God has given us a fantastic picture of salvation in Acts. Salvation has only one Door (Christ), but has many descriptions (these accounts). Every one of us who comes to Christ finds that He does what these accounts describe when He enters our lives.
Each of the 22 different individual portraits of salvation God records for us is the way to eternal life, but all of them are true about the life of everyone going to Heaven. You see, when God saved us, He made us new creations and transformed us into the sons and daughters of God.
Welcome to the Gospel of God, written down for us in Acts. For the opening thirty years of Christ’s church, from Christ’s Ascension in AD 30 until Paul’s arrival in Rome to await trial in AD 60, God has given us a Divine Summary of the Gospel. Paul, Peter, James, Jude, and John all explain the doctrine surrounding salvation, but the Book of Acts gives the actual words of the exact messages when salvation is offered and received.
In the study of the sharing of the Gospel, there is really nothing more vital than the words we have before us today in Acts. Today, we are going to step back and look at the entirety of this history of the Gospel’s spread. Right almost in the middle of Acts, these most famous words are spoken by the jailer of Philippi to Paul: “What must I do to be saved?”
The answer can be found in the sum of all the parts as well as in the simple response of Paul in Acts 16:31: “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved.” Salvation is both simple and profound. It is impossible yet so constantly effective. Salvation can be perplexing, confusing, and incomprehensible to so many, but to those who believe and respond, it is always the power of God.
Join me in Acts 16:31 as we listen to this simple explanation of the Gospel by Paul.
Acts 16:31 (NKJV) So they said, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your household.”
WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BELIEVE IN THE LORD JESUS CHRIST?
To the jailer’s simple question, we can answer with God’s complete record of all that He wanted us to know, to hear, and to see in these 28 chapters. What Must I Do to Be Saved?
Believe that Salvation is:
1. Coming to Christ and Away from Religion (Acts 2:21, 37-38)
2. Wanting Jesus More than My Sin (Acts 3:19,26)
3. Seeing Jesus Christ as the Only Door to Salvation (Acts 4:12)
4. Finding that the Holy Spirit has Changed My Life (Acts 5:31-32)
5. Receiving a New Heart (Acts 8:21-23)
6. Believing with all your heart (Acts 8:35-37)
7. Wanting Jesus as the Lord to Obey (Acts 9:1-6)
8. Knowing the Peace of Sins Gone (Acts 10:36,39-43)
9. Turning to the Lord in repentance (Acts 11:21)
10. Having both the Penalty & Record of ALL my sins forever gone (Acts 13:38-48)
11. Turning from Useless Things to the Lord (Acts 14:15,21,27)
12. Asking God to purify my heart (Acts 15:7-9)
13. Heeding God’s Word from an Opened Heart (Acts 16:14-15)
14. Believing in God the Son as the Lord Jesus Christ (Acts 16:31-34)
15. Following Jesus as the New King of my life (Acts 17:6-7)
16. Reaching out to God as True Creator & Repenting of all Idols (Acts 17:22-34)
17. Believing & Worshipping God (Acts 18:8-13)
18. Entering God’s Kingdom & Following God’s Way and no longer mine (Acts 19:8-26)
19. Repenting & Believing in the Kingdom of Christ (Acts 20:21-25)
20. Following the Way of God’s Righteousness, Self-control & Judgment (Acts 24:14-27)
21. Experiencing God-opened Eyes & God-turned Living (Acts 26:18)
22. Entering God’s Kingdom & Living God’s Way (Acts 28:28-31)
THE TESTIMONY GOD GAVE US
The book of Acts is a report that God gave to us of how the Apostles Christ personally trained, and the disciples they trained, shared the Gospel message in every possible setting.
What we get to see is how eyewitnesses and those they trained–shared with the world what happened in the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus.
(ESH-24; 140817AM)
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