The Salvation of Christ: A Transformative Christian Book Study

1. Basic Christianity Brown Bag Book Study 2016 Bishop Mike Lowry March 17 Salvation and Response

2. Class Requirements: • Open participation and a prayerful willingnesstochallenge your own perceptions • An attitude of grace and respectful learning with regard to fellow classmates • Read the chapter(s) before you attend. (No exceptions!) • Brown bag your lunch and be on time. We will finish by 12:50 p.m.

3. The Salvation of Christ, 1 Five Images of Atonement: • Salvation = battlefield rescue • Redemption = freedom bought from slavery • Justification = verdict set aside in law court ruling • Pardon = declaration of forgiveness • Reconciliation = restoration of relationship Salvation is intimately tied to lordship! Who rules your life?

4. The Salvation of Christ 2: A work of the Holy Spirit “Jesus Christ offers to change not only our standing before God but our very nature.” (p. 120) Images of the on-going work of salvation • transformation • sanctification • new birth • new creation Abandoning a philosophy of sin-management.

5. The Salvation of Christ 3 “This is the open secret of how to live as a Christian. It is not about us struggling in vain to become more like Jesus, but about allowing him, by the power of his Spirit, to come and change us from the inside. Once again we see that to have him as our example is not enough. We need him as our Savior.”(p. 122) The Wesleyan concept of a synergistic relationship “Trust and Obey for there is no other way to be happy in Jesus but to trust and obey.”

6. The Salvation of Christ 4 • Christianity is not in the business of sin management. • A Way of thinking about salvation that is both orthodox and modern: • Addiction = sin • Salvation = Rescue or Deliverance Interlude One: Where have you experienced addiction (or the tug of addiction)? Where have you experienced rescue or deliverance?

7. The Church of Christ Salvation as communal (solitary religion is a lie) Jesus is calling out a People. 9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people who are God’s own possession. You have become this people so that you may speak of the wonderful acts of the one who called you out of darkness into his amazing light. 10 Once you weren’t a people, but now you are God’s people. Once you hadn’t received mercy, but now you have received mercy.(1 Peter 2:9-10)

8. The Church of Christ (cont’d) The Social dimension of salvation • On earth as it is in heaven. (Matthew 6:10) • I saw a new heaven and a new earth. (Revelation 21:1) “I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. 3 I heard a loud voice from the throne say, “Look! God’s dwelling is here with humankind. He will dwell with them, and they will be his peoples. God himself will be with them as their God.” (Revelation 21:2-3)

9. Response: The Call and Cost of Following Christ • A Claim of highest allegiance as Lord • the way of salvation – sanctification • Reign and rule • FDFers = Fully Devoted Followers of Jesus Christ • not by might nor by power but by the Spirit! • “Without God we cannot, without us God will not” (Bishop Augustine of Hippo)

10. Response: The Call and Cost of Following Christ • Steps that need taking: • A Crucial Turning - Renunciation of sin (repentance) • Renunciation of Self! • This is a First Commandment/Lordship issue • Calling for surrender • Take up the Cross (Mark 8:34) 34He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 35 For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel,will save it. • Lose Your Life (Luke 9:23) Interlude Two - What do you see as the common theme in the steps to response?

11. Response: The Call and Cost of Following Christ • Steps that need taking (continued) • Public Acknowledgement/Witness • Incentives: • For your own sake • For Christ’s sake • For the Sake of Others • Witness (p. 144) Interlude Three - What public witness is the Lord calling on you to make in His name? How do you explicitly live out His Lordship (reign and rule) over your life?

12. Reaching a Decision Interlude Four – What is most striking and instructive in Holman’s The Light of the World for you? What decision about/for Christ have you put off making? Are you ready to make the decision? If not, why not?

13. Being a Christian 1 • Intimate Relationship -the crucial importance of spiritual formation • Let’s hear it for the Wesleyan Class meeting • Quiet! • An Assured Relationship • Inner and outer peace • Living as a different human being • A Secure Relationship • Justified once, forgiven every day, moving on to perfection (holiness of heart and life)

14. Being a Christian 2 Back-Sliding Methodists!? “If anyone persists in disobeying God’s commands and in disregarding his duties to other people, he writes, then he is not a Christian, whatever he may say. Righteousness and love are indispensable marks of the child of God.” (p. 160) Are you saved? De-facto and De-jure, justification and sanctification, the porch (prevenient grace), the door (justifying grace), and the living room (sanctifying grace). There is yet more but we shall stop for now.

15. Q & A

16. Upcoming Brown Bag Studies Are you interested? Possible different format? Possible topics: The Trinity Orthodoxy & Heresy The Class meeting Thank you for the joy of sharing in intentional faith development! Bishop Mike Lowry

17. Basic Christianity Brown Bag Book Study 2016 Bishop Mike Lowry March 17 A replay of the webcast will be available later this afternoon. ctcumc.org/BBBBS16-replay An edited version of today’s discussion with slides will be available for viewing, downloading and sharing by 5 p.m. Friday, March 18 Please go to ctcumc.org/BBBBS16 to access all media downloads.