Salvation and Eternal Life (#1020)
Good morning. We’re going to continue our series on the grace of God. And, just to let you know, if you haven’t been listening, this is a build up to two things: one, a weekend, the weekend of June 18th, 2021, when we’ll be having a fellowship weekend at the Dundon’s home in Ebony Virginia. And I’m going to call that class: “Let Grace Abound,” and it will be a typical class as a I often teach with four to five hours of teaching. And, we’ll cover many aspects of the grace of God. And, that is a build up towards a book, that we plan to put out sometime in the next year called: “Why Grace is Sufficient.”
Last session when we met on Sunday morning, I gave a general introduction to the grace of God, and that was actually part of a class I taught several years ago called: “The Grace of God.” That a was a sort of warm-up/introduction, today we’re going to go into the next topic, about salvation and eternal life. And the whole class and perhaps the book will have two major sections, one is the grace of God for us to be saved and have eternal life and our inheritance with God and everything that goes with that, and the second part will be grace in daily life. You know, do we have to follow the old testament laws in our daily living, do we have to be worried about what other people think. And, I was listening to my daily Bible recording — I like these one-year Bibles and the other day it was covering some sections in the gospel where Jesus Christ was speaking very forcefully against the Pharisees. And the things he was speaking forcefully against them was that everything they did was to please man and not God. They just wanted to look good, they wanted to look religious, they wanted to dress in just the right clothes, to show your supposedly more spiritual, and say just the right prayers, in just the right public place, and sit in just the right seat, and Jesus Christ said: you guys already have your reward, because what you wanted was for people to be impressed by what you did, and you got that. What you ought to be concerned about is impressing God.
And, I think so much of the Christian walk in so may groups is based on the same thing. Think about even groups we’ve been involved in through the years, where there was much more interest in pleasing the leaders and being able to show that you had greater progress or greater accomplishments than other people. And that is where we focused. I remember vividly being involved in one group that some of us were involved in where you sort of had an annual review, like you’d have for a job, to help decide what your ministry assignment would be in the following year. And everything was basically sales numbers. I mean that is what you would call it today, we didn’t call it that, but it was: how many people did you get to come to fellowship, how many classes did they sign up for, or how much or how many financial donations were they making, But there were no questions — I remember vividly thinking this when I was in Los Angeles going through one of these review sessions, there were no questions about: are you more peaceful, do you trust God more, do you believe God’s word more than you did last year, do you love God more than you did last year, do you walk in love towards other people? Those kind of things.
Those are the things that really matter, and that is the type of thing that Jesus Christ was talking about when he was getting mad as the Pharisees. Because all they were doing was looking good before people. And so much, in so many Christian groups comes down to: can I behave in such a way that everybody thinks I’m a good Christian? Based on the laws and rules and regulations in that Christian group. And, I’ve even gone with people to their churches in recent years, because they wanted me to come along. And so much, I was given instructions as I walked in the door, don’t do this, don’t do that, don’t make it look like this is going on, because we can’t let them find that out. And then one time, someone got mad because I think I wore flip-flops — it was a very hot summer day, so I don’t wear shoes and socks in the summer if I can avoid it — but I got some grief because I was wearing flip-flops in this “august house of worship.”
The point of it is, everybody has their quirks, and I’m not saying I don’t have my quirks, we all do, but at the end of the day, we want to be pleasing God and walking and living according to the grace of God and not be worried about what people think. It is amazing how freeing and liberating life is when you get to where you don’t care what people think. I mean you still obviously want to be kind to people, you want to walk in love, but we don’t want to run around being scared everyday. My gosh, if I say this or do this, they won’t talk to me. I’ve gotten to the place where if there is somebody that doesn’t wasn’t to talk to me because what I say or do, well then, I don’t want to talk to them either. Because when it comes right down to it, it is your relationship with God that matters and the people you want to be around are people that know that and appreciate that and love you and help you. If you have people that just want to judge you and put you in a box, its probably not very worthwhile being around them.
Any rate, with that not too brief introduction, we’re going to go into today’s topic, which is salvation and eternal life. I can probably have five time as much scripture in here as I have, but I tried to hit the highlights and if any of you would like to recommend other verses on the topic, please do. I’m sure I’ll be adjusting these notes as I continue to study the topic and just as I read the Bible everyday I’ll notice stuff that I hadn’t put in before. But this is salvation and eternal life, how the grace of God affects that, how the grace of God affects your daily living, that will come up in further sessions. So, please turn to Ephesians chapter two…
As taught by Bruce Mahone, 20210516. All rights reserved.
Verse Listing and Notes
Ephesians 2 By grace are ye saved – the gift of God (vs. 8)
Romans 11:1-6 If works, then no more grace (vs. 6)
I Peter 1:23 Being born again of incorruptible seed
I Corinthians 15:51-58 We shall all be changed (vs. 51)
Ephesians 1:10-11 We have obtained an inheritance
I Thessalonians 4:13-18 We will meet the Lord in the air – so shall we ever be
I Peter 1:3-4 An inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, and that fadeth not away
Colossians 3:4 When Christ…shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory
Some Difficult Verses
Ephesians 5:5 No whoremonger has any inheritance in the kingdom of God [NOTE: this refers to idolaters – those not yet born again]
Hebrews 6:6 If they fall away, impossible to renew them to repentance [NOTE: once you are born again, it is incorruptible seed – no need to renew]
Revelation 21:8 Second death
Revelation 20:12-15 Judgement and lake of fire
Revelation 2:10-11 He that overcometh shall not be hurt of the second death.
Teaching