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Welcome to Bibleline with Dr. Ralph Yankee Arnold, pastor of Calvary Community Church in Tampa, Florida. Clearly declaring the gospel of Jesus Christ through the radio and the internet. Your regular prayers and monthly support make it possible for Bibleline to continue on the air. You can reach us toll free at 1-800-576-3771. Online donations may be made through the Bibleline website at calvaryoftampa.org. We pray that you will enjoy our commitment to the clear gospel of Jesus Christ and that today’s message will be a blessing to you and your family.

I wanna speak to you on understanding our own terminology. A lot of times we say things!. People don’t understand. And we confuse people. Jesus made the statement feed my sheep. He didn’t say feed my giraffes. It means put the food down on the bottom shelf so everybody can understand it. Here in the book of Romans in chapter 8. Romans in chapter 8. The word adoption. The word adoption is used in the Bible. several places. But when it used in the Bible, what does it mean to be adopted?

Now, in the physical realm, in our time, we know that if you adopt some child, it’s not really your child, it’s somebody else gave birth to the child and you adopted it into your family. But when it comes in the Bible, what does it mean? Well, here in the Bible, it makes a statement in Romans in chapter 8. It makes the statement that we are going to be adopted and we’re waiting for the adoption which the Bible says to it the redemption of our body.

So look there in verse 23 and not only they but ourselves also which have the first fruits of the Spirit even we ourselves grown within ourselves waiting for the adoption to it the redemption of our body. There are several things about this adoption that’s use in the Bible. It’s also a reference to when you accepted Jesus Christ as your Savior. You were born into God’s family and you were removed from your first birth to your second birth. You were removed from the curse of the law and made free from the curse of the law.

So it is you being moved from a child of the devil under the law and now you are a child of God. Though you are born into God’s family, you have been placed into God’s family as his son. So it is the placing of a child of God into God’s family. Now that takes place the very moment that you and I trusted crisis our Savior. Now we are still waiting for the day in which we will literally have the adoption from this world and we will be moved from here and placed there and we become the mature sons of God and we will know even as we are known and we’ll all be spiritual up in heaven because we won’t have the old flesh nature.

As a child of God, we have been adopted into God’s family by the new birth. So that’s something that happens when you accepted Jesus Christ as your Savior. The day is coming when God is going to move us from this world into his family and therefore he says here in the last part of verse 23, waiting for the adoption to it the redemption of our body. That means the body is going to be removed from this world, it’ll be changed in a moment, the twint on of an eye if the Lord should come back in our lifetime and will be caught up to meet the Lord.

So number one is letter D, the act of God whereby one who is already a child is placed in the position of an adult son. Now I want you to turn your Bible to the book of Ephesians in chapter one, the book of Ephesians and chapter 1. Look there in verse 5. The Lord says that the very moment you trusted Christ as your Savior, you became His child because… God has from the foundation of the world predetermined that all those who believe in Christ will be made just like Christ.

You will become His child. You will have eternal life. You will be without spot. You will be without blemish. You will be perfect and pure and holy. But here in the book of Ephesians in chapter 1, look in verse 5, having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself. So you were not only born of God, but you have been given to Christ, adopted into his family. We have become not only a child of God, but we’re now Christians, placed into his family.

That took place the very moment you and I trust the Christ as our Savior. And when he says here, having predestined it, and in other words, that is an act of God. Predestination is an act of God. For knowledge is an attribute. That’s what he has. He has for knowledge. He knows the end from the beginning. But that doesn’t mean that’s what he does. God may know that tomorrow you’re going to rob the 7-11 store. But that would be sin.

That would be wrong. So God didn’t make you do it. though God may know what you’re going to do. So just because God knows something doesn’t mean God planned it. Not everything that we do is the will of God. If you reject Christ as your Savior, that’s not the will of God. If you as a child of God do not serve God, that’s not the will of God, but God will allow you to defy Him. But if you do, it is the will of God for Him to chasten you.

He said, according to the good pleasure of his, well, in other words, this is what places God did not ask you if he could do this. This is something that he did and he determined to do before you and I were ever born. He determined that all those who believe will become his child, place it to his family, and go to heaven whenever we die. That’s how I know I’m going to heaven because he determined that. It’s not based upon my good works because he determined it wouldn’t be based upon my good works.

book of Romans in chapter 4. As we look at what the word faith means because some people think that faith is the gift of God. Faith is not the gift of God because faith is the ability to put your confidence or your trust in something, someone. And so all of us can trust something. We can depend upon somebody. You reason you turn on the light switch at home is because you believe that if you do, the light will come on.

That’s faith. Or you put the keys in the car. Why do you do that? Because you believe that if you turn that key, that motor’s supposed to start. So you can demonstrate faith all the time. Well, when it comes to the Lord, it’s you putting that confidence in Him. You see, faith is not what’s going to save you. It’s the object of your faith. If I put my faith, all of my faith in Milton Hale to save me and take me to heaven when I die.

Well, there’s a problem. He don’t have the ability to do that. So I may have all the faith that Milton can do it, but see Milton don’t have that ability. So it’s the object of my faith. So if I put my faith in Jesus Christ, the object of my faith, he will save me. But if I trust my good works, my good works can’t save me. The church can’t save me. So whoever you’re trusting in must be able to save you.”

So Romans in chapter 4, look there in verse 21, and being fully persuaded that what he had promised, he was also able to perform. That’s faith. You believing that what God promised, he will perform. I trusted Christ as my Savior because he said that if I trust him, he would save me. So I believe he is able to do what he said he would do and he will perform that. He said if I trust him, he will take me where?

To heaven. All right, then it’s his job to get me to heaven, not mine, his job. So I’m depending upon him to keep his word and he cannot lie. Look up in verse 16 says, therefore it is of faith that it might be by grace. That means unmerited. It means you cannot earn it. You can’t work for it. You can’t buy it. You don’t deserve it. He says, it is of faith that it might be by grace to the end or for the result, the promise of eternal life might be sure to all perceive.

The only way you can be sure of going to heaven is because God says, I’ll make it by faith, you simply believe Him, and that it’s by grace means you don’t deserve it, but you’re going to take and trust Him. And God said, by you trusting Him, He saves you and gives you eternal life. And you can be sure. So faith is trusting Christ. Look Romans 8 and verse 30. The Bible tells us that there’s several things that God has determined.

And not only did he save you, but because of God’s foreknowledge, knowing you before you were ever born. God has predetermined that he is going to not only save all those who believe, so it’s up to you. But once you believe God says he is going to justify all those who believe, he is going to declare you righteous. He is going to glorify you. you. In other words, so that God from the beginning says, although that believe on me are going to get this, this, this, and this.

So if you believe, you’re going to get this, Ibid, this, and this. Because God said so. He predetermined. So you and I are supposed to believe that as a child of God, all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. So that as a child of God, I’m supposed to believe that God determined before the foundation of the world that all those that believe on Him, all things are going to work together for the good of all those who believe and love Him.

Now, you made me leave on Him and have eternal life, but you don’t love Him. And if you don’t love Him, you’re not going to serve Him. So, all things are not going to work to your advantage. They’re going to work against you, going to cost you. But if you love the Lord, I know that nothing in this world, in this life, is going to go against me from having the best that God wants me to have. Now look what he says in verse 30.

Moreover whom he did predestinate them he also called, and whom he called he justified, and whom he justified them he also glorified. So in the mind of God, God saw the end from the beginning. That’s what God could do. before this earth was made and before there was a person on the earth God already sees the end from the beginning and says all those that believe on him are going to be justified like they’ve never sinned and glorified glorified mean to be made perfect in body soul and spirit when you trusted Christ as your Savior he saved your soul and watched your soul white as snow but he didn’t into a theme with your body.

So you’re waiting for the day when your body is going to be redeemed and glorified and you will be in the presence of God. He has saved you from hell but he hasn’t got you to heaven yet. But that is just as sure as the day he saved you because you see it’s all one package. When you get one thing you get all the rest of it because you’re a child of God. It all comes together one total package deal.

He determined that. Here in Romans in chapter eight and verse 30 when he makes the last statement there, then he also glorified as though it’s a done deal, but it’s not totally done yet. Look at the next statement, justification. Turn to Romans chapter five and verse nine. Romans chapter five and verse 9. Justifications are word that’s used in the Bible. It’s a judicial term in the words it’s like the judge declaring something. You have been found guilty, charges have been brought against you and then for some reason the judge declares you not guilty.

And we know that it’s because somebody else took our payment. They found guilty of having our sins upon them. Christ took our sins, took took our guilt, took our condemnation, paid the price. And the Bible says, justification means God justifies you just as if I have never sinned. Just in the words like I never did it. And so that is what the word justification, see the letter C? Means to declare or pronounce righteous, to declare or pronounce righteous. God says, you are righteous.

Now look at me, I am a sinner. I’ve sinned every day of my life. And as long as I live in this world, I’m going to continue to have sin in my life, not because I want it, but because I was born with a sinful nature, just like you. But God has declared me a righteous man. I am justified. I’m going to heaven because he has justified me, declared me righteous, because somebody else took all my penalty, all my pain.

Now see there in Romans in chapter five and verse nine, Much more than being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. I have been justified, not going to be already have been. I am now a justified individual. I have been declared righteous. Look in Romans chapter five and verse 10. For if when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God. Look in your notes there, Roman numeral five, reconciliation. And look at letter E straight across from it.

Means to remove the problem between two parties at disagreement with each other. This is what they’re trying to get done with Israel and the Arab nations now, in the PLO. They’re trying to get somebody to reconcile their differences so they can have peace in the Middle East. Well, they’re not going to have peace in the Middle East. They’ll be a false peace treaty made, yes. But you and I the Bible says were enemies of God because we’ve sinned against a holy God.

So God says that we needed somebody to Rucking style us together. We need a peacemaker Somebody that represents God and somebody that represents man. Well who in the world could do that? Well, we need a perfect God man Wouldn’t it be good if we had a man that was perfect and God to represent God and a man to represent man man, one person that’s a mediator. Well, there’s only one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus. So Jesus Christ is the mediator and He paid for our sins in order to bring us and God together, reconciled so that we’re not at war with each other, so that God doesn’t have any reason to send me to hell.

And so now because of the payment He made reconciled me back to God. I can’t go to hell now because God has no charges against me anymore. His son paid for all of my sins. Therefore there is no condemnation to those that are in Christ. Redemption is what we get the word redeemed. If you go down to the pawn shop and you say, look, I want to let you hold this gun and it’s worth $500. And if you’ll give me $50, I’ll come in next week and redeem it.

So you’re supposed to go in the next week and pay them some money and redeem that rifle. It’s already was yours, it’s just you got to redeem it. That’s what happened to you and I. So when God created Adam and Eve, they already belonged to God. But because of sin, there was a payment to be made. The man couldn’t make the payment. Jesus Christ had to become as a man, our kinsmen, our redeemer. And He could make the payment for us so that we could be taken off the auction block.

And God says we are now His possession twice, one by creation and two by redemption. First, He is my creator. He made me and then He bought me. I belong to the Lord. I have been redeemed. Now we’re waiting for the day of redemption, which means one day we’re going to be redeemed from the world and we’ll receive the redemption of our bodies. Your body is going to be changed in a moment, the twinkling of an eye and caught up to meet the Lord in the air.

Regeneration and write down this verse, Titus chapter 3 verse 5 Titus chapter 3 and verse 5. This word speaks of the new birth. You see we often say well how many generations you know from Adam until Moses and how many generations from Moses on the David, how many generations from David onto the Messiah. The Bible talks about these generations. Then it makes a statement in the book of Genesis and these are the generations of Adam. Then when you get the book of Matthew in chapter 1 and says, and this is the book of the generation of Jesus Christ, and so and so be got, so and so and so be got, so and so these are various generations.

In other words, those that come after you, that’s another generation, one that come after them, that’s another generation. Well, see, when we are in this generation of human beings, we need to be born again. It’s called a regeneration, a rebirth, redone. I was born into this world And now to be born where I can be a child of God, it’s a regeneration. So it means a new generation, a new birth, a new creation born of God. I’ll look there in Titus chapter three and verse five.

Not by works of righteousness, which we have done, but according to his mercy, he saved us by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit. So the Holy Spirit creates within you a new birth, born again, born from above, born of God, a new generation of people. So now I am a part of a new generation. I’m part of all the believers that are in Christ. I was a family of the world. Now I’m a family of God.

I’m in His family, born into God’s family. And so the word regeneration means this. It’s not something that you do, this is an act of God that He performs in saving you because He says, by the Holy Spirit. Not by works of righteousness which we have done. That means that you are not saved or become a child of God. You don’t go to heaven because of your good deeds. In other words, God didn’t save you and let you go to heaven because you went to church and you gave money and you promised to live right.

If you trust in your good deeds in order to get you to heaven, then you don’t get to go to heaven. God will not save anyone who is trying to save themselves. If you believe that your good deeds are helping you to get to heaven, you don’t understand it. And you’re not trusting Christ. You’re saved by grace. Grace means without works. God will not save you with you doing good deeds and trusting Christ too. So I’m going to do both.

That’s in case you can’t because he says Christ becomes of no effect unto you. In other words, He can’t save you. No effect, no power. So you must trust Jesus Christ and Him alone. Turn in your Bible now under repentance to the book of Acts chapter 17. Acts in chapter 17. The Bible tells us that it is the will of God for every man to repent, look there in verse 30. Acts chapter 17 and verse 30. Verse 30 says, and the times of this ignorance, God winked at.

But now commandeth, commandeth, all men, every man, everywhere to do what? To repent. Do you have to repent to be saved? Yes, you do. But what does it mean to repent? Repent does not mean, like a lot of preachers tell you, that it means to turn from your sins. That is not true. That is a lie. Nobody can do it. Nobody’s ever done it. God’s never saved one man because he promised to stop his sins or because he stopped any of his sins.

God only saves a man because he trusts in Jesus Christ and him alone is his only hope to go to heaven. So the Bible says that repent is changing your mind, thinking different to reconsider. When used for salvation, it means to change one’s mind to think differently or reconsider. That’s what repent means. If you are an unbeliever and you become a believer, what have you done? Changed your mind. If you’re trusting in your good works to get you to heaven, you need to repent.

Change your mind. That will not save you. You must trust Christ as your Savior. So God commands everybody to repent. That doesn’t mean stop all of your sinning because that’s an impossibility. Nobody ever has, nobody can. And in this life you always have sin. That’s not the issue. But now notice what he says. Verse 29, for as much then as we are the offspring of God by creation, we ought not to think to think. The think means with the mind to think that the Godhead is like on the gold or silver or stone, driven by art man’s devices.

See, repent means to change your mind. So you’re thinking something that’s not true. You’ve got to think something else. And the Bible says that it is commanded of every man, repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. Don’t you trust in your good deeds to get you to heaven? You’re to trust in Jesus Christ and Him alone as your only hope of eternal life. Look at the next statement and turn in your Bible to the book of Philippians chapter 3.

Philippians chapter 3, this righteousness is man at his best before salvation. In other words there’s people who are trusting in their self-righteousness to get them to heaven. That means they’re righteous in and of themselves. They become the judge of their good deeds and sometimes they say yes I’m going to heaven because they believe they have lived a good enough life. And there’s other people that say well no I’m not going to heaven because in their judgment they believe they have not lived good enough to get there.

So they’re basing their eternal destination upon their righteousness, their self-righteousness. Whether it’s good or whether it’s bad. And so you have made a bad assessment. You see your salvation heaven or hell is not based upon your righteousness. Now look what he says here in Philippians in chapter three, looking verse nine. And be found in Him, not having my own righteousness. If it’s my own righteousness, it would be my self-righteousness, my righteousness in myself. What I did, look what I’ve done.

I sing in the choir, I go to church, I give money, I’ve done this, I’ve done a good neighbor, I pay my bills, I do all these good things. Therefore, if anybody makes it, surely I will. No, you won’t. Salvation is by grace for by grace are you say through faith that not of yourself. It is the gift of God, not of works, not of works lest any man should boast. So there is self righteousness and there is a God righteousness.

And God says, I’ll give you mine. Now if God walked in here right now and says, look, your righteousness to get to heaven is not good enough. I’ll give you mine. Well, if he gave me his righteousness, that would make me his righteousness. Who? The righteous is God. Look at the last one there in Romans in chapter 4. Look at this Romans chapter 4. This righteousness given the man at the moment of salvation. God giving you his righteousness. And look what he says there in verse 6, verse 6 of Romans in chapter for even as David also describe it the blessedness of the man on to whom God imputed imputed that means put to his account imputed righteousness without what without works in the word God give me his righteousness without my works but once you trust in Christ as your Savior and you have eternal

life is it the will of God for God’s children to live like God’s children yes we should I go to church? Yes, why? Because that’s his will. Should I give? Yes, because that’s what God wants. Should I pray? Yes, because that’s what God wants. Should I preach? Yes, because that’s the will of God. See, I do right not to get to heaven, but I’m doing because I’m going there. Look up here. This hand represents you and me. All of us represent sin.

We all have sin on us. God loves us. Hates our sin. And for you and me toERROR to heaven, we have to be perfect as righteous as God, no sin. Well, everybody’s a sinner, so we can’t save ourselves. And the Bible says the penalty is eternal separation from God in place called hell. So man can’t save himself, it’s not just what can be done. This sin represents Jesus Christ, he’s the Lord, God in the flesh. He came into the world because he loves us.

Our sin separates us from him. So Christ took the sin, paid for it on the cross, came back from the dead. And the Lord said that we would be lead that He did it for us. He would put the payment to our account. We would go to heaven on what Jesus Christ did for us. That’s free. That’s a gift. And once you trust Christ as your Savior, you have eternal life and God will never cast you out and never lose you.

You go to heaven whenever you die. That’s what I’ve done. I’ve done it a long time ago. I have eternal life. I’m going to heaven when I die. I’m sure. I know it. Guaranteed. If you have not trusted Christ as your Savior, right where you are today. You can accept Christ as your Savior. Before you get up and believe, you can know that you’re going to heaven. All that you have to do is Lord I know I’m a sinner.

I believe you paid for my Savior. And I’m going to trust you right now as my Savior. And God guarantees to save you if you turn a light, make you his child. You’ll go to heaven whenever you die. And he’ll never cast you out and never lose you. Let’s pray, shout. You’ve been listening to Bibleline, a teaching ministry of Calvary Community Church in Tampa, Florida with Dr. Ralph Arnold. We pray that you were blessed by today’s message. If you have enjoyed our commitment to the clear gospel of Jesus Christ, you can reach Bible line and pledge your support to keep us on the air in your area by dialing toll free 1-800-576-3771.

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Life broadcast of our services may be seen by going to our church website, calvaryoftampa.org. Thanks for joining us on Bibleline and now a closing thought from Pastor Arden. Friend, one day it will happen, the trumpet will sound, we will be changed. Caught up to meet the Lord in the air. So live today and every day, believing that the Lord is coming soon, and just keep looking up.