A Message of Hope

I concluded yesterday’s post on the powerful (but troubling) text of John 8:2-11, by saying,

Jesus did not come to condemn, but to save.  That is the message of the whole New Testament, and that is what this story powerfully illustrates for us.  There’s more to salvation, however, than avoiding a stoning.  Check back tomorrow.

Well, it’s tomorrow.  Let me explain what I was getting at.

There are two aspects of salvation and, in order to f ully experience salvation, we have to experience both of them.  We are saved from and we are saved for.   We are saved from a host of things.  We are saved from condemnation, from hell, from guilt, from the power of sin over us.  We are saved from Satan, we are saved from ourselves, we are saved from trying to please others, we are saved from the pressures of materialism and seeking status in the eyes of man.  We are saved from fear and hopelessness.  None of us deserve to be saved from any of these things, but that’s what grace is!

Yet that’s only one side of salvation.  We are also saved for lives of holiness and righteousness, we are saved for living in the kingdom of God, we are saved for a victorious life, we are saved for those streams of living water that Jesus wants to flow through us.  We are saved for service and sacrifice.

The apostle Paul put it this way in Romans 12:1.

Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy [because you have been saved from], to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God [this is what you have been saved for]—this is your spiritual act of worship.

You see, you’re not fully saved until you have embraced both aspects of salvation.  Jesus said to this woman,

Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more. (John 8:11, ESV) 

She is saved from those who want to stone her.  She is saved for a holy life. 

If you’re saved, praise God for everything that  you’ve been saved from.  But praise him also for what you’ve been saved for!  For the purity and holiness, for the purpose and direction that he has given you.

Betty Maxfield, who survived the 9/11 tragedy at the Pentagon, said, “I should’ve been dead. I was, for some reason, saved. My question now is, what am I supposed to do with it? I just can’t go waste it. I thought I was living my life well before, but obviously there’s more that I can do to say thank you for my life and a second chance at it.”

Believe it or not, if you are in Christ, you have been saved from something far worse than having a plane crash into your office building.  You have been granted salvation for a reason.  You have salvation, now, as a present possession.  The question before you today is, “What am I supposed to do with it?”