Welcome to Truth for Life where we're beginning a new series called The Basics of the Christian Faith. This is a foundational study that explores what it means to be a committed follower of the Lord Jesus, and today we're going back into the archives to hear Alistair Begg explain the answer to the most important question any of us can ask, how can I be saved?
He's teaching from the opening verses in Ephesians chapter 2. The story came out of the Seoul Olympics in 88 that there were three men who had hoped to get into the stadium in order to be spectators, a Scotsman and an Englishman and an Irishman. They found themselves in South Korea without any ability to access the place, and so they were standing around outside the stadium and as a result of some of the construction that had been going on, there were areas of unfinished building adjacent to the stadium. And so the Englishman, a man by the name of Neville Atkinson, he looked across and saw a piece of piping which had been part of scaffolding of some nature, and he took this piece of piping, he walked up to the front gate and he said to the man, Neville Atkinson, United Kingdom pole vault. And so the guy said, that's lovely. He said, just come right in and go over there. So the Irishman, Sean O'Leary, was intrigued by this and began to scratch his head and looked around and found a manhole cover and grabbed that under his arms and walked up and said, Sean O'Leary, Ireland, discus. And the guy said, that's fine. He said, come right in.
So there was only a Scotsman left, Jack McTavish, and he looked around and he grabbed up some big rolls of barbed wire, went up to the place and said, Jack McTavish, Scotland, fencing. The place and conditions of entry to anywhere are really quite important and nowhere more so than entry into the kingdom of heaven. Jesus was exceptionally clear when he spoke concerning these things, pointing out as Matthew records in chapter 7 and verse 13, that we should enter through the narrow gate for wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction and many enter through it.
But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life and only a few find it. The place and conditions of entry to most places are very important and says the New Testament to the kingdom of God, they are vitally important. What does the Bible teach concerning the nature of genuine Christian faith? We discovered that the Bible teaches that by nature we are dead and cannot make ourselves alive, that by nature we are enslaved and cannot get the handcuffs off, that by nature we are blind and have no remedy within ourselves to become spiritually sighted. We discovered at the end of our studies there in Ephesians 2 that salvation is not by works, but it is for works. And in the course of it all, we sought to lay out a biblical basis for this genuine Christian experience. And so today I'd like to try and answer two questions and they're these. Question number one, if this is the nature of genuine Christian experience, question one, how does this become personal to me? And question number two, what prevents me from taking this step today? Now, I need to say that there's a measure of risk involved in this. The only real negative comments that I have received out of the luncheon have been comments that has had to do with any time that I have suggested that there is a need for personal response, suggesting to me that men and women are largely happy to apply their minds to spiritual truths, to think about possibilities relating to faith, so long as nobody tries to close the deal for them.
And as soon as anybody suggests that there is closure here, it is offensive. I recognize that and so there is risk in doing what I have done and what I'm about to do. There is risk also involved in so far as every time that anyone in the New Testament, whether it was Jesus Christ or Paul the apostle, brought things to this eventuality, men and women also shied away from it. It is clear from the gospels that they were interested and intrigued by the miracles of Christ. They were glad to be involved in some form of mass movement. They were prepared to swell the ranks of the crowd that was moving along the Palestinian hill sites. But when Jesus of Nazareth turned around and looked people clear in the eyes and said, unless you do this, you cannot be my disciple.
Suddenly the crowd was rapidly diminished. When Paul on the hill there in Athens confronted men and women with the claims of Christ, staggered them by his ability to quote the lyricists and poets and prophets of the age, they said, let's go and hear what this babbler has to say. The kind of thing that some of you have said in coming to the tabletop lunches.
You may not have used the word babbler, but he talks and he has an accent. So let's go and hear what he has to say, because you're intrigued. And it is an indication of the fact that God has said eternity in your hearts. It is an indication of the fact that Pascal was right when he said that there is within the nature of man, a God shaped void, that neither material things nor central indulgence nor intellectual achievement can ever fulfill. And so that is why even intrigued by your own continual journey, you find yourself here month after month, but there's been no change.
There is just more to intrigue, more to stimulate, more to challenge. And when it comes to the crunch, what we discover in the 20th century is what Paul discovered in the first century, that as soon as he turned to the people there on the Areopagus and he said to them, now, listen, God has appointed a day when he will judge the world and therefore he commands all men everywhere to repent, to do something about what they've just been hearing. Then their response was threefold. Number one, some immediately rejected his message. Number two, some delayed in their response.
And number three, some believed and became followers of Jesus Christ. In my anticipation of this day, I anticipate each of those responses. It has been my personal prayer that some who having listened to what the Bible has said over these weeks will be ready today to believe in Jesus Christ. I know that there will be some who flat out reject all that is said, and there will be others who walk back to their place of daily employment saying, I would like a rain check on that decision if at all possible.
Only one decision guarantees your eternal destiny. Now, with that in mind, I want to ask them this question. If New Testament has stressed, and Ephesians 2 especially, has stressed this notion of the need, the problem of man and the solution of God, if you like, the need to be saved.
I mean, we've used pictures from the Potomac River, you will remember, with the 737 or the DC-9 that crashed some years ago there, and we talked about people in the river and how they were in need of salvation. They weren't interested in dialogue, they wanted out. And we've said that is exactly what Ephesians 2 is saying.
When a man or a woman understands their predicament, then they know they want out. They know they need saved. Well, then here's the question, how can I be saved? Now, somebody immediately objects to that, and they say, you know, I think it's really abhorrent for you to suggest that anybody needs to be saved. Because after all, wouldn't you say that it's true that having been brought up in the land of the brave and the home of the free with all this puritan background and all the many blessings of Little House on the Prairie and everything else, that somehow or another, we have just been swept into the kingdom of God as a result of what a phenomenal race we truly are.
And that notion is abroad. The notion that really, nobody needs to be saved. They just need to realize that they are saved.
It seems plausible enough, and that's largely what comes from pulpits every Sunday in the nation. Wise up, they say. Don't you realize what you are? And people go home saying, if I am what he says I am, why am I in the devil of the mess that I'm in? And so the answer of which the Bible gives is very, very clear to the individual who says, this notion of being saved, I want to object to that because surely it's a bit off.
Isn't everybody in? This is what John says, the apostle John, the apostle of love, 1 John 5, 12. He who has the son has life. He who does not have the son of God does not have life. Now, he's clearly not talking about physical life. Because in physical terms, somebody to shout back and say, why are you saying that?
Of course I have life. I'm shouting at you, aren't I? And John had to make clear what he had had to discover, which was that what the Bible was speaking about was a dimension of life, which was eternal in its significance and spiritual in its origins. Somebody says, in answer to the question, you know, how can I be saved? Won't I be accepted by God if I simply try my best and clean up my act?
I mean, isn't that really what you're saying here, Alistair? Make sure you take the garbage out for your wife and don't be a nuisance when you get home. Is that not the message that you're trying to bring?
Try your best and clean up and you're in. No, if you heard that, I'm sorry, we're going to have to start Ephesians 2, 1 to 10 all over again. The prophet Isaiah says that even when we bring all the best things that we've been able to do, they are in God's sight like dirty old rags. When we put on our best togs, our best clean up act, and we present ourselves before God, the radiance and purity of God is so great that even when we are at our cleanest, we still look dirty. So therefore the message, how can I be saved, is not answered in terms of clean up and do your best, nor may we answer it by saying, if I promise simply to do better, won't God save me?
The answer is no. If that had been the case, then Jesus Christ would never need to have died upon the cross. He could simply have come along and said, you know, here's the message, clean up, do your best, and try and do a little better. What then does the Bible say? This is what the Bible says. There is only one way to be saved, and that is by doing two things, by turning from my sin and turning to Christ as the savior of the sin that I admit.
When Luke writes concerning Paul in Acts chapter 26, he says that Paul came to the cities and quotes, I preached that they should repent and turn to God and prove their repentance by their deeds. In other words, he preached a crossroads crisis decision for the lives of men and women. He called them to face the distinction of Matthew 7, 13, and 14. He called them to realize that there is a narrow road that leads to life, and there are few people on it, and there is a broad road that leads to destruction, and it is phenomenally populated. And he wanted nobody to be in any doubt that somehow or another, by dint of our background, we were standing in no man's land, and we had the opportunity to choose the narrow or the broad. That's not the message. The message is you are on the broad. There is a way to come off.
Here is the call. Now, get off and look towards heaven or stay on, and you're bound for hell. Now, that comes across very badly in our modern 20th century thinking. People say, goodness sake, what is this, fundamentalism or something?
Well, in one sense, yes. It is a fundamental of Jesus Christ that there was a heaven for those who repented and turned to him, and there was a hell for those who turned their back on him. What is this repentance then?
If that's something I have to do, I need to know what it is. What is repentance? Well, the word in Greek is metanoia, which simply means to do an about turn, to do an about turn. It's the word that would be used of a commander with his forces as he marched them down the esplanade, and they were heading in one direction, and he called them about turn.
And as a result of that command, they turned, and they began to go in the exact opposite direction. What the New Testament says is this. What we've been discovering in Ephesians 2 is that by our very nature, we're going in the wrong direction.
In our thinking and in our doing, we understand why God would be justified in being angry with sin. Those of us who are honest for more than five minutes know that we are not in good shape. We are not the husbands we ought to be. We are not the kids to our parents we should be.
We are neither the employers nor the employees that we might be. We know what it is to think bad thoughts. We know what it is to be vicious concerning others. We know what it is to resent people. We know what it is to be spiteful. We know what it is to lie. We know what it is to cheat. Oh, yes, we are able to do it in a very bourgeois way, but when we peel all the layers off, it's just a downright lie.
And despite the fact that all these years have come and gone and all these January ones, we're no better today than we were before, and indeed, with a sneaking suspicion, we may be getting a little bit worse. And so the command comes out. Would you not turn away from that? Would you not do an about turn? Turn from sin. Turn from it and say, I don't want to live that way anymore. I detest those controls upon my life.
I don't want to be held bound by these things. And the Bible says I should repent. I should repent.
I understand it means to turn around. I'm going to turn around. Can I ask you, have you ever repented? Have you ever reached a day in your life where the claims of Christ came to you with such clarity that you said, this is something I must do.
I'm on the wrong road. The question is not, are you a member of a church? The question is not, do you sing in a choir? The question is not, are you a philanthropist?
The question is, have you ever repented? You see, the notion is abroad that everybody may run in the race of the Christian life. That's as ridiculous as believing that all of us are going to be in the summer Olympics. We're all going to show up at the Olympics like old Jack McTavish and say, hey, fencing. The guy's going to say, hey, wait a minute, McTavish. Let me just check something here. And he's going to look down through the list of those who have qualified to run the race.
And he's going to turn to us and he's going to say, McTavish, your name's not even on the list, son. What makes you think you're in the race? Can I ask you today, what makes you think you're in the race of the Christian life? What makes you think you're in it?
Because you've been trying to be a better person, because you go to church, because you've come to tabletop luncheons and you're getting a little bit spiritual. That's all good. That's great. But have you ever repented? Are you going a different direction in your life now because of something that happened then?
Or has it never happened? Now, the flip side of this with which I close is that not only do we turn from sin, but we turn to Christ. So that on the one hand, we turn away from that, which represents all that is displeasing to God. And we turn to Christ to receive all that God has given to us.
Let's say that this hand represents your life. And my book here represents sin. And so the sin comes in between my life and God. And the message that we discovered in Ephesians 2 was that Jesus Christ died on the cross to take this problem that I have, namely my sin, to bear it himself on the cross so that I might be forgiven, not on the basis of anything I have done, but on the basis of what he did for me on the cross. So that I but on the basis of what he did for me on Calvary, there is two places that sin is punished. Sin is punished in hell, and sin is punished at Calvary. And the message of the gospel is, believe in Jesus Christ today as your Lord and Savior, or face him then as your rightful judge.
Turning from sin, turning to Christ. Somebody says, this seems awful simple. This actually seems too simple. Isn't there any cost involved? Yeah, there is actually. The entry fee has been paid, though.
That's the good news. You can't pay the entry fee yourself. Jesus paid that. But the annual subscription is all of your life. Jesus Christ comes to rule in a life. He comes to rule in a life. He comes not to join us in the backseat of the car. He comes to take the driving seat, as we've said before. He comes to rule. There will be friendships that will inevitably go. There will be lifestyle events that will inevitably go. There will be new things that will come as a result of the life which he puts into us. Because the growth which comes in Christian experience is a growth as a result of life.
The picture in the New Testament is not of a Christmas tree with ornaments that are attached from the outside, but it is of a vine with life which comes from the inside, producing the beauty and the fragrance of all that foliage. And there are some people here today, and I know that inside of you, you're saying, I'm not ready for that kind of cost. I hate it when people laugh at me. I mean, I don't mind going to the luncheon, provided you don't tell me that I have to repent and believe in Jesus Christ. I'm happy to go down there and tell people, oh, it's a kind of thing. You know, the guy talks and there's not much to it. You know, it's a good kind of lift in the middle of the week. It's entertaining.
It's whatever it is. But now if what you're telling me, Al, is that this is a major crossroads in my life, I'm ticked. I mean, I'm really offended by this.
Well, I'd rather you be offended than bored. So I don't really care because I'm on a divine commission. I'm on a divine commission. Three and a half thousand miles from my home, in a city that I didn't even know where it was 10 years ago, I stand today bemused by the immense privilege of it all and the awesome responsibility of it all, that I would have to stand and take my Bible before a group of intelligent people in a major city in the continental United States.
And God forgive me if I ever give them the impression that they're all in the race just because they're interested in religion, because the Bible says we must repent and we must turn to Christ. Somebody says, do I have to do anything before I can ask him to save me? The answer is no.
What were you planning on doing? Is it necessary to feel his presence in a certain way before I can ask him to save me? No. Al, you don't really know me. If you find out what I'm really like, you wouldn't be doing this because I'm too sinful to be saved. Oh, yeah.
Jesus said, whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. Somebody else says, well, I don't think I'm going to do this because I've never finished anything in my life. I never finished my homework and I never finished my vegetables. And I'm not sure that I'm going to be able to finish this.
I'm going to tell you something. You can't finish this because you can't start it. See, only God can start it. Nobody believes unless God does something in your heart. And what he does within our hearts transforms our lives. It's a choice you have to make. Can I ask you, what stops you today from making that choice? What stops you this very moment, if you have understood the claims of Christ, if you have understood the message, what prevents you right now today from bowing your head and in your own silent prayer to Christ, acknowledging that you need him, turning your life over to him, and walking out in friendship with him?
Christianity is a very personal thing, but it's not a private thing. And so for those who would be prepared to make that kind of commitment, the responsibility would be to go on from here, to tell another, to get a blessing, to get a Bible, to get a church, because you just got a life. Listening to Truth for Life, and that is Alistair Begg encouraging everyone to repent and trust in Jesus today, if you've yet to come to know him as your Savior. And if you did that today, if you accepted Christ, we'd love to hear from you.
You can email us, letters at truthforlife.org, or you can speak to someone at Truth for Life by calling 888-588-7884. Now maybe today's message made you think about someone who has recently become a Christian or has questions about Jesus and about what it means to be saved. If that's the case, be sure to request the discipleship course available from Truth for Life today. This is a course that guides you step by step through introducing a friend to all the teaching in our current series. The series is called The Basics of the Christian Faith. The discipleship course is yours by request when you donate to Truth for Life at truthforlife.org slash donate. Thanks for listening today. Tomorrow we'll find out why we're essentially dead men walking until we trust in Jesus. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life where the Learning is for Living.
