Adult Mentor: 2nd Quarter 2014

By Rev. Richard Montgomery

Adult Mentor (ages 46 & older).This book is for the adult learner, ages 46 and older. It is designed to increase Christian faith and biblical understanding using a variety of learning methods.

• Language: English
• Publisher: R.H. Boyd Publishing Corporation
• Release date: Jan 23, 2014
• ISBN: 9781589427761

Book preview

SAVED BY GRACE

QUARTERLY THEME:

What It Means to Be Saved!

INTRODUCTION:

This quarter we will examine salvation. While a person may be saved in a moment of time, the full measure of salvation extends beyond that moment in both directions. Just like any other journey, salvation begins with preparatory work, kicks off at a moment in time, and heads toward an ultimate destination. Along the way, many factors play into the successful completion of the journey. Let us begin to consider those factors by looking at the role of grace in salvation.

Lesson

Scripture:

Ephesians

2:1-10

DISCIPLINES LEARNED

I. WE WERE DEAD IN TRESPASSES AND SINS

II. WE ARE SAVED BY GOD’S GRACE

III. WE ARE SAVED FOR GOD’S GLORY

KEY VERSE:

But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved). (Ephesians 2:4-5, KJV)

EXPOSITION:

I. We Were Dead in Trespasses and Sins

Salvation begins in the heart of God. Had He not first loved us and reached down into human history in the person of Jesus Christ, we would be without hope. Even more, He ignites within our hearts the desire to know Him and to find a way back through the muddle we have made of our lives because of our sinfulness. Paul wrote that before God ignited that desire to know Him, we were dead in our trespasses and sins. Dead means dead. We may have considered God as an intellectual concept, but until God created a spark of divine hunger within our hearts, we cared not whether we knew God or whether He was even knowable.

When we think of God as merely an intellectual concept, we fail to engage the true, living, and active God. Our God desires for us to be in a relationship with Him. We also have that desire within us, but often it becomes misdirected toward distractions that draw us away from God. Once we know the truth about God and His Word, then we can act decisively to return to Him.

THEOLOGICAL CONCEPTS:

1 There is nothing you can do to find salvation until God stirs your spirit.

2 Once your spirit has been stirred by the grace of God and you respond in faith by acknowledging Christ as your Lord and Savior, God credits to you the righteousness of Christ.

3 Having been made alive by grace and made righteous through faith, the grace of God restores us to the fellowship He intended for us to have when He created people in His likeness.

At the very beginning of your re-creation, God was moving just as He moved over the empty void at the moment He began to create the universe. Perhaps you can remember the time in your life when you suddenly felt a desire to find out about God. Some people are aware of when their God-hunger began; others are not. However, whether you know it or not, the very first action in the process that led you to the moment when you professed personal faith in Christ as your Lord and Savior was God’s, not yours.

Here’s how Paul describes the spark that fired your salvation: But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (Eph. 2:4-5, NRSV). We were dead, but God made us alive. That is the gift of God’s grace. We didn’t earn the right to have life. We did not deserve what God did for us. If fact, we deserved just the opposite. We were dead, and that is exactly the way we deserved to stay. But God, in His great love for us, gave us a gift.

ACTIVITY:

MAKING IT STICK

One of the greatest tragedies of the Church is that some people interpret salvation to mean that they make a decision, receive salvation, and then are free to live as they wish. While that may be true, it is also sad when people live that way and then miss out on so much of what God has for them in this life. They forfeit rewards in the next life. As you mentor younger believers, hel them understand that the initial decision is only the beginning of what God intends for them.

II. We Are Saved by God’s Grace

There are two phrases in the passage we are studying this week that bear further examination. They both occur in verse six, where Paul tells us that God raised us up with [Christ] and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus (NRSV). Jesus is the focus of our salvation. He lived a righteous life without sin, and when we submit our lives to God through Jesus, we receive that righteousness as part of the gift God gives us. Again, we do not earn it and we do not deserve it, yet God gives it to us anyway. Theologians call this imputing (or crediting) righteousness to us. It is a legal transaction where our sinfulness is removed and replaced by the righteousness of Jesus.

Having done that for us, God is able to take us along the same path which Jesus Himself traveled. We are raised from our dead state, and we spiritually ascend into the heavenly realm, where we are seated with Christ at the right hand of God. For now, that resurrection and ascension happen in a spiritual sense. One day they will happen completely—when Christ returns to gather all those who claim Him as