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“Daily Salvation” Part One
Broadcast #1567
October 16, 2022

Transcript of message from TV Broadcast 1567 -- taken from Closed Captioning Text

— Brother Phil Enlow: You know, I’m afraid that in modern Christianity much of it is…some of it’s real but so much of it’s not. But the concept of salvation is almost an event. And you come to a place where you realize you’re a sinner and Jesus paid for your sins, and so you put your faith in His forgiveness, and then you are saved. Well, there’s a truth in that, where that’s real and where there is a genuine transaction with heaven and where Christ not only forgives sins, but there’s a new birth that happens. There’s a new life that’s imparted. Yeah, so in that sense, salvation is an event, but salvation, really, is a lifetime!

( congregational amens ).

It is a process. There’s a scripture, in one place, where the translation, the newer translation says, “…to us who are being saved…” (NIV). It talks about the Gospel, I believe that’s 1st Corinthians. The Gospel is foolishness to those who don’t believe. “…But to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” So really, you’re talking about salvation as a daily thing.

And that’s where I see God wanting to work in me. Again, I don’t think this is just for me. But I sense His seeking to bring me to a deeper realization of the fact that there is a process in which I need to actively believe Him, and believe Him in the face of real needs. It’s wonderful to believe Him in the face of my need, when I come to the realization that I am a hopeless sinner, who has no power to do any better, that I have a load of guilt that I can do nothing about and then I see that He has done it all.

( congregational amens ).

He has…Christ went to the cross in my place, and then I come to a place where my faith is exercised in Him. But there’s faith that God wants you and me to be exercising every single day.

In fact…you know, I made this point, out of Romans 5, a number of times, that it’s not the death of Christ that saves us, according to Paul. The death of Christ reconciles me to a God. See, I was God’s enemy, and I needed to become His friend. I needed to be reconciled. I needed that gap, that barrier that separated us, to be gone. His death accomplished that.

But he says, while we’re reconciled by His death, we’re, “…saved through his life!” So, now you bring that into the context of salvation being a process. It’s that new life that has to find some expression in me. That’s what changes me into His image.

You know, salvation is not just a ticket to heaven because He’s forgiven my sins. I’m not fit for heaven. He’s got some work to do to get me ready. But He’s up to the task, isn’t He? So, Paul paints, first of all, this glorious picture of what God has done for us, and then he comes to the place…the verse we quote so often. “Now to him…” the end of chapter 3. “Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine….”

Do you sometimes get to a place where you can’t even imagine something changing? But He’s able to do, “…more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us…” It’s not my power, but it’s His power. Praise God!

And He’s not gonna stop working, is He? Not in His people. “…To him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever!” So, that’s the context. A very quick summarization of it, but we’re familiar with the scripture. That’s the context that sets up everything that follows, because what follows is, now what about our place in this? What do we do with this? What is God looking for from us?

And of course, the first part of this chapter 4, up to verse 16, I believe, is again, a big picture. Paul is painting a picture of what the body of Christ is about, how in broad terms it’s meant to function.

And it’s really…you could look at this, almost, as a utopian dream. How many times do you think back, oh, isn’t that wonderful and I acknowledge that, but it’s like…okay, now back to reality? As though that’s…yeah, I see some heads nodding. And I believe God wants to get this beyond a utopian dream, that okay, this is something we acknowledge, theologically this is what we’re supposed to be, but in reality it just ain’t happening. At least, not quite like this.

But I’ll tell you, God has called us, and this is the picture. “…I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.”

Then he states the simple picture, the fact: “There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it.”

And then he talks about how Christ came down, and accomplished everything that the Father gave Him, and when He went back, He had a different position. He was in a position to share God’s love, to share God’s life with you and with me. Not just to be with us…remember He told His disciples the Holy Spirit is, “...with you, and shall be in you.” That’s what’s changed! Oh, God has been able, through the blood of Christ, to cleanse the human heart, as wicked as it is. To reach down to the lowest of the low and make us clean in God’s sight, so that He can come in and live! Praise God!

( congregational amens ).

So, he talks about how Christ ascended to heaven and now He’s in a position to fill everything. Oh, Praise God! I’ll tell you, there’s coming…there’s coming a creation that will be so full of the life of God that’s all there’ll be. Everything else will be done away with. It will end.

Then of course, then he gives us the picture of the order in which God has set up. And we used to hear about apostles and prophets and evangelists and pastors and teachers, and I want to drop this in because I think this was…there was a certain amount…I don’t know how to put it, exactly.

You know, one of the things that’s bedeviled the church, from the beginning, is this clergy-laity business, where you’ve got two classes of people. You’ve got the clergy and they’re up here, and they talk to God and then they come down and tell us what God says. And we’re just the ordinary people. What you have here is gifts that God has given, not to elevate a special group of people so we blindly follow them, but rather that they have the ability to impart what we need so that the whole body functions!

( congregational amens ).

I mean, you listen to some of the folks today who emphasize this kind of stuff, and then you listen to Peter, writing to the other elders, and said I, “...who am also an elder…” (KJV). He puts himself right there beside them, not above them, talking down to them. I just pray that God will help us to find the perfect balance where God can give whatever gifts He wants to, to whomever He wants. And we can respect those gifts. I mean, if somebody comes in and has the gift like the Apostle Paul, we need to recognize that.

( congregational amens ).

But God doesn’t give anybody a gift to be lifted up above everybody and be some kind of a dictator. We need to understand that Christ alone is the head of this church!

( congregational response ).

Lift Him up, and absolutely function under His headship, using…allowing all the gifts to be developed and exercised. And God has got a place for every single one of you and His place, His purpose for your life is that some aspect, some portion of His life and His nature will absolutely flow through you so that somebody else can benefit—others can benefit.

It’s not about selfishness anymore. That’s the very thing that God is doing away with. That’s human nature. But God has got a picture here where He is absolutely doing something that is miraculous. Okay, so that’s the utopian version of all that.

I just…I’m amazed when I think about what Paul is writing here and how high-blown and awesome and wonderful it is, and yet, then you come to a section that reminds us that Paul is not writing to super-spiritual people. These are people just like us. And he wants…and he’s writing to people who have just come out of heathen religion, heathen life. There were all kinds of sinful lifestyles. This is who Paul was writing to!

Again, these aren’t theology students. These aren’t special people who have paid a lot of money, gone off to this retreat because they’re hyper-spiritual. These are ordinary people. That’s what this message is for. And I just pray that this is something we will get. I don’t care who you are and what sewer God got you out of, or whether you may have lived a good life. I’ll tell you, we all come out of the same sewer!

( congregational amens ).

We all need a Savior! Praise God! There is One, that He has provided, the perfect Savior! But Paul, after he’s set up all of this amazing truth, this vision of where God is going with everything, now he gets down to the nitty-gritty of getting there, because you and I have a part to play, don’t we? It’s not just that we exercise faith to get our sins forgiven, it’s that we learn every day to deal with the issues of the day and exercise faith for God to save us from what we have been, and make us fit to walk in what He’s given us here.

( congregational amens ).

You see? That’s what I need. I don’t need to get up in the morning and say, well, I know it. I understand the thing. God’s gonna do it. Hallelujah! Let’s go about my day. God has got something that He is going to do in you and me, every single day, if we’re tuned in, and if we’re aware and if we’re honest. Okay?

So, first of all, he does give, again, a general principle here that sets up all the details he’s gonna go into. Verse 17 of chapter 4, “So I tell you this…” (NIV). So, again, everything he does is built…is a conclusion based upon what he’s already said. You know, he started chapter 4 with, based on all that God has done, here’s where we’re going with this, that we need to be the body of Christ. You need to learn how to be the body of Christ. And he talks about that and then he says, “So….”

Do you get the connection? This is not disconnected truth. In order for this…for what he’s just…the vision he’s just laid out to actually come into reality, this is gonna have to happen. Okay?

“So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do…” Or, you could just say the people of the world who don’t know God. “…In the futility of their thinking….” In other words, they’ve got ideas as to how things are, that ain’t going nowhere.\

 “They are darkened in their understanding and separated from…God because of the ignorance that is in them….” Now, if you were to stop there you could say, oh, good, I know what the solution is. They’re just ignorant. We’ve got to go inform them. I wish it were that simple. You read Romans 1 and you see the picture Paul paints there. This is very parallel to that. All right?

It’s the ignorance…they’re, “…separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts.” That’s the problem, is when God confronts a human heart, and the human heart goes like this and resists. And you do that long enough, as we’ve said many times, you’re gonna get to the point where there is no more capacity to even hear God’s voice. And there’s nothing ahead but judgment.

“…Due to the hardening of their hearts. Having lost all sensitivity…” See, there’s what we just said. “...They have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, and they are full of greed.” See, you’ve got people who just simply respond to their bodily desires, in any way they feel like it, or they’re all about possession. What I can control, what I can have and call mine, and that makes me feel like I matter and I’m important. Those are very common characteristics of human nature. All right?

It says, “That, however, is not the way of life you learned when you heard about Christ and were taught in him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus. You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.”

I mean, obviously you could easily build a sermon on that verse, and it’d be full of truth. In fact, I think we did one time. There was a sermon, or a message that we brought that was literally titled out of that, “Created to Be Like God,” something to that effect. But the fact is, that when we look at what God has done for us, it is so much more than the forgiveness of sins. There is a new life that has been imparted.

And he likens what the Gentiles do and what we’re not supposed to do to like wearing clothes. And there are clothes that we are to put off and we’re to put on something else. The reality is, what is it that people see in us, when we’re out here? Because that’s what comes out. It comes from something. How do we act? What are our attitudes? What are the characteristics of our life? What do…how do people see us? What affect do we have on other people?

And I see God wanting to fine-tune and work in all of us. But this is what salvation is about. This isn’t just us. This is every Christian that’s ever come to the Lord. And you know, again, we’ve talked many times about the Greek present tense, which is the simple present tense is a continuing thing. It’s not an action. It’s not something that’s done and over.

If a child grows, that’s not an action where they’re little and all of a sudden, boom, they’re big. But rather, there is a…they grow, and you see this gradual process that happens. And when the…it blows right over this, in verse 23, “…to be made new in the attitude of your minds….” Really, it’s be being made new.

See, there is…it’s like Paul says in Romans 12, we are being transformed, “…by the renewing of your mind.” Here, he talks about the attitude. But there is a life that we are able to put on. Now the question is do we do that? And this is what daily salvation is about, where we are confronted with a whole lot of situations that provoke what comes out of our human nature.

Now, how many of you know that if we don’t think about it, we will automatically react to life and to virtually everything based upon our human nature, which is always all about self, all about what I want and what I feel? And for that to change, in a practical way, there’s a lot that goes into that. Man, do I need the Lord?

( congregational amens ).

Do I have any hope of seeing this kind of change? I’m so glad that the message here is not, here’s all the bad stuff you’ve been doing. Stop it! You know, reform yourself! I’m sorry, the nature I was born with is way beyond reform. You can’t fix it! But God’s purpose is to give me a brand-new life, and that life is created. Didn’t he say we’re a new creation? Brand-new creation. It’s created to what? To be like God!

How many of you who really know the Lord, and you’ve been born of His Spirit, do you realize you’ve got a life in here that was created to be like God? In other words, what Paul is about to get into…do we have the resources for that or has God just sort of thrown us to the wolves and say, you’re a mess, go fix it?

Oh, thank God! From beginning to end, what God has given to us is so supernatural that we just don’t get it. And so often, we don’t connect what He has done for us. We don’t connect it with everyday life, and we just blunder through and act out…and the ‘clothes’ people see are coming from the old nature, and we don’t even realize it. We just do what it’s our nature to do and think, well, that’s just the way I am. It’s my personality, everybody knows that.

Oh, how many excuses do we make and yet, here’s Paul saying, no…you don’t live that way anymore. God’s given you the ability, in Him, to be a different kind of a person.

So, now he’s going to talk to these super-spiritual people here…and it’s very obvious they’re just ordinary people, aren’t they? That’s an encouragement to me that God reaches out to people like that, because I need—I need Someone like that. Oh my…apart from Him I’m a sinner without hope. But in Him, I have a perfect hope, because His name is Jesus! And Jesus—the name Jesus means God saves! It comes from Him.

Man, I believe in Him, don’t you this morning? That’s what God is seeking from me and from all of us, to exercise a practical faith in these little, daily things, so that we can actually participate and experience what He’s talking about here.

How many of you believe that God wants to bring us into a better and better picture of what He’s talking about in the first half of chapter 4? Where you see the Body of Christ, and every member is participating, and every member is a vessel through whom God gives life to others, and together we grow up, “…unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.” (KJV). Do you believe that’s possible? Do you believe we can move in that direction? Praise God!

Okay, “Therefore…” Again, you’ve got this connection back to everything he said. Everything leads to something else. “Therefore each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to your neighbor, for we are all members of one body.” (NIV). Wouldn’t it be nice if we could be sensitive to the Lord and have Him help us in this simple area like this, where there’s just a truthfulness and an honesty about ourselves?

My God, such a simple thing. And yet, how many of us blunder through life and justify this and justify that, and are unconscious of this and that? I want the Lord to shine the light where it needs to be shined, don’t you?

And you know, the devil could just make you afraid of that. But since God’s given me everything I need to overcome that, and to pull me out of that, that’s not a cause for fear. That’s a cause for thanksgiving. because the only way to get victory over anything, ultimately, is to face it!

And folks, if in one way or another you are a liar, don’t deny it. Say, God, work in my heart to bring me closer to what You want, because when I act in any way that’s deceitful, that’s not coming from You, is it? That’s not an expression of that new life that was created to be like God. That’s just my old nature trying to serve self.

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