Explore the profound truths of Christianity with Charles Stanley as he answers the burning question of ‘What next?’ following salvation. This episode delves into the significance of understanding the identity and lordship of Jesus Christ and clarifies the common misconceptions about salvation and works. By highlighting the essential scriptures, Stanley provides practical guidance on how to truly embody your faith, become spiritually energized, and allow your life to impact others positively.
Welcome to the InTouch Podcast with Charles Stanley for Wednesday, January 1st. Whether you’re a new Christian or have been a believer for a while, start this new year by learning practical answers to the question, I’m saved, now what?
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When you were saved, did anybody sit you down and say, well, let me explain to you just what happened to you? I want to talk to you about God so you’ll understand who He is. I want to explain to you who Jesus is and His relationship to God. I want you to understand the presence and the work and the power of the Holy Spirit that now will begin working in your life. I want to help you see that you have some responsibility now that you’ve become a Christian. Because what you’ve said is you are willing to become a follower of Jesus Christ. Did anybody set you down? and tell you those things? Or did they say, we certainly are glad that you’re a Christian now, and get along the best you can. They probably didn’t say that, but that’s the way they acted. For the simple reason, they didn’t open the Word of God and say to you, well now, let me give you a couple of passages of Scripture that it would be good for you to learn or to begin to read in the Psalms or John or whatever it might be. Most people who join a church, even after they’re saved, they’re sort of left on their own. become a child of God, and nobody ever tells them what they should expect as a result of that. When they join a church, nobody ever tells them, here’s what you can expect and here’s your responsibility. So what I want to do in this message, I want to answer three questions. I want to deal with three specific things. The three specific things every person should understand if you are going to become a Christian, or if you are one, If you’re going to be the kind of person God wants you to be, and your life’s going to count, and you’re going to have success in living a Christian life, then you need to know these three things. Because you see, if you don’t, here’s what happens. You attend church for a while, and then you begin to drift a little bit. Next thing you know, can’t find you. Or you go to church and you know that you’re saved, but you just sort of sit back there and days go by and Sundays go by and months go by and years go by. I want you to listen carefully because there’s a passage of Scripture that takes all of this in. And if you’ll think about it for a moment, it is a serious thing to receive Jesus Christ as your personal Savior and choose, by an act of your will, to follow Him. So, I want you to turn, if you will, to Philippians chapter two, beginning in verse five of this second chapter of Philippians. Scripture says, Have this attitude in yourselves, which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although he existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a bondservant and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. For this reason also… God highly exalted him and bestowed on him a name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. Now watch the next phrase. So then, that is on the basis of all that, so then, My beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God. who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.” That is one of the most important verses in the Bible when it comes to living a Christian life. And the first thing I want us to talk about is simply this, and that is the person and place of Jesus Christ in your life. You say, oh, well, I’ve been a Christian for years and years and years. But just listen carefully. Who is He? Many people get saved and think Jesus was a man who died on the cross for my sins. But listen to what Paul said. Paul said that Jesus Christ was the incarnate Son of God. What does that mean? That means He was God who came in the flesh, walked among men and made it possible for us to understand who God is and what He’s like. That’s what he’s saying in this Scripture. And He said, He emptied Himself, taking upon Himself the form of a bondservant. That is, Jesus came into this world as the Son of God, taking upon Himself as a servant to obey His Father. Not only that, the Scripture says He was found in appearance as a man, humbled Himself as a man, just like any other man, only He was sinless. And not only that, the Scripture says in this passage, that He obeyed the Father even to the point of going to the cross. That is, the reason Jesus came was to die for you. Now, watch this carefully. If God the Father sent His Son Jesus and He died on the cross to make it possible for you to be forgiven and have a right relationship with Him and go to heaven, there must be something very, very serious about living a life of sin. Because the Father sent His Son to down the cross and pay your sin debt in full. That was the only way you and I would ever get to heaven. And so, He says He came and He went to the cross to pay your sin debt in mine. That’s who He is and that’s what He’s about. Then He says in this passage, for this reason, Because He did that, God highly exalted Him so that His name is above every other name that exists. That is, the name of Jesus is the highest name there is. There is no name that carries more quality. There is no name more heavenly. There is no name that has the power and the energy that the name of Jesus Christ has. He gave Him that awesome name. Then the Scripture says not only that, but, He says, For that reason God highly exalted Him and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow of those who are in heaven, on earth, and on the earth. And that is, Jesus Christ came as Lord, not only as Savior. Every knee would bow, every tongue will one day confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, as He says, to the glory of God the Father. Now, let me interpret that word, Lord. What that means in essence is this, He is the boss. Lord here means He is the sovereign ruler, the Creator, as Paul described Him in Colossians. He created all things and all things exist and are sustained by Him. He’s the boss. No name to equal His name. He is the Lord, every knee will bow, every tongue confess. Why? Confess that He is Lord to the glory of God the Father. That’s the will of the Father, that I confess that He’s my Lord. And what I’m saying is simply this, put it in modern terms, I see Jesus Christ as my Savior. I also know Him in a practical way daily. He’s the boss. He has the right to call every single play in my life. He has the right to tell me where to go. He has the authority and the enablement and the power to not only tell me what to do, but also enable me to do it. He is the Lord of our life. And somewhere along the way, we’ve separated Jesus Christ as Savior from Lordship. When you deny His position, as the Lord right up front and say, well, I’ll take Him as my Savior, but that Lord business, I don’t know about that. Listen, you know what? He’s not two persons. He is Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord. And the Bible says He is exalted to the point of being Lord because, listen, it brings glory and honor to the Father. So, the first thing a person needs to understand is the person and the place of Jesus Christ in their life. He’s the boss. Look, if you will, at verse eleven when he says that every tongue will confess and every knee is going to bow. That’s the will of the Father. Now, watch this carefully. When I came to First Baptist, I came as an associate pastor for a couple of years. So, when I walked into a staff meeting as a new member of the staff, they weren’t going to pray. I said, well, why don’t we pray? You pray. I said, okay. So, I hesitated for a second. I thought they’d all bow their heads and we’d pray. Nobody bowed their heads. So, on another occasion I said, well, we need to get on our knees and talk to God about this issue. We don’t need to get on our knees. Rebellion. If you’re not willing to bend your knees to the Lord, you have a problem. You have a problem with a divine boss. revered person who has ever walked the face of this earth, who has the right by His life and death to ask anything of us He chooses, and our answer should always be, yes, Lord. Yes, Lord. Now, watch what happens in the next verse here. Having said all that, here’s what Paul says, So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now also more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling. Now, what does he mean by that? Work out your salvation with fear and trembling. Well, Paul was writing to Christians. When he starts out this book, he says the very first verse to the saints at Philippi. So, he’s talking about Christians. And he says in this particular passage, he says, but while I was with you, you were very obedient and followed the Lord’s work. And now that I’m gone, you’re still doing the same thing. That’s wonderful. And here’s what he said. Now, so then, work out your salvation with fear and trembling. What in the world did he mean? Well, here’s what many people think. And this is the most deceptive idea that Satan could ever perpetrate. And he’s very successful at it. When He says, work out your salvation, listen carefully. He did not say, work for your salvation, but having been saved, work it out. And there’s a vast difference. Because you see, many people believe and many people have been taught, well, if you be good enough, If you just live a good life, you’re going to heaven. And God approves, you just live a good life. Well, what’s a good life? Now, watch the fallacy of this, because this is what Satan perpetrates upon multitudes of people. And if you ask your friends, you ask your friends, people you work with, why do you think when you stand before God, He’s going to accept you into heaven? Well, I’m a pretty good person. I’m not bad. I don’t steal, lie, and cheat, and I don’t commit adultery, and never have been to prison. And I try to do a hard day’s work if I can. In other words, why shouldn’t I go? What’s all of that about? All that’s about I. Now watch this. This is one of the most critical things in the Bible. God does not accept us on our works for the simple reason that salvation is not based on what I do. Salvation is based on what Jesus did when He went to the cross and shed His blood at Calvary. That’s what salvation’s about, because you see, it’s righteousness that God wants in our life. And there’s not a single one of us who is righteous within ourselves. Every single one of us has sinned and sinned and sinned and sinned. We could never boast of righteousness. We could just boast of our works. But you see, what God was dealing with at the cross is our sin problem, not our works. By our very nature, we came into this world as sinners. So, it’s not our works. It’s our sin. He dealt with our sin problem. And what it caused him was the death of his son. When he died on the cross, he made it possible for every person who is willing to accept Him as their personal Savior to be accepted by Him and become a child of God. And your name written in the Lamb’s Book of Life. So, this whole idea that if I’m good enough, I’m going to be acceptable in the eyes of God. How good do you have to be? You can’t answer that. How long do you have to be good? Suppose you make a big mistake. Suppose you do something terrible. Then what? It has nothing to do with works. That is a lie of the devil. And I want to give you four verses of Scripture, because I want to explain this one. Four verses of Scripture to just underline that. In Romans 3, verse 20 through 28, he says, “…there is no justification or salvation by works.” In Galatians two sixteen, salvation is not by works or trying to keep the law. Somebody says, I live by the Ten Commandments. Oh, you do. You mean you don’t ever steal, you’ve never stolen, you’ve never lied, you’ve never gossiped, you’ve never coveted, you’ve never committed adultery. No one has ever kept the law. And in Ephesians two eight nine, which all of us know, and you know this in my heart, for by grace are you saved through faith. not of works, lest any person should boast.” And then, of course, in Titus three, five, he said, not by works of righteousness or good deeds that we’ve done, we’ve been saved, but by the mercy of God. Here’s what I want you to see. When it comes to that verse, he says, work out your salvation, he does not mean work for it. You cannot work for it because you’re dealing with sin, you’re dealing with your nature, you’re dealing with the inside, not things that you do. So, people who think they’re going to heaven by good works, I can tell you, my friend, you are not going to heaven by good works. You cannot bring one single verse of Scripture to me to prove that you can. I can give you many that prove that you cannot. And if you can get to heaven by good works, God made a horrible mistake by sending His Son to the cross and having Him crucified for your sins and mine. Biggest mistake ever made in human history. God doesn’t make mistakes, and so He sent Him to the cross because that was the only way. He paid your sin debt in mine in full. Now, with that, look at this verse. He says that we are to work out our salvation with fear and trembling. What does He mean by that? He simply means this, that we’re to put our salvation experience into the operation mode. It’s to be operational. That is, now having trusted Jesus Christ as my Savior, I am to live out what God has placed within me, which is the life of Christ. When you trusted Him as your Savior, the Bible says the Holy Spirit came to indwell you, in you, with you, and upon you forever. And it is the Holy Spirit working in and through us that God works out our life. And so, it is a progressive thing. And so, when you trust that Christ is your personal Savior, from that point on, you and I were to work out what He’s placed in us. Let’s say, for example, you start reading the Word of God, you begin to learn. You begin to pray to Him and you begin to trust Him, and God begins to work in your life in an unusual way, or just the normal way He works. You begin to share your faith, you begin to give, what happens? God begins to work out. through those avenues. He begins to work out in your life the things He’s placed within you. So, when He says we’re to work out our salvation, that doesn’t mean that we are to do anything in order to be saved. It’s to work out what’s already there. And so, we working out our salvation, what are we doing? We are living out what He’s placed within us. And so, we’re not talking about working for it, but we’re talking about having been saved by His grace. We’re to work it out. You say, well, where am I to work it out? Where do you live? You work it out among your family. You work it out on your job. You work it out in your school. You work it out among your friends. You work it out among people that you meet who are strangers. That is, in every place of our life, what we should be doing is what? Working out. And that is, he uses the word for energy here. We should be energized to give ourselves wherever we are, in whatever situation we find ourselves, doing what? Living in a way that our conversation and our conduct and our character are exemplifying the life of Christ. In your office, for example, if you use some profanity, what you’ve done, you have short-circuited your testimony. You tell a dirty joke, you’ve short-circuited your testimony. That’s not, he says, work out your salvation with fear and trembling. That is, we’re to live in such a fashion that somebody knows you’re different. This is why he said, once you trust Him as your Savior, you’re to be like salt. You’re to make a difference. It may be healing to some and agitating to others, but it depends upon their response. You’re to be like salt and like light. You impact. That is, when believers live a godly life in recognition that the Lord is their boss and they’re following Him because they love Him and they understand what He’s done for them, then what happens? Their life impacts other people’s lives. You cannot live around a godly person without it impacting you one way or the other. It will either draw you to Christ or your rebellious spirit will increase and you’ll walk away to your own dismay and your own destruction.
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Thank you for listening to I’m Saved, Now What? If you’d like to know more about Charles Stanley or InTouch Ministries, stop by InTouch.org. This podcast is a presentation of InTouch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia.
