Saved By His Life

Well, thank you, Mr. Emery. Once again, good afternoon to all of you. Brethren, on April 14th of 1912, about 20 minutes before midnight, the RMS Titanic struck an iceberg in the North Atlantic Ocean.

A few hundred miles south of Newfoundland, Canada, the iceberg lay in the direct path of the ship, and just before they struck it head-on, the first officer was able to turn the boat to port, taking the hit along the starboard bow where it opened a series of openings and bent steel plates along the hull, causing the forward watertight compartments to flood with 28-degree water. I can't imagine 28-degree water. Immediately, the crew began working to mitigate the damage. They tried to seal compartments, assess the damage, and in about 20 minutes they realized very quickly that there was no fighting this.

The ship was going under. The call to abandon ship was given. The crew readied lifeboats, sending up flares, rockets, making radio calls to nearby vessels to try to help recover the passengers that were about to enter lifeboats as the ship began to sink. There were more than 2,200 people on board the ship. 2,200 people. And the issue was the system of lifeboats that they had in place, in line with practice at the time, so kind of something that was normal at that point in time, those lifeboats were not designed to accommodate all passengers on the ship.

So in other words, they didn't have enough lifeboats for every single person. The intent was, and the idea was, that the lifeboats would be used to ferry passengers back and forth from the sinking ship to a recovery ship that would be in the area.

At least that was the idea. They were intent on kind of making multiple trips back and forth to a rescue ship that would come in. What they didn't anticipate with the sinking of the Titanic was how quickly the ship was to go underwater. Within two hours and 40 minutes, the ship was under. It took two hours and 40 minutes from the point in time when it hit the iceberg to the point in time when it was underwater and gone from sight completely. It descended far faster, way quicker, than anybody had anticipated.

And the nearest responding ship, which was the RMS Carpathia that actually responded, was almost 60 miles away when it received the distress call. They wouldn't arrive until several hours later after the ship had sunk with 1,635 people aboard. For those that landed in the frigid waters of the North Atlantic, they would experience hypothermia within 10 to 15 minutes. Again, the water is 28 degrees. For kids that have gone to camp, that's a lot colder than the ocean is at camp. A lot colder. About 20 or 25 degrees colder, actually, than what we have at camp most of the time.

But within 10 to 15 minutes, they would begin succumbing to hypothermia. They would lose control of their limbs, and the ability to keep their head above water would be soon to follow. Their only hope, their only hope in that moment when that took place, as the Titanic slipped below the surface and the lights went out and the ocean got dark, was that one of those lifeboats that happened to be in that area, somewhere bobbing away waiting for rescue, when to notice them, happened to have space, and were able to pull them from the water into that lifeboat where they huddled with the other individuals that were awaiting rescue.

Can you imagine? Can you imagine bobbing in that icy water, feeling the life flow out of you, hoping, praying that someone would rescue you from the situation that you found yourself in? In that moment, there was nothing you could do. Your salvation was entirely out of your control, completely and totally out of your control. When the RMS Carpathia arrived and began bringing people on to the lifeboats, or in the lifeboats rather, aboard the RMS Carpathia, only a little more than 700 passengers were saved, from the original 2,200 who were aboard, and only a few of those passengers, I mean like a handful of those passengers, came out of the water.

The ones that went in the water, by and large, did not make it. There were only a small handful of people that they believed were in the water pulled into a lifeboat, and then taken aboard the RMS Carpathia. The Titanic remains one of the most famous maritime disasters in human history. It sank on April 15, 1912, just 144 years ago this past week. This past week, 114 years prior. For those that made it to the lifeboats, or the very few that were plucked from the water, it was as though they had a new lease on life.

They had an opportunity to go forward. They had an opportunity to live where so many others that found themselves in that same situation did not get the same opportunity. They were saved from certain death. Their life was saved. The people of God just finished commemorating the early spring holy days of the Passover, the days of Unleavened Bread. Symbolically, when we think about the meaning and symbolism that is within these days, we found ourselves in a similar place.

Spiritually, we found ourselves in a spiritual place to those who were in that water on that fateful day so many years ago. We found ourselves in need of deliverance. We found ourselves with no ability to save ourselves, relying on the grace of another to rescue us. Go ahead and turn over to the book of Romans to begin here today, the book of Romans. The apostle Paul understood this condition of our life all too well.

The epistle to the Romans he records in Romans 3 and verse 23 that all sin and fall short of the glory of God. Later in Romans 6 and verse 23 he writes that the wages of sin is death. Paul understood metaphorically that we were all in the water. Every last one of us were in the water. He understood that as a result of that sin in our lives, without intervention, that we would die as a result of that sin. In Romans 5, he kind of addresses this concept.

Romans 5, we'll go ahead and pick it up in verse 6. So Romans 5 and verse 6. The apostle Paul writes, For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die, yet perhaps for a good man someone might even dare to die.

But God demonstrates his own love towards us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Paul says, Scarcely for a righteous man will someone give their life, yet maybe, maybe for someone who's good, someone might dare to die on behalf of a good man. But he says much more than God demonstrates his own love towards us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Verse 9, Much more than, having now been justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him.

For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, so much more having been reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. God's love was manifested toward us through the death of Jesus Christ, through the events of the Passover that we just recently commemorated. The blood that was shed on our behalf for the remission of our sins, the love of God, was demonstrated in that moment.

Christ died for us, even while we were still sinners, even while we were still in direct conflict with him, still enemies. Christ died for us. And Paul explains in Romans—Paul brings it to bear—that through his blood we are justified. So through the blood of Jesus Christ we are justified. We are declared justified before God. Our guilt removed, brought into alignment with God.

We are declared pure. We are declared innocent as a result of Christ's blood being poured out on our behalf. But that justification and our salvation is a process. It's much more than just a singular event. In the past, you know, it's more than the singular event in the past. It's a process in which we are changed. We're changed to become more like Jesus Christ, more like God the Father, and there are components that take place as a part of this process of salvation that take place in the past, that take place in the present, and that will take place in the future.

All three of those things connect to this concept of salvation. Paul describes in verse 10, having been reconciled by the blood of Jesus Christ, having been reconciled, Paul says, we shall be saved by his life. What does that mean? What does it mean to be saved by his life? I'd like to explore that concept today as we come out of the early spring holy days and as we begin to work our way and begin to count toward Pentecost.

What does that process of salvation look like in our lives and how is the life of Jesus Christ intimately connected to this process? That's a title today, saved by his life, saved by his life. Brethren, during the spring holy day season, we place a significant emphasis, and rightly so, on the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

On the Passover, we come together, we commemorate his death. As we see instructed in Scripture, we're told on the night that Jesus was to be betrayed or was betrayed, we come together, we take the bread, we take the wine, and in doing so what Paul describes is that we proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.

There is a significant emphasis on these things. It is his death which makes it possible for our sin to be forgiven, for us to be delivered from our bondage to sin. It is that incredible gift of Christ's sacrifice, freely given, freely given, not coerced, not arm twisted, freely given, that allows us to be able to remove these things from our lives during the days that we just completed.

We go through the days of Unleavened Bread, we remove the leaven from our lives, we take the sin, we remove it from our lives. The chains of bondage to sin are broken. Where does that come from? It comes from the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. It comes from the blood that he shed on our behalf. But, brethren, within those days another event took place as well. And it's one that we don't often talk about.

And it's an event that is absolutely integral to our salvation and to the promises that come. This year—I don't know if you noticed—we mentioned it briefly, but I don't know if you noticed this year—that the dates for the Holy Days lined up perfectly with the dates of the Holy Days in 31 A.D. So this year they followed directly on the same timeline, days of the week that they took place in 31 A.D. We mirrored the events as they happened. Tuesday night, when we took the Passover, Christ and his disciples gathered in an upstairs room in Jerusalem to keep the Passover after sundown.

Later that night, later on Tuesday evening, Judas Iscariot would betray him. He would be arrested. He would be tried. And in the early morning hours of Wednesday, he would be sentenced to death. By around 9 A.M.

in the morning on Wednesday, Christ was crucified. And six agonizing hours later, he would be dead. His body was hastily taken down from the stake, hurriedly prepared for burial, and placed into the tomb before sundown on Wednesday night, going into the first day of unleavened bread, while all of us were hurriedly preparing for the meal for the night to be much remembered.

That would be the timeline. That would be when the body would be taken down and placed into the tomb. For three days and three nights, Jesus laid on that stone in that tomb through Thursday, through Friday, and then Saturday when He was resurrected shortly before sundown on the Sabbath, fulfilling the sign of Jonah. We haven't placed a great deal of emphasis on this event in the modern church, largely due to scriptural instructions to commemorate His death and the overemphasis that is placed on the resurrection to the exclusion of His death by most of modern Christianity.

But sometimes, in our effort to stay out of one ditch, we overcorrect into the other. And we don't talk about this event that is so integral to our salvation. Balance is critical. Balance is critical because the resurrection of Jesus Christ is a critical component of our understanding of salvation. For example, without the resurrection of Jesus Christ, there can be no resurrection of the firstfruits. Scripture states that explicitly. It was His resurrection that makes possible the resurrection of mortal man to immortality. That changed from mortal physical beings to glorified spirit beings.

It is the resurrection of Christ that makes that possible. It's through the resurrection that we have a living high priest, that we have an intercessor, that we have a mediator who can go before the Father to make intercession on our behalf. It's through the resurrection of Jesus Christ that He dwells in us and that He enables spiritual growth and the overcoming of these things through the Spirit of God dwelling in us.

All of these things are integral to the work of salvation in our lives, and they're not possible if Christ were not resurrected. In fact, it's kind of interesting when you go back and look at the history, it was such a critical point to the early church that many of the earliest epistles in the New Testament canon had Jesus' resurrection as one of the centralized focuses of those books.

It was an event that was used as proof that Christ was Messiah, is Messiah, to those early believers. And in fact, it is so frequent in those early manuscripts that that's one of the factors used that scholars utilize to try to date manuscripts as to whether or not they're early or not. They ask the question, does it mention the resurrection of Jesus Christ? And they try to use that to be something that dates things. Because at some point, you get far enough in the process, it becomes accepted, and you don't have to bring it up so much anymore.

You don't have to address it as much. The believers already agree, and there's no real need to necessarily continue to prove those things. Less and less emphasis was placed on the event as time went on with Christ as Messiah. But what was interesting is, historically, that led to a whole lot of challenges that came into the church, beginning in about the mid-to-late 60s AD, and lasted for several centuries. In 2 Timothy 2, verse 18, you can jot it in your notes if you'd like, Paul tells Timothy, beware of men like Hymenaeus and Philetus, who believed the resurrection had already passed, overthrowing the faith of some.

So by the time Paul writes to Timothy, there's already questions taking place.

People think it's already happened. People think it hasn't happened. Some people are saying it's not going to happen. What do we do? What do we do? And so Paul has to write to Timothy to steady the church in that time. In addition to that, Gnostic teachers, again beginning in kind of the mid-to- late 60s AD, started assigning value to the spirit world and to the divine and to the physical world. There were values that were beginning to be assigned to these things, and they argued that the evil physical and material world could not blend with the spiritual world and the divine, leading them to conclude that Jesus Christ could not have been both man and God, that he must have either been one or the other. Beginning from that false assumption, a whole laundry list of heresies began to kick into the church as they began to try to work their way around this. Some held that Jesus was just a man, just a human, no divinity whatsoever, that at his baptism the divine nature of God came down in a dove and set upon him, didn't blend with, was there, and he was there. And they argue that when he died, his divinity left him, and the man Jesus of Nazareth died on the stake. The other side of that coin is the argument that Christ wasn't physical at all. He was actually a spiritual apparition. He only appeared to be physical, and everything that happened to him in accordance with Isaiah 53 was all smoke and mirrors. He didn't suffer at all because he's divine. How could that possibly be?

So when they began with this false assumption, all these other things started to become a challenge, because now you've got to do a bunch of mental gymnastics to make it fit the position.

John 1, verses 1 through 5, is clear, unequivocally clear. And it was likely written to clear some of these misconceptions up. John was one of the last available people who could write and say, you know what? I was there. I handled him. I interacted with him. I know that he was present. I know that he was divine. I know all of these things. John 1, verses 1, says, in the beginning was the Word. The Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him nothing was made that was made.

In him was life, and the life was the light of men, and the light shined in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. Further down in the chapter in John 1, John makes a clear connection between Jesus Christ and the pre-incarnate Word, who he describes was with God, who was God. He was in the beginning with God.

Revelation 1, verse 8, claims he is the Alpha and he is the Omega, as he describes himself to John in Revelation. All things were made through him, and without him nothing was made that was made. Jesus Christ is the Creator, not the creation. He is the Creator, not the creation.

Unfortunately, we see teachings that cycle through the Church now and again, and if we don't stop to ask ourselves what sort of issues some of these teachings create in our understanding of God, in our understanding of his plan of salvation, we end up accepting falsehood and finding ourselves in a very different place, with a very different conclusion. If Jesus Christ is not divine, if he's not divine, then there can be no universal atonement for mankind's sin.

It would be absolutely no different if any one of us were on that stake and died. Can your death remove the sin of mankind? Absolutely not. Absolutely not.

If Christ is not raised, we are dead in our sins. This stuff matters. These things are important.

His nature, his life, is central to salvation and to the rescue of mankind that is so desperately needed. Let's go over to Romans 8. Romans 8, the apostle Paul lays out this process of salvation, kind of drawing all the threads of the concepts that he started laying out in chapters 5, 6, and 7, kind of like he's weaving a net. He's kind of pulling all these threads together into this net that he's tying together into his primary kind of central point here. But he brings them together into a conclusion that we see in chapter 8. Romans chapter 8, he brings home the purpose of our calling, what God has promised to those that he selects in this age. Romans 8, we'll go ahead and pick it up in verse 28 for context. Romans 8 and verse 28 says, we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to his purpose, for whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover, whom he predestined, these he also called. To whom he called, these he also justified. And to whom he justified, these he also glorified. So Paul describes the kind of integrated stages, so to speak, to the process of salvation. Not just a singular event. It's not just a one-time thing. You know, it's not the culmination of a series of words that we read off of the back of a matchbook. Salvation is more significant than that. Much of the Christian world believes all you have to do is say sinner's prayer, say these words, and that's it. That's all it takes. You're saved. You're done. That's it. Is that what the Bible says? Paul describes stages to this process.

God calls those that he has selected according to his purposes, according to his will. He determines those whom he will call and to bring to Christ. Those he will call to bring to Christ. Those whom he calls who accept the blood of Jesus Christ on their behalf are justified. They're declared righteous in the sight of God. They become aligned with Christ.

But that process, as Paul lays out just a chapter earlier in Romans 7, just a chapter earlier in Romans 7, Paul lays out that it is a lifetime of course corrects, right? It's not a single alignment, and that's it. It's a lifetime of course corrects. Paul talks in Romans 7, the things I want to do are not the things I do, and the things I do are not the things I want to do.

But it's a lifetime of truth. It's a lifetime of truth. Continued repentance, continued alignment to God as we work through the process that God established with his Spirit leading us, through that continuing process we're sanctified.

Through that sanctification, if we faithfully endure to the end, letting God's Spirit lead, we are glorified into Spirit beings. The final culmination, so to speak, of our salvation, as God beings in the kingdom of God. These processes are distinct, yet they're interconnected.

They take us from the beginning of the process of salvation, through to the end, and ultimately into eternal life in the kingdom of God. So let's explore these a little bit today. We're going to talk about three. Justification, sanctification, and glorification. And we're going to talk how these processes are interconnected, and how they're also distinct processes in what God is doing.

You know, for those that found themselves in the water after the sinking of the Titanic, there was nothing that they could do to fix the situation they found themselves in.

I don't know if you've ever been in water much colder than 40 degrees, but it is amazing how quickly you lose function of your limbs. It is shocking how quickly you lose function of your limbs. So, you know, this process, these individuals found themselves in a place where they were completely and totally reliant on someone else. Completely reliant on someone else.

Completely reliant on the grace of that individual who would provide them with deliverance from the situation they found themselves in. For most, as we mentioned before, they lost the ability to swim within minutes. Within minutes, they lost the ability to swim. If there wasn't something to grab a hold of—poor Jack, he could have got on that door. I mean, he could have. Those of you that have seen Titanic, he could have fit on the door. Let's be honest. But unless they had something to climb on board or up above and get out of the water, they'd be dead in just a few minutes.

You know, much of the world today believes they're doing just fine.

Believe they're doing just fine. They're safe. They don't need to be rescued.

And at times, we can achieve and come to a similar conclusion.

But until we see ourselves in that water, with the full recognition that there is absolutely nothing that any one of us can do to get ourselves out of that, we are never going to see the need for the lifeboat.

Let's go to Romans 6. If we don't see the urgency of the situation that we are all in, that without that lifeboat, we have no hope. We have no chance.

We'll never reach a point where we see the importance of it. Let's go to Romans 6, just a couple pages back here.

Paul describes the universal nature of Christ's sacrifice.

He describes its timelessness, that it is for all sins, past, present, and future. Every sin that has ever been committed by humankind is covered by the blood of Jesus Christ. That is all sins that have been committed, all sins that are being committed, and all sins that will be committed. Jesus Christ's sacrifice is once for all.

That's what we understand from Scripture. Romans 6, we'll pick it up in verse 5.

Romans 6 in verse 5, it says, For if we have been united together in the likeness of his death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of his resurrection.

Knowing this, that our old man was crucified with him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin.

For he who has died has been freed from sin.

Now, if we died with Christ, we believe that we also shall live with him.

Knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over him. For the death—verse 10—that he died, he died to sin once for all. But the life that he lives, he lives to God. Likewise, you also reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus, our Lord. Christ died once and for all. That singular sacrifice was enough for every person who has ever lived or ever will live. And that blood is available to them, to justify them in the sight of God, to reconcile them to him.

Justification is a legal term. It comes from a legal framework, and it's a judicial act of God. It's a judicial act. So it's not a feeling, it's not a process, but it is a declaration.

Justification is a declaration. Through the process of justification, through this this concept of justification, God declares a repentant sinner to be righteous, not by their own actions, but through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, which removed the penalty for sin. That individual does not become righteous in that moment inherently. They are accounted righteous before God. Legally, in Greek, the term means to declare righteous. It means to acquit, means to pronounce a favorable verdict. It essentially means that we are recognized as guilty for our sin, and through Christ as our substitute and our advocate, the judgment is rendered, the sentence is carried out, but with Jesus Christ in our place. So the guilt still carried a punishment. It's just we're not paying it. It was paid by someone else. So in that sense, justification isn't a suspension of justice. It's not a suspension of justice. Justice was carried out. We are declared justified before God. We are free from the death penalty, forgiven of our sins, and we are aligned, justified, right? That term we recognize from old typewriters. For those of you that are familiar with typewriters, left justified, right justified, center justified, we are justified. We are aligned with Christ. And once we've been justified legally in the courtroom of heaven, reconciliation of the relationship between man and God can take place. Justification and reconciliation are two different things. Reconciliation is a restoration of an estranged relationship. We're building and preparing the relationship, whereas justification is a legal concept. But it enables us to have right relations with God once again after our sin has separated us from Him. When we're called, God brings us to Him through the blood of Christ. When we repent of those sins, we put our faith in the blood that Christ has shed on our behalf. That enables justification to take place through the grace of God. Let's go to Ephesians 2. Ephesians 2.

It is through the grace of God that you and I have been provided this opportunity to be firstfruits. It was not a result of our own works. God didn't look down and go, wow, that guy's got it together. I'm going to call him. That's not what God did. That's not what God did. Otherwise, if it were a result of our works, we could boast that we had earned this. Or, look what I was able to do. I managed to get myself into God's good graces. No, that's not how this works. But for the grace of God, go I. Right? I mean, it is God's grace that provides us. Ephesians 2 and verse 8 says, for by grace you have been saved through faith and not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. Right? Ephesians 2 and verse 8. So those who are called, those who repent, who exhibit faith in the blood of Jesus Christ are justified in the eyes of God. It's through faith in Christ as our Savior given by the grace of God that we can be saved. Notice this is past tense.

Notice, past tense, you have been saved through faith. You have been saved through faith. This is the part of the process that takes place in the past, but it's only one component of our salvation. Modern Christianity wants you to believe this is the only component that is necessary for our salvation. This is it. This is all that is required, is a one-time acceptance of Jesus Christ, and then you know what? You can live your life however you want to live it. You're already saved. It doesn't matter. Right? That's all that you have to do. The Bible and God the Father states there is more than just this event required as part of our salvation. There's a response. We have to do something. Right? It's not through our works, but there's a response.

We have to respond. We undergo justification, and when we begin that process, we begin to become sanctified. For those of us who are believers today, we see, we understand, the process that God has instituted in the covenant of baptism. Through baptism, a believer accepts the blood of Jesus Christ shed on their behalf for the repentance of their sins—or for the remission, rather, of their sins. And it's that acceptance through faith in both his death and his resurrection that we have the hope of reconciliation, that we have the hope of the resurrection of the dead and of eternal life. Let's go to the book of Hebrews. Over to the book of Hebrews. The author here is describing the role that Christ played in the shadow of those things that were to come.

He contrasts the understanding of ancient Israel with what Christ magnified, what Christ brought to bear in a deeper understanding of these things which were shadows of what was to come, to help us understand how the two were related. Hebrews 10—we'll go ahead and pick it up in verse 1. Hebrews 10 and verse 1 says, For the law, having a shadow of the good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never, with these same sacrifices which they offer continually, year by year, make those who approach perfect. For then would they not have ceased to be offered. In other words, if we could have just done this with the blood of bulls and goats, why didn't we just do it with the blood of bulls and goats? That's all it took. Why didn't we just do that? He says, because it was not possible for sin to be removed in that way. He says, For then, verse 2, would they not have ceased to have been offered? For the worshippers, once purified, would have had no more consciousness of sins. But in those sacrifices, there is a reminder of sins every year, for it is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats could take away sins. Therefore, verse 5, when he came into the world, he said, Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body you have prepared for me, and burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin you had no pleasure. And then I said, Behold, I have come in the volume of the book it has written of me to do your will, O God. Previously saying, Sacrifice and offering, burnt offerings, and offerings for sin you did not desire, no had pleasure in them, which are offered according to the law. Then he said, Behold, I have come to do your will, O God. He takes away the first that he may establish the second. Verse 10, By that will, by Jesus Christ, yielding his will to God and going through with what it was that was this plan for salvation, by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

So while Christ's sacrifice was to enable justification for all, it is only those who enter into covenant with God, those who circumcise the heart, they accept that blood on their behalf, who are then set apart in the eyes of God, who are sanctified, set apart in the eyes of God as his people and sanctified through that offering. Because of his life, because of his life, because of his life, he intercedes on our behalf before the Father. We can come to the Father through Christ as our high priest, enabling us to be reconciled to God. And while that gift is available for all who have ever lived, it's available for all who have ever lived, who are living and who will live, everyone who's bobbing in the ocean, so to speak, waiting for that lifeboat. There's a response that's necessary. Once we've accepted the blood of Jesus Christ for the remission of our sins, once we've received the Spirit of God through the laying on of hands, we are justified. In fact, we've been set apart in the sense we've been sanctified in the past tense.

We've been declared righteous, we've been brought into alignment with God, we're sanctified. We begin now a lifelong process of ongoing sanctification. There's an initial sanctification as we accept Jesus Christ. Hebrews 10.10 talks about this. We accept the covenant with God. We're saved through faith. But as time goes on and the Spirit of God works, its transformative work within us, we are being saved in the present tense. We're being saved in the present tense. Acts 2, verse 47, we won't turn there, but Acts 2, verse 47, speaks of the new believers that are joining the church. Talks about how they're continuing daily with one another. They're breaking bread. They're going from house to house. They're eating their food with simplicity of heart and with gladness. Such a beautiful, beautiful passage. It says, they are praising God and they are having favor with all the people. And it states, the Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved.

So we're in the process of being saved. 1 Corinthians 1, verse 18, talks about how the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved.

It is the power of God. 1 Corinthians 1, verse 18. 2 Corinthians 2, verse 15, describes how we are to be the fragrance of Christ among those who are being saved. And the fragrance of Christ among those who are perishing. Right? We are to be the fragrance of Christ. To one, the aroma of death leading to death. The other, the aroma of life leading to life. How? How? How do we do this? How does this take place? It takes place through the living Christ dwelling in us. Let's go to John 14. John 14. Christ is speaking to his disciples of what is going to come after his death and ultimately what needs to happen in order for those things to take place. He's giving final lessons. He's imparting wisdom. He's imparting love to his dear friends.

John 14 and verse 15, Christ tells his disciples the following. We read this on the night of the Passover. He says, if you love me, keep my commandments. Christ says, if you love me, show me. Show me by keeping my commandments. Illustrate to me your love. He says, I will pray the Father and he will give you another helper that he may abide with you forever, the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you. Will not leave you orphans. I will come to you. And you recognize there's pronoun issues in this section dealing with, you know, the Holy Spirit as a person versus, you know, the power of God as we understand it to be. And that's the way it's written. Verse 19, a little while longer, and the world will see me no more. But you, he tells his disciples, will see me. So the world will see me no longer, but you will see me because I live, you will live also. And in that day you will know that I am in my Father and you in me and I in you.

He who has my commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him, and I will manifest myself to him. Sanctification is defined as the process or the act of something or someone being set apart for God's purposes. Made holy. It's also used to describe a process of transforming a believer to become more like Jesus Christ. A perfection process as we see it outlined in Scripture. We're being perfected, right? It doesn't mean we're perfect. We're being perfected. We're being spiritually matured or growing spiritually. It comes from the Greek word hagiosmos, which means holiness or separation. And so as a process, it describes something that is ongoing.

As a person is continually and incrementally separated from the world, declared holy by God, drawing nearer to him through the indwelling of God's Holy Spirit as we work to put to death the parts of us that are not of Christ. Right? As we allow God's Spirit to lead us, and we put those things to death in our lives. This process requires us to remain close to God.

John 14 says, keeping his commandments as we love him and we love the Father.

Those that went down on the Titanic on that fateful evening of April of 1912, and that icy water sapped away their strength and sapped away their lives, the only salvation that any of them could receive was to be plucked from those icy waters into one of the waiting lifeboats where they would then be ferried to a larger ship that would take them to safety. For most, it was simply not possible. They succumbed too quickly to the icy water before rescue came, but for a few, for a small few, those lifeboats meant certain salvation. They were plucked from the water, they were brought aboard, not through their own works, you know, not because they were necessarily making a lot of noise. They just happened to be there. They happened to be present in that process. Through the grace of those in that lifeboat, plucking them out of that water, but being plucked from the water wasn't the only process of salvation. What would have happened as a result of being saved if they said, wow, thanks, guys! I'm gonna go back in. I'm just gonna jump off this lifeboat, actually, and I'm gonna go back into the water. Like, what'd you guys think?

Water wasn't so bad and feel too cold. I didn't feel that dead. I'm going back in. I'm gonna go ahead. I'm gonna hop back in for a bit. I hear cold plunging's good for you. So I'm gonna do a little cold plunging here. Hear that it's really good for your mental state. I don't need this lifeboat. In fact, I didn't even ask to be rescued. I'm just gonna go ahead and go about it my own way, and I'm gonna figure out my own path. What happens to the person that jumps back in the water? They died along with everyone else in the water. That lifeboat represents the only means of salvation. There are no other paths. There are no other paths. There are no other options.

It's either die in the icy waters or be rescued. But being rescued is only the first step in the process. The person who was rescued needs to accept that rescue. They need to accept that they've been rescued, and they need to be willing to stay in the lifeboat. They need to be willing to stay close to safety, to stay close to their Redeemer, their rescuer. And in doing so, they are not only saved, they are continually being saved in that process. Let's go to Galatians 2.

Galatians 2. We're going to read Galatians 2, and we're going to start in verse 17. Galatians 2. We'll pick it up in verse 17. Galatians 2 and verse 17.

Galatians 2 and verse 17 says, but if, while we seek to be justified by Christ, we ourselves also are found sinners, is Christ therefore a minister of sin?

Paul says, well, certainly not. I love Paul's rhetorical style. It's so great how he asks questions, and then he answers them himself. Well, of course not. I love it. I think it's a great little rhetorical style. It says, for if I build again those things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor. For I, through the law, died to the law that I might live to God. I've been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. And the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. It says, I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died in vain. The apostle Paul recognized that it was the living Christ dwelling in him, the life that he lived by faith in Christ, who, Paul says, showed his love for me by giving his life for me. That enabled him to be sanctified. That God, in his grace, declared him righteous, declared him justified through the death of Christ. And through that resurrection, he lives in him. He makes him holy, makes him new, sets him apart. As believers, we have a similar active engagement. Christ saved us through his death. We're sanctified by his life as part of the process of salvation, as we work to put to death the old man, and we walk in newness of life. Turn with me please to Romans 6. Romans 6—should have had you keep a bookmark in there. Apologies. Romans 6, we'll pick it up in verse 1, kind of the earlier section of what we didn't read earlier. We jumped in at verse 5. This is the section leading up to verse 5. Romans 6, beginning in verse 1. Romans 6, verse 1 says, what shall we say then?

Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? He says, certainly not. How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? Verse 3. Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore, we were buried with him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so, we also should walk in newness of life. Brethren, this is the process we find ourselves in today.

Raised from the dead, so to speak, metaphorically, as we consider the symbolism of baptism, in newness of life as Christ dwells in us, as God's Spirit teaches us, walking in that newness of life, crucifying the flesh, allowing God to dwell in us, making the necessary changes, exhibiting the fruit of the Spirit to those that we interact with, right, exhibiting newness of life.

As our high priest, Christ goes before the Father to intercede on our behalf. That sanctification process is ongoing. We continue with him as the captain of that lifeboat, made perfect through suffering. We will be moved to the point of our final component of salvation, and that's glorification. Turns out our final step in the process of our salvation is coming in the future. It's coming in the future. Matthew 24, verse 13, Christ described to his disciples that those who endure to the end shall be saved. Those who endure to the end shall be saved.

Salvation is not the first step in the process. It's not even necessarily the second step in the process. There's an active endurance, growth, spiritual maturity that has to take place, and then at the end, when it's all said and done, we are saved. It's official. The process has concluded, right? There are other passages in the New Testament, Acts 15, verse 11, for example, Romans 5, verses 9 through 10, who speak to this idea of we shall be saved. Future tense.

We shall be saved. Our salvation is not only past tense. It's not only present tense. There is something to come in the future, which is the final step in this process, the final step in the process of salvation. You know, for those that gathered in the lifeboats after the Titanic sank, that lifeboat was going somewhere. It was not just bobbing on the water for eternity and staying in that place. They were in the process of taking those individuals to the final destination of where they would be offloaded. Offloaded is not the nicest word in the world, but where they would depart the lifeboat for a better situation. Wait, no, anyway, moral of the story. You get the all analogies eventually break down. That's the reality. But the lifeboats on the Titanic were only designed to ferry people back and forth. They were not designed to just bob in the open ocean for perpetuity. They were designed to be going somewhere. They had a destination in mind.

They were taking people from a place of danger to a place of safety, from a place of death to a place of life. And in that sense, the final step of the process of salvation represents the place in which that lifeboat is heading, the kingdom of God. It represents that final step into the kingdom of God. You know, we saw in Romans 8, again, beginning with those that he called, he justified, those he justified, he glorified. That process of sanctification takes place in between. But the final step in that process of our salvation is the glorification to spirit beings that we are promised by God. If we endure to the end, it says we shall be saved. Let's go to Philippians 3.

Philippians 3. Paul makes a point in Philippians 3 that there's a pattern. There's a pattern that they've been provided as believers on how they are to walk. There's a model, so to speak, that we've been given, an example that we've been provided, so that they're able to receive the promise that is due their citizenship. Right? That they will have the fulfillment of that citizenship.

The final step of being able to quote-unquote go home, you know, as they've been ambassadors in a foreign land for so long, that they'd be able to have the promise due that citizenship.

Philippians 3. We'll go ahead and pick it up in verse 17. Philippians 3 and verse 17. It says, brethren, join in following my example, and note those who so walk as you have us for a pattern, for many walk of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ. Verse 19, whose end is destruction, whose god is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who set their mind on earthly things. Verse 20, for our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, a captain of the lifeboat, so to speak, who will transform our lowly body, that it may be conformed to his glorious body, according to the working by which he is able to even subdue all things to himself. Paul says in chapter 1 of verse 1 of chapter 4, therefore my beloved and longed-for brethren, my joy and my crown, he says, stand fast in the Lord, beloved. Stand fast. Paul says our citizenship is in heaven, from which we eagerly wait for Christ. And the implication that Paul makes here is the same implication that Christ makes in Matthew 24 in verse 13, which is that at his return, he will transform our lowly body, this physical tent in which we find ourselves.

And it will be conformed to his glorious body. It'll be conformed to his glorious body.

And Paul says, as he concludes in Philippians 4 verse 1, he says, because of this, stand fast in the Lord. Take strength from this promise. As you feel your body give out, as you feel the aches and the pains of age, you know, the body not having the strength that it had before, keep in mind this promise that has come. He says, endure to the end.

Endure to the end, because those who endure to the end will be saved. Future tents. The final stage of the salvation process is our glorification to spirit beings.

To provide for the inheritance of the kingdom of God alongside our elder brother, Jesus Christ.

Glorification is defined as the act of making something glorious.

Kind of have that with duh. What else would it be, right? But it's the act of making something glorious, either by bestowing honor, praise, or admonition, or admiration rather, on it.

But it can also mean to be elevated to celestial glory. What does that mean?

It describes the process by which God takes a physical, mortal being and transforms them to spirit. Whether that is done after we have died and we are resurrected to a spirit being, or whether it happens at the time of Christ's return for those who are alive at his coming, as Paul describes, turned into, transformed into a glorious spirit being.

So Paul describes the final step in the process of salvation as us being glorified with God. Romans 8 and verse 12. Romans 8 and verse 12. Romans 8 and verse 12.

Paul writes, therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh, for if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, if you are in that process of being sanctified, he says you will live. If you're working, if you're putting the effort in, if God, if you're allowing the Spirit of God to lead you, says, for as many as are led by the Spirit of God, right, this is a condition of being children of God, being led by his Spirit, says many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. So, for you did not receive the Spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, Abba, Father. The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God, joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with him, that we may also be glorified together.

The promise that God has given us as believers is that we are to become his very children.

Paul describes that we put to death the deeds of the body through the Spirit, allowing ourselves to be led by that spirit. Those who allow themselves to be led by the Spirit of God dwelling in them are the sons of God. Having received the Spirit of adoption, we have a relationship with our Father. And it says this spirit bears witness that we are as children, that we are heirs with Christ, that we might be glorified together. You know, it's the resurrection of Christ that gives us proof that this resurrection of the firstfruits can take place. So we see outlined in Scripture that we might become like our elder brother and join him in his kingdom. First, he dies so that we might live. Then he lives so that we might live. And as a result, we live for him so that we can become like him—glorified, spirit beings in the kingdom of God. The final step in the salvation process. The scripture illustrates the process of salvation is not just a one-time act. Again, it's not a series of words on the back of a matchbook or on a religious track that you pick up somewhere along the road that you have to repeat in order to be saved. Salvation requires acceptance of the blood of Jesus Christ, continued obedience until the end. The process of salvation has events and actions which take place in the past tense, actions and events that take place in the present, and of course actions and events that take place in the future. And all of these events together describe the process of salvation, describe what God is doing to save mankind. Salvation is not any one of those parts in isolation alone. It requires the past, the present, and the future in order to be saved.

You know, Jesus Christ gave his life for our justification and for the justification of all who live, but that act in and of itself is not salvation alone. Romans 5 records that we are saved by his life. It's through Jesus Christ dwelling in us through the unleavened. We just symbolized, as we went through these days, of unleavened bread, dwelling in us as that unleavened of sincerity and truth. It's through that that we can be sanctified. It's through that that we can yield ourselves to God through his Spirit. And it's through that process of sanctification that we can be made holy and we can be set apart in the eyes of God. But that's not the only process of salvation either. At any point in the process, if we choose to willingly jump from the lifeboat, if we choose to willingly escape the presence of our Redeemer and back into the icy waters, it's not a good end. Salvation requires enduring to the end until we're glorified with Christ.

The death of Jesus Christ is a critical component of all of these things. Without it, we cannot be saved.

Romans 5, however, is clear. Without the resurrection that took place, without Christ's indwelling in our lives, we cannot be saved. Both events are critical. We must understand how the two work together in order to produce our salvation. Through the death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ, we are reconciled, we are justified, we are sanctified, and we will eventually be glorified.

We have redemption through His blood. We're justified through the faith in that blood, and we are saved by His life.