Salvation ... Now What?

Welcome to this edition of Power Point with Jack Graham. A little later in the program we'll tell you how you can get a copy of Dr. Graham's devotional, Moments in the Word. But first here's the message, salvation, now what? The entire book of Hebrews is given to us to encourage us to move forward in our faith. To press on and to persevere in the salvation that we have in Christ.

The writer was concerned about those who were dropping out and fading away. And so he writes concerning continuing in our faith in Christ and maturing in our development as believers. For example, in chapter 6 in verse 1 we're told to leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and to go on to maturity, to go on, to go forward, to get better in our faith.

That is what he assures us is possible. Then in verse 9 it says, to accompany salvation. You know, some things just go together in life. Like thunder and lightning. Or like bacon and eggs.

Or like mashed potatoes and gravy. And the word that is given to us here which is translated the things that belong to salvation is a word which literally means that goes along with salvation. It goes together with salvation. It's not salvation. Salvation is in Christ alone by grace alone through faith alone in Him.

This is not salvation but there are things that go along with salvation. The Greek word is actually the word echo. And of course you know what an echo is.

You speak and then the echo follows. And so the echo of salvation is what is in focus here. The Amplified Bible gives it this way. Things that are near to salvation and accompany it. Notice this is not salvation but this is near to salvation.

In other words these are the first things, the first steps. These are the foundational truths and there are of course many things that accompany salvation. On the result side in other words what Christ has done for us we can speak of the fact that we now because we have salvation have a purpose in life.

And we recognize that God's plan for us is good and we have a new significance in life. Because of salvation this accompanies salvation. The forgiveness of sins that every blot and every blur and every blemish, every failure, every foible, every sin, every stain is forgiven.

Isn't that great news? Forgiven. Deleted. Deleted is extracted from our lives because of what Christ and Christ has done for us. What we could not do for ourselves Jesus did for us. This is an accompaniment of salvation. We know in Christ that we are now loved unconditionally for we have been accepted in the Beloved. We now have God's strength to overcome our habits, to overcome our hurts, to overcome our hang-ups. We now have God's work to overcome our hurt, to give us wisdom in life. We now have God's protection.

God's protection because greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world. We have been equipped with spiritual gifts so that we may serve Christ. We have been given the Holy Spirit that we may witness of His power.

We now know that God is working all things together for our good and for His glory. We know that what God has started in us He is going to finish in us and therefore we are guaranteed a place in heaven and we are secure in Christ. All of this you see is an accompaniment of salvation. It goes along with salvation. This is what we receive in Christ. But there are also some responsibilities that accompany salvation. And that's what I want us to focus on for a few moments today. The things which go along with salvation, the echo, what happens once we believe and receive Christ that we may go on in maturity.

Number one, a profession that is public. I'm talking about an open confession of your faith in Jesus Christ. Now no doubt about it, salvation is an inside job.

It's what God does in us. But what is very personal is never to be private. It is always to be public because everyone that was called to follow Christ in the Scriptures was called openly and outwardly.

No doubt about this. I could give you many examples of course of those who followed Jesus in the Gospels. They were up front in their profession of faith in Christ.

Simon Peter exemplifies this. When Jesus said, Who do men say that I am? He made a great confession.

He said, You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. And with that open confession, those believers, that band of disciples, they responded as well. And that was a public confession of faith.

Everyone who followed Jesus in the New Testament and became a believer, they ultimately came out in their faith. They weren't in the closet. They were in the open air following the Lord Jesus Christ. They weren't doing it in churches. They were doing it in their communities.

They were doing it in the culture. They were openly, avidly following Christ. They stood there and proclaimed the Gospel and invited people to respond to Christ. And the Bible says with many other words, He spoke to them, calling them forward.

I don't know how they made their decisions. I don't know if they all stood up, those who wanted to receive Christ. I don't know if they came forward in some way. I don't know if He said, All of you who are wanting to receive Christ today, go stand over here.

I don't know exactly. We're not told. But we're told that there is a public confession of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Again, this accompanies salvation.

This is the echo of salvation. What did Jesus say? If you confess me before men, I will confess you before the Father in heaven. If you don't confess me before men, I'll not confess you when I come again with my holy angels.

To Jesus, a public avowal, a public commitment of your faith, a public commitment of your faith. Your faith in Christ, in Him, was absolutely vital. The Apostle Paul said, I'm not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ.

Don't be ashamed of Jesus. This is an echo of salvation. This goes along with salvation. It's not salvation, but it is in association with salvation. It is holding hands with salvation, a profession that is public.

But there's something else. That is a baptism that is biblical. Baptism is not salvation.

It does not save, nor does it help to save. Baptism is the symbol of our salvation. Baptism is the open confession of our faith. As a matter of fact, in the days of the New Testament, part of the profession of faith that people made before the church was through baptism. This was how confession and profession of faith was offered. It was through believer's baptism. Now, have you ever wondered why Jesus commanded baptism?

Of course, there's a theology concerning baptism, the doctrine of baptism, and there is the doxology of baptism. It is a praise to God. But there's also a psychology, if you will, of baptism. And I believe that has to do with why God gave us this unusual method of expressing our faith. It is something that accompanies salvation.

Not salvation, but it is an echo of our salvation in Christ. God gave us the ability to live a godly life and fulfill His plans for you in the coming year. And we'd like to help you walk even more closely with the Lord in the year ahead by sending you Pastor Graham's 180-day devotional, Moments in the Word. It's our way to thank you for your gift today to help proclaim the gospel to more people around the world through PowerPoint. So call now to get your copy of Moments in the Word when you give. Call 1-800-795- 4627. That's 1-800-795-4627. You can also text the word PowerPoint to 313131.

Text PowerPoint to 313131. And don't forget to visit JackGraham.org, where you can shop our e-store, give a gift online, or sign up for Dr. Graham's free daily email devotional. Our website, again, is JackGraham.org. Now let's get back to today's message, salvation.

Now what? What is this psychology? Well, number one, in baptism we express our faith. There is an old saying in the world of psychology that goes like this, impression without expression leads to depression. If you are impressed to do something again and again, and you suppress that and don't do it, ultimately it has to do with your faith.

Ultimately it has a depressing effect. And when you are impressed by the Spirit of God, change, when you grasp the reality of His love and His grace, when you are gripped by the presence and the power of Jesus Christ, what do you do? The Bible says you are to express that, and the way to do that is through this testimony and obedience of baptism. Because when we are baptized, we are declaring our faith. So baptism expresses our faith.

It is a proclamation of the gospel, who we are and what has happened to us. But it is also a portrait of our cleansing. We can't erase sin, nor can we work to remove our sins.

There is only one who can cleanse us from sin, and His name is Jesus. And baptism produces a wonderful sense of God's cleansing, of a new beginning in life, of a refreshing before God, a clean conscience before God. This is what baptism represents. But there is a third thing about baptism, and it is a reason that every believer should be baptized, and that is that baptism then is a benchmark of our commitment to Christ.

There are several significant benchmarks that delineate every life. Birthdays, graduation days, wedding days, and these kinds of days are points of reference for each one of us. Baptism is a point of reference. It is a benchmark of the most life-changing event that takes place in our hearts, and that is our salvation. Baptism doesn't save.

It's the benchmark. It is the remembrance. It is the line of demarcation when we step outwardly and openly upwardly for Christ. I became a Christian as a small child. As a matter of fact, because I had a Christian home and family and the gospel was taught in my home, I came to faith in Jesus Christ at the very young age of six. A couple of years later, I was baptized. Now, my salvation experience, though it happened over 50 years ago, is very vivid to me.

The best time for a person to be saved is the first time a child or a person understands the gospel and can respond in faith to that gospel. I didn't obviously know everything about life or the gospel. I didn't have a long track record of sin in my life. But I knew that I had sinned, that I needed a Savior, that Jesus was the Savior.

I wanted Jesus to be my Lord and my life, and I wanted to follow Him. And so I'm grateful that I came to Christ at a very young age. But then I was baptized, and I also vividly remember my baptism. In part, it's because it's such a strange thing to do. And when you're a little child, your eyes are wide open.

It was such a vivid thing to me. And so I believe psychologically, emotionally, spiritually, God gave us baptism to be a constant and vivid reminder of a day-a-day in our lives when we responded to the gospel. It is a benchmark of our commitment to Christ.

A benchmark. Now be sure that you get your baptism on the right side of your salvation. And what I mean by that is this. Baptism should never precede salvation. It is always in accompaniment of salvation. In addition to salvation, it holds hands with salvation.

It's what we're talking about in this passage. Every person who was baptized in the Scripture was baptized in response to their personal faith in Christ. So if you were baptized by any method, immersion or otherwise, before you became a true believer in Christ, that's not the New Testament pattern of baptism. It may be a dedication of your family.

It may be a commitment of your parents. It may be a religious experience. But it is not baptism until you first respond personally to Jesus Christ and give your life to follow Him.

And then it becomes a benchmark of your commitment to Him. But then let me say one other thing about baptism before we move on to the last thing. And that is baptism meets the need for humility in our lives. The single biggest obstacle between a person and God is pride. Whether it's intellectual pride, we have to be willing to lay aside our intellectual pride and become like little children to follow Christ. It doesn't mean there are not evidences of the faith and that we can reasonably believe in the gospel. But we must be willing to lay aside all of our imaginations and our intellectual pride and say, Lord Jesus, I come to you in simplicity and faith. I come to you like a little child.

Jesus said, unless you come to me as a little child, you will never be converted. Intellectual pride. How many are kept from the kingdom of God because of intellectual pride? But then there's social pride. We like to associate with impressive people, cool people. This is why peer pressure is so difficult for both adults as well as students because we like to be in the in group.

We want to be accepted by our peers and so the pressure is on. Jesus, He didn't hang out with the cool crowd of His day. He hung out with the outcasts and the outscoring.

He hung out with the uneducated. He hung out with sinful people, unimpressive people, common people. And if you're going to follow Jesus, the Christ of the cross demands that we lay aside social pride and follow Jesus. And then there's spiritual pride. The idea that somehow we can earn our own way to heaven. But we don't earn salvation. Salvation is what Christ does for us, not what we do for Him.

Works do not save nor do they help to save. So we have to be willing to lay aside spiritual pride and our self-effort and human effort to follow Jesus Christ. And baptism douses pride.

I mean think about it. I mean just the very act of getting in water and having someone dip you beneath the water, I mean your pride's gone at that point, right? It is an act of surrender. It is an act of submission before God. And so everyone ought to follow Christ with a profession that is public and a baptism that is biblical. I've seen many times, many kinds of people through the years in a baptistry.

I've seen young and old and everybody in between. But I tell you what, a kind of person I've never seen in a baptistry and that is a prideful person. Because you have to be willing to lay aside your pride to follow Christ. So baptism is an expression of our faith in Christ. It is a pledge of our clean conscience before God. It is a righteous act.

It is a benchmark of renewal. It is a demonstration of humility. You say, well is that really all necessary? Do you want to be obedient to Christ?

Yes. Because this accompanies salvation. Jesus said if you love me, keep my commandments. Jesus commanded that we be baptized.

There's one final thing briefly that I want to talk about. I wish I had more time to talk about these things that accompany salvation. A profession that is public, a baptism that is biblical, and then a fellowship that is faithful. I'm talking about the church.

Now sometimes in our desire never to preach church entity, rather preach Christianity, we have lessened the importance of the local church and the ministry of the church. But an echo of salvation, what happens after we're saved, is that we then become a part of the body of Christ, the body of believers which is His church. And we love those who follow Christ even as we love Christ. 1 John 3.14 says it is because we love other believers, that we demonstrate our faith.

We long to belong. And therefore God has given us the association of the church, the fellowship of the church. This spiritual family, the Bible says we are all a part of God's family, this household of faith. So He puts us in a spiritual family. He gives us the church. And the church is not something that we go to, it is something we belong to. I think it's very important that when you associate with the church that you just not go and hang out and hang on, but that you get engaged and involved in the ministry of that church, that you join that church, and that you having professed faith in Christ and following Christ in believer's baptism, that you are a part of the church. Again, the church is not something you go to just when we feel like it, when we're ready to go, but rather it is something we belong to. Do you belong to the church? It is in the church that we worship the Lord Jesus Christ.

We learn to develop healthy relationships. It's in the church that we develop godly character through the study of God's word. And you know, godly character is not only taught, it's taught in the church.

It's not only taught, it is taught. We all need role models, people that inspire us, people that motivate us, people that move us, and with the pressure of the world. This is why, kids, I want you to be in church because you know the pressure that you have in school and with your friends and so on. And what we need is a place where we can come and a people that we believe in where we have some spiritual heroes and some people that care about us that can encourage us and bless us and model for us what godly character is like.

You see what I'm saying? This is the church and so much more. It is in the church that we understand the importance of God's word that we find wisdom and guidance for life. It's in the church that we get perspective on our problems in life. It's in the church that we establish a spiritual legacy from generation to generation. Well, I've talked a while this morning, but it's all about the things that accompany salvation.

A profession that is public, a baptism that is biblical, and a fellowship, the church that is faithful. You're listening to PowerPoint with Jack Graham and his message, Salvation Now What? Looking ahead to a new year can fill you with expectation, but it can also fill you with desperation. What if things get worse?

What if the world gets crazier? What if you don't have the strength to face what comes your way? It's through spending daily time in God's word that we find the strength, peace, and hope we need. And we want to help you do that by sending you Pastor Graham's 180 day devotional, Moments in the Word.

Moments in the Word is our special thanks for your gift this month. So call to request your copy today. Call 1-800-795-4627. That's 1-800-795-4627. You can also text the word PowerPoint to 313131. Text PowerPoint to 313131. And don't forget to visit JackGraham.org where you can shop our e-store, give a gift online, or sign up for Dr. Graham's free daily email devotional.

Our website again is JackGraham.org. Pastor, what is your PowerPoint for today? Let me remind you that these three things don't add to your salvation as a believer in Christ. They accompany your decision to follow Christ. In other words, we are saved by Christ and Christ alone, by His grace, trusting Him for eternal life. That brings us to salvation. But what accompanies salvation? There are some responsibilities. There is a cost to following Jesus.

There is a price to pay. So the first responsibility you as a believer has is to make sure that you profess your faith, a profession that is public. As I said in today's message, there is no such thing as a secret follower of Jesus. In fact, it was Jesus who said, Everyone who acknowledges Me before men, the Son of Man, will also acknowledge before the angels of God. But the one who denies Me before men will be denied before the angels of God.

Doesn't get much clearer than that, does it? The second responsibility is as a Christ follower, make sure that you have a baptism that is biblical. I spent a lot of time talking about the principle and practice of baptism in today's message because there is so much confusion about this issue. Remember, baptism itself cannot save, nor does it help to save. But what baptism does is give you a tangible way to express and demonstrate your living and obedient faith to Christ. Baptism is an act of obedience that God blesses. Finally, the third responsibility that you have as a Christian is to make sure you belong to a fellowship that is faithful, a fellowship that is faithful.

I'm talking about the church. The reason we belong to and commit to a local church, a membership and a partnership with a local church is because, you know, character, Christlike living is not only taught, it is caught. And when we are together with God's people under the teaching of God's word, under the proclamation of Jesus Christ, then we are encouraged. We are built up and strengthened in our own faith.

The scripture reminds us of this in Proverbs 13, 20, that whoever walks with the wise becomes wise. We are inspired to live life for Christ when we get around other people week in, week out who are living lives of faith and commitment. I urge you, I challenge you to be a part, a faithful member of a local New Testament church which preaches Jesus Christ, teaches the word of God and will enable you and help you, assisting you in your Christian walk and gives you an opportunity to share your faith with others.

So your three, our three responsibilities as followers of Jesus are to have a profession that is public. Make a public profession of your faith. Share your faith with others. Go forward in your church or tell your pastor that you're receiving Jesus. Call us here at PowerPoint and let us know that you are becoming a follower of Jesus Christ. Profess your faith. Confess Jesus publicly. And then a baptism that is biblical. As soon as possible after you know Christ, get your baptism on the right side of your salvation by following Him in the New Testament ordinance of baptism. And then a fellowship that is faithful.

Find a local church where you can grow, serve and witness of your faith in Christ. And that is today's PowerPoint. Remember, when you give a gift to PowerPoint, we'll send you Dr. Graham's 180 day devotional Moments in the Word as our thanks. Call 1-800-795-4627. That's 1-800-795-4627. You can also text the word PowerPoint to 313131. Text PowerPoint to 313131. Join us again next time when Dr. Graham brings a message about answering the call to take risks for the sake of God's kingdom. That's next time on PowerPoint with Jack Graham. PowerPoint with Jack Graham is sponsored by PowerPoint Ministries.