Topic notes. The three-tense material in movement two is what separates this from an altar call with exposition attached.
Three texts, three costs
choose one[Luke 19 makes it concrete and financial]
Ephesians 2:8-9. By grace, through faith, not of works. Compact and doctrinal.
Luke 19:1-10. Zacchaeus. Salvation announced over a house, immediately after a man gives away half his property and repays what he extorted fourfold. Costs you the abstraction and makes it awkwardly material.
Romans 10:9-13. Confess and believe. The most quoted and the one most likely to be heard as a formula, which is a risk you should handle explicitly.
Three tenses
the useful move[this settles a lot of private anxiety]
The New Testament says have been saved, are being saved, and will be saved, in different places, about the same people. Past, present and future, held together without embarrassment.
A congregation taught only the past tense will measure everything against one remembered moment and worry when it feels distant. Preaching all three gives them a life rather than an anniversary.
Saved from what, into what
the questions to answer[most sermons answer neither]
Answer both explicitly. A sermon that leaves the first vague makes salvation sound like insurance, and one that leaves the second vague makes it sound like an exit rather than an entry.
Note that in Luke 19 the into is visible before anybody mentions the from. Zacchaeus is described as saved after he does something about his money, not before, and the order is worth sitting with rather than explaining away.
The trap
avoid this[the transaction]
Salvation as a completed transaction with nothing following. It produces congregations full of people who responded once, years ago, and have been waiting ever since for someone to tell them what it was for.