What Does Salvation Look Like, Pt. 2 - Colossians 1:9-14

It’s good to be back with you and in the pulpit once again.  Sharon and I enjoyed our time away at the ReFresh Conference in Pigeon Forge, and our time visiting with friends and family.  But there’s no place quite like home, and we’re glad to be in our own house and our own bed again.

The ReFresh Conference was sponsored by Sherwood Baptist Church in Albany, Georgia.  This is the same church that produced the movies, Flywheel, Facing the Giants, and Fireproof.  Also, one of the Southern Baptist associations in north Georgia financed the hotel rooms for 17 couples from our association, Keystone Baptist Association.  The speakers were good, the fellowship was good, the accommodations were definitely not Motel 6.

The music and the worship songs were good.  Some better than others, but we didn’t sing Kumbaya, thankfully.  The musicians and singers were obviously talented and performed well, but there was a reverence about them that was quite encouraging.  Loud, but encouraging.

The ReFresh Conference was mostly about revival.  I have not read a lot about revival, even though I have a fair amount of material on that subject.  But in that revival context at the conference, we sang and heard a lot about our need for God to do something for us.  It was good to hear that revival is something God does rather than something we provoke.  It is an interesting subject.  But essentially, in many Christian’s minds, revival seems to be an extraordinary work of God in which He moves in and upon His people to create a deeper relationship with Himself.  Presumably that would include conviction of sin, or a better understanding of who God is and what He has done.  Most people expect to have a genuine, extended, deeply-felt emotional response to a God-sent revival.  And I think that was what we were singing about and asking for at the conference.

One theme was repeated in many of the songs we sang.  I can summarize it in one word: more.  To be a little more specific, it wasn’t just that we want more of God but we want a LOT more of God.  In fact, several songs mentioned how we desired God to fall like rain.  Or even like a flood, a deluge, to wash us and overwhelm us.  That picture of God’s blessing falling upon His children like rain is a very old one.  “Showers of Blessing” is an old hymn some of us used to sing.  “Mercy drops round us are falling, but for the showers we plead.”

In 2 Samuel, King David is giving his farewell speech to Israel and he likens the blessing of a godly king to the blessing of God sending rain

   1 Now these are the last words of David:The oracle of David, the son of Jesse, the oracle of the man who was raised on high, the anointed of the God of Jacob, the sweet psalmist of Israel: 2 "The Spirit of the Lord speaks by me; his word is on my tongue. 3 The God of Israel has spoken; the Rock of Israel has said to me: When one rules justly over men, ruling in the fear of God, 4 he dawns on them like the morning light, like the sun shining forth on a cloudless morning, [he is] like rain that makes grass to sprout from the earth.  2 Samuel 23:1-7*

Job speaks of how the rain that falls is sent from God.  It is His rain.

   24 "Remember to extol his work, of which men have sung. 25 All mankind has looked on it; man beholds it from afar. 26 Behold, God is great, and we know him not; the number of his years is unsearchable. 27 For he draws up the drops of water; they distill his mist in rain, 28 which the skies pour down and drop on mankind abundantly.  Job 36:24-33

In the Bible, most of the time the word rain just means rain.  But it is always seen as coming from God, whether as a blessing (most of the time), or as a curse on one very notable occasion.  So when we sing and ask God to bless us with more of Himself like rain from above, like manna coming from Heaven, that is understandable.  Elijah prophesied that there would be no rain for three years.  God’s withholding rain is a sigh of His displeasure.  A drought will move even the most obstinate farmer to consider praying to God.  Revival is like that, or it is often presented in terms like that: We are in a spiritually dry and thirsty land.  We need God to rain on us.

   1 "But now hear, O Jacob my servant, Israel whom I have chosen! 2 Thus says the Lord who made you, who formed you from the womb and will help you: Fear not, O Jacob my servant, Jeshurun whom I have chosen. 3 For I will pour water on the thirsty land, and streams on the dry ground; I will pour my Spirit upon your offspring, and my blessing on your descendants.  Isaiah 44:1-3

Now I understand all that.  I understand all the illustrations and all the word pictures, and it makes sense to me that at a ReFresh Conference we would sing songs in keeping with this idea that blessings from God are like a refreshing rain from heaven and we should pray and ask for such.  But I want to ask a question that is directly related to our calls and cries for revival: Why do we need revival?  What is it that causes us to be crying out for God to re-vive us?  What is it that has caused our mortified spiritual state from which we need to be delivered?  What caused our souls to be dry and thirsty in the first place?

One word: neglect.  In a nation where there is no access to the Scriptures, I can understand why they might cry out for God to have mercy on them and deliver them from their deadness.  But here in America, the need for revival is caused by neglect of the Word of God and every other means of grace available to us in a nation that is known to the rest of the world as a Christian nation.

As I listened to the songs being sung at the ReFresh Conference, it struck me that we were asking God to bless spiritual ground that had no excuse for being dry and parched in the first place.  It struck me that we were asking God for more, more, more, when many of us don’t seem to appreciate what we already have.  We sound like the proverbial poor little rich kid who has everything and he’s still not satisfied.  It’s like we’re complaining that we’ve been given the 2009 Corvette as a birthday present when what we really wanted is the 2012 model (which doesn’t actually exist yet).  So we hold what we have with a certain degree of contempt.  2009 isn’t good enough.  It’s not what I wanted.  

I cannot imagine the Christians in Colossae praying for and singing about revival.  You might say, “Well they haven’t been Christians long enough to begin to neglect the Gospel.”  How long does it take to be neglectful?  Long enough for the emotions of a newfound faith to subside?  How long is that?  A year?  A month?  Is that what we’re talking about?  The revival of religious emotion?  Do we not need revival until the excitement of our conversion begins to wane?

Let me suggest something to you.  It is my opinion that we actually can schedule a revival any time we want.  In fact, here at Grace Fellowship, we have a revival scheduled every seven days.  You and I should have a regularly scheduled private revival service every day.  We can look back through church history and see that every real revival on a large scale was the result of a return to biblical preaching.  The truth of the Word of God brings revival, whether it is the revival of an individual or a denomination or an entire nation.  True revival takes place when God’s people glory in what God has already done for them.  We are revived, not by asking for more from God, but by marveling in the salvation He has already granted.

Two weeks ago, Sharon and I were talking with her sister Donna.  Recently, she began attending a Presbyterian Church (in America) which is a break from tradition in the Phelps family.  A few weeks prior to our visit with Donna, Sharon’s sister Beth, and her husband Doug visited Donna’s church.  I would submit to you that Donna, Beth, and Doug have experienced a revival within themselves because they are now attending a church which emphasizes who God is and what He has already done for His people.  During the first worship service Doug and Beth attended, as the songs were sung and the word was preached, they looked at each other and realized they had been starving for genuine, biblical preaching and teaching and worship.

Donna made a brief comment I will never forget.  She said something like this: “All my Christian life, I’ve been told that once we’re saved we need to move on.  We ask the Lord to save us and then, somehow, we eventually get over that and we replace the wonder of salvation with the work of service.  Now that the salvation event has taken place, it’s time to get to work and evangelize the world.  And salvation is always that event that happened back there in the past.  But in Reformed circles, you never get over your salvation!  You never get past the wonder of the grace of God!  You never get over the greatness of God’s salvation.”  

It is this “getting over” our salvation that causes our souls to be dry and in need of revival.  But it happens all the time.  Someone is genuinely converted and their joy over sins forgiven is overflowing!  They can’t contain themselves!  Guilt and fear are gone, the wrath of God has been appeased by His own Son, eternal life has been granted, perfect righteousness is theirs, and Heaven’s gates will be swung wide open for them when they die.  It seems too good to be true, but it is true!

But now, you need to get beyond that and start figuring out how you’re going to get to work for God.  “What are you going to do for God?”  “What are you going to do to evangelize the world?”  “What is God’s purpose for your life, now that you’re saved?”  And so we leave the glories and the joys of our salvation for a self-imposed slavery of Christian service and a so-called Christian life that is somehow unrelated to the Gospel.  Salvation is something that happened way back then when I heard the good news, the GREAT news.  But now we presumably have to be about this other business of being a Christian.  That unintentional and unbiblical mindset produces a spiritual dryness that requires rain from Heaven to revive it.  And many Christians live their entire life in that desert.

Where does that spiritual rain come from?  How does real, genuine revival happen?  Do we expect it to fall out of the sky?  Do we just ask for revival and wait for something miraculous to happen?  Look with me at Colossians 1.

9 And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, 10 so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God. 11 May you be strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy, 12 giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. 13 He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. (Colossians 1:9-14, ESV)

There is revival waiting to be had in verses 13 and 14.  If you feel tempted to sing or pray and ask God to send revival rains down on you, let me suggest that the revival you need is right here in black and white.  It is there for the taking.  Jesus said we don’t live by bread alone, but what?  “. . . but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.“ (Matthew 4:4).  You and I avoid needing to be revived by regularly feasting on the word of God, by meditating on what He has already done, and on what He has already granted to us as His people, and on the promises He has made to the heirs of Heaven.

1.  He has delivered us from the domain of darkness - Just stop right there!  How good IS that? We were, prior to God’s deliverance of us, living in the domain of darkness.  What does that mean?  What is the domain of darkness?  Some versions say “the power of darkness” (NKJV) or “the dominion of darkness” (NIV).  In a word, it is the realm of the dead.  It is that sphere in which everything that is opposed to God dwells.  It is the world of Satan and his demons.  It is characterized by sin, lawlessness, rebellion, hatred, and evil.  It is the place where sinners love their sin and no one is good.  It is the world of unregenerate hearts that do not know God.

For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another. (Titus 3:3)   

The kinds of people who live in the domain of darkness are sexually immoral, idolatrous, adulterous.  They practice homosexuality there, they are thieves, greedy, drunkards, revilers, and swindlers who will not inherit the kingdom of God.  (1 Cor 6:12)

It is the land of of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. Those who live there are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, and maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless.

That is the domain of darkness in which we all lived.  That was our domain.  That was our home.  We were at ease there, we identified ourselves with such people, so much so that anything that smacked of the truth of the gospel was foolishness to us.  We were slaves there in our own depravity, but we preferred slavery to sin and death over repentance and submission to Jesus Christ.  That was our home.

BUT, HE DELIVERED US!  God rescued us from that world.  God redeemed us from that condemnation.  He rescued us from those diabolical powers.  God saved us from ourselves and set us free from our bondage to sin.  If you and I as believers in the Lord Jesus would just think on this one truth on a regular basis, we would never need revival.  Regular meditation upon your own salvation in the Lord Jesus is the antidote for for spiritual anemia.

What more do we want?  What do we want that God has not already granted to us in Christ?  He has already delivered us from the worst possible spiritual condition, and . . .

2.  He has transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son.  In the domain where we used to live, sin reigned over us and we were its slaves.  According to Jesus, that realm is populated by the sons of the Devil.  In the domain of darkness, physical death is inevitable and eternal punishment is inescapable.  The domain of darkness is the domain of hopelessness.

BUT, God has taken it upon Himself to deliver you and me out of that dead realm where Satan rules. He opened our eyes so that we might turn from darkness and the power of Satan, and He has transferred you and me to the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ! 

So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God! (Ephesians 2:19).  The King of glory is now your king!  The family of God is our family.  We are among those whose Father is God.  But not only have we been purchased by His death for our sakes; not only has our citizenship been changed so that we are now the eternal subjects of the King of Heaven, but we also have . . . (get this!)

3. The forgiveness of sins.  This is what redemption is: it is the removal of the curse of all our sins.  One sin was sufficient to condemn us before a holy and just God.  How many times over have we condemned ourselves by our own sins?  How many eternal death sentences have we earned?  How many charges of treason and insubordination could God legitimately bring against us?  Just how long IS our record of offenses against our good and kind Creator?  How many sins must God forgive, how many sins must Jesus redeem us from, in order that we may be forgiven by God?  How big a deal is the forgiveness of your sins?

How many times did you sin last week?  Or better yet, how many times would God say you sinned last week?  He knows the number.  He heard every sinful thought, He saw every display of a sinful attitude, He heard every idle word for which you must give an accounting to Him.  He is witness to every sin of comission, every sin of omission, every intentional and unintentional infraction of His Law.  And He knows the previous week, the previous month, He knows every sin committed by us all since infancy.  

But look at this text.  Because God in His unfathomable mercy sent His Son for you brethren, and for me, and because Christ died for us, in our stead, and suffered the wrath of God that was against you and me, God is able and has already actually forgiven all the sins of every believer.  In Christ, the believer has redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

So what kind of price tag do you want to put on that?  How valuable is this salvation?  What should we think of God’s deliverance of us from that unhappy and unholy domain of darkness?  The Christian who needs revival really needs nothing more than the truth of these two verses applied to his mind and heart on a regular basis so that he never, ever gets over it!

We don’t need to ask for more from God.  We need to be more grateful for what He has already done!  This is a balm for the soul!  This is encouragement for the downcast!  Asking God to pour down blessings like rain upon us is kinda like the kid who won the prize of taking a drink of water from a fire hose!  How much water can you drink?  How much blessing can you stand?  What more do you want?

How much of God’s goodness do we take for granted?  How dare we ask for more from God when we often don’t even appreciate, don’t even think about what we’ve already got in Christ Jesus.

If you want to avoid spiritual dryness, a personal spiritual drought, then you should meditate regularly, daily, hourly, on what you have RIGHT NOW as a believer in the Lord Jesus. God doesn’t need to deluge us with revival floodwaters.  We need to keep our focus on the greatness of this salvation which is already ours because of God who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light.  God Himself has already placed us in the kingdom of His beloved Son and has forgiven us ALL our sins.  

Brethren, it just doesn’t get any better than that in this life . . .  But be patient.  It does get better!