Collection of Biblical Sermons

Recently, sitting in an airplane watching others board, some with more bags than they could carry, a fellow passenger paraphrased a verse of Scripture, saying, “We bring nothing into this world when we are born and we take nothing with us when we die”. Then she added, “But in between, we strive to acquire all that we can!” Reflecting on that comment brings a twinge of guilt. In reality, many of us have fallen into that western-culture mindset and have far more than we need. We often justify our acquisitions, in that we do give of our resources at times when we have extra. And for those who live in lands of certain liberties, acquiring is a constitutional right. However, is it a God-given right?

In our consideration of great words in the gospel, we have been arrested by such words as propitiation, forgiveness, redemption, justification, reconciliation, and sanctification. All the words have to do with what is called by the writer of Hebrews, “so great a salvation,” each one presenting a different aspect of that salvation. For example, propitiation refers to the satisfying of all the righteous claims of God; forgiveness (or remission) refers to the sending away of sins and the subsequent deliverance from them; redemption presents the price that was paid and the release from the bondage that was effected when that price was paid, and justification refers to our being cleared from every charge of guilt. Reconciliation presents to us a change in a relationship. When reconciliation occurs, peace prevails where once alienation and enmity existed.

Perhaps there is no difficulty for you in this matter of prayer. But for many, there arises a flood of questions that challenge faith and overwhelm reason: Why pray if God already knows everything? What good is prayer if God's will is going to be done anyway? Who am I to tell God anything? I'm already doing what He wants me to do. Why do I need to pray about it? God is more concerned about me than I can ever be, so I will just leave it with Him. It is likely that most believers, if not all, have faced these and similar questions at one time or another. But set over against this, who cannot testify that prayer is the most natural and native activity of Christian life? To deprive a believer of prayer would be to remove the very lifeline, a spiritual “pulling-of-the-plug” which would signal the end of spiritual life. Yet these and similar questions must be faced. Young believers, in a skeptical and scornful world, are confronted with them by classmates, professors, and an educational system that analyzes and rejects all which does not fit into water-tight, convenient, cause and effect answers.

Speaking of grace, it is important to emphasize that we are not only saved by grace but sanctified by grace. Works cannot save the sinner, nor sanctify the saint. The law stands absolutely powerless to sanctify us as it did to save us; it was given to show us our need for a Savior. That sanctification, not salvation, is the main subject of our text is apparent. These believers had not fallen from salvation, yet Paul does write that they had “fallen from grace.” What does he mean? Perhaps the best way to seek an answer to this question is to ask another one.