This week was our second week of our current series, Exiles. We spoke about what salvation is out of 1 Peter 1:3-13. Here is a quick recap:
Peter breaks Salvation into three main categories: Past Salvation, Present Salvation, and Future Salvation. He goes onto explain what each of these mean for us as Christians and how they are good news.
Past Salvation
Throughout human history, we’ve felt a sense of estrangement that comes from being separated from God. We can sense something is wrong just by watching the evening news and seeing all the terrible things that are happening. Eden is lost, yet we all ache for it.
There’s nothing we can do to make ourselves right with God. Nothing we can do to deal with the sense of estrangement, loss and dissatisfaction we feel. Nothing we can do to bring Eden back. But there is something God can do and He’s done it through His son, Jesus. He sent Jesus to live the perfect human life; perfectly pleasing to God. He lived as we were designed to live, and He died a brutal death on a cross to pay the price for our rebellion, and then rose from the dead to defeat sin and death. In other words Past Salvation secures our standing with God.
Present Salvation
Present salvation means we are never alone. God promises in the book of Hebrews that He will never leave us or forsake us. We are invited into the eternal community that exists between the Trinity. God has saved us into an active, living and abiding relationship with Jesus where we get to walk in relationship with Him. That is the wonderful news of present salvation.
Future Salvation
When we know the inheritance and eternal future that awaits us, we don’t get as upset when life here on earth doesn’t go quite how we want it to. Future salvation frees us completely from trying to find heaven here on Earth. We are freed to joyfully accept all things--hardships, sacrifices, discomforts; because we know they are only temporary as we live as exiles on this Earth. Future salvation frees us from the tyranny of circumstance.
Songs:
In Tenderness by Citizens and Saints
All Glory be Forever by Sovereign Grace Music
The One Who Saves by Hillsong
I Will Trust You by Lauren Daigle