Salvation: Why It's Needed & Its Purpose | Wednesday Night Service

We're going to be talking about salvation tonight. Brand new subject. Salvation.

We don't talk about salvation much unless it's a outreach or a crusade or some kind of. I think we need to keep bringing it back super frequently in our talks. But I would love to just play a quick video, the five minute video, a Bible project video that's gonna help me help us tonight. Is that okay, Peyton? Is that Peyton?

Not there.

So in the Bible, the ideas of heaven and earth are ways of talking about God's space and our space. So I understand our space really well. We live here. There's trees, rivers, mountains. But my understanding of God's space gets a little fuzzy.

And what we do get in the Bible are images trying to help us grasp God's space, which is basically inconceivable to us. So these are two very different types of spaces. They're different in their nature. But here's what's really interesting, is that in the Bible, these are not always separate spaces. So think of heaven and earth as like different dimensions that can overlap in the same exact space.

So we talk a lot about going to heaven after we die, but this idea of heaven and earth overlapping, we don't talk a lot about that, which is kind of crazy because the union of heaven and earth is what the story of the Bible is all about. About how they were once fully united and then driven apart, and about how God is bringing them back together once again. So let's go back to the beginning where heaven and earth, they're completely overlapping. Yeah. This is what the Bible's description of the Garden of Eden is all about.

It's a place where God and humanity dwelt together perfectly. No separation. And humans then partner with God in building a flourishing, beautiful world and so on. But as humans, we wanted to do things a different way. We wanted God out and we wanted to create a world apart from him.

Yeah. So we have these two spaces now. And the Bible actually uses lots of different kinds of words and phrases to refer to these two spaces to make a clear distinction. So you've said that these spaces can overlap, though. So explain how that works.

Yeah, this is where we have to start talking about temples. Because in the biblical world, you experience God's presence by going to a temple. That's where heaven and earth overlap. Now, there are two types of temples described in the Bible. One is a tabernacle, basically a tent that was built by Moses.

And the other was this massive building made by Solomon. And these temples were decorated with fruit trees and flowers. And images of angels and all kinds of gold and jewels and so on. And these are designed to make you feel like you're going back to the garden. And at the center of the temple was a place called the Holy of Holies, which was like the hot spot of God's presence.

Now we can go and be with God again, but not so fast, because the temple also creates a problem. So God's space is full of his presence and goodness and justice and beauty, but human space is full of sin and injustice and the ugliness that result. So how do these spaces overlap if they're so different and they're in conflict with each other? This was resolved through animal sacrifice. Yeah.

That's kind of weird. What do animal sacrifices have to do with this? Yeah, the idea is this animal sacrifices, somehow they absorb the sin when the animal dies in your place. And it creates a clean space, so to speak, where you are now free to enter into the temple and be in God's presence. Okay, so if I'm an Israelite and I live in Jerusalem, I. I might be able to be in God's presence.

But you said the story of the Bible is all of heaven and earth reuniting. Right. So we have to keep going. In the story where we come to Jesus in the New Testament and in the Gospel of John, we hear this claim that God became human in Jesus and made his dwelling among us. Now, this word dwelling is really curious.

Literally, it means he set up a tabernacle among us. And so what John is claiming right here is that Jesus is a temple. He is now the place where heaven and earth overlap. What's interesting about Jesus is that he isn't staying in this safe, clean space. He's running around hanging out with sinners.

He's healing people of their sicknesses and forgiving people of their sins. He's basically creating little pockets of heaven where people can be in God's presence, but he's doing it out there in the middle of the. Of the world of sin and death. And he keeps telling everyone that the kingdom of heaven is at hand. And he even told his followers to pray regularly that God's kingdom come and that his will be done here on earth just as it is in heaven.

But a lot of people are threatened by Jesus and they kill him. Which seems to spoil this whole plan to reunite heaven and earth. But we have to go back to a scene earlier on in Jesus story where John the Baptist saw Jesus and said, behold, this is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. So Jesus isn't just talked about as being a temple. He's also talked about as being the temple sacrifice.

Yeah. So the cross is now the place where Jesus absorbs sin to create a clean space that is not limited like animal sacrifices. Jesus sacrifice has the power to keep spreading and spreading and reuniting more and more of heaven and earth. And this is all really great, but it leaves one big question in my mind, which is, what happens when I die? Don't I just fly over to God's space to be with Jesus?

Yeah. So a few times in the New Testament, we learn that Christians will be with Jesus in heaven after they die. But that is not the focus of the Bible story. The focus is on how heaven and earth are being reunited through Jesus and will be completely brought together one day when he returns. So in the book of Revelation, we get this beautiful image of the Garden of Eden now in the form of city coming to end the age of sin and death by redeeming all of human history in a renewed creation.

And God's space and human space completely overlap once again.

Isn't that great? I love Bible. We could go home now, it's done. What else do we need? Right.

Love Bible project. But tonight's gonna be speaking on salvation. A little more applicable concepts of salvation. And I'm gonna try to go super basic, foundational, nothing deep. I know that salvation can be very complicated from a theological standpoint.

So many currents and, you know, streams and different thoughts. But it starts like this. Number one, the Bible says that God has a plan. And human beings are obviously God part of that plan. That's interesting.

God wants an earthly family. He does. And he creates us right, to be part of that family. And he creates. Now that we have the book and we see the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, we know the character of God and we know that he didn't create us to be slaves, to feed him or to serve Him.

Right. He creates us out of love. It's an overflow of love because he wants that relationship. So we are a major part of this plan. God is a relationship within himself.

His Father, Son, Holy Spirit. The Father loves the Son, loves the Holy Spirit and loves the Father. It never ends. Right? So he is self sufficient.

He doesn't need love from us, but he wants to. And that's what's beautiful about this, this plan. So he creates a beautiful ecosystem, right. Genesis 1, 2 and 3, we're going to be hanging out in Genesis today. And he creates, you know, he adds order to a chaotic Situation does lots of separation, create new things and.

But he creates order and he creates an ecosystem called Planet Earth. And if you believe in Big Bang or whatever it's called, the crazy theories out there, I envy your faith. Because it's impossible. We have a creator. We know that.

Right? So it's. What are the chances of getting a deck of cards, throwing it and they all fall down organized, and it's impossible. Some people believe in that stuff. I don't know.

A lot of faith. A lot more than this, to be honest.

So he said this. And inside that ecosystem, he creates another ecosystem called Eden. That's all we saw on Bible Project, right? And he creates man outside of Eden and he places man in Eden, right? Eden, place of delights.

We see that in Genesis 2:8. Now, the Lord God had planted a garden in the east in Eden, and there he put the man he had formed and. Interesting. Genesis 2:15. Just interesting to me.

I don't know. That's my Roman Catholic background. I always thought that work was a punishment as a result of the fall. And it is not. Because you can tell here, Genesis 2:15.

The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. Genesis 2:15. So there's no sin yet. So there is purpose. You see that plan developing and taking place.

We have a job. We had a job to do and we still do. In that place. We. I don't know if J.J. johnson is here, but I don't think he's here.

But we are talking about cruises and we have that. You know, he's an MSC Cruise fan. I am too. I went for the first time last year. It's phenomenal.

Cruising is phenomenal. But we think that the Garden of Eden is an all inclusive msa. Msc, Oceanscape island with drinks and WI Fi. You're good. Let's just enjoy life, right?

It's not. Because you can tell right here, right, there is purpose. So the work is actually to our benefit because it creates ownership. We are part of this God, so much take care of this. Like it's so good.

Like it's. I love. I love God so much. But then disconnection happens. Number two, right there.

And we see this in Genesis 2:16. And the Lord God commanded the man, you are free to eat from any tree in the garden, but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it, you will certainly die. Very specific instructions for Adam. Personal note. Eve had not been created yet.

I Know. You guys all know that, right? It's fascinating to me because some people like Eve, man, it's her fault. Look. And got the instructions.

Who was supposed to relay that information to Eve? We don't know what he did or not, but. And then it continues. We see a little further down Genesis 3:1:7. Now, the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord had made.

That's interesting. He creates heaven, creates the planet Earth, creates a garden with a serpent. And he calls it good. Everyone has thought about that.

It's interesting to me because God, everything has a purpose, even the serpent. The serpent was crafty. And the serpent questioned to the woman, did God really say, you must not eat from any tree in the garden? The woman said to the serpent, we may eat fruit from the trees in the garden. But God did say, you must not eat fruit from the tree that's in the middle of the garden.

You must not touch it. What? Who talked about touching the fruit? Where did she get that?

Interesting. Or you will die. So we have the first influencer in the history of humanity, the bad influencer. We think we have bad influences. Now, I came from here, so you will not certainly die.

The serpent said to the woman, for God knows that when you eat from it, your eyes will be open and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and. And pleasing to the eyes and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it.

And then we keep going. Then.

Did I skip something here?

Interesting. So seven. Then the eyes of both of them were open and they realized they were naked. So they sewed fig leaves together and made covering for themselves. The interesting that the eyes just got open when Adam ate.

Because she eats gives to him, and when he eats, that's when it happens. So it's Adam's responsibility. It's a man problem. It's not a woman's problem. Abortion is a man's problem.

We need men out there, not boys. And Adam could have said something here. He could have exercised domain over the beasts of the field and said, don't talk to my wife. You shut up. Done.

Would you need Jesus if that happened? Do you guys think about that or just me? Sometimes I think I'm a little crazy. If Adam had said that, would we need Jesus? Yes, we would need Jesus.

But that's a different topic. It's a rabbit trail. I don't want to go there because it's. Because we need the incarnation, the atonement that we're going to talk a little later would be different. But we would need Jesus no matter what.

That's why he was according to Revelation, he was sacrificed in the beginning, before all this.

So chaos is reinstated. So the chaos that we see in the beginning of Genesis, creation, things out of order. Now the chaos is reinstated. And now man became self referential. Instead of looking at God for answers, they look within.

That was the problem. Because knowledge of good and evil is a good thing. It's not a bad thing. We need to know what's good and evil. But God never designed us to know by experience, by touching it, by trying.

Let me see if it works. It's by revelation and by faith, by relationship with him. Do we know there was a shortcut? And Eve and Adam were deceived and they fell. And as a result we are into 25.

We are all harvesting from that curse, right? So we all are born with bad inclinations for bad things. You see a little baby, you got Johnny and Mary and you put one toy fight. Just wait, it's gonna happen. You don't need to teach them how to fight.

They will fight. They need to teach them to whine, how to lie, manipulate. It's already there, programmed, right? Because of this, the chaos called the natural. The original sin brought all this, right?

So this chaos inaugurates a new lifestyle. And more than a lifestyle is almost a state of being. Because we're now disconnected from God. We're living in a state of rupture. So we see the serpent's accomplishments here.

Number one, the thoughts about God are damaged. The serpent damaged their concept of God. So Adam used to fear God, now he's afraid of God. Look at the distortion. It changes a lot, right?

The perspective. So he hides from him. Hiding from the only person that could help him. But because his view is so distorted because of sin, now he sees God as an enemy or someone that wants to kill him. There's fear in place.

Unhealthy fear. Number two, there is a phrase before that, Aw tozer that says this. What come into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us. Isn't that great? Love that quote.

But number two, thoughts about self are distorted. The serpent distorted their understanding of self. There is an identity crisis going on now. So the vertical relationship is damaged. The internal relationship is damaged.

They don't know who they are anymore. It's messed up, guys. It's bad. So they are broken from the inside.

I've been reading a book called Crushing Chaos. By Manny Arango. He came here, great guy, young guy, but he says this. In modern Christian tradition, we tend to focus only on Adam's ruptured relationship with God. But he, Adam, experienced other layers of brokenness too, in his relationship with Eve and moreover, in himself, internal brokenness.

For the first time, Adam's spirit and soul and body experienced incongruence and fracturing. So true. So the third point is thoughts about others are dysfunctional.

Adam went from when he sees Eve, like, wow, you are flesh from my flesh, bone from my bones. He couldn't even differentiate. There are two different beings. They're so connected because that was the plan of God, right? When God created Eve, we all know the story, right?

He didn't stoop down and got more clay and build Eve. He didn't he come from the side, right? So it's one, two, becoming one after this. How he sees Eve now, he sees her as an enemy. Because when God shows up, he says he blames her.

Like, this is all happening because of her that you created. Look how distorted that view is. That's sin. So why do we need salvation? I think this pretty much sums up.

Look at the mess that we created. How can we get out of this now? We need religion. It's point number three. We need.

You heard it right? Despite my accent. We need religion.

I always heard that. No, it's not religion. We need relationship. But it is impossible to have relationship without religion. But the right type of religion that we're going to see.

The word religion in Latin, heligare. Gotta say, like heligare, almost the Italian, right? Latin. It means the Latin verb heligare. Religare translates to bind, to tie, or to fasten.

It's often associated with the concept of binding or connecting something to something else. And it is considered a key root of the English word religion, especially. It suggests a binding or rebinding, potentially implying a connection to something sacred or a return to a previous state. Isn't that interesting? A return to a previous state.

We need true religion, guys. True religion. So in Portuguese, my native tongue, when you see a light switch or any switches, we have liga. Turn it on. This liga.

Turn it off, right? Liga, this, liga. So, religari. You can see there's a liga inside religari. So for my people, for Portuguese speakers, religari makes a lot of sense in English.

Religion, religion, not as much, but it's still connected. It still makes sense. So we have on and off. Next slide, please. So I could handle that.

Well, when I moved here on Super Easy, on, off, you know, but then on and off. They start with the same vowel, O. So they come up with the next slide. This. And this messes me up.

So mad. I still struggle with this. And I thought this was an I and an O. What are I is doing here? What about this?

Couldn't understand. So confusing, right? But it comes from the computer world. Binary. It's actually 1 and 0.

So 1 is something. Jake is here, he knows that well. Right, Jake? So it's one and zero coding. So one is something, zero is nothing.

So the hack for this is free tonight. I for ignition, put an I and it works. So think ignition. That's what I do every time. So it messes me up.

But going back to the word connect or reconnect, I was thinking what kind of English word I can come up with that makes religion reconnect. So maybe we need to be reconnected. Maybe legion, like we see in the Bible, right? Legion is a group of soldiers, 5,000 soldiers. But then Mark 5, when Jesus expelled the porks, the pigs, he went to the name of the.

Sorry, the name of the demon was Legion. So I don't want to be a negative thing. So I thought about league, like a soccer league. We need to be re leagued. Right?

So Justice League. So I thought about putting a picture there. That's my Photoshop skills there. So we need to be re leagued. Reconnected, right?

So one thing, we have a connect room that we we right here across the hallway. Right? So now paying attention to this. I'm done. There you go.

We have a connect room and it says there's a picture that says welcome to the family. I love that. That's what you're doing tonight, reconnecting, right? Being a part of the league. So we can sum up all the religions of the word of the world in two religions.

Religion of man, religion of God, religion of man. Just a way that man trying to. As an attempt of man trying to find God. It's just a fig leaf. I have a fig leaf there.

Covering doesn't work. Adam and Eve. Eve tried it. Doesn't work, guys.

And the thing is this religion of man is works performance. Sometimes good things, not necessarily bad things, but they'll never allow you to reach God, right. I grew up Catholic and in the Roman Catholic world, works is a big deal to achieve salvation. Doesn't work.

Not bashing my roots, but it's not very biblical, you know, it's a human effort to reach God. You have an infected wound, a lot of pus nasty. And you apply a band aid to it. Doesn't work. And the interesting thing that I figured out super recently is that fig leaves, they have, how do you call it, anesthetic properties.

It numbs the pain. So if I have a pain, muscular pain, or you can apply fig leaves on and kind of numbs the pain. Isn't that interesting that they use fig leaves to numb their pain? Temporary solution. And then you have the religion of God, right?

So we see right here. That's interesting. Sometimes you read this. I read this so many times and never saw it. Never saw it.

Genesis 3. 21. Unto Adam also, and to his wife did the Lord God make coats of skins and clothe them.

I read that. I know you guys are PhD in this, but I read this so many times, never saw it.

First death in Scripture, where did God get these skins from? Right. First death took cover.

Very interesting. Next slide is God could not accomplish his goals without first fixing humanity. He wanted us to be a part of this so bad that he was trying to do everything he could to bring us back. And that's salvation, guys. It's an act of love.

We know his character. And that brings up to atonement. It's a very. At least for me, it was a very foreign concept because atonement, we don't use that word a lot outside of church.

Not a very common word, but it's in our sense of justice. Like if I go out there and I rob a bank and I'm arrested and I go to jail, justice has been served, I did something wrong, the punishment comes to me. We understand that that's Greek, right? That's Greece mentality, Eastern mentality. We got our rights and our laws based on Greek structure.

But atonement is like an innocent person is going to pay for my injustice. And it sounds very weird until that person is me. And then everything changes. That's what atonement is. So atonement, the scan that God provided was a prefiguration of Christ, right?

It's not wide open in scripture, but it's there. It's a hint like an Easter egg or a breadcrumb that I've read many times. I know you guys caught that initially on the first read. I got that. I didn't.

It took me a couple years.

So atonement, atone has its roots in the idea of reconciliation and harmony. It grew out of the Middle English phrase at on meaning in harmony, a phrase echoed in current expressions, like feeling at one with nature. When atone joined modern English in the 16th century. It meant to reconcile and suggested the restoration of a peaceful and harmonious state between people or groups today. Atone specifically implies addressing the damage or disharmony caused by one's own behavior.

That's Merriam Webster. Very interesting. And then when you understand this, John 3:16 makes so much more sense for God, you know, by memory, right? For God so loved the world that he gave his only his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. He brings a totally different level because now we understand the Lamb of God, it takes away the sin of the world.

So at one meant. Next slide.

We can be at one again. That's what salvation means to you, Jesus. Work on the cross was designed to heal the fractured reality of our disconnection not only from God, but also our internal disconnection from who we were designed to be, as well as our disconnection from others. You can be one again. This is salvation.

So this is. Jesus is a religion of God. So religion is a good thing. Next slide, please. Jesus is a religion of God.

He makes us whole. Soto. Right? I don't know if grace is here. Soto.

Great class. James, Sarah, you guys are part of this. Elizabeth, phenomenal. If you haven't been through Sozo yet, highly recommend they have, you know, methods to bring you to a wholeness. Again, it's phenomenal.

So salvation brings vertical healing. Next slide, please. Relationship with God, internal healing, relationship with yourself, and horizontal healing, relationship with others.

Paul says that we have the mind of Christ in 1 Corinthians. I just put the second part of the verse there, but says, for who has known the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him, but we have the mind of Christ. That's the end of. Very good to read the entire chapter, but it's the very end of 2nd Corinthians 2 and we can compare. Now, what salvation brings to us.

A comparison between the mind of Adam and the mind of Christ. The mind of Adam. We have independence from God. The mind of Christ, intimacy with God. Mind of Adam, insecurity with self.

Man of Christ, identity with self. Before he performed any miracle day of baptism, pleased God shows up. This is my Son, whom I'm well pleased. Right? So declaring his identity not based on performance, hasn't done anything yet.

So God was. Jesus was very good at this. In isolation from others. Adam, man of Christ, interdependence with others, not co dependence. Interdependence.

We are a body, right? We have different gifts. Study about that frequently here. I Need yalls gift. You need my gift.

It's like an exchange of gifts. That's the beauty of the body of Christ. Interdependence. So it's like almost like a software update in our brains, right? That's what salvation brings.

So, okay, you are saved. Next slide. Now what? All of these that we talked about here. Sorry, God, this is very foundational, very basic.

Hopefully you are tracking with me now what? So everything we talk about that until now, we are saved from. Right? Saved from bad stuff. But we are also saved too.

So what's the purpose of salvation? Next slide. It's right there. Paul explains very well. He talks about the ministry of reconciliation.

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he's a new creation. The old has passed away. Behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave who us, the ministry of reconciliation that is in Christ. God in Christ.

God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them and entrusting us to us. The message of reconciliation here is beautiful. Verse 20. Therefore we are ambassadors. I took many years ago, I took Pastor J and Nathan to my hometown in Brazil and we went to the American embassy consulate there in my hometown.

It's all super secure. And that was 2019, I think I was working here already. But I had a work visa that allows me to work, still work in America. Right. So doing the things legally, it's a very current subject, immigration.

So I go there to take them. I'm in my hometown. We always speak in Portuguese. I cross that portal. Welcome to America.

You, you go that way, sir. Nathan and Jay, you're Americans, so that's an embassy. It's in my country. But when you cross that portal, that's American territory. So that's where you are.

Guys. Where we step our feet, guess what?

We bring the kingdom with us. It's holy ground. So that's the message for tonight. Next slide, please. So once we are religioned to God, we can partner with him to accomplish his original plan, an earthly family.

That's the purpose of salvation. Hopefully. That was a good refresher course. I know you guys all know that, but it's always good to bring that to the top of our minds, right? We didn't say to go to Oceanski and just have fun.

Yeah, we made it. That's when. That's when it gets good. Now I have a lot of work to do and I'm glad you guys are here. I always love the Wednesday crowd.

Great to see you guys again. And if you. If there's something you can take home. This is the next graphic here from Bible Project. Now, every interaction on your day, every Walmart trip, every target trip, TJ Maxx, right?

Guess who you're taking with you? Jesus. Remember that overlap space. Now it's our responsibility to expand it. Right?

That's what salvation is for, right? So hopefully you guys enjoyed. That's it for tonight. Quick, quick message. That good.

So I just like to pray. Is that okay? We can finish. So, God, thank you so much for the amazing gift of salvation. God, thanks for allowing us to partner with you in this beautiful planet you created for us.

God, please help us identify the fig leaves, God, that we still have. I have plenty and I want to get rid of them, God. And it requires getting vulnerable in front of you, God. It requires us getting naked again. Because the skin that you provide through the blood of Jesus, it doesn't come over the fig leaves.

They need to be removed, God. And that's our task. That's our part, God. Our part is becoming vulnerable and giving you full access to our hearts, God, so you can cover us. So, God, I give you full access to my heart.

I know we all here do. And we thank you, God, for providing your son. That's unfathomable. It's hard for me to understand how you can give yourself. So we can be religioned, we can be reconnected to your heart, and we can be grafted in the vine again.

And now we can call you Father. What a powerful word, Abba. Father. Thank you so much, God. That's my prayer for tonight.

May we go home in peace and protected by your angels, God, in Jesus name, amen.