Because, look, there's another belief out there, and I'm just going to briefly touch
on this, there's another belief out there that says, well you're not saved by works
at all, no works involved in salvation, but if you get saved, you're going to do good
works as a result.
Now look, I do believe that people who believe this are still saved, as long as they mean
what they're saying and they're truly trusting in Christ and His finished work on the cross.
If they're truly trusting Christ and His finished work on the cross, and they just think that
the Holy Spirit moving in is going to have an effect and you're going to do the works,
whatever.
I'm not saying that they're unsaved, but they are dead wrong.
Because if that were true, if that were true that everybody who's saved just automatically
does the works, this world would be a very different place.
Because I'll tell you what I see, I see 99% of people who are actually even saved doing
virtually nothing for God.
I'm talking about people that are truly saved.
I'm not talking about a bunch of fakes who don't even know what salvation is, and they
don't even understand the Gospel, and they're not even trusting Christ.
I'm talking about people who actually believe in the right Gospel, the right salvation.
How many of them are actually doing something big for God?
Well, you know what, it's not a lot.
So to sit there and say, but then people say, well, okay, but you're talking about doing
a lot of works.
I'm just saying they're going to do just a little bit.
They'll do something.
Come on, they're going to do something.
But what does the Bible say?
The Bible says to Him that worketh not, worketh not, but believeth on Him that justifieth
the ungodly.
His faith is counted for righteousness.
The guy who works not, but he believes.
You know, the Bible teaches that there are going to be people who get to that judgment
seat of Christ in 1 Corinthians 3, and all their works are wood-hand stubble, and the
Bible says that all their works are burned up, nothing made it through the fire, nothing
was of eternal value, nothing was worth a darn, and they get there and it says, yet
he himself shall be saved, yet so is by fire.
The Bible says he'll suffer loss of reward, yet he himself shall be saved, yet so is by
fire.
So it's possible to believe in Jesus, be truly saved, and then quench the Spirit, walk in
the flesh, not do good deeds, get to the judgment seat of Christ, and you're totally empty-handed
on rewards, and you're like, but you know what, I still made it in, yet he himself shall
be saved.
Yet he himself shall be saved.
Who?
The guy who all his works were burned up, yet he himself shall be saved.
Why?
Because there's not one little work required.
It's not like you're at the judgment seat of Christ, you know, picture it sort of like
a conveyor belt, right?
You know, I bring all my, everything I've done in my life, and I plop it down on the
conveyor belt, and the conveyor belt's just like, it just burns everything, right?
All the wood-hand stubble just gets smoked.
And then what comes out are the things that can make it through fire, you know, the gold,
the silver, the precious stones.
So think about this, let's say I put all of my good works in, everything I've done my
whole life, and it goes through, it gets torched, a whole bunch of it wasn't worth anything,
a whole bunch of it didn't matter, a whole bunch of it didn't count, and then it's like,
okay, I get to the other side, I gather up, okay, this is what I get a reward for.
Everybody get it?
This is like the parable, this is the illustration, obviously it's not going to be actually like
this, but this is what God is using to explain it to us, you know, so we can understand it
on our level.
Okay, well, what if you go through this thing, and it just burns up like virtually everything?
And then there's just like this little gold flake.
You know, who's ever just been handed little flakes of gold for free?
And you're like, whoa, this is real good, but it's like so thin and so light, it's virtually
worthless.
At the homeschool convention, they were just like giving out fake, kids are getting real
excited about these flakes of gold.
So just imagine, you know, imagine, you know, Gabriel or whatever, you know, gets out like
one of those little hand lenses that a geologist uses, right?
And he's like, wait, wait, because at first he's about to say no reward, you know, he's
about to just put a zero and you're like, wait, you know, you hand him the hand lens,
he gets up there.
And he's like, you're right.
There is a little spat, you actually did something right, you know, you actually and you know,
you actually achieved something.
And then it's like, yes, I'm saved.
Yes, I get to go to heaven.
Is that how it works?
No, because here's the thing.
You can have nothing come out the other side, be 100% empty handed.
But what does the Bible says?
If your works are burned, you suffer loss, but he himself shall be saved, yet so as by
fire.
It's possible to just get into heaven on the grace of God, even though you didn't do anything
whatsoever as far as any kind of a good works afterward, okay?
It's out there.
The Bible teaches that.
Now look, does that mean that we shouldn't do good works?
No, because the Bible says we're saved unto good works, which God has before ordained
that we should walk in them.
God has a wonderful plan for our life.
God has works for us to achieve.
God has a vision for our life.
And I don't know about you, I want to get on his program.
I want to earn those rewards.
You know, I want the machine to jam up when my works are going through.
You know, because it's like red alert because the conveyor belt so bogged down.
I want to do as much works as I can.
I want to get as many people saved as I can.
I want to do what God wants me to do because God has before ordained the works.
I've been saved not by works, but I've been saved unto good works, which God has before
ordained that I should walk in them.
But folks, don't confuse that with salvation.
Hey, every single week I get up and preach to people not to sin.
I get up and preach against stealing, murder, adultery, lying.
And then I get up and preach, go soul winning, read your Bible, pray, right?
I'm always getting up and telling people, do good works.
Don't do bad things.
Do good works.
Don't do bad things.
But here's the thing, those have nothing to do with salvation though.
You know why I get up and preach that week after week?
Because 90 some percent of people here are already saved.
So I don't have to just get up and preach about salvation.
Now I'm preaching about salvation this morning, but next Sunday morning, it's not going to
be salvation again.
Now, I've been to some churches that are like that, where it's just salvation.
So look, next week it'll be something totally different.
But let me just be very clear on this.
Salvation and doing good works are not connected whatsoever, except for in one way that says
you can't really do any works that God's really going to like until after you're saved.
That's really the only connection is that if I'm not saved, nothing I do pleases God.
Once I'm saved, I can actually do something that pleases God.
But that work has nothing to do with purchasing my salvation with or without it.
I'm saved because salvation is 100 percent by grace through faith.
And folks, I hope that the salvation sermon this morning was easy to understand.
I hope it was easy, because it's meant to be easy.
Because even though there's four points, that's just an illusion that makes it seem like it's
more complicated than it is, because it's really just one point.
The point is just fully rely on Jesus for your salvation and what he did.
We could just all sum it up like that.
But I broke it down into four points of, you know, trusting in Christ, believing the record
that God gave his son, taking that step of faith with no backup or fail safe.
That's just a more detailed way of saying, put all your faith in what Jesus already did,
the death, burial and resurrection of Christ.
Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.
Father, we thank you so much for the fact that you've given us salvation as a free gift,
Lord.
I hope that this sermon would help people to maybe have additional clarity or maybe
give them some ideas of ways that they could explain this to other people, Lord, because
we need to explain this to our friends.
We need to explain this to our loved ones, Lord.
And Lord, help us to always use the Bible when we explain it so that we can have access
to the power of scripture as we're presenting the gospel, Lord.
And Lord, if there's anybody here today who's not saved, I pray that they would get saved
before it's eternally too late, that they would ask someone here, because almost everyone
in this church knows how to present the gospel to them.
And so we just pray that anyone who's not sure would reach out and get saved.
And Lord, if there's anybody here today who's saved, but they've never won anyone else to
Christ, I pray that they would set a goal for 2021 of getting at least one person saved
this year.
And Lord, help us to support them in doing that, and Lord, help our soul winning times
to facilitate that, Lord.
In Jesus' name we pray.