Louie Giglio - What Does It Mean to Be Saved?
We are starting a new collection today at Passion City Church, and I’m so excited about it. We have come out of «Breath on a Page,» looking at the miracle of Scripture, and in that collection, we were particularly focused on 2 Timothy chapter 3, specifically verses 16 and 17. «All Scripture is God-breathed.» That’s where we got the collection banner, and it is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.
But when you turn to chapter 4, remember that when the Scripture was given, there weren’t chapters and verses. So we’re moving now into the very next sentence. This is what it says in chapter 4: «In the presence of God and Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I give you this charge: Preach the word. Amen! Be prepared in season and out of season.» Now, this is Paul giving instructions to the young man he’s mentoring in leadership and faith in pastoring. «Be prepared in season and out of season. Correct, rebuke, and encourage with great patience and careful instruction. For the time will come"—I can’t imagine that this would happen, but he’s projecting that somewhere down the road, the time will come where people will not put up with sound doctrine.
That’s why, in the collection «Breath on a Page» and in this collection today, we’re talking about doctrine—not because it’s some underpinning boilerplate of denominationalism, but because it’s in Scripture. Doctrine simply means the right way to think about God and his word. There is sound doctrine, and apparently, there is unsound doctrine. So today, we’re going to discuss doctrine a little bit. I want to get an amen. Thank you! I could have just gone without hearing one, but instead, I decided to tell you that I wanted one.
Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. But you keep your head in all situations. Endure hardship. Do the work of an evangelist. Discharge all the duties of your ministry. The goal for us is sound doctrine and to understand what we’re talking about. Today, we’re looking at the doctrine of salvation, and that’s why we’re calling this collection «Jesus Saves.»
We took our graphic from Big Bethel AM Church. Does anyone know about it? This is an Atlanta landmark. If you didn’t know, when you’re going downtown on the connector, if you’re going southbound, look to the right. If you’re coming northbound, look to the left, and you’ll see «Jesus Saves» right in the heart of downtown Atlanta. And that’s where we’re kicking off today to talk about the doctrine of salvation.
More specifically, you’re going to want to take some photos along the way because a lot of information is coming really fast. It’s going to have a great heart in it, but we’re going to engage both head and heart today as we talk about soteriology. I just thought I would pull one back out from the old seminary days: Soteriology. Let’s just say it together: «Soteriology.» What is that? We know it’s in theology—it’s the study of something. And so here is salvation. Soteriology is the official word for the study of salvation if you’re in seminary. So welcome to grad school, everyone! You’re getting a little extra today. It is theology dealing with salvation, especially as affected by Jesus Christ, that’s according to Merriam-Webster.
That’s what soteriology is, and I want us to be excited about the doctrine of salvation. Now, I know today that I’m speaking to people who primarily would say that they’re saved, but I’m also remembering where we were at State Farm Arena as a church when we were kicking off the new year, talking about JP, Jonathan Puda, at Passion in State Farm Arena with 17,000 people who came to a Jesus event to sing songs of praise to Jesus with Bibles in their laps, to learn about Jesus, and who came with friends from their church or their campus ministry. He asked, with eyes closed so people could be honest, «On a scale of 1 to 10, how certain are you that if you died today, you would go to heaven?»
I’d like to see hands from 2 to 5. In private, people were not too concerned about what their neighbors were going to say. Hundreds of hands went up across the arena. Six to seven? Hundreds of hands. Eight or nine? Hundreds of hands. Thousands of people at a Jesus event, very few confident tens. I know that I know that I know beyond a shadow of a doubt if my life ended today, I would be in eternity with God. And so, even though we’re in a gathering where I think most people would say that they’re saved, we need to dig into the doctrine of salvation because people say it all the time. In fact, some people said to me this week, «I’ve always been a Christian.»
Tell me about your journey with the Lord. «I’ve always been a Christian.» You hear other people when you’re asking. They say, «Well, um, I prayed a prayer and invited Jesus into my heart.» Or maybe other people at Passion City Church, at the end of one of those gatherings, raised their hands when they said, «Does anybody want to put their faith in Jesus?» and they raised their hand that day. Or they say, «I know I’m saved because I prayed a prayer.» I just want to say, as a friend today, that’s not good enough.
That’s like saying, «I had this incredible pain in my chest, and that’s the last thing I remember.» But, you know what? It was pretty crazy. Nine months later, I was back at work, feeling really actually better than I ever had. «I’m sorry, well, what happened?» «I don’t know.» Versus saying, «You know what? I learned I had a massive rare blockage in my widowmaker artery and my artery had a defect from birth that no one knew about.»
They rushed me to the hospital. Fortunately, the best heart hospital in my city was only five minutes from where I was. Crazily, they were having a symposium at that hospital with leading heart surgeons from around the world. There were 57 surgeons there for a consortium. And that morning, a doctor from India had made a presentation on the particular concern that I was having in my artery. When they got me on the table, my cardiologist, the person who treated me, told me later, I had a 6% chance of living. He said, «If you’d gotten on this table two minutes later, you would have died even here with the best care in the world. But as soon as we diagnosed what was wrong with you, I remembered at 9:30 this morning that doctor from India had just made a presentation on this particular thing, which I’ve only seen once or twice in my lifetime. He was still in the building. We got him here in seven minutes and made a legal document signature valid so that he could perform on you the procedure that he is best at in the world.»
They ripped your chest open, cranked open your sternum, and did quadruple bypass surgery on your heart because all of your arteries had damage and blockage. But it was that one artery that had that specific concern. Unfortunately, three days later, you had a blood clot go to your lungs, and you blacked out and suffered brain damage as a result of it. While your heart was getting better, your motor skills and vision were affected. But thank God, right down the street, there’s the best recovery and rehabilitation center in the world with brand new technologies, including this crazy VR thing that you wear several days after one of these events. It was able to tell your brain that it could do things that it actually couldn’t do, but it kept thinking it was doing them.
So that by the time they finally got the procedure done to take the blockage out and to get you back into motion, you could get into a rehab protocol, and here you are nine months later, actually feeling better than you did before, going through a grueling process. You can walk, and with a corrective lens that was inserted in your eye, you can actually see and regain the vision that you lost from the damage that happened in that moment. And you’re back at work today. That’s a testimony! And so I’m just putting it as an opener today—if your whole understanding of salvation is that you prayed a prayer, then you don’t have a testimony.
«I was at camp, and I invited Jesus into my heart.» That’s not a testimony. And so that’s why Scripture unpacks for us soteriology—the whole doctrine of what it means to be saved. I want us to dive into that today. We say in our core class here that salvation is the redemption plan of God received. In other words, He has this plan that He has been working on through the ages, but it’s us coming to understand that plan and then personally receiving it into our story and into our lives.
I want to break that down a little bit today, particularly in Ephesians chapter 2, verse 1. But we’re going to see all these ideas today, and I know you’re going to get fired up about seeing where we’re going. But we’re talking about depravity today. Can you say that with me? Depravity. What does that mean? This is where you might want to take a quick snapshot—it simply means all are sinners. It means more than that. There are deeper underpinnings than that, but it means that left to ourselves, it is impossible for us to do anything but fall short of the glory of God.
We’re going to talk about wrath today. Wrath is the judgment of a holy God against all sin. We’re going to talk about love today because God is a God of love, amen? And God has mercy on His people. We’re going to talk about atonement—it’s not a word you use every day, but atonement is just simply the idea that Jesus dies as a payment for all sin. We’re going to talk about forgiveness, amen! Because we all need that! What is forgiveness? It’s that moment when our debt is canceled by the sacrifice of Jesus. We’re going to talk about justification because this is where salvation gets really ridiculous and amazing. Justification means that Christ’s righteousness is transferred to us. And then next week, we’re going to really focus in on sanctification because getting saved is a process. Yes, you do get born again, but then you grow up, learn how to play little league baseball, learn how to drive, take responsibility, make good decisions, and become a contributor to the common good of the world. Why? Because I was born!
And that’s what people that are born do. So we’re going to see that salvation is a process that transforms our lives. Now, where did all these words come from? Lou, this is one of the things I don’t like about religion—it has all these words in it: depravity, wrath, atonement, forgiveness, justification, sanctification. Where did all those words come from? They came right out of Scripture. They didn’t come from a denominational meeting, they didn’t come from a seminary class, and they didn’t come from a theology book. They came right out of the word of God.
I want us to look into a text that’s been a bellwether for us at Passion City, but it’s going to help us see a lot of what we’re talking about today. This is Ephesians chapter 2, beginning in verse 1, and this is Paul explaining the doctrine of salvation—how do you get saved and what does it mean to be saved? He said, «As for you,» now he’s talking to people who are saved, «As for you, you were dead.» So before you got saved—and we’ll see that word a little bit later—you were dead. Now, we’ve said this a thousand times, and we will say it a thousand more times: Before you get saved, you’re not bad. Before you get saved, you are dead. Dead!
So we’re throwing out the window right off the bat the conversation of «Well, I think I’m a pretty good person.» Doesn’t matter! Not pertinent! «Well, I’m doing my best.» Doesn’t matter! Before we are saved, we are not bad people; we are dead people—spiritually dead. And we’ll see that a little bit later in the talk. Before you were dead. And why were you dead? Because you were in—this is the key word—your transgressions and sins. So in sin, you were dead in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and the ruler of the kingdom of the air—the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient.
All of us—now this is where we’re getting the idea of depravity—all of us! Can we say that? All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. So this is where we get this idea of depravity and wrath. We all were in sin. We all were dead. We all walked that way. This is what Scripture teaches us: Isaiah 53:6: «We all, like sheep, have gone astray.» Now, if there’s anybody in this gathering who’s never gone astray, praise God for you! You are running contradictory to the word of God, but it’s a great testimony you’ve got going right now.
«Each of us has turned to our own way.» See, this is the heart of depravity. It’s not that you killed your neighbor. It’s not that you embezzled a bunch of money from your company. It’s that you turned your own way. You were created by God for God, but at some point, you went, «I’m not going your way. I’m going my way.» And all of us have done that. But we see the gospel coming here in Isaiah 53:6: «And the Lord laid on him,» talking about the coming Messiah, «the iniquity of us all.»
Romans 3:10: «There is no one righteous, not even one.» Why? Because righteous means the standard of God, and nobody has met the standard of God. Nobody has been holy, and nobody can be holy or perfect. Then Romans 3:23, a verse that many of us have grown up around: «All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.» And what is the result of that? It’s right down here at the end of this first paragraph. «Like the rest, we were by nature deserving—» translation: I grew up with, «objects of wrath.» In other words, God’s—remember what wrath is? We’re just going to go back and forth. Wrath is the judgment of a holy God against all sin.
This is the ultimate collision of holiness and sinfulness. It is not a God who is angry at you and saying, «I’m going to really smash you into the ground.» It is a God who is holy, who is coming against all sin—yours, mine, and everybody else’s on this planet. And if you want to just picture it with me for a moment, it would be like setting a teacup on this table and dropping a bowling ball from the top of the ceiling. We are experiencing the wrath of God now because the earth is broken because of sin. But we read in Revelation about a coming wrath of God that is going to absolutely banish all evil.
Imagine that teacup getting released—I mean, that bowling ball getting released and hitting that teacup. Imagine if the bowling ball were the size of the sun. That’s what’s coming. Right now, without salvation, the bowling ball is over your head. We all were by nature deserving of wrath. This is what depravity and judgment bring, and that’s a problem because the teacup’s dead! The teacup can’t go, «Just a little, teacup! I don’t even know how this song goes, and I better do something 'cause the bowling ball’s coming down! I think I’m going to scooch around on the saucer until I can finally get off the side because I see the bowling ball coming, and I’m going to be a really good teacup.» The teacup’s dead, and the bowling ball’s coming! That’s why it’s important to understand the doctrine of salvation.
Verse 4 goes on to say, «But,» maybe the best word in the whole Bible right there, because I got a life that’s dead, and I have a holy God who’s going to banish all sin! But I don’t know what’s coming after «but.» Thank God you didn’t say amen! «But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in sin. It is by grace you have been saved.» So the operative agent in salvation is the love of God. That’s right! Who is rich in mercy—the operative agent in salvation is the love of God. The operative agent in salvation is not the effort of man.
Who is rich in works? It is the love of God who is rich in mercy! Jesus said in the most famous verse in the Bible, and the two verses after it need to become the second and third most famous verses in the Bible: «For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.» That’s the verse everyone knows. We all need to learn this verse: «For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.» God did not invite you to church today to condemn you! He invited you to church today to tell you that He loves you!
Well, why didn’t he invite us to condemn us? The next verse should also become one we know: «Whoever believes in him"—Jesus, the one talking, His Son that He sent into the world—is not condemned. But whoever does not believe in him, check this out, stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. God didn’t invite you to church today to condemn you because He already knows you’re a teacup sitting under a bowling ball. He invited you to church today to tell you that He loves you and has mercy toward you even though you went your own way.
That’s why when you look at salvation, although it starts off with bad news—depravity and wrath—it turns pretty quickly to amazing news, which is a loving God who has mercy on His people. But then we see atonement in the story. It says that He made us alive. I just want you to focus on that. He didn’t make us good when we were bad; He made us alive when we were dead! And how did He make us alive? You’re looking right at it, but I want you to look closely and tell me how did He make us alive? How do we get alive? Right here—it’s underlined in blue! «With Christ» is how we got alive!
So in the working of Jesus—in the life, death, and burial of Jesus—is how we got alive. And this is where we see atonement and forgiveness. So let’s just pause there and excavate a little bit around this idea. In the Old Testament, there was a sacrificial system. Most of us know this—it was pointing to or foreshadowing the salvation plan of God in Christ Jesus.
And so all through the Old Testament, God was already showing people that He was holy and they were not, and that there had to be some intermediary process to allow them to continue to live as His people. This was the sacrificial system: the temple, the altar, the sacrifice, the blood, an animal slain. This was God’s way of saying something better is coming. But for now, I’m still holy and you’re not. And for now, only one person can go into the Holy of Holies on the Day of Atonement, and all the rest of you can’t because I am a righteous God. And no works that you do will atone!
On the Day of Atonement, a goat was killed, and its blood was taken into the Holy of Holies by the high priest and sprinkled on the mercy seat of the Ark of the Covenant as a covering for the sins of the people for that year—pointing to Jesus, who would finish this work. But another goat was taken by the priest, and the priest would lay hands on that goat’s head in a sign of transferring the sins of the people onto the goat. The goat was called the scapegoat. Oh, that’s a phrase I’ve heard before! I wonder where that came from? Leviticus 16. And the scapegoat now, symbolically taking on the sins of the people—the blood of the animal on the mercy seat for forgiveness, but now the sins put on the head of the scapegoat, who is sent out into the wilderness.
That’s what scapegoat means, by the way—it means «wilderness.» And now the scapegoat is sent into the wilderness to say, «The sins are now leaving the camp, leaving the people, leaving the city!» So, with blood sprinkled on the mercy seat, we can live with God another year. This was the system of atonement: a blood covering, and then sins transferred and out of the camp. These were pictures that were pointing to Jesus.
But even Hebrews 10:4, where you can get the unpacking of how Jesus is the new covenant and the atonement, says in Hebrews 10:4, «It is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.» So even though it was a system that God put in place, God knew even then that the bulls and goats couldn’t take away the sin. This is just a year-by-year system that is getting us to the moment where Messiah comes, and He is the one-time final sacrifice for all sin.
We see that fully in 2 Corinthians 5:21, where atonement has happened and forgiveness is possible: «God made him who had no sin"—Jesus, Him who knew no sin—to be sin for us. The blood of Jesus shed on the mercy seat of God is a covering for all time for all sin, but also all the sins of the people transferred onto the innocent life of Jesus as He is now sent out into the wilderness. God did that! He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us so that in Him, in Jesus—hello—we might become the righteousness of God!
Salvation is not about going to heaven when you die. It is about going from guilty to righteous in Christ, from death to life in Christ. «Made us alive with Christ» means I was joined with Him by baptism into His death, and I was raised with Him into brand-new life. It means my record was guilty, but His record was innocent. Then His record became guilty, and my record became innocent! And more than that, I now, in Christ, am righteous in Him!
That’s what it means to be justified. Justified means Christ’s righteousness is transferred to us! Praise God! So atonement brings justification. I remember growing up, I loved it. I said you can remember it this way: «It’s just as if I never sinned!» Righteous in Christ—that’s a whole other collection for another day. But the way you snuff out the enemy’s lies that you’ve got to hang on to your shame and guilt is to understand that you are righteous in Christ. No, you’re not living it out perfectly yet, but it’s who you are.
It’s not your behavior fully right now, but it is your identity, and it is your standing with God. It’s how you’re going to get into His presence. We’ll unpack that a little bit more next week! But we’re made alive in Christ. The music’s telling me that I’m wrapping up, but I’m not! Let’s go on and keep reading.
«And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with Him in the heavenly realms in Christ in order that in the coming ages, He might show the incomparable riches of His grace expressed in His kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace you have been saved.» There’s our word! «Jesus saves through faith! And this is not from yourselves.» Remember the teacup! «It is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.»
«For we are God’s handiwork.» This is next week’s talk; I’m so excited about it! This is that sanctification word—created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. It is by grace you have been saved! That’s why we’re calling this collection «Jesus Saves.»
Every faith, every religion has somebody in it, and that somebody is most likely a moral teacher, a divine prophet, possibly a culture shifter, a culture thinker, potentially a miracle worker—someone who points to the way. Every religion, you’re going to find some central character who is known as, or claims to be, a moral teacher, divine prophet, a culture thinker. Maybe that movement has somebody who does miracles— I know mine does: Jesus!
Someone who points the way. Jesus was all those things. He was a moral teacher; He was a divine prophet; He shifted culture more than anybody; He was a miracle worker, and He was someone that pointed the way. And that’s a lot of religions have that. But there is one thing about Jesus that you will not find in any other religious system on earth, and that is that He claimed to be a Savior!
No other story has a Savior in it but our story. That’s what the angels said when they showed up on day one. They said, «Today, in the town of David, a Savior has been born to you. He is the Messiah, the Lord.» If you’re a teacup under a bowling ball, that’s what you want the angel to say! «Now today, in the city of David, the greatest moral teacher alive has showed up.» Not going to help you if you’re dead!
We see in the Old Testament in Isaiah 43 the prophecy: «Before me, no god was formed, nor will there be one after me. I, even I, am the Lord, and apart from me, can you say it? There is no Savior! I have revealed and saved and proclaimed, and I am not some foreign god among you. You are my witnesses, declares the Lord, that I am God.»
I love it when you go to Titus 3. «At one time, we too were foolish, disobedient, deceived, and enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures. We lived in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another. But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, He saved us— not because of righteous things we had done, but because of His mercy.»
«He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior!» Yes, He’s a moral teacher! Yes, He’s a divine prophet! Yes, He’s a culture shifter! Yes, He’s a miracle worker! Yes, He pointed to the way Himself! But He was Savior!
So that having been justified by His grace, we might become heirs of eternal life. Acts 4: «Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, 'Rulers and elders of the people, if we are being called to account today for an act of kindness shown to a man who was lame and are being asked how he was healed, then know this: you and all the people of Israel, it is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified but whom God raised from the dead, that this man stands before you healed.'»
Now this whole thing was about healing! But look what they’re about to do. Jesus is «the stone you builders rejected, which has become the cornerstone.» Salvation—you would think that would say «healing?"—got a lame man walking! Nobody turns the corner to something greater than healing a lame man! Salvation, praise God, is found in no one else! For there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved!
And how does it happen? It happens by grace through faith! For it is by grace, that’s God doing the work, that you have been saved through faith; that’s you putting all of your trust in the atoning sacrifice of Jesus that allowed for a righteous standing to be imputed to you—and you said, «I believe that with every fiber of my being! I receive it!»
I’ll close with this image. I saw this in my feed. I’ve been following Lulu Strong since last summer. Does anybody know who Lulu is? Yes? No? Most of you know? Okay, great! This is Lulu Gribbon. She’s 15 years old. On June 7th, she was swimming at 38. I hate to break that to you. And she was attacked by a shark, and she was miraculously saved!
I wish we could tell the whole story. Nearby her in the water was a doctor who was a specialist. No illustration was a real-time miracle. Another doctor was in the water nearby her. A nurse was coming back to the other end of the beach who had had a dream that someone was attacked by a shark.
In the dream, the Lord had given her a plan of all the things she would do as the person was coming out of the water being attacked by a shark. And when Lulu was carried out of the water, she immediately did all the things she’d seen in the dream and had a place ready for her to be treated instantly. She was life-flighted! She lived! She’s remarkable; we’re going to talk about her next week.
But this past week, she met the man—he’s not one of the doctors who saved her life. I’ll just read you the rest of the copy in the caption: «This weekend, Lulu and her family were reunited with an important hero from June 7th: Steven Bean, who’s a married father of three daughters from Baton Rouge. He was swimming in the water near the girls that day when he noticed Lulu and her sister and friends were all in the water. One of her other friends was also bitten by this shark.
He was swimming in the water near the girls that day when he noticed Lulu struggling. He saw fins and realized what was happening. He didn’t think twice about swimming to help her. He pulled her from the shark’s grip and carried her to shore, saving her life. We truly believe Steven was put there for a specific reason that day.»
We got a father of three who didn’t think twice about swimming into the face of a shark who grabbed this 15-year-old girl that he did not know and carried her to shore where instantly doctors and a nurse saved her life!
And when I thought about today, I thought, «What about Jesus?» He left glory seeing you being ripped apart by the sinful choices you had made—not being able to do a thing to save yourself. He ripped you out of the mouth of death and brought you to shore. Oh, He was the doctor that day! He knew exactly what to do! He was the one who had already had the understanding of what it was going to take to bring you from death to life again!
He was the life flight! He was the tourniquet on your wound! He was the one who raised you up and helped you, and taught you how to walk again, and how to use a robotic arm, and how to live a life, and how to swing a golf club, and how to do all the things that Lulu has done.
He was the one who was able to save! And so the whole story of, «Yeah, the shark got me. I already lost an arm and they were going to have to take off one leg, but I knew if I just got one last blow in with my other hand, I was going to be able to swim in before I bled out.»
Nobody’s got that testimony! Every testimony is, «I had a 0% chance on that table.» But it just so happens the Savior of the world was in the room that day, the one who had atoned for me with His blood and the one who had laid on Him the iniquity of my life! He was the scapegoat, and He was the sacrifice! That’s grace for a teacup!
Thank God the teacup can do one thing, aided by the Holy Spirit, and only one thing, aided by the Holy Spirit: The teacup can see! Cannot move, but it can see and can say, «Thank you! I receive it! I need it! I believe it!» And in that moment, by the power of the Holy Spirit, the teacup comes to life!
And we understand that the bowling ball fell on Jesus and the teacup gets to live! That’s a very short but powerful overview of the doctrine of salvation—what it means to be saved! So I ask you today: Do you have a testimony? Are you saved? Are you saved today? Are you alive from the dead? Are you righteous in Christ? Are you forgiven of all sin? Are you saved?
And if not, Paul says, «Wake up, sleeper! Wake up! Wake up, sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you!» And I pray that over our house today—every person in this gathering—wake up, sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you!