I had an entirely different plan for next week’s sermon, but a question to the pastor from the congregation prompted me to change it.  I think the Holy Spirit had a better idea.  You might think of this as another installment on my unplanned series on Christianese words.  This week we’re going to talk about getting “saved.”  Most if not all of you who are likely to be hearing this have already given your lives to Jesus.  You may consider this a very elementary topic, but I have found over the years that even among sincere Christians there is a lack of understanding that makes it hard for us to communicate to those who may question us the importance of the Gospel message.  In fact, if we do not understand what it is we were saved from and why we needed saving, we may need to reevaluate what it was that we did when we prayed that special prayer.  Certainly we will have an incomplete understanding of the grace and mercy given to us by God.

We’ll start in the famous passage of John 3:16-17.  It is my prayer that after this Sunday we will have a greater comprehension of what Jesus did for us and a greater depth of knowledge from which to answer the question, “saved from what?”