The Saying is Trustworthy

INTRODUCTION

· What is the meaning of Christmas? People have been asking that question for years and years. We get all sorts of answers to the question.

Our Christmas movies and shows tell us one thing:

Christmas is a big commercial racket. –Lucy Van Pelt, Charlie Brown Christmas

Christmas is when we realize the most real things in the world are the things we can’t see. –The Polar Express

That one isn’t bad!

Christmas isn’t just a day—it’s a frame of mind. –Valentine Davies, Miracle on 34th Street

This one, on the other hand, is a bit too new-age/Oprah for me.

And of course, Dr. Seuss tells us that, “Christmas doesn’t come from a store. Christmas perhaps, means a bit more.” (The Grinch Who Stole Christmas)

Our songs try to tell us as well:

If you ask Stevie Wonder, he will tell you, “Candles burning low, lots of mistletoe, lots of snow and ice, everywhere we go. Choir singing carols, right outside my door, all these things and more…That’s what Christmas means to me my love.”

The Eagles say that “Christmas is the time of year to be with the ones you love.”

And Run DMC say it’s all about “mom cooking chicken and collard greens, rice stuffing and macaroni and cheese and Santa putting gifts under the Christmas Trees.”

Or maybe we can laugh at the dry, frank language used by GK Chesterton. He was known for his wit. He said Christmas is all about sentiment and symbolism and if you don’t care for that, he had advice for you:

If you do not like sentiment and symbolism, you do not like Christmas; go away and celebrate something else.

G. K. Chesterton

We can hear what all these voices say...

But in 1 Timothy 3:15 God settles it once and for all. He tells us exactly what Christmas means. He tells us exactly why the first Christmas came to pass in the first place. He tells us why Jesus was in that manger.

So that is what we will do this morning. Just one verse with two clear truths for us. Let me pray for us and then we will read it together.

PRAY and READ 1 Timothy 1:15

1 Timothy 1:15 ESV

The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost.

WE ARE SINNERS

The first thing we learn from this passage this morning is not good news. It is bad news.

But if the good news and great joy of Christmas is going to make any sense to us, it must be preceded with the bad news delivered by the Apostle Paul in this verse.

Before we can celebrate that Jesus came into the world to save sinners, we have to face the reality that we actually are sinners.

I think that right off the bat, the true message of Christmas becomes hard for us to swallow because we like to fancy ourselves as fairly good people. People who are not in need of saving.

In fact, if you know anything about the guy who wrote this letter in the Bible, you might feel more entitled to your case that you are a pretty good person.

After all, this guy in 1 Timothy, who says that he is the “foremost” of sinners—the chief of sinners—he is a pretty rough character.

Before the Apostle Paul was the Apostle Paul, he was murderous bully. He was a Pharisee—a keeper of the law—who was out making sure the movement of Christ followers in Judea would die with their leader Jesus.

In Acts 8, after the murder of Stephen, the Bible says:

Acts 8:1–3 ESV

And Saul approved of his execution. And there arose on that day a great persecution against the church in Jerusalem, and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles. Devout men buried Stephen and made great lamentation over him. But Saul was ravaging the church, and entering house after house, he dragged off men and women and committed them to prison.

And then in Acts 9, Saul is out on the prowl looking to do more harm.

Acts 9:1–2 ESV

But Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any belonging to the Way, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem.

But Jesus interrupted his plans.

Acts 9:3–5 ESV

Now as he went on his way, he approached Damascus, and suddenly a light from heaven shone around him. And falling to the ground, he heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” And he said, “Who are you, Lord?” And he said, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.

Saul’s whole life changed that day.

He would be stricken blind, make his way into the city of Damascus, met a guy named Ananias who prayed with him, regained his sight, stayed with some disciples there (who were all very freaked out about this murderer hanging out with them), preached the Gospel and escaped the city in a basket after a plan was made to kill him.

And this Jewish man who sought to kill followers of Christ, ends up being known as Paul. He takes on a non-Jewish name after his conversion and spends the rest of his life taking the Gospel to non-Jewish people!

It is an amazing story of change and transformation, but you might be sitting there thinking, “Well of course THAT guy had to be saved. He was murdering people and destroying families. There is no way God looks at me the same way!”

I take care of my family

I pay my bills

I’m friendly with my neighbors

I don’t do drugs

I volunteer in the community

Sure, I am not perfect—but I am generally a good person.

Surely I am the sort of person who does not need saving.

And what I would graciously suggest to you this Christmas morning, if indeed this is how you are looking at things, is that your whole view of morality is missing the mark.

Your view is, “As long as I don’t do anything that would make me bad person by societal standards, I should be considered good.”

And that means that God should consider you to be good as well. He should be count your societal goodness as being worthy of His acceptance and eternal life.

Essentially, it is the Charles Dickens morality.

As long as I am not a greedy crook who skims off the backs of the poor and makes them work on Christmas Eve, I am okay.

“I give to charities, I eat turkey with Bob Cratchit and I am a nice person.”

When God judges me at the end of my life, I shouldn’t be in chains forever like that bum Jacob Marley. I should be eternally free.

But here is how the Bible deals with morality.

It is framed up by how the Bible starts.

It starts with good God creating the heavens and the earth.

And a good God’s spirit hovering over the face of the waters.

A good God saying, “Let there be light.”

A good God filling the seas and the earth and the skies.

And ultimately a good God creating human beings in His own image.

And this good God, who is perfectly holy, created a world that was perfectly holy and people that were totally righteous.

And He ruled over the earth and empowered the first people, Adam and Eve, to rule on the earth as His representatives.

This was the moral ideal. God in heaven, people ruling the world according to His direction and everything is right in the world.

But in Genesis 3, sin enters into the world:

The good God who gave Adam and Eve thousands of trees to eat from told them not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If they did, they would surely die.

And they doubted God’s Word and God’s trustworthiness and they ate from that tree and sin entered into the world. And now, just as God had promised, Adam and Eve were going to die one day.

They were now separated from God. They were no longer perfectly righteous. The world was no longer perfectly good.

And Adam and Eve’s children were born by sinful parents into a sinful world. They were born sinners—separated from God. And so it has been with every child born since.

The moral ideal is gone now. God is still good in heaven, but the people ruling the world do it according to their own desires and not God’s direction. Everything is not right in the world.

This is what sin does. It breaks things.

Sin is a thief. It will rob your soul of its life. It will rob God of his glory. Sin is a murderer. It stabbed our father Adam. It slew our purity. Sin is a traitor. It rebels against the king of heaven and earth.

Charles Spurgeon

Now, that part you know. You know the world is not right. Whether it is the latest school shooting on the news or the hard year your family has had—you know the world is broken.

You know that it is shrouded in darkness and brokenness.

But as aware as we are regarding the brokenness of the world—we have to become equally as aware of our own brokenness. Our own sinfulness.

Listen to what this same guy, the Apostle Paul, says in Romans 5:12

Romans 5:12 ESV

Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned—

So the moral fall of human beings in Genesis 3 resulted in two tragic realities:

All humans are now born sinners

All humans are now going to die

We know this second reality is true, even if we try not to think about it.

Deep down we know this life has an expiration date. The older we get, the more aware we become.

But the first reality can’t be avoided either. And it will become clear to us if we don’t judge ourselves by society’s standards, but God’s.

In Exodus 20, God gives His people a really sharp picture of what He expects. He gives them 10 moral laws. Four of them have to do with how they deal with Him and six have to do with how they deal with each other.

And if we just ourselves by that Law, we will find that we are indeed the sinners the Bible tells us about.

Have we ever put anything before God? Surely.

Have we ever worshipped anything other than God? Maybe we didn’t bow down and have a ceremony, but surely we have given our love and affection to other things and kept it from Him.

Have we ever used His name like a cuss word? Surely.

Have we ever failed to rest and focus on Him in the way He has called us to? Surely.

Have we ever failed to honor our moms and dads? Surely.

Have we ever murdered? Hopefully not in the traditional sense, but in the New Testament, Jesus says that if you are angry with someone without cause, it is like murder in the heart. Did you go shopping this Christmas season? Surely, we have failed in this way as well.

Have we ever committed adultery? Again, we hope not in the traditional sense, but in the New Testament Jesus says that if you lust after someone in your heart, it is adultery. God judges our thought-life as well. Surely we have broken His law here.

Have we ever stolen? Lied? Coveted after what someone else has? Surely, surely, surely.

We can try to compare ourselves to others or judge ourselves by whether or not we are good citizens, but if we hold up our lives to God’s law, we will find that we are guilty in every regard.

God’s standards take our supposed goodness and break it down and leave us aware of the fact that we are morally hopeless people.

We are like Adam and Eve, disregarding God’s Word to fill our own bellies.

And if God judged us based on our own ability to be good, we would be in a massive amount of trouble.

After all, if you break God’s eternal law, doesn’t that demand eternal punishment?

And if He is a good Judge, shouldn’t He execute that justice on us whether we pay our bills and volunteer in the community or not?

Now at this point, you are probably thinking, “So you are saying I am morally bankrupt and I am in danger of eternal judgment? Well Merry Christmas to you too, man!”

But here is what I want to say to you.

If you find yourself broken by this news.

If you find yourself feeling utterly helpless in the face of this news.

If you find yourself now thinking that Paul is wrong when he calls himself the “foremost” of sinners because you believe that YOU are the foremost of sinners, then you are right where you need to be to understand the true meaning of Christmas.

JESUS CAME

Because what does the Bible say in 1 Timothy 3:15? “…that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners…”

I told you we had two truths to embrace this morning.

The first was that we are sinners.

But the second is made glorious when put in perspective with that first truth.

The second is that Jesus came into the world to save sinners.

This is the meaning of Christmas. This is what we are rejoicing in this morning. The basic message of Christianity.

Some people will say that the meaning of Christmas is God sending Christ into the world to show us His love.

Okay, that is fine, but it falls a bit short. How did He show us that love?

By coming to save sinners.

See, Jesus came and lived out the moral ideal. The law of God.

For 30 plus years on the Earth, the Son of God who was born in Bethlehem, lived a perfect life. God the Father in heaven, God the Son carrying how His instructions on the earth.

This is the way all men were supposed to live, but we failed. And Jesus came and actually did it. He lived the perfect life we failed to live. A life deserving of eternal reward, as opposed to eternal judgment.

And yet, His life did not end with a victory parade, but a crucifixion. And that is because Christ went to the Cross and saved sinners. He died in our place and He took the punishment we should have received for our sins.

Isaiah 53:4–5 ESV

Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed.

When the angel appeared the shepherds in Luke 2 and told them of the Christ who was being born, he says, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of a great joy that will be for all the people.”

It is good news because that child would be born to die.

He was born to bear our griefs.

He was born to be smitten by God the Father.

He was born to be pierced for our transgressions.

He was born to be crushed for our iniquities.

And that is good news because His suffering in our place would bring us peace and healing. It would restore our relationship with God—the most good and precious thing we could ever have in this world.

In this way, we can say that The message of Christmas is forever connected to the message of Easter.

He was born to die, but He died to resurrect.

And in resurrecting, Christ conquered sin and death for us.

And now He offers us the gift of eternal life.

If we repent of our sin and place our trust in Him to save our souls, then we will experience that which He came to do. He came to save sinners. We are sinners who will be saved and forgiven of our sin.

NOT FOR THE PROUD

And here is what I would leave you with tonight. And it won’t sound like a “Preacher Thing” to say, but it is important for your heart.

Christmas and its true meaning, is not for everyone.

And here is why I say that…

James 4:6 ESV

But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”

If your heart is too proud to admit your own sin. To admit your own brokenness. To admit that you need saving

You are going to find Christmas to be a very hard pill to swallow.

And that is because Pride is a not a hurdle to receiving God’s grace. It is a thick titanium wall.

The Bible tells us on more than one occasion that “God opposes/resists the proud.”

And that is because the proud will never confess to their own inability to hold up their end of the moral ideal. They will keep saying they are good enough.

And Christ did not come for those who are good enough. He came for sinners. Here is how he put it in Mark 2:17

Mark 2:17 ESV

And when Jesus heard it, he said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”

People who can’t admit they are sick will never go to their doctor and get the remedy.

CONCLUSION

My favorite Christmas movie ever is Home Alone. What happens in that movie?

Well, Kevin gets in trouble for mouthing off to his mom. She says, “You stay upstairs. I don’t want to see you for the rest of the night.”

How does he respond? “I don’t want to see you again for the rest of my whole life. I don’t want to see anybody else either.”

But the movie is about this kid living alone and being endangered and realizing he needs his family.

Pride is melted down into humility.

And The thing is, this is the plot of so many Christmas movies. In some form or fashion, prideful people get their hearts melted and they are humbled by the truth.

That happens to the Grinch.

That happens to Scrooge.

That happens to the dad in Elf.

Why does the world keep pumping out this message?

Because deep down, THEY KNOW this is what Christmas is about.

The problem is, so often they miss the centerpiece. They get all the sides. They get the fixings. They forget the Christmas ham.

The jewel.

The centerpiece.

The main thing, when it comes to Christmas, is not just that we must be humbled. It is that we must be humbled to an awareness of our sin and then we must repent and trust the Savior who came for us.

The lights, the songs, the traditions—it all falls short if Jesus coming to save sinners is not in the middle of it.

So tear down the wall of pride. As the old Christmas hymn commands, “Fall on your knees,” and begin a life of praise, confessing sin, trusting Christ—being saved by Jesus who came into the world for just that purpose.