God’s Will: Our Salvation
1 Timothy 1:12-2:5
As we begin this series of sermons entitled “Knowing God’s Will,” I want to first say that God gets blamed for a lot of things that are not his fault—things like tsunamis and other natural disasters, and evil in the world. We’ve all heard the remarks, “Well, it must be God’s will” when some tragedy happens--words that are often spoken by well-meaning, even if misinformed people. On a more personal level, we seek simply to know God’s will in our individual lives. We know we have little control over tsunamis and other disasters, but the day to day decisions we face is a different matter, and we want to be sure we make good decisions that are in accord with God’s will for us. We find ourselves asking the question, “What is God’s will for my life?”
So how do we begin to answer that question? We start by making two assumptions. First, asking the question “What is God’s will for my life?” is a sure sign that we are not in God’s will. If I have to ask, then I don’t know, and if I don’t know, then I am not in God’s will. As a pastor I get all kinds of questions about God’s will. From good circumstances to bad, everyone wants to know about God’s will. I have heard the statement from people with life-threatening illnesses, and I have heard it from young couples deciding to get married. I have heard if from men who were seeking to change jobs, and from women facing the prospect of divorce. I have heard it from high-school students as they contemplated a college or career choice, and I have even heard if from pastor’s fresh from the Staff-Parish Relations Committee. The reality remains though, if we are asking the question, it is a sign we are not in the will of God.
The second assumption we need to keep in mind as we seek to discover God’s will is this: we will never discover God’s will for our lives unless we do the obvious, primary thing God has told us to do. We anxiously wait to hear God’s voice giving us clear direction saying, “take this road, marry this person, choose this career, go to this church, buy this house.” But the clarity of God’s voice is never there because we haven’t done that obvious thing that God wants us to do in order to discover his will. Doing those obvious things is what this message series is about.
What are those obvious things? The Bible is pretty specific about what those things are, and there are three, primarily, that we want to discover over the next three weeks. Those well-meaning folks who say “It must be God’s will,” when tragedy strikes simply are not thinking about what they are saying. Death is not God’s will. Tragedy is not God’s will. Jesus said these words in John 10:10:
The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.
Jesus came to give us life, abundant life. So if life is God’s will for us, how do we discover this life in the context of our lives? How do we live out the abundant life so we can live in God’s will? I believe there are three primary ways. We discover God’s will by being saved. We discover God’s will by being obedient, and we discover God’s will by being holy. Let’s look at the first one today because it is the most obvious thing.
The Apostle Paul, as he neared the end of his life, wrote a letter to his protégé Timothy, whom he had left as the first pastor of the tiny Ephesian church Paul had planted there. As we read these words, Paul offers us a perspective on what I think is the most important decision any person will ever face: the decision to accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior—it is the decision to receive God’s salvation.
Paul wrote this letter to Timothy to offer advice on handling the affairs of the church, and to help Timothy in handling some false teachers and teaching that had arisen in the early church. It was in the context of offering this advice on false teachers that Paul sort of takes off on his own salvation experience. Listen as Paul shares his experience:
1 Tim. 1:12-2:2
How thankful I am to Christ Jesus our Lord for considering me trustworthy and appointing me to serve him, [13] even though I used to scoff at the name of Christ. I hunted down his people, harming them in every way I could. But God had mercy on me because I did it in ignorance and unbelief. [14] Oh, how kind and gracious the Lord was! He filled me completely with faith and the love of Christ Jesus.
[15] This is a true saying, and everyone should believe it: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—and I was the worst of them all. [16] But that is why God had mercy on me, so that Christ Jesus could use me as a prime example of his great patience with even the worst sinners. Then others will realize that they, too, can believe in him and receive eternal life. [17] Glory and honor to God forever and ever. He is the eternal King, the unseen one who never dies; he alone is God. Amen.
[18] Timothy, my son, here are my instructions for you, based on the prophetic words spoken about you earlier. May they give you the confidence to fight well in the Lord’s battles. [19] Cling tightly to your faith in Christ, and always keep your conscience clear. For some people have deliberately violated their consciences; as a result, their faith has been shipwrecked. [20] Hymenaeus and Alexander are two examples of this. I turned them over to Satan so they would learn not to blaspheme God.
[2:1] I urge you, first of all, to pray for all people. As you make your requests, plead for God’s mercy upon them, and give thanks. [2] Pray this way for kings and all others who are in authority, so that we can live in peace and quietness, in godliness and dignity.
Out of these thoughts, Paul he gives us a glimpse of God’s heart for us all. He offers it almost as an aside, but the depth of its truth touches us as it comes from the heart of God. Listen to verses 3 & 4 of chapter 2:
For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour; [4] Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.
Let me state the premise this way: God’s will for our lives is that we be saved. The principle of discovering God’s will is couched in the context of a relationship. God doesn’t simply want us to know His will, He wants us to know Him. We can’t know someone’s will unless we know the person, and the more intimately we know the person, the more intimately we will know that person’s will. Henry Blackaby and Claude King listed seven realities for experiencing God in their book entitled, Experiencing God, and the second reality is this: “God pursues a continuing love relationship with us.” This is the essence of salvation—God pursuing a continuing love relationship with us.
We don’t like to use the word salvation much anymore. We don’t like to talk about people getting “saved.” It reminds us too much of preachers hitting us over the head with their Bibles and trying to guilt us into the kingdom of God. Too often, we equate being saved with that moment a person walks down the aisle of the church to accept Christ. The reality is that moment may be a part of it, but salvation is so much more than that moment. You see, salvation is not about any one particular place and time as much as it is about a journey that is made up of many places and many times along the way.
If we view salvation as a journey with many encounters along the way we might be able to understand that God has been working in our lives since before we were ever born. I am reminded of what David said in Psalm 139:15-16:
You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion,
as I was woven together in the dark of the womb.
[16] You saw me before I was born.
Every day of my life was recorded in your book.
Every moment was laid out
before a single day had passed.
We Methodists like to call God working in this way “prevenient” grace. Prevenient grace means that God is working in us even when we are unaware of it and are unable or unwilling to acknowledge his presence. Prevenient grace is one way we encounter God’s salvation. It is God pursuing a continuing love relationship with us.
Then there is that time, that moment, when we experience God’s grace, and we begin to understand who it is and what it is He is calling us to. In that moment, one person may walk the aisle and make a public profession of their faith, or another person may come to be baptized as an adult. It may be that moment when a young person goes through confirmation and embraces the faith of their parents as they are introduced to Jesus Christ through confirmation. It may be that time when the drunken, homeless drug addict realizes that Christ is the only answer, and that person calls out to Christ to save them from the brokenness and pain of a wasted life, all the while kneeling and trembling in the cold of winter on a deserted street corner. That moment, we Methodists call the “justifying” grace of God, and it, too is an encounter of God’s salvation. It is a very important encounter, a very important moment, but it is not the lone defining experience of salvation. It is another way that God pursues a continuing love relationship with us. In that moment, through God’s justifying grace, we are justified in Christ, our sins are washed away, and we are given new life in Jesus Christ. Hear again the Apostle Paul as he writes to the church at Rome:
Romans 5:6ff--When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners…and since we have been made right in God’s sight by the blood of Christ, he will certainly save us from God’s judgment. So now we can rejoice in our wonderful new relationship with God—all because of what our Lord Jesus Christ has done for us in making us friends of God.
But salvation continues beyond that point, because God still seeks a continuing relationship with Himself for us. We grow in grace as we learn and live in Christ-like ways. This growing to become ever more like Christ we Methodists call God’s “sanctifying” grace at work in our lives. We become mature Christians. We will talk more about this in a couple of weeks when we discover what it means to be holy.
We have looked at three encounters on the journey of God’s salvation in our lives, but as with every journey, this journey is carrying us toward something, a destination. That destination is heaven and eternity. Our lives are moving toward something, and for those who trust in Jesus Christ, we are moving toward that time when all things will be reconciled to God through Jesus Christ. We look forward to that day when these perishable bodies, so broken by sin and disease, will put on bodies that shall never dim or die. It is that time when all of God’s salvation, not only in our lives, but in all His creation will be redeemed. The moment we are fully redeemed in heaven with Christ is called “glorifying” grace. The Apostle John gives us a glimpse of this time in The Revelation. Listen:
Rev. 21:3-7
I heard a loud shout from the throne, saying, "Look, the home of God is now among his people! He will live with them, and they will be his people. God himself will be with them. [4] He will remove all of their sorrows, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. For the old world and its evils are gone forever."
[5] And the one sitting on the throne said, "Look, I am making all things new!" And then he said to me, "Write this down, for what I tell you is trustworthy and true." [6] And he also said, "It is finished! I am the Alpha and the Omega—the Beginning and the End. To all who are thirsty I will give the springs of the water of life without charge! [7] All who are victorious will inherit all these blessings, and I will be their God, and they will be my children.
There is the destination of this journey that is called salvation. It is what God is working out in our lives even now. Each one of us here may be at a different point on that journey. Some of us may be here and have never responded to God’s grace. God’s prevenient grace has kept you from going to far. You’ve never heard the voice of God before, but this morning, for some reason, you hear Him in a distinct way. You need to respond by opening your life to the next encounter along the journey. Make the decision to accept Jesus Christ at your Lord and Savior, and that, too, will be a moment of grace in God’s salvation in your life. Others of us have already made that decision. We’ve experienced the justifying grace of God but for some reason we’ve never moved beyond that initial encounter with Christ. We just sort of got stuck, but now we hear Christ calling to us, “Go deeper, my child!” We need to respond to that grace by opening our lives as we seek to grow in sanctifying grace to become more and more like Christ. Perhaps there are some here who simply need to give God thanks and praise for the salvation that has already been experienced, and we need to ask God to give us grace to keep us in Himself until we are glorified with Him.
You may be here saying to yourself, “I really do want to know God’s will for my life.” I can promise we will never know His will unless and until we do that obvious, primary thing God has told us to do. We know from the Bible that it is God’s will that all people be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. That is God’s will for my life and for yours, and for every life that has ever drawn breath. Are you in that continuing love relationship called salvation?
