The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. —John 10:10

Eternal Life = Knowing God (John 17:3-4)

Week 1:

On the day of Pentecost, the Kingdom of God became

for ordinary human beings
to live in through the Holy Spirit of Jesus.

The Kingdom of God or Kingdom of

is where what God wants done is done.

Eternal life is something we experience now through becoming Jesus’

, which death is then unable to stop.

“Eternal life in the individual does not begin after death, but at the point where God touches the individual with redeeming grace and draws them into a life interactive with himself and his kingdom.” —Dallas Willard

Week 2:

Salvation isn’t about getting you into heaven; it’s about getting heaven into

.

The message of Jesus is not

the forgiveness of sins that allows us to escape the bad place.

Jesus offers a

which includes forgiveness, but also includes so much more available now.

“To ‘trust Jesus’ in the Gospels simply means to think Jesus is right – about everything – and therefore to be ready to do what he says, not as a means of getting into the good place but as the best advice from the wisest person possible.” —John Ortberg

Being saved always involves being both saved from something and saved

something.

Today:

We have two kinds of problems: problems

of me and problems

Reveal Answer

of me.

Jobs, relationships, bank accounts, my HOA, a presidential election are

problems.

Pride, addiction, insatiable desire, envy, jealousy, cold-heartedness, and deceit are

problems.

Evil is to will the

. Love is to will the good.

Jesus came to give us life and evil is literally the opposite of the life Jesus came for us to

.

Suffering happens to you. Evil happens

you.

Evil must be fought

it is found.

“If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being.” —Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Salvation doesn’t mean simply being rescued from the

of wrong choices.

“Being consumed by sin is more to be feared than being punished for it.” —John Ortberg

Salvation is to become

, to be healed, to be changed into truly good people “fit for heaven.” (Isaiah 12:2)

“Grace is God doing in us and for us what we could not do ourselves.” —Dallas Willard

When we understand salvation

, it feels like a “bait-and-switch.”

The salvation Jesus offers is bigger and grander and more

than simply making the cut.

“There is no problem in human life that apprenticeship to Jesus cannot solve.” —Dallas Willard

The great difference between Jesus and religious leaders was that they regarded exclusion of other as

,
whereas Jesus regarded such exclusion as sin. (Luke 7:47, Luke 19:9)

Jesus offered a new way of

who was in and who was out.

With Jesus at the center, what matters is

.

Are we looking, loving, sounding, acting more like Jesus?

Biblical salvation is so much

than having satisfied the minimum requirements. (Philippians 2:12-13)

“I’m not really born again; I’m in about my second trimester.” —New Testament Professor Dale Bruner

Action Step:

Ask Jesus to

you from the inside out from lust, greed, anger, arrogance, and a hard heart.

“My additional notes:

”.