it should not because it is a word that should inspire in the person that is using it or hearing it awe. It's a jaw dropper. There's nothing like this.

It's uncommon. Very special. This is not only what we want from our religion, which is a relationship with Christ, it's what we need. We need something that's invincible, something that hell can't get its hands onto. Jesus said, don't put your money where your valuables with the moth and the rust and the rot get to.

Put it in the kingdom of God. Ours is a fortified salvation. It is a divinely fortified salvation. So let's look at the first of these verses. Verse 31. What then shall we say to these things?

If God is for us, who can be against us? Well, when he says here, what then shall we say to these things? He says, what's it all add up to? Everything I've been telling you from chapter one, verse one, what does it add up to?

What do we say about these things? Well, if God is for us, that's right there. A tremendous statement if God is for us. Now that if, if God is not the if of doubt, not even the if of possibility, it is the if of therefore, or you might say since. So you could read that clause, since God is for us, what then shall we say to these things since God is for us?

God is committed to saving the lost, to preserving the saved, to strengthening the saved, to using the saved, to bringing them home. That's the process that we usually enter into when we come to Christ. And again, if you're not in Christ, if he's not your Lord and Savior, you're being cheated.

You're being ripped off. Satan is playing you. And when you come into a church, you should hear these kind of things. You're not going to hear them at the gas station or somewhere else, unless there's a Christian preaching it to you.

The house of God is supposed to give you the word of God. Who can be against us? Well, what matters most? What matters most is not who is against us so much as, well, who's for us? Imagine if you're playing a sport, let's just say baseball because there really aren't any other kind of sports. But if you're playing baseball and the other team is loaded with all the best players, it doesn't matter if God is on your team.

And that's the idea. If God is for us, who can be against us? God is not only rooting for us, he's also contributing to our lives, to our victory in the midst of our struggles, and there are going to be many of them. To be saved and to be used, that should be the basic goal of every Christian. To be safe in the presence of God, to be used by God. And, you know, God can use unbelievers. We don't want to be used in that way. We want to be used as friends of God, as allies. Verse 32, he who did not spare his own son but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?

Well, who are we talking about here? He who did not spare his own son. Of course, it's referencing the cross of Christ. We're probably, you know, almost 30 years after the crucifixion when Paul wrote this. God loves us more than our own flesh loves our darling sins. Maybe you struggle with greed, maybe you struggle with, maybe you're an unforgiving person, you like the feeling of not forgiving somebody, gives you a sense of power.

For example, whatever it is, you fill in the blank. God loves you more than your flesh loves that sin. Romans 4, verse 25, he had said, Paul, who was delivered up because of our offenses and was raised because of our salvation. And really the word is justification, which means salvation. Justification is a little bit more going on with it. It talks about, it simply says you're guilty, but you're made righteous.

And that's what justification is. And it ends up with our salvation. But you really can't break it apart if you're justified, you're saved.

By the blood of Christ, he who did not spare his own son. How weak would your witness be to lost souls if you were uncertain about your own salvation? This is why I think one of the reasons why truth is so important to face as Christians and to embrace it because to be uncertain about the things you should be sure of is not a virtue. It's a liability.

It drags you down. Uncertain about God's commitment to protecting your salvation. You shouldn't be wondering about that as you grow in the ways of Christ.

You should be looking again. How can this be something God can use? My assurance. Hell's not trying to contribute to that.

Bends all of its energy trying to strip you of that. You can hand it to the enemy. You can make it easy for Satan to prevail. Uncertain about God's commitment is something that we really should not be. Peter said it this way about the believers. We are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation. And so right there where the flesh would interject, see through faith I don't have that faith. Yeah, I think you've been telling yourself that too much.

I think you do. I think it's available for all of us to step into it. Verse 34, just looking at verse 34 of Romans 8. Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died and furthermore is also risen.

Who is even at the right hand of God who also makes intercession you could put for me. Now we don't want to be selfish because others do. But it's for me. That's salvation. If it's not for me, it's not taking application. This is authority. This is blessed assurance that puts the sword in the hand of the believer.

Because if you don't have that, then what is the alternative? What are you left with? But delivered him up for us all. That's redemption. All humanity is redeemed. All humanity is not saved. The price is paid, but you've got to come get it. If you don't come get it, you're not saved. So God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. That's the redemption part. The salvation part is when you say, I believe.

God's love for us is stronger than our love for our sins and for ourselves. And this should be something that motivates us. When I was in boot camp, it's funny, you only get one pair of boots.

Why do they call it? Well, then it could be boot camp. But anyway, there was a big emphasis on motivation. And if you weren't motivated, they had a special place for you. It was a motivation platoon for a week. And then it was finished with a motivation ditch. And when those guys came out of that ditch, their uniforms, they had thrown them away.

It was so bad. They motivated, though, after that. Well, it doesn't have to come to that in Christ.

It shouldn't have to come where you're sent to a motivation platoon. Our motivation is in our Savior and believing what he has done. Abraham, his giving up of Isaac was the greatest single act of his life that we know about.

And it's been printed for us. God himself has acknowledged this. I'll just take one part, but it would do well to, well, I'll give you the coordinates after I read the verse. Genesis 22, 12, this is, of course, when God says, Abraham, now take your son, your only son in whom you love and offer him as a burnt offering.

You can't even get our head around that. But Abraham does this, trusting God all the way. And when he's about to bring the knife down on his beloved Isaac, God interferes. It was never in God's intention to do this. He clears that up in Jeremiah. This is never my thought, human sacrifice. Anyway, God says, Do not lay your hand on the lad, this lad's in his 20s, or do anything to him. For now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son from me. Now, then you read on up to verse 18 and you see God is saying, I want to bless you for this. Even God was saying, this is fantastic. And we read that story and we love the behavior of everybody in it. The servants who listened to Abraham, Abraham who chopped the wood and hauled it up there, Isaac who, Dad, where's the offering?

You're it. All right, that's how it is. And of course, God. Free will cannot undo the sovereignty of God, because free will is something God sovereignly has instilled in us.

It does separate us from the animal kingdom. God gave us free will to allow us to be elected. Elections come through information, and faith is salvation's criteria. Jesus Christ will not be anyone's savior without their permission. That's why he says, I stand at the door and I knock.

He doesn't kick it in. He could, but he knocks. Sovereign, sovereignty of God, allowing and influencing man's will without violating the will. This is the case with Pharaoh, the Pharaoh of Egypt, who sat on his throne as Moses and Aaron looked to emancipate the Jewish people. Pharaoh had no less than ten chances to just let God influence him. He decided not. Then there's Jonah. Jonah needed some influencing too, and he got it more than he was ready for. But he responded. He didn't have to.

He could have died in the belly of that ocean creature. That could have been it, but no, he does respond to the influencing of God. And one of the great lessons is God saying to us from Jonah, we can do this the hard way or not. All he had to do was go to Nineveh and preach, but no, he has got to go through all this drama. And then after God saved the people, there's still all this stuff going on, and one of the lessons is God saying, you see how messed up you can be?

You see that? You can't be just like Jonah. And of course, there's the apostle Paul, who was also influenced. And the first thought in Paul's mind is, who are you? It was said, he didn't have to.

He could have just trembled in fear. And then he asked, what do you want me to do? What a profound lesson is that for every Christian to know God and to know what God wants from them. And it is a process. And sometimes in that process, God lets you fail. The case with Moses, Moses went to the Jewish people, hey, we're going to free you, and they turned on him. And Moses goes back to God. What happened?

You sent me to them, and they didn't just receive the message. It was a struggle and remained a struggle all his life. Moses, again, one of the greatest of them all. These characters in scriptures, every word. Jesus said, not a jot or tittle will be taken away. Therefore, it must be important to me. You read the letter of James, you get through that first two chapters, and you find out, hey, he's drawing a lot of information from other scriptures.

He's giving me illustrations. And that is what we do when we do expositional teaching, or you have your devotional time or your study time, by grace we are saved through faith. We're saved, we're not seized.

That's very important. How shall we not, he continues, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? When you see, I don't know about other pastors, but I know about me, when you see me struggling over reading the verse, it's because I'm excited what God has already given me about that verse, and I won't slow down. So, it's kind of like, Lord, I just want to give it. Say it. And he says, I know, I got you, and I got your back, too.

But you do look a little goofy mispronouncing a lot of those words. Anyway, here he says, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? This underscores our future inheritance. You know, the gold crowns that are illustrated for us in Revelation are miniscule compared to what God has got in store. If all we got was the golden crown, that'd be great, but we've got, Paul says God will take all the ages expressing himself to us.

Yeah, how, it's just beyond anything we can imagine. James chapter 1, verse 12, blessed is the man who endures trials, for when he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life, which the Lord has promised to those who love him. Well, that word approved there is when he's dead, but he's in heaven. And God will bless and make no mistake, his reward is with him, and he never issues false promises or promises he cannot keep. This is glorification. Glorification ends any risk of misusing free will or anything else.

Once in heaven, always in heaven. There are no more threats when we enter into that glory land. Verse 33, who shall bring a charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies.

Well, a lot of people are going to bring these charges, but it is not going to stick. God's elect are those who believe. Now, he does not elect who is going to believe.

He elects who believes. Huge difference. I know there are others that teach other things. Well, I don't believe them. I disagree with them. And I am not a respecter of persons, as they would probably say about me. If they said they didn't agree with me, they'd probably be wrong because they're wrong about the other things, too.

But anyway, back to this lesson, because it's not about me, but it should be. That's what the flesh says, not me. Anyway, the elect are the saved. They're the righteous. If you see how the word is used in Old Testament versus New Testament, it's pretty simple. And the New Testament is used of the righteous, and then it develops and expands into singling out the church. But in the Old Testament, it's speaking about Israel. So Paul here expands the meaning of the word elect from Israel and merely the righteous to Christians. He's speaking to Christians, and he'll get back to that in chapter 11. Those serving the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, the God of Israel.

Israel is elected among the nations, not the people. People have to come to God one on one. You're not born into salvation. John makes that very clear in the opening chapter of his gospel. Israel is elected among the nations to be the custodian of the Old Testament scripture and vessels for Messiah.

Those two have been satisfied. We have the Old Testament scripture through the Jewish people who preserved it for us, and we have the Messiah. Christianity, on the other hand, are the recipients of the invitations that are in that Old Testament scripture, Jew and Gentile alike. Any Jew or Gentile who receives the gospel is elected to be a custodian of the New Testament and is predestined for glory, for heaven.

This is very easy. Anytime somebody comes in and starts bringing complicated stuff into your Christianity, be careful. Man should not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. And I can't do that if I've got to go to a seminary to learn how to believe. The Holy Spirit, that's what John was saying.

The Holy Spirit's your teacher. He was not saying we don't have teachers because he was teaching them that. But he is saying, let's not get this complicated because it doesn't need to be so.

It's powerful in its basic form, untouched. So this expansion of the word elect is not a replacement. He just expands to the church. Israel is chosen, elected among nations.

I'm repeating that. And the Christians are elected because they have responded to the invitation. So man is either blocked from heaven, those who reject Christ, or guarded by God since they believe. But always God takes the first step. Nobody can enter into salvation on their own. You can't drift into it.

You can't earn your way into it. It has to be, it comes down to receiving the invitation. And so we hear in the New Testament, do you believe? Do you believe? Believers are elected and thus pretest into salvation. So these words that come flying out when Paul says, therefore, we're looking at again verse 31. What then shall we say to these things?

What things? For knowledge of God, predestination, called, justified, glorified. All of those together, you put them together and they embrace eternity past, they embrace the present, and they embrace the future. That's the realm God operates in. God has mapped out the destiny of the saved.

This is glorious news. I don't, again, I don't need to, well what does this mean in the Greek? It means that God's mapped out our salvation. Vaporizing condemnation. If you're in Christ, it's done. So I don't have to wait to get to heaven to know that I will be in heaven.

What kind of deal would that be? Well, you know, we're not sure if you're saved. But when you drop dead, Louie, if we don't find anything about you that's wrong, then we'll know you're in heaven. That won't work.

I need to know now. Imagine telling, you'll find out if your weapon's loaded when you get on the battlefield. That'd be horrible. I don't know why anybody pushes back on this. And then Christians say, no, this is going to be the way of it. It is God who justifies. The perfect God saving imperfect people. Will all the perfect people please stand up?

Point made. It is God who justifies. Romans 5, 9, having now been justified by His blood. You could say saved by His blood.

Because he goes on to say that. We shall be saved from wrath through Him. Wrath is coming. So those of you who don't believe, don't think you're going to get away with it.

You think you've got catchy words and you're confusing people with all your articulation of nothing. In the end, what's waiting for you is a wrath that you should have nothing to do with. There's a consequence. There's an accountability. If I didn't have free will, I wouldn't be accountable to anything. It wouldn't be my fault. But I am a person who has free will just like everybody else. And I am accountable. But I'm also weak, people tell me.

And therefore it's that weakness. Somebody's got to make up for that because that's the one that can damn my soul. And that's when the Lord steps in. I will justify you. I will save you.

I'll take care of this. And so Paul, knowing this, been preaching it for eight chapters, says, Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died and furthermore is also risen. Who is even at the right hand of God who also makes intercession for me. Now of course I'm changing it from us to me because it's got to be personal.

We can lose, you know, some of the language by just not applying the strength, the force of the statement to feel all the weight of the statement pushed down. None can damn us if God is for us. Thanks for joining us for today's teaching on Cross-Reference Radio. This is the daily radio ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville in Virginia.

We're currently going through the book of Romans. If you're in need of hearing this message again or want to listen to others like it, head over to crossreferenceradio.com. We encourage you to subscribe to our podcast too so you'll never miss another edition. Just go to your favorite podcast app to subscribe. On our website you'll be able to learn a little more about the ministry of Cross-Reference Radio, so make a note of it, crossreferenceradio.com. That's all we have time for today but thanks so much for listening. Pastor Rick will be back next time in the book of Romans here on Cross-Reference Radio.