“Then I saw a ‘new heaven and a new earth,’ for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. There is be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.‘” (Revelation 21:1-5).

We have been looking at the three tenses of salvation:

• Past Tense – Justification – Status Change – All God, all grace
• Present Tense – Sanctification – Ongoing Change – Partnership with the working of the Holy Spirit
• Future Tense – Glorification – God’s Promised Kingdom Realized – All God

Today, we will be looking at glorification.

God promises in the Bible that Jesus will return to judge the world, and to rule. When that happens, God will establish a new heaven and a new earth. Creation will once again be all that God intends. There will be no more pain, no more tears, no more disease, no more death.

God will judge the world. Those who have not received God’s plan for salvation through his Son Jesus Christ, will receive the desire of their heart to be eternally separated from God. Those who have rejected Christ will spend an eternity apart from Christ in hell.

Those who have received Jesus as Lord and Savior will receive new bodies and be placed in God’s eternal kingdom as sons and daughters.

This is all God’s doing. This is God’s promise. This is God’s grace.

We long for the day when God will fulfill his promise. But until that time, the purpose of the church is to proclaim Christ and his love for sinners. For “God is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9).

Let’s get to work. Not even one need perish. God has already made a way through his Son, Jesus Christ.

“Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed – not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence – continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling” (Philippians 2:12).

If we are saved and justified by faith, and if our salvation is guaranteed by the work of Jesus on the cross, how come we continue to struggle with sin?

That’s a fantastic question!

When God justifies us through the work of Jesus on the cross, we are made new. Our status before God is changed from sinners into children of God. But while our status has changed before God, we still live in the same flesh and body as we did before we were saved. Our flesh hasn’t changed. Our bodies will not be changed until Jesus returns. When Jesus returns, we will be given new bodies.

In the mean time, we who have been made new will need to learn how to live as God’s children in this fleshly body. We need to keep striving and working at becoming more like Jesus. This is sanctification.

The root word in sanctification is sanctify. Sanctify literally means to become holy.

When Paul writes, “continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling,” Paul is not talking about our standing before God. Our standing has already been changed. What Paul is referring to is the call for children of God to become more like Christ. This process is called sanctification. We, who have been saved, should become more like Christ as time goes by. We ought to be more like Christ today than we were when we first received Jesus as Lord and Savior.

Sanctification doesn’t mean that we no longer have a sinful body and sinful desires. Sanctification means, since we are new creations, we are at war with the flesh as long as we remain in our earthly bodies. We will continue to be at war with our flesh until the day we die or until Christ returns.

While justification is 100% the work of God through Christ on the cross, sanctification is a partnership between the work of the Holy Spirit who is constantly at work in us to make us more like Christ, and our obedience and submission to the Holy Spirit so that God’s Holy Spirit can mold us and make us more like Christ.

Struggling with the flesh and sin?

Fantastic! Good job! That means the Holy Spirit is at work in you. It is when we give into sin that we lose.

So, keep at it. Keep striving after Christ!

“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one should boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9).

Did you know that salvation has three tenses: past, present, and future?

• Past Tense – What God has done for sinners through the work of Jesus on the cross – Justification
• Present Tense – What God continues to do through the Holy Spirit to make us more like Christ – Sanctification
• Future Tense – What God will do at the second coming of Jesus when he comes to judge and rule – Glorification

Today, we will be looking at justification.

How are sinners saved?

By God’s grace. It is all God. God loves you. Not because you are lovable or because you are worthy. God loves you because he is God. God’s love for sinners has nothing to do with us. God’s love for sinners has everything to do with God and God’s character.

Jesus tells us in John 3:16, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son so that whosoever should believe in him will not perish but have everlasting life.”

This is all God. This is all grace. God loves you. Because God loves you, God made a plan for you to be changed from sinner to a child of God. This is all God’s doing.

All those who receive Jesus as Lord and Savior have been saved. This is a done deal. God did it all. Jesus paid it all. When we receive Jesus as Lord and Savior our status and standing before God is changed to sons and daughters of the King. We are justified by Christ through faith. We stand before God just as if we had never sinned because Jesus takes on our sin and receives the wrath of God’s anger and judgment on our behalf. But this is not the whole story. Jesus rose again from the dead so that those who received him as Lord and Savior rise with Christ as sons and daughters.

That’s justification. This is all God. This is all grace.

Just as we did nothing to deserve God’s grace, there is nothing we can do to make God forsake us. Once we receive Jesus as Lord and Savior, we are God’s own.

If you’ve received Jesus as Lord and Savior, you need not ever doubt your standing before God. God is your Father.

This is the good news of salvation!

Rest and be encouraged by the truth of Justification. God has done it all. Jesus has paid it all.

Amen!