Living Forgiven But Still Bound | Pastor Greg Ford Sermon | One Church Columbus

Okay, so for the next uh month here in the month of December, uh we're gonna do a series of messages called Savior.

And uh, if we kind of do our job here, we're gonna really take a close look at Jesus as our Savior and looking at what exactly does that mean.

There will be three Sundays leading up to our Christmas Eve and Christmas Eve Eve services, and so I'm pretty pumped about this because I think based on uh the conversations that we're gonna have, it's gonna help us really have top of mind uh why we're celebrating the birth of Jesus, what that means, and why it's such a great thing.

All right, so that's what we're gonna dig into.

If you have your Bibles, uh go to 1 Timothy chapter 2 and verse 15.

1 Timothy 2 · chapter mention

And I'm gonna start with kind of a weird verse.

Like if this is one that you were just sort of get had the verse of the day, uh, you might read it and go, what am I supposed to make of that?

Alright, so it's second, or sorry, 1 Timothy 2, 15.

It says, Women will be saved through childbearing if they continue in faith, love, and holiness with propriety.

Women will be saved through childbearing.

Um, okay, so the series is called Savior.

If you think of savior, saved, um, salvation, all right, all of that are words, all of those are words that we see in the New Testament.

Um I want to take a moment to kind of think about this, because what we're gonna look at are these, how this shows up.

But one of the challenges that we have when we read the Bible, if you're reading the Bible in English, um, then what you're reading is a translation that came from an interpretation, right?

If you're reading the Bible in Greek, if you're a Greek speaker, you're able to read the Bible in Greek, then you have the uh the understanding of, again, in the New Testament, the original writing, and you can contextualize it that way.

But if you're reading it in English, somebody who knows Greek, a Greek scholar, and somebody that understood the culture of what they were writing, did the best scholarly work they could do to be able to understand what it's supposed to say.

So because there's not like an exact one-to-one translation, a lot of times from English, Greek to English, they had to essentially go, this is the spirit of what said.

What's the best way to say this in English?

Uh, when you have you when you're around church and church tradition, we have certain words.

I like to say sometimes you need to power wash a word, essentially.

They start to get coats of paint on them, and and uh you go, uh you hear a word and it brings up something.

So, for example, if I say uh in church, hey, my my my wife got saved.

Or if someone asks you, are you saved?

Okay, uh, would you like to be saved?

Would you like to get saved?

What do they mean by saved or get saved or be saved?

Okay, generally what someone's talking about, that word saved is shorthand for the idea that we all have sinned and fallen short of God's glory.

And so there's really two things.

Like we want to receive eternal life.

Eternal life in the New Testament is life unto the age, which would be sort of two-pronged.

It would be life here and now, uh connected to God, but then also life in perpetuity.

In other words, the afterlife beyond.

And so, what most people, when they talk about saved, really most of us are introduced to the concept of salvation through the stakes of eternity.

In fact, most people would even open the conversation that way.

If you were to die today, where would you go?

Do you know where you would spend eternity?

If you're like, I don't know, they'd be like, would you like to be saved?

And then they would make it that way.

So the belief is um we're gonna spend eternity somewhere, either heaven or hell, and I want to be saved from eternal damnation, and also I want to be saved from my sin here and now.

And the idea that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, I can't earn my own salvation.

It's a free gift given to me by Jesus, so I accept his finished work on the cross, and now I'm saved.

So when people say, Are you saved, essentially they're like, Do you agree with that?

And then also, would you consider yourself a Christian is kind of what's loaded within that.

Alright?

So when you look at that, because we tend to think of the word saved in that way, when you read something like 1 Timothy 2.15 that says women will be saved through childbearing if they continue in faith, love, and holiness with propriety, you're like, I don't know what to do with that.

That's kind of confusing.

Are you saying that when a woman pushes a baby out of her birth canal and then now the baby's born, now she's gonna go to heaven?

Is it saying that she's now right with God and she gets a special pass?

What about women that can't have children?

What about single women?

What about men?

Like, you is it what is going on here?

What is this saying?

And so this puts us in a position to do some work that we're gonna do today.

So I'm gonna give you a sermon today that will help with some specific things, but I have sort of a second agenda here, and what in the second agenda is I want to help us all start to develop an appetite and to develop some skills around biblical interpretation.

Because it's sort of demoralizing when you read something like that and you don't know what to do with it, and then you close your Bible and you're like, I don't even know.

Like, I don't know what to do with that.

I actually feel almost like this cognitive dissonance, or I guess I'm supposed to have faith.

What in the world's going on?

Okay, so we're gonna do this work today.

So the word saved that shows up in English is comes up 150 times in the New Testament, and it's two different words.

One is a noun, it's the word soteria, which is talking about salvation.

So a noun, a person, place, or thing, it's a thing, something I possess, salvation.

The second is so-zo, which is so-z-o in Greek, which is a verb, and it means essentially to rescue or to save.

So when that shows up, uh-zo or soteria or a derivative of those words, okay, they usually show up as the word save, salvation, or savior, um, but they show up in a range of meanings.

So when you see saved, it could mean one of four things.

Okay, so let's build this out.

The first thing that saved means in the New Testament is physical rescue or what we might call protection.

So salvation sometimes refers to deliverance from danger, uh, from illness or oppression.

So let me give you a couple examples.

Mark chapter five, uh, you have the story of the woman with the issue of blood.

So she's been hemorrhaging for five years.

I'm sorry, ten years nonstop.

Ten years she's been bleeding nonstop.

That not only is physically exhausting, but on top of that, it's emotionally and socially exhausting because she's considered ceremonially unclean.

She can't go to the temple, she can't go to the market, she can't go into the town square, she is alone.

Anybody who touches her is also unclean.

So she's by herself.

And because of that, she tried to buy a solution out of her problem.

The Bible says that she spent all the money that she had, and instead of getting better, she got worse.

And she just was clinging to a little bit of hope.

She hears about Jesus, and so she conceals her issue, pushes through a crowd, and touches the hem of his garment.

And when she touches Jesus' garment, it says that she's healed.

And it's in Mark 5.34, Jesus said to her, Daughter, your faith has healed you.

Now, if you read this in Greek, it would say, Your faith has, and it would use a derivative of so-so, your faith has rescued you.

Okay, but again, the interpreters, they could have said, your faith has saved you, but what they what what they understood that that version of so-so to mean is a physical healing.

So they they put the word healing.

Your faith has healed you.

Uh go and be freed from your suffering.

This shows up in uh Matthew 8.25.

So when the disciples who are fishermen are in a boat and they're in a storm, and it must have been a bad one because they think they're gonna die.

And so when they're they believe they're gonna drown, uh, it says in Matthew 8.25, the disciples went and woke him, Jesus, saying, Lord, sozo us, save us, we're going to drown.

Okay, so here salvation is an immediate rescue or restoration or healing.

So that's one of the one of the things that you'll see, uh, one of the ways it could mean when you see the word saved.

The second range of meaning is forgiveness of sins, or or what we would call in Christianese, justification.

All right, forgiveness of sin.

So the apostle Paul, in his epistles and his writings, where he's explaining theology and doctrine through the lens of Jesus, the Savior, uh, he refers sometimes to saved to mean forgiven, declared righteous, and reconciled with God.

So here's a good example.

Ephesians 2.8, uh, the Apostle Paul says, For it is by grace you've been saved.

It's by grace you've been saved, through faith.

This not from yourselves, it is a gift from God.

If you keep reading, he'll say, Not by works, so no one can boast.

So this understanding of salvation, of justification, or right standing with God comes through, exclusively through, the grace and the work of Jesus.

That Jesus died on the cross for our sins and conquered death.

He had the will to and the power to be our Savior.

And so He right standing with God doesn't come from me trying to tip the scales in my favor, like I did a bunch of bad stuff.

Uh, I did enough really bad stuff.

I better now do enough really good stuff to try to tip these scales so that when I go stand before God, that I'm forgiven or I'm made right.

That is not, that is not the gospel, the good news, and that is not the principle and the doctrine of justification.

The doctrine of justification is that my righteousness or my right standing with God, my forgiveness, isn't because I was able to do enough good to offset the bad.

That's karma, right?

That's not the that's not justification.

Justification is it's it's a gift, not a reward.

That it's what Jesus did on the cross, that when I stand before God someday, and when I stand before God now, I stand in front of him, justified and righteous, not because of what I've done, but he sees the blood of Jesus that covers me.

Right?

Okay, so so that's justification.

Let's give you another one.

Romans 5, 9 says, Since we've now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God's wrath through him?

So the second range of meaning here of salvation is right standing with God through Christ's cross.

The third range of meaning is uh ongoing deliverance, or here's our here's our big Christian East word for the day, sanctification.

All right, a little sanctification for you.

Uh so what is sanctification?

Okay, in this sense, it is using the term salvation to describe an ongoing process of transformation and development as a believer.

So 1 Corinthians 1.18 says, for the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing.

In other words, it's it's foolishness to those who are headed to destruction.

But to us who are being saved, it is the power of God.

Now, this is this is something if you read it and you don't understand the range of meaning, it would be confusing because it's saying, those who are being saved, what do you mean being saved?

I thought I was saved.

What do you mean I'm being saved?

I thought I was saved.

I thought that I was right with God.

Well, this is not talking about justification or right standing with God.

Does God like you or not?

That's not what this is.

This is about working this out in a process of sanctification because it's quite possible to be forgiven and not be free.

It's possible to be justified before God, declared righteous before God, and still addicted, and still governed by my insecurity, and still making poor decisions, and still being lying, cheating, and stealing.

Still, still doing that.

I can actually still, even though I'm my righteousness is not by works.

My works can either get me into freedom or it can get me into captivity.

And so when he's talking about justification here, this is not, is God cool with me?

Is God willing to look at me?

Yes, God's willing to look at you.

God loves you, he loves you so much that he wants you to continue to work in this third place of salvation, which is to make decisions that don't allow your flesh to govern your life, but to walk by the Spirit.

Uh look at this, Philippians 2, 12 and 13.

Continue, look at this, continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling.

All right, not not saying some unhealthy uh terror.

It's saying do this, take it seriously to work out your salvation.

Again, if you if you don't understand the range of meaning, you would miscommute or misunderstand this to be justification, like I can earn it.

No, he's saying you can't earn the justification, but the process of of transformation and renewing my mind has to do with my decisions and what I do.

So it says, continue to work it out and take it seriously.

For it is God who works in you uh in you to will and act in order to fulfill his good purpose.

So saying you could be totally forgiven and in right standing with God and still not live the full purpose that you were destined for and created for based on not working out some of these issues in our flesh, in our lives, in our past.

You get the idea.

So it's not it's not to earn the salvation, it's to work out this version, this again, this third range of meaning of salvation, and take it very seriously.

The fourth is future rescue or what we might call final redemption.

Right?

So salvation in in the fourth part of the range of meaning has a future dimension, full deliverance at Christ's return, including resurrection and eternal life.

As I mentioned, eternal life is a concept throughout the Bible of it's in fact the more accurate term is life unto the age, which is a life connected to God here and now, and then a life in perpetuity.

So what we see in the use of salvation in one in the New Testament is that there is a future rescue still to come.

So Romans 13, 11 says, and do this, understanding the present time.

The hour has already come for you to wake up from your slumber, because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed.

In other words, there's there there's a fullness and a full redemption that is still in the future.

There's work God is still doing uh in salvation.

First Peter 1, 5.

And through your faith, God is protecting you by his will until you receive this salvation, which is ready to be revealed on the last day for all to see.

Alright?

So this again is a future element.

Here we see salvation as an ultimate deliverance from sin, death, and decay at Christ's return.

Okay, so when you're reading in English and you're reading the New Testament, and you come up on Savior, Save, Salvation, and you're going, what do I do with this?

You're gonna want to know the range of meaning.

And this is where biblical interpretation comes in.

I've had people ask me before, how come Christians end up in these different uh faith traditions?

How come they end up in these different denominations?

And some people believe this and some people believe that.

Why are we so divided on it?

And this is kind of why, because sometimes you'll come up against these verses, and some of them are very key, important verses, and there's a range of meaning of words, so the answer isn't necessarily crystal clear.

There's sometimes latitude to go, is this talking about justification, or is this uh talking about a future deliverance?

Uh, or is this talking about sanctification?

What is this talking about?

And so sometimes people don't see eye to eye on it, and unfortunately, and I'm just gonna wax poetic here for a second and uh uh get up on my stump and make my speech.

I I think unfortunately the church has allowed some of our differences in interpretation.

Yours may be as plausible as mine and what I think.

We've allowed it to cause division when we don't need to.

I think I think it would be pretty awesome to be with a group of people who didn't necessarily agree on all of it, but we started digging into it together, and we're looking at the word and we're looking at the range of meaning, and we're looking at the book, and we're looking at how else it was used in the book and the verses leading up to it, and we sat there, and I may come to a different conclusion than you do, but we could actually like each other and continue to be in community and not condemn one another, and actually we might grow together.

And instead of the verses dividing us, it would bring us together as one church.

Pretty good idea.

So let's go back to where we started.

Let's look at the beginning.

Let's look at 1 Timothy 2 15.

Because now we've got to interpret this verse.

Women will be saved through childbearing.

So-saved through childbearing if they continue in faith, love, and holiness with propriety.

Now, we use the framework around here when we're studying the Bible, the Bible as history, the Bible as literature, and the Bible as theology.

We say before we come to theological conclusions, we want to look at these other elements, very obviously why.

We these are, if you're looking at the New Testament, you're looking at first century Greco-Roman world in a Jewish context.

If you're looking at the Old Testament, you're looking at the ancient Near East, you know, anywhere from uh 2,500, 3,000 years ago.

So that we want to understand those settings the best we can, understand the history and and the elements and how they would affect that, so that we can decide what do we do with it here and now.

Okay, so let's let's let's do that with this.

So where are we at in the Bible here?

We're in 1 Timothy.

Okay, so who is Timothy?

Well, Timothy is the Apostle Paul's protege.

They were really close.

In fact, he had appointed him as a leader and continued to invest in Timothy's life.

In fact, in one portion he refers to Timothy as his son in the faith.

So it was almost familial.

They were close.

Okay, so who is Timothy?

Well, Timothy is the pastor of the Ephesian church.

Ephesian, that rings a bell.

Where else have I heard that?

Oh, the book of Ephesians.

So we have really three different books written to this group of people.

One of them is Ephesians, and then two of them are directly to Timothy.

Well, what do we make of that?

Well, there's something to be made of that because we've spent time looking at the letters.

We've looked at the the letters that are named after cities, were written in such a way to be read publicly to all to the collective, to everyone.

So they're named after cities, you know, 1 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1st and 2 Thessalonians.

These are books that are written to these people.

And if you remember when we talked about that, okay, the Apostle Paul writes the letter, he gives it to a courier, he trains the courier to deliver it, because the guy's gonna deliver it or lady, like a keynote speech.

So they're gonna get the whole, all the community of the Ephesians together, and or they're gonna go in the different places where they are, but they're gonna read it to everybody.

This is a keynote addressed to everyone.

So it's talking about large, universal truth that's broad.

When he writes to Timothy, it's almost like going from the keynote to then taking the leader into a side room, and then now you're giving this is just for you.

And the reason that he does that, like if he wanted everybody to read all of it publicly, he would have written first, second, and third Ephesians.

But he just wrote Ephesians and then he wrote this to Timothy.

And what he's doing with Timothy, it's not that he wants it necessarily to be a secret, but he's giving Timothy the latitude as the leader to decide, what do you want to do with this letter?

You, as a leader, I'm giving you the authority to contextualize it.

And if you want, you can shout it from the rooftops and you can show everybody.

Here's what Paul said.

Paul has the authority as the apostle, so he was the one with with even more credibility than Timothy.

And so if Timothy needed to draw on the Apostle Paul's authority as an apostle, he could do it, but he's saying, I want you to contextualize this yourself.

So Timothy had the latitude.

If he wanted to read the whole thing to everybody, or if you want to quote just portions of it, or if he wanted to keep it to himself.

And so now he's he's he is leading these people.

Now, what's going on in Ephesus?

Okay, the city of Ephesus was absolutely impacted deeply culturally and economically by one of the wonders of the ancient world, the temple of Artemis.

The temple of Artemis is one of the seven wonders of the ancient world.

And what it was is a temple to this goddess, Artemis, who was the goddess of fertility.

Fertility, first of all, of the economy, of the land, in an agrarian culture, causing things to grow and to drive the economy.

But the second was the fertility of human beings.

If you look at statistics, so we're going to compare first century ethics to modern day America.

And stats are a little bit interesting if you go study those statistics, because we have pretty strong statistics now because of our ways of keeping records.

At that time, you had censuses, you had there were plausible ways of getting statistics, but it's not quite as clear, so you'll see larger variation.

But in if you look at two particular stats, one infant mortality and maternal mortality.

So the mothers and the babies.

Infant mortality in first century Greco-Roman world and the Ephesian world was about one in three babies did not live to their first birthday.

And that's actually a media, uh, a median statistic.

Some saw it a little worse than that, some slightly better, but not way off.

One in three uh babies.

So we everyone in this room has been affected by miscarriage, has been affected.

You know somebody, maybe you maybe you are that person.

Maybe you have had to deal with miscarriage.

You know the anguish of that.

Maybe you've had it within your own family or friends.

But I'm pretty sure if I asked, everyone would lift a hand of someone who's either had a miscarriage or had a child die young.

But in their world, it was one in three.

Just to put it in context, 50 to 60 times more likely than us to lose a child within the first year.

So we're talking about a massive, massive problem.

Grief had become normal at that point.

But it was something that every time you you got pregnant or your wife got pregnant or your sister got pregnant, you knew what could come.

The second is the uh maternal mortality.

So the mothers.

Mothers in in that region at that time were 100 times more likely than a mother now to die in childbirth.

100 times more likely.

So probably the most dangerous thing a woman could do at that time was to have a child.

Dangerous to her own body and dangerous to her soul to have a one in three chance of losing this child before one.

You want to talk about fear and sacrifice and a major crisis.

So, what does Ephesus have?

They have the temple of Artemis, Artemis, the goddess of fertility.

People came from all over the known world to go make sacrifices to Artemis because their belief was if we can appease Artemis and make Artemis happy, she will protect the mom and the baby.

But if you tick Artemis off, she will kill you, and she will kill your baby.

This was one of the issues the church had in Ephesus was that the belief was if you follow Yahweh, or you are a follower of Christ, then that will be competition with Artemis.

That will upset Artemis, and you are much more likely to have her kill you and or your child.

And so we see this show up in the book of Acts.

So the third place we really see the book of uh the Ephesians is in the book of Acts in chapter 19.

I'm gonna give you a summary of the story.

But the apostle Paul goes into Ephesus and essentially says, Artemis is a lie, Artemis is an idol, Artemis doesn't exist and doesn't have power over you and your life and your baby's life.

And it's idolatry and there's nothing to it.

And in the process, people start turning from their idolatry, they turn away from it and start turning to Christ, and it upsets the local economy.

A silversmith who's named in uh uh Acts 19, Demetrius is his name, he had a business and it said he had multiple employees, and you know his business was he was a silversmith and he made Artemis idols.

And when people came from all over the world, he goes, Hey, for$19.99, I'll give you one of these, and I gotta buy one, get two free going right now, but it's it's two for 30.

Okay, and so he's got this whole business going, and and and when all of a sudden people start seeing the lie of the idolatry and they start following Jesus, he starts losing market share.

He pulls the other silversmiths together.

It's in Acts 19, go read it.

He pulls them together and says, guys, we're gonna lose not only are we gonna lose our businesses, but let me appeal to something greater.

Artemis is gonna lose her credibility.

This whole city is gonna be messed up if these guys keep going.

So they started a riot to not only protect their their idol business, but to protect the reputation of their city.

People aren't gonna come from far and wide if Artemis is exposed as a lie.

And so they try to kill their way out of the problem.

Okay, so this is Acts 19.

So you have now Timothy, who's Paul's son in the faith, who is now he is pastoring and he's leading the Ephesians.

So now with that knowledge, let's go back to the text.

Okay, we got a little bit of history, we got a little bit of literature, we come back, and now we look at 1 Timothy 2.15 that women will be saved through childbearing if they continue in faith, love, and holiness with propriety.

Okay?

Well, now go ahead and pull up the range of meaning.

Pull up the four the four things that that sozo could mean, because now we go, we got some history, and now we gotta go, what could this mean?

Well, the first is it says, the first physical rescue, physical protection, is it saying, and just leave this up, by the way.

Um, is it saying that women will be saved in childbearing?

Um, in other words, what we were hoping Artemis would do in saving women, we can now expect Jesus to do.

And there's a few issues with that.

The first is that the text doesn't say that.

It doesn't say that women will be saved in childbearing, it says women will be saved through childbearing.

Also, it you it would be a real reach to say that Paul is assuring these women that because you love Jesus and Jesus loves you and you honor Yahweh, that you are going to now be assured that there will be no miscarriage and nobody's child will ever die.

Okay, now is that possible?

Some people have come to that conclusion.

There's some people that do interpret it that way.

They think that God was giving the Ephesians a special uh measure of salvation in that time, in that way.

I don't know that that's not true.

There's not anything in terms of other writings that that would substantiate that, okay, but some people think it could be that.

All right, it seems more plausible though that he's not saying that.

That essentially what he's saying is this stranglehold that Artemis has on your emotions and your mind is a lie.

Artemis is a lie.

And instead of you being so subjected and so bound by Artemis and your fear around that, to bring your fear of your own salvation and the salvation of your child to bring that into the arms and the grace of God.

Right?

And not that it's guaranteed that it's going to play out exactly like you want, but but in many ways he's uprooting Artemis as a liar.

Um, the second is forgiveness of sins or justification.

We're like, we're looking at that.

Is that is that the claim?

Well, that doesn't even make sense.

We can pretty much cross that one off quickly.

Because it's because what what he says to the Ephesians in Ephesians 2, we just read.

You're not saved by childbearing or by any other work for that matter.

Even he mentions faith, love, and holiness.

Those are works.

We're not saved by that.

We're saved by a gift from God.

Okay, so my right standing with God, my righteousness, my justification doesn't come from any work, much less uh salvation through childbearing.

The third, now we're on to something.

The idea of ongoing deliverance, saved through childbearing.

In other words, me having a clearer view of God, learning something, deep discipleship principles that really now click for me through childbearing, like faith, love, and holiness.

Let's really think about this for a second.

I'm gonna speak to the moms for a second.

If you've had a child, you you knew what love was, you knew what faith was, you knew these things uh in terms of concept, but when you hold a child, actually before that, when the child becomes alive within you, and you feel it growing within you, and you know, you've known all along that about the umbilical cord, and you've known the whole time about the uterus, and you know that what it means to keep the child alive, but when you feel I'm actually keeping this child alive, and you feel them grow even before they're conscious in the world, then they show up in the world through a process of sacrifice.

And you want to talk about vivid understanding of sacrifice.

You think when these women heard that Jesus loved the world so much that he's willing to sacrifice, you think they understood that a little bit based on, I'll I'll sacrifice, I will put my life on the line to bring somebody else's in.

So you have this child, and at some point the child's not sleeping through the night, and so you go get them.

They're not even in the place of development to know why they're crying.

They're they're wet or they're cold or they're alone or they're hungry or something, and and you go and you you understand their needs better than they do.

And you you you pat them and comfort them, or you feed them from your own body, and then they fall back into a state of peace, and they're laying there and they're asleep, and you're holding them, and you're looking at them, and and you are so filled with love.

You are instinctively wired you would die for that child.

Your life is about protecting and sustaining, and and your love is unexplainable.

You can't even put it into words.

You try to tell somebody else, and your words are falling short.

And so at some point, you're holding this child and you look down and you think about with all of your human flaws and frailties and limitations, you feel what you feel, and you know what's true, and you start to think, man, if I love like this, how much more?

He says, love, he says, faith, right?

Faith, at some point, you're holding that child and you know the gap between their awareness and yours.

They're sleeping, trusting you in their arms.

They trust you for the right answers, they ask you questions and they believe your answers.

And you you're going, they have this much faith in me, and the gap between me and them is fractional compared to the gap between me and God.

And so they trust me like this.

How much more can I trust them?

And all of a sudden, the verse is like David, who's a shepherd, saying, The Lord is my shepherd, I will be provided for.

He makes me lie down in green pastures, I rest in his arms, he leads me beside still waters, he restores my soul.

When years ago, there was a worship song.

This was before I had kids.

There was this worship song, and it used to drive me nuts.

It was my least favorite worship song.

And the song went like this: You dance over me while I am unaware.

You sing all around, but you never hear the sound.

But I never hear the sound.

Lord, I'm amazed by you.

I couldn't stand that song.

I'm like, that's the weirdest song I've ever heard.

You dance over me while I'm unaware?

You sing all around, and I never hear a sound.

I'm just picturing God, you know, he's just like, you know, he's just dancing over me.

And I'm and I'm I'm not even aware.

And all of a sudden I'm like, what are you doing, dude?

And then he's singing, you know, and nothing's coming out.

I'm like, this is a creepy song, man.

I can't worship to it.

I wouldn't let the band do it anymore.

I was like, kill that song, man.

I don't like it.

Until until I became a parent and I realized how much of my love and faithfulness to my kids were happening when they were unaware.

They had no clue what was going on.

How many times I'm driving my car, looking in the rear view mirror to see my child and the child seat, Binky hanging out, all right, drool going down the face.

They don't even remember falling asleep, but they wake up in their bed.

They don't know where the food's coming from, they don't even know how the money's made, but they know dad's gonna figure it out, mom's gonna figure it out, this level of faith.

At some point you start looking, and everything you need to know about the goodness, the love, the faith.

Where does faith come from?

But faithfulness.

Your kids trust you because of your faithfulness.

So now I start to think how faithful and loving I am.

Even holiness, it says faith, love, and holiness.

Holiness went to a child when you're correcting them because their behavior is off, they don't understand it.

They just think it's torture and they just think that you got it out for them, but you know what's up.

You are correcting them, not because you enjoy that.

In fact, you don't.

You the reason you do it is because you're trying to help them get their lives in order because they don't understand how the world works yet enough to self-govern.

So I'm gonna govern you till you're mature enough to govern yourself, because if you're not careful, there's a lot of stuff out here that will put you in bondage.

Therefore, I'm gonna make it hurt a little bit.

I'm gonna take the thing, I'm gonna take the keys away, I'm gonna take the toys away, I'm gonna say no until you learn to say no for yourself.

Not because I enjoy domineering and dominating, that's not it at all.

I'm trying to help you get to the place you see the light so you can do it for yourself.

So the idea of holiness isn't a heavy-handed God, it is God helping us get our lives in order.

So you're a parent and you this these mothers, right, learn in their process through childbearing.

He says, Hey, Artemis is a lie.

Don't even, don't, don't, don't even, don't even think about it, don't worry about that.

Artemis is a lie.

But when you think about your discipleship, your sanctification, your journey, you she he said they'll learn, they'll have a profound salvation, ongoing development experience through childbearing.

They'll learn about love and faith and holiness in a way that bullet points and fill in the blanks and classrooms could never teach them.

It will just click.

And so today, what I want to do is I want to take a moment to pray with you.

I want us to take a moment to think about the range of meaning of salvation.

Again, I'm trying to give you tools so when you come up against some of these verses, you don't know what to make of them, you don't just have to close your Bible in frustration.

I can study this thing and I can start to interpret and get what I'm supposed to get out of it.

But here's what we're gonna do.

We're gonna, uh, I'm gonna invite you to stand on your feet real quick and bring our baptism tanks.

We're about to baptize some folks, and when we do, we're celebrating two things.

One, we're celebrating forgiveness and justification.

In other words, when you see people go under the water, this is the grace of God.

This water, by the way, is nice and warm.

All right, we warmed it up for you.

And it represents the warmth of God's grace.

It's gonna cover all your hair, all your skin, all your past, all your present, and all your future.

And when you go under, you come up completely immersed, completely immersed in his grace.

So your salvation is done as it relates to justification.

But when you climb out of the tank, your salvation, sanctification, and ongoing process of development will be worked out with fear and trembling.

In other words, there's some decisions that need to change from this point forward.

And so today, let's take a moment, let's celebrate what God has done and celebrate what God still is going to do.