Salvation by Faith
[This sermon is based on the Revised Common Lectionary Gospel reading for Sunday, 21 November 2010, and is an attempt to preach and teach our Methodist doctrine regarding Salvation by Faith, so it has loud echoes, I hope, of John Wesley's sermon of the same title]
Reading: Luke 23:33-43
Text: Ephesians 2:8
By grace you are saved through faith
Our lectionary reading this week has us journeying to the place called The Skull where they crucified Jesus and two criminals, one on his right and one on his left. It is a very appropriate reading for this Sunday, which marks the death, the end, of another lectionary/liturgical year. Next week is the first Sunday in Advent, which is the start of a new liturgical/lectionary year.
And so we find ourselves at the Cross, at the end, with three men who know that they won't touch the ground beneath them again until they are dead. And on that ground around them are people, some gambling, many mocking, others just looking and listening.
As we look and listen from a distance of 2000 years, we notice two things that are repeated.
The first is the idea of salvation, which seems to permeate the scene:
“He saved others, let him save himself” say the Jewish leaders;
“Save yourself” say the soldiers;
“Save yourself and us” says one of the criminals.
And this is what it's all about for many of us......... save yourself if you possibly can........ look out for number one.......... be concerned primarily with yourself, your own welfare, and your own well-being.
So while Jesus is doing his saving work, this word, save...... save....... save..... save.... is being shouted from every place.
The other word or phrase we notice is: “King” and “King of the Jews.” This is in fact a coronation service taking place, but only two people seem to be aware of it – Jesus and..... one of the criminals. And it is on that criminal that I want to focus, because he recognises Jesus as king and he ends up being saved by Jesus the King, on his deathbed. This sinful person finds favour with God....... that should have us shouting: Amen! Alleluia! That a sinful person should find favour with God can only be described as amazing grace. How does he “achieve/acquire” this salvation?
I will show that it is only because of his faith and God's grace.
Why does God choose to save him in the first place? For absolutely no other reason than..... He just wants to! He just wants to save this criminal, not because the criminal deserves to be saved, but plain and simply because He wants to. This undeserved mercy is what we call grace.
You and I can experience the same grace and salvation day by day by day. Isn't that good news?
Our text reminds us that by grace we are saved through faith.
What kind of faith is it that saves?
It is easier to first describe what kind of faith does not save before describing the kind of faith that does save:
1. Many people believe in a god, or in gods, and this is not surprising because the world as we see it points to a God who made it and sustains it. But this belief/faith in a God that must surely exist is not the faith that saves.
- The devil and the demons believe in God. It is on the lips of demons in the Gospels that we sometimes hear: “I know who you are, the holy one of God” and in Acts “these men are servants of the most high God who show you the way to salvation.” So the devil and his demons believe in God but it is not a belief that saves. Many people have a belief in God that goes no further than the belief that devil has in God.
- The disciples of Jesus had faith in God, they believed in a God who could heal the sick, give sight to the blind, raise the dead, because they had seen that very God at work in their midst in Christ. But that faith, the faith of the disciples, doesn't save either. Don't settle for a faith that only believes these things of God in Christ.
So what faith does save?
The faith that saves is a faith in Christ that doesn't just believe facts about him, but rather a faith that changes your heart.
This is what we see in the criminal. The other gospel writers tell us that he also cursed Jesus at first, but Luke shows us that his heart changes through his experience of Christ on the cross next to him. And here we see the key element of saving faith, it is based on the Cross, on a Jesus who died, a Jesus who gave his life. It is a faith that sees being put right with God (we call this justification) as something which Jesus did for us by dying for us on the Cross. It sees being put right with God as something that only Jesus can do and it believes he did just that, namely put us right with God, on the Cross.
The criminal hanging next to Jesus sees in the way Jesus is dying, the promised Messiah or King, that perhaps he had heard about in his life sometime, he sees the suffering, dying Jesus as King, and realises, more than the disciples had, that death is not going to hold this King. He obviously sees the resurrection before anyone else, with eyes opened by faith, because he says: “Remember me, Jesus, when you come as king.” Isn't that beautiful? Do you perhaps want to say those words now: “Remember me Jesus, when you come as king.”
And Jesus says to him........................................ OK, I will.
And we see here how by God's grace we are saved by faith. Faith in a dying, dead, raised again and living forever more Jesus, who does everything to put us right with God, and invites us to believe that good news.
That's grace upon grace, isn't it?
That's amazing grace isn't it?
Now, what exactly is this salvation that is offered purely by the faith described above?
1. Firstly, it is something we experience here and now. We don't have to wait until we die to experience this salvation. Salvation IS (present tense)...... for you and for me.........NOW.
2. What is it that we are saved from?
In a word, we are saved from........ sin.
Notice that we are not saved from …...suffering,........... from struggle,................ from pain,.....from unemployment....... from disease,........... from death. You see, none of these things separates us from, or need separate us from, God. Only sin separates us from God – it 'puts us in the wrong' with God, which is why it is so important to see and believe that only what Jesus did puts us 'in the right with God'.
3. We are saved from sin and from the guilt associated with it and from the fear of punishment that goes with guilt.
We are saved from sin.
4. We are also saved..... from sinning. We are saved from the need we think we have, to sin.
Let me ask you this: do you have to sin? Is sin absolutely and completely unavoidable in your life?
I'll answer for myself: as I reflect on the week that has passed and on the sin I have committed in the week that has passed...... the truth is..... I didn't have to sin. It was not unavoidable. It shames me to say this, but say this I must: No one and no thing made me sin. The truth is........ that if I really let God's Spirit, the same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead, if I let that Holy Spirit truly reign in every part of my life, there is not a habit, a wilful sin or a sinful desire that need gain victory over me. That is the truth for me, and that is, I suspect the truth for you too. The truth surely is, as the apostle says, that we can do all things in him who strengthens us.
I don't have to sin, neither do you, that is the truth.
Let me conclude
Through the ages, people have had many objections to this truth, namely that we are saved by faith purely because of God's grace. Many find it scandalous that a thief undergoing execution should be saved by God just before he dies, or that a common prostitute like Mary Magdalene and a crooked tax collector like Zacchaeus, should be saved by grace through faith; that someone like Saul of Tarsus should experience this grace and salvation, and so on and so on and so on. It's all quite scandalous!
Worst of all, scandal upon scandal, that someone like Cedric Poole should be saved by grace through faith, that is just too much!
But, all praise be to God,......... he is, and you are too,........ and so he stands before you and proclaims with Wesley, with Luther, with Paul, with so many others,
that it is by grace that you are saved through faith.
Amen and Glory to God.
