Question: Do I Have to Pray the Sinner’s Prayer to Be Saved?

We’ve been getting lots of good questions. This one is a pretty important question. I got it from two different ways, but the question itself is, do I have to pray the sinner’s prayer to be saved? If I prayed it, am I saved?

Some of you guys might not know what the sinner’s prayer is. It’s something that I was told when I was young. I think I went to an FCA camp and probably heard a lesson that said something at the end like, “Repeat after me.”

I’ll tell you the prayer that Billy Graham – he’s an old guy, he’s been gone a long time – but he said, “Pray a prayer like this.” And it said:

“Dear Lord Jesus, I know that I’m a sinner, and I ask for your forgiveness. I believe you died for my sins and rose from the dead. I turn from my sins and invite you to come into my heart and life. I want to trust and follow you as my Lord and Savior. In Jesus’ name, amen.”

That prayer is actually really, really sweet, really, really good. It encompasses all of the things that a person turning to Christ would probably say. But what I was told at the camp was, “Repeat after me. Say these words. Now, if you meant that with your whole heart, you will be in heaven. Your sins are forgiven. You’re going to be in heaven. And Jesus is your Savior. Congratulations, you’re saved. You don’t have to fear hell.”

And the problem was for me, I prayed that prayer, and I went home and I continued to live the exact same way that I had been living. I prayed that prayer, but my heart was unchanged. I said the words that somebody who was genuinely saved would say, but I wasn’t genuinely saved.

So, do you know what I did? I prayed it harder. I realized that my heart wasn’t changed, and I realized I didn’t have the confidence that the Bible talked about. I still feared God. I didn’t love God, and I didn’t look a whole lot different than the world. So I figured I needed to pray that prayer harder. So I prayed it harder. I just gritted my eyes harder like this, and I tried to mean every word of it.

I think I prayed that prayer almost every day for a few years – something like it. I told my mom, “Oh, I prayed the sinner’s prayer.” “Good job. Now you should get baptized.” So I got baptized. I wasn’t a Christian. I had prayed the sinner’s prayer like a thousand times at this point.

And then I got older and I went to college, and I didn’t want anything to do with God. I didn’t want to go to church. I lived for myself. And then one day, I remembered the gospel. I realized that I was a sinner – something that I knew in my head, but for the first time I felt in my heart. I knew that I was sick, and I knew that I was separated from God and that I deserved his judgment. I felt hopeless. I really felt hopeless. I’m like, I have sinned against a holy God.

We’ve been learning about the holy God. We learn what our sins deserve in his presence. And I felt something like Isaiah. Remember when we read from Isaiah in the throne room? “Woe is me.”

Nobody told me anything. I wasn’t praying a prayer. I went through a process though of: “I’m a sinner. You need a Savior.” I realized Jesus was that Savior, and I trusted in him for the first time. You know what’s crazy? I didn’t say a sinner’s prayer. I just trusted in Jesus. I might have said something like, “Have mercy on me.” I might have said something for the first time like, “Oh, Jesus, thank you. I love you.”

And you know what? I went out and I lived different – not to earn salvation, but because I was saved. And so that’s an interesting glimpse into my life because when I was your age, I probably would have asked a very similar question: “I prayed the sinner’s prayer. Am I going to go to heaven now?”

How Does the Bible Describe People Being Saved?

And so I wanted to go: is there a sinner’s prayer? Is there a prayer that Christians all pray in the Bible? Let’s just walk through. We aren’t going to be able to hit all of them, but when somebody in the Bible is saved, what happens?

Just some of the ones that came to my mind. If you guys remember, you remember the story of the sinful woman who came to Jesus, cried, wiped his feet, anointed him with costly perfume and oil. And Jesus said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.” Why? Why would Jesus say to her, “Your sins are forgiven?”

She believed Jesus. She knew who Jesus was. And when Jesus was explaining what had happened, Jesus said, “If you’ve been forgiven much…” She had been forgiven much. She was very thankful. Her worship, her expression of thanksgiving, was because she knew how sinful she was. She knew that she needed a Savior.

Similarly, there was a paralytic man. You remember the guy who was let down through the roof on the bed? His friends helped him down. Do you know what Jesus did when he looked at him? He said, “Your sins are forgiven.” Why? Because he believed that Jesus was who he said he was.

God saves not through words, not through doing something, not through saying the right words, but he saves by grace through what? Faith. Let’s all say it together: God saves by grace through faith. Apart from works, apart from words.

You know what I was doing? I was trying to say the words as if it was a work. I was trying to do something to get to God. I knew when I was young, I don’t want to go to hell. I want to get to God. So if I say the words hard enough and I do the right things and I go to the right church and I pray the right prayer, maybe God will accept me.

Did you hear what I was saying about that? “If I do, if I do, if I do.” Where was the focus? So often when we think of, “Can I say the sinner’s prayer and be saved? If I said the sinner’s prayer, am I saved?” the focus is on me.

But where was the focus for that lady, the one who was forgiven? On Jesus. Where was the focus for the paralytic man? On Jesus.

When Peter preached in Acts 2, he preached and all of the Jews who had just crucified Jesus said, “What shall we do?” They knew that they had sinned, that they had killed the Son of God. They said, “What shall we do?” What did Peter say? He didn’t say, “Pray a prayer.” Does anybody remember what he said? That’s good: “Repent and be baptized.” That’s good. Every one of you, for the forgiveness of your sins. Repent, be baptized, and you’ll be saved. Turn from your sins. Turn from who you were and put your faith in Jesus.

Similarly, Lydia – it says the Lord opened her heart. She believed, and she was saved. The Philippian jailer said, “What shall I do to be saved?” Do you remember what Paul said to the Philippian jailer when he said, “What shall I do to be saved?” Anybody remember? He said, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.”

How does God save? God saves by grace through faith, not by work or words.

Faith, Words, and the Sinner’s Prayer

All right. But you know what? Sometimes faith will be expressed by words. You guys remember there’s a parable of a tax collector and a Pharisee. The Pharisee said things like, “Oh God, I’m so grateful that I’m not like this sinner over here.” And what did the tax collector say? Does anybody remember what the tax collector said? He said words: “God, be merciful to me, the sinner.”

Were those words trying to earn him salvation? No. Those words were a plea from his heart. “God, I need mercy. Be merciful.” You know what Jesus said about that guy? He went down to his house justified. Justified means being made righteous. He knew he was a sinner, and he was made righteous – by grace through faith. But that faith was expressed in words.

Similarly, the thief on the cross. Do you remember what he said? There was a thief on the cross. He didn’t pray a sinner’s prayer. Does anybody remember what he said? He was hanging there knowing it was hours before he would die. You’re close, you’re saying it, that’s so close. But he did say, “Jesus, remember me.” He knew Jesus was his only hope. He knew if he had to stand on his own, he’d be condemned. So he said, “Jesus, remember me.” Jesus said, “Surely this day you’ll be with me in paradise.” He was forgiven. He prayed a prayer.

So the Bible is consistent that “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.” So a believing heart – a believer – will have a heart that matches their belief. And a believer will have words come out of their mouth that match that belief. And a believer will have acts come out of their hands, out of their life, that match their belief.

So you know, a believer probably will pray something like the sinner’s prayer:

“Dear Lord Jesus, I know that I’m a sinner” – not to say, “Yep, I know I have to say the right thing so I get to heaven,” but where the heart’s cry is, “I am a sinner, and I ask your forgiveness.” You hear those echoes of the cries of the people of God: “I’m a sinner. I need your forgiveness. I believe that you died for my sins and rose from the dead.”

“I turn…” Right? Peter said – or they said, “What do I have to do to be saved?” “Repent and believe.” Turn from your sins. The prayer says, “I turn from my sins and I invite you to come into my heart and my life. I want to trust you as my Lord and Savior.”

So, do you see the difference? It’s not that every single person that says the words is saved, but every single person who believes on the Lord Jesus Christ will be saved. Not a single person who trusts God for salvation will be left on their own.

How do you know that you trust God? You’ll say words that express that trust, and you’ll live a life that expresses that trust.

If You’re Struggling with Assurance

So the answer is: believe in your heart, and you will confess with your mouth. But that confession, that sinner’s prayer, is the fruit that comes out of the tree of faith, not the root of salvation. The words and heart must go together.

So I hope that’s helpful. If you’re struggling with, “I really, really want to be a believer, and I say the words, but I’m not sure that I mean them right,” talk to me or talk to one of your leaders. I don’t want you to be left in a limbo like I was, a situation of thinking that you have to do it just right or say the right things.

But I’ll tell you: if you are a sinner, and you say, “God, please save me,” it’s not the words. But if you really know that you’re a sinner, believe in God – not just that God exists, demons know that – but you trust that God loved you and gave himself for you, and we’re going to learn more today about what that means, he will save you.

So put your faith in him. Trust him. As you hear me talk today about Christ’s work on the cross as your substitute, don’t just say, “Hey, I wonder if Jesus is my substitute,” but I want you to pray, “God, those sins that I was talking about Jesus bearing, God, can you take mine?” Confess your sins, turn from them, and believe in him, and then come talk to me. Talk to your leader. Talk to your parents. Don’t fight that fight or sit in that situation of being unsure on your own.

So thank you for whoever asked that question, those questions. That’s a good one. It’s a really important one.

Transition: From the Sinner’s Prayer to the Work of Christ

And we are now going to move on to thinking about something that will help you understand what it means to trust God. We’re going to go to – we’ve been working through the Fundamentals of the Faith. That’s a workbook I think some of you have been going through with your parents, not everybody. We’ve gone through lessons one through four already.

So, what’s the Bible? We’ve learned about God and his characteristics and his attributes. Remember, we then learned about Jesus, the person of Jesus. He was fully God and fully man. And now chapter five is the work of Christ, the work of Jesus.

And so we’re not going to be able to focus this week on all of it. Next week we’re going to do one of those breakout sessions where we go through it, you guys look up verses, and we look and you guys are going to learn some more than what we’re just talking about today.

But today we are going to look at one work of Jesus in particular that really is the foundation of almost all the others that he accomplished, which is Jesus as our substitute. Jesus is the substitute of all those who would be saved.

Jesus Our Substitute in 1 Peter 2:24

So open your Bible to 1 Peter chapter 2. 1 Peter chapter 2 verse 24. We’re going to look at two passages in here. There are so many in the Bible that we could go to for this idea of Jesus being our substitute, but we’re going to start here. We’re going to look at 1 Peter 2:24 and then 1 Peter 3:18.

We’ll start at 1 Peter 2:24, and we’re going to look at each of these. We’re going to look at two things. We’re going to look at his work of substitution – that he was our substitute – and then what that substitution accomplished.

So first, what is substitution? Anybody who’s in school, have you ever had a substitute teacher? What’s a substitute teacher? Yeah. The teacher that replaces the other teacher. It’s somebody who stands in the place of somebody else. So Jesus, when we say Jesus was our substitute, he stood in our place.

What did he do? In what way was he our substitute? We’re going to see that today in these verses. So 1 Peter 2:24 says, “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree.”

Jesus was our substitute by bearing our sins in his body on the tree. What does that mean? Well, first, “he himself.” This is a funny way of saying it. It didn’t just say “he.” “Jesus bore…” It says “he himself.” It’s a really emphatic way where Peter is saying Jesus himself willingly, totally – Jesus and Jesus alone – did something. He bore.

“Bearing” isn’t necessarily a word that we use a lot. Does anybody know what bearing means? What does it mean to bear something? Yeah, David. To hold, to carry, to take on himself. Yes. So Jesus took our sin. He actually removed it from us. And this is only for those who have their faith in Jesus.

There are people who say, “No, I want to do this myself.” This is what religion does. Religion says, “No, I think I can carry it myself. I can carry my sins, and if I do enough good works, my good works will outweigh my bad works, and I think I’ll be okay.”

But the Bible teaches something completely different. Completely different. Jesus – because all of that is not sufficient, it’s untrue, you will not be saved by doing that – the Bible teaches right here very clearly that Jesus took our sins off of us, or the Father took our sins off of us and placed them on Jesus.

It wasn’t just a whole bunch of sins in general. Every time that you talk back to your parents, if you’re a Christian, that sin deserves death. That sin in and of itself is defiance, rebellion against God, and that itself you would pay for forever. You could not pay that off. God would be right to pour out his judgment on you. You cannot be in his presence as a sinner.

Every single person in this room, every single person who has ever lived except for Jesus, has sinned – not just once, but many times. And every single one of those sins was taken; the penalty from it was taken off of you, if you believe, and placed on Jesus. And he bore it. He took it away from you in his body.

We learned last time that Jesus had a real body. Jesus wasn’t just God in some fake form that sort of looked like man. He was man so that he could bear man’s sins – the sins of humans, the sins of people who would believe in him.

Jesus removed the curse of our sins from us. That’s what it means: he bore our sins in his body on the tree. You might think that’s a funny way to say it. Why didn’t it say “cross”? Well, because in the Old Testament in Deuteronomy, it says that everyone who is hanged on a tree is cursed by God. And Galatians in the New Testament takes that and says that’s why Jesus was hung on a tree: because he actually bore a curse from God.

Jesus, who was God, was cursed by God. He was punished by God. He was separated from God as he bore sins. We’ve already learned that sins can’t be with God. And so God took our sins, for all who believe, put them on Jesus, and then treated Jesus as if those were his.

Except Jesus wasn’t just any man. He was God the man. And Jesus could bear those sins away completely. That’s why, if you have put your faith in Jesus, you know those sins and their penalty don’t remain. It’s not like Jesus lifted 95% of them and you have to do five. Some religions teach that. Some “Christian” religions say something like that – like you just need Jesus’s help, but you have to do your part too.

Ever heard the word “purgatory”? That’s a completely foreign idea to the Bible – that you have to go and be punished for your sins, that some sins are bad, Jesus took away most of them, but you have to be punished too. That idea is nowhere in the New Testament. It says, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” There’s no punishment for sins. Jesus bore them.

“He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree” – why? “That we might die to sin and live to righteousness.” That’s the next part. He bore your sins. He was your substitute. God treated him like he should have treated you and me and all the millions who put their faith in him. Why? What was the accomplishment? “That we might die to sin and live to righteousness.”

That word “might” sounds funny. It sounds like “that we might maybe be able to do it.” That’s not what it means. It’s actually the purpose: you could say “so that we would die to sin.”

Do you guys remember baptisms last week? Some people in this room. Baptism is a picture of this. When God saves you, he takes the sin off of you and puts it on Jesus. It’s not only the penalty for that sin, but he heals you from sin’s power.

For the first time, if you believe, you can glorify God. You can obey him from the heart. You can live to righteousness. Apart from Jesus taking your sins on him, bearing your sins away, there is no good part of you. You might think you’re doing good, like better than your friends, but before God, even your best works are sinful because you’re not doing it for his glory.

But now Jesus takes – or God takes – the sins off of you, and Jesus bears them away. It says that you died to sin, or literally the sin is removed from you. It’s that you’ve passed away, that you could be apart from sin. That word “die” is not the normal word for “die,” but it’s that you would be apart from or separate from sin, and to live to righteousness.

And that’s what you see in baptism. That’s why the New Testament commands, “Believe and be baptized.” Show yourself, show the world what God did for you. He took your sins off and put them on Jesus, your substitute. And then he changes your heart so that what you used to live for – you used to live for sin – that old person is dead. That’s what you saw when people went under the water. They weren’t dying in that moment, but they’re saying that old being who lived for sin, that’s not me anymore. That person is dead. Now I’m alive to Christ. I’m living for righteousness.

That’s not something you do. That’s something that only God can do. And he only does that by grace, through faith – not by works or words.

“By his wounds you have been healed.” This is a clear call back to Isaiah 53. Seven hundred years before this was written, Isaiah prophesied Jesus’s death: “He was pierced for our transgressions.” You see the substitute? He was pierced for the transgressions of those who would believe. He substituted in the piercing; the punishment that should have been ours was his. “He was crushed for our iniquities.” The punishment, the destruction that should have been ours was his. “And with his wounds we are healed.”

That’s what this is saying. This is the Old Testament doctrine of penal substitution: God taking the penalty from us, placing it on Jesus, and with that we are actually healed from sin’s power. One day we’re going to be healed from sin’s death. There will be a day when all who have believed, there will be no more sickness, no more pain, no more death.

This is not a physical healing now. One day it will be complete and be a physical healing. This is a healing from sin’s power because, and only because, Jesus is the substitute for all who would believe.

So when you say, “I believe in Jesus, I trust in him,” what are you saying? “I trust that Jesus’s death was sufficient, that it actually accomplished what it says it did, that it took God’s wrath from me and placed it on him.”

How do you know if you’re not believing that? It would be like somebody saying, “I know a parachute is sufficient to get me to the ground.” You’re falling out of an airplane. You say, “I trust in this parachute. I need a parachute,” and you’re sitting there flapping your arms. You’re saying, “I need to flap my arms.” And your friends are like, “Dude, you’ve got a parachute.” “Oh yeah, I trust my parachute,” and you’re flapping your arms.

No, you’ve got to open it, right? You’re not putting your faith in the parachute; you’re trusting yourself. I know that’s silly, but it is no less silly – it’s actually no less silly – than saying, “Oh yeah, I know that I’m a sinner, separated from God, separated from the infinite God, that I could never repay that debt,” and then you’re trying to handle it by religious effort or maybe ignoring the sin.

It would be like somebody who’s falling with a parachute, and they’re like, “Hey, don’t you know you’re falling?” “Oh yeah, I know I’m falling. And when I hit the ground, I’ll die.” And you’re like, “Why aren’t you pulling the parachute?” “Well, this is fun.” And you’re free-falling. You say, “Oh yeah, I know I need a parachute to save me. I’ll pull it later someday.” Or maybe you’re denying that there’s ever going to be ground or something like that, and you’re hurtling toward the ground. You know in your head, “Yeah, I need a parachute,” but you’re living like you don’t need one.

Jesus is the parachute. Jesus is your only Savior. That illustration falls short on a number of counts, but you know: knowing that you have the opportunity to put your faith in a substitute and then continue to live for yourself is just foolish. That’s dumber than the guy falling out of an airplane ignoring the parachute that’s available to him.

You know what? All of us are born with spiritual blindness, where we are blind. It’s a foolish thing; this message that we need a Savior is foolishness. The world will say, “Don’t believe that. Trust your heart. Trust yourself. You don’t deserve God’s wrath. Your sin isn’t that bad. Don’t listen to those people who are always talking about sin.”

Why are we talking about sin so much here? Because sin separates us from a holy God. And God, in love, sent his Son to bear our sins in our place, in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness.

To trust that good news means that you have to know the bad news – that you’re a sinner separated from God and that there’s a solution. If you don’t know that you need a Savior, you can’t trust in him. And when you’re saved, if you don’t know just how bad that sinful life that you’re living for was, you won’t know to turn from it.

So Jesus died as our substitute so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness, that by his wounds we were healed.

Jesus Our Substitute in 1 Peter 3:18

And then 1 Peter 3:18 – similar: “Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God.”

You see the work of substitution? Jesus Christ suffered for sins. Were they his sins? No. They were my sins. He suffered for the unrighteous ones. He suffered for the unrighteous ones, but he was the righteous one. He had no business suffering, but he suffered – the righteous one in the place of the unrighteous.

Why? This purpose is glorious. If you don’t want this purpose, you are not a Christian. You do not get to come to God and say, “God, just bring me away from hell. I don’t want to suffer.” You know, when God changes your heart, he makes you not love the world. He makes you love him. And what do you want to do with the one whom you love? You want to be with the one whom you love.

The greatest good that Jesus accomplished through substitution was this: Christ suffered in our place that he might bring you to God.

Do you get this? We were separated from God, deserving his wrath, and we could not be in his presence. If we, unrighteous sinners, were in his presence – we saw what happened, right? Isaiah: “Woe is me.” He had to be cleaned. Nadab trying to come into God’s presence in a way that he didn’t provide – what happens? It’s incineration.

Jesus died to bring us to God. This is such good news. We will be with God.

You remember the story I taught you about the tabernacle? God’s presence was in a special way in there, in the Holy of Holies. And in that room only the high priest could go once a year on behalf of the people, after making atonement for himself and for all the people. Remember, there’s blood everywhere, and that sacrifice had to be made year after year after year. The blood of bulls and goats couldn’t take away sin.

The people would forever be seeing, “We are separate from God. There is a holy place that we cannot approach except by blood. And only one of us can go in.”

But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, once for all, he sat down at the right hand of God. And he was done. You remember what Jesus cried out on the cross? “It is finished.”

You know what else he cried out on the cross? Remember, God the Son forever, for eternity past, had been in perfect fellowship with God the Father, enjoying perfect fellowship and love and oneness. Jesus, in his body as he bore our sins, hung there and cried, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” Does anybody remember what that means? “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

God the Son was forsaken by God the Father. Remember, it all went dark for three hours as God the Son hung there and God the Father punished him, crushed him. Why? Because he was our substitute. In three hours Jesus bore the wrath that would have taken an eternity to pour out upon you and on me.

And if Jesus is not your substitute, “I still occupy the place of a condemned sinner. If my sins and guilt are not transferred to him, if he did not take them upon himself, then they remain with me. If he did not deal with sin, I must face its consequences. If my penalty was not borne by him, it still hangs over me.”

So when Jesus cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” did the Father answer? It was silent. It was silent. And he said, “It is finished.” Then he hung his head. And then what happened? Three gospels say the exact same thing: after he died, the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom.

Jesus died, the righteous for the unrighteous, that we might come to God. No longer will we be separate, no longer will we have to come to God by blood of bulls and goats that can never sacrifice sins. Instead, Jesus paid our debt with his own blood – a blood that was sufficient, that once for all could take away our sin. And it wasn’t our blood. It should have been our blood. It should have been our death forever. But it was Jesus’s in place of all who would believe.

So you know what? You guys have to respond to this. You can’t sit back and just say, “Well, that’s cool, I’m glad I know that.” That’s like the guy with the parachute learning about the theory of gravity and the imminence of the earth coming up and not wanting to pull the cord.

But even better, this is you hearing of the horrible consequences of your sin – no hope. You’ve heard that. And you’ve heard of the wonderful substitute who offered himself in your place, who actually paid for sins.