What Must I Do?

Those of you who are familiar with the Book of Acts will remember when Paul and Silas were thrown into the jail in Philippi. Around midnight, although their feet were fastened in stocks, they were singing praise to God as all the prisoners listened to them. Suddenly an earthquake occurred, and all the prison cell doors were opened. Luke tells us: “When the jailer awoke and saw the prison doors opened, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself, supposing that the prisoners had escaped. But Paul cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Do not harm yourself, for we are all here!” And he called for lights and rushed in, and trembling with fear he fell down before Paul and Silas, and after he brought them out, he said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” (Acts 16:27-30)

If you ask a dozen people what they think a person must do to be saved – to have eternal life – you’ll get a variety of opinions ranging from the totally accurate to the totally ignorant. Even of those who attend church services each week and Bible studies during the week – we ought not be too surprised at the erroneous and even heretical ideas people come up with.

And that’s why I am preaching this message today. I know most of you – if not all of you – can accurately answer the question of how anyone can get to heaven. But as your pastor I am under obligation to God to remind us and to declare again HIS answer, which is the ONLY correct answer to the question how anyone can be saved from eternal damnation and torment.  

To do that, I thought to talk today about two men we find in the New Testament – one a Jew, the other a Gentile. Both righteous. Both godly . . . And both missing an essential element related to eternal life. First, we look at the Jew, a Pharisee named Saul who was later and best known as the apostle Paul.

The Pharisees were one of two major religious societies of Judaism at the time of the New Testament. The other was the Sadducees. There were other splinter groups, but those two constituted the major divisions within first century Judaism.  

According to the historian Josephus, there were some 6,000 Pharisees at the time of Jesus. Most Pharisees lived a simple, honest, and honorable lifestyle. Unlike the Sadducees, they believed in divine sovereignty and the immortality of both good and evil persons – the good would live forever in heaven, the evil would live in eternal torment. Pharisees adhered strictly to the laws of Moses, as well as to the ‘oral law’ which were the various interpretations, applications, and expansions of the Old Testament Mosaic law. The Pharisees were considered the most accurate interpreters of the various Jewish laws.

The Pharisees, along with the Sadducees, were antagonistic against Jesus primarily on religious grounds. They considered Jesus a blasphemer against God and against God’s laws.

I think the Pharisees have taken an unjustified bad rap in the Church. Their reputation is tainted by the relatively small group in the Sanhedrin that viciously opposed Jesus. We know of at least two members of the 70-member Sanhedrin who were NOT in favor of killing Jesus: Nicodemus (John 3) and Joseph of Arimathea (Mark 15). There may have been others, but we do not know.

Most Pharisees were devoted to God. Their problem – and we should be wary lest such things do not happen to us – their problem was that their devotion to God was overtaken by the rules they built around the law of Moses.

But listen to what Paul tells us of his life-changing discovery about the forgiveness of sins, of holiness, of eternal life, and what alone pleases God – and it was not as he had thought: (Philippians 3:5-6) “[C]ircumcised the eighth day, of the nation of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the Law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to the righteousness which is in the Law, found blameless.”

But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ. More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ, 9 and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith

Before we place too much criticism on the Pharisees for elevating their traditions and rabbinic interpretations above God’s word, we should be careful to examine our own houses. How many of the rules some church bodies have established are rooted more in their own traditions and on the doctrines of their counterparts to ancient rabbinic interpretations than on what God actually says in His Book?

St. Paul frequently addressed those errors. For the sake of time, here is only one example. In his letter to the Colossian church, he wrote: “If you have died with Christ to the elementary principles of the world, why, as if you were living in the world, do you submit yourself to decrees, such as, “Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch!” – which all refer to things destined to perish with use – in accordance with the commandments and teachings of men? These are matters which have, to be sure, the appearance of wisdom in self-made religion and self-abasement and severe treatment of the body but are of no value against fleshly indulgence.” (Colossians 2:20-23)

Yes, Paul the Jewish Pharisee learned the critically important answer to the question, “What must I do to be saved.” And it had nothing to do – NOTHING to do – with what he once thought was true.

Now let’s turn our attention to another devout and God-fearing man, this one a Gentile. Cornelius was a Roman centurion stationed in Caesarea, but unlike many Romans, Cornelius “feared God with all his household and gave many alms to the Jewish people and prayed to God continually.” (Acts 10:2)

From the context of the tenth chapter of Acts it seems Cornelius made his house a sort of gathering place for his family, friends and soldiers who also were devoted to the God of Israel.

When in chapter 11 Peter’s Jewish colleagues criticized the apostle for going into the house of a Gentile – something Jews would never do because they believed they’d be ceremonially defiled by being in a Gentile’s house – Peter said: (Acts11:13-14) “[Cornelius] reported to us how he had seen the angel standing in his house, and saying, ‘Send to Joppa and have Simon, who is also called Peter, brought here; and he will speak words to you by which you will be saved, you and all your household.”

Although Cornelius – like the devout Pharisee, Paul – Cornelius was a devout and God-fearing man. Nevertheless, a critical element was missing in his life, and that missing element would have kept him from being saved.

So here we have two men. Good men. Religious men. Devout and godly men. Men who sought to honor God in all things. But neither the devout Jew, nor the devout Gentile were what we might call ‘saved’ by their ‘devoutness’. Neither of them – the Jew or the Gentile –would have been granted entrance into the eternal kingdom of Almighty God. Their goodness was simply not good enough.

And neither is yours or mine.

It is a false and deceptively deadly narrative to tell ourselves that going to church, or doing good works, or giving alms to the poor is all that God requires for our eternal salvation.

Yes, God commands us to regularly to gather with other Christians. Here is only one of many New Testament examples: (Hebrews 10:24-25) “Let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds, not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another; and all the more as you see the day drawing near.”

Yes, God commands us to do good for others. Here is only one of many New Testament examples: (Titus 3:14) “Our people must also learn to engage in good deeds to meet pressing needs, so that they will not be unfruitful.”

But really – what good is it to do all those things, what good is it even to receive Holy Communion, or even to be baptized, if we live like the practical atheists St Paul described in his letter to Titus (1:16): “They profess to know God, but by their deeds they deny Him” ?

Please hear this: The immovable, unchangeable and irrefutable foundation of our salvation is faith in Jesus Christ: (Ephesians 2:8-9) “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.”

It is only by faith in Christ and through faith in Christ that everyone MUST be saved: Faith in His atoning work on Calvary’s cross to erase our sins; Faith in his physical resurrection from death three days later; Faith that manifests itself in obedience to God’s commandments – all of them, including the ones we don’t like.

And so, therein lies the focus of my message this afternoon. I want that focus to be like a trumpet resonating repeatedly in our hearts: “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” And “The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 3:23 and 6:23)

Those truths remain the eternally secure signpost pointing us to Jesus who is the only truth, the only life, the only way to the Father.

The Lord Jesus said to another Pharisee – Nicodemus – a man who also trusted in his devoutness, and his obedience to God’s law . . . Jesus warned him, “You must be born again.”  In other words, “You must believe the gospel. You must repent of your sins, be baptized, and make Me lord and ruler of your life.” (See John 3:3 and Acts 2:38)

It’s a simple message, really. Yet its simplicity seems to always get lost in our arguments, excuses, rationalizations, self-defensive posturing . . . all designed to convince ourselves we are right – but none of which fools God.

Here is what God says about our hearts, and we should pay close heed lest we be guilty of the same self-deception. I’ve quoted this text innumerable times because I always stand humble and silent before it: Jeremiah 17:9 “The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; Who can understand it?”

You and I must be born again. What does that mean? In simplest terms, new birth occurs when we humbly acknowledge to God these several truths:

First, God is holy. ‘Fire’ is often used to describe Him because fire purifies. Fire burns away the dross, the chaff of our lives. The prophet Malachi tells us: (Malachi 3) “For He is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap. He will sit as a smelter and purifier of silver, and He will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, so that they may present to the Lord offerings in righteousness.”

Next, God is not only holy, but we are each born in sin. One might say sin is part of our DNA. It influences our motives, our desires, our hopes, our plans, our past, our present, our future. It affects our families, our careers . . . . Nothing is beyond its influence. The Scriptures repeatedly emphasize that truth. For example, (Psalm 14:2-3) “The Lord has looked down from heaven upon the sons of men to see if there are any who understand, Who seek after God. They have all turned aside, together they have become corrupt; There is no one who does good, not even one.”

And Isaiah (64:6) “For all of us have become like one who is unclean, And all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment; And all of us wither like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.”

Now this unchangeable truth: As we must acknowledge God’s utter holiness, and that we each are sinners worthy of nothing short of condemnation and eternal hell, we must also acknowledge that God will judge sin.

Listen to His warning in Hebrews 10:26-31 “For if we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a terrifying expectation of judgment and the fury of a fire which will consume the adversaries.  . . . “The Lord will judge His people.” It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” And Hebrews 9:27 “It is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment.”  

Which brings us now to the next truth we must accept into the core of our souls: The Holy, Just, Righteous, and Merciful God made a way for us, all of whom live with sin as part of our DNA – God made a way – and ONLY ONE WAY – for humanity to be completely cleansed of ALL of our sins. He did that by His placing the judgment of our sins on the crucified sinless Lamb of God who died on that cross as our substitute and then rose from the dead on the third day.

That’s why the apostle Paul, the born-again devoutly religious Pharisee, said what he did in that passage in Phillipians: [That I] may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith. (Philippians 3:9)

It's why he wrote to the Christians at Ephesus the text I quoted earlier, (Ephesians 2:4-9) “But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ . . . For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.”

It's why he wrote to the Christians in Rome (Romans 5:8-9) “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him.

SO, what must I do, what must you do, what must ANYONE do to be saved? What must Jew or Gentile, devout or not devout – what must we do to inherit eternal life?

The answer is simple, and I’m purposely redundant because our eternal destiny absolutely depends on what we each do with God’s truths and His warnings.

Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, acknowledge to Him that you are

a sinner, totally unable to be saved simply by your good works, or church attendance, or any other religious activity. Acknowledge, believe that we can only be saved by being forgiven and pardoned of our sins because Jesus died in our place, as our substitutionary atonement for our sins. His death satisfies God’s righteousness judgment, as well as His mercy. At Messiah’s death, God judged our sin when He placed our sins on Jesus – and at the same time He gave us mercy and forgave our sins because of that substitution.

Jesus said to the righteous Pharisee named Nicodemus: “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

I’ve tried to make the simple message of salvation as clear as I can this afternoon because our eternal destination is irreducibly tied to what we believe about Jesus, about sin, righteousness, judgment – and obedience.

Are you sure of your eternal destiny? If you trust Jesus to be your Savior, your Lord, your Master – if you obey Him to the best of your frail human abilities, if you believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, then you have God’s assurance that you are His adopted child and you WILL be with Him in glory after death.

We have His promise. Trust Him. There will be no reason for you to fear when ‘the bell tolls for thee.’