The Gift of Complete Salvation

Do you like being a Christian?

It might sound light an easy question to answer (of course, we are saved and going to heaven), but like day to day, do you find joy in following Jesus?

If we are honest, aren’t there times when it is hard to be a Christian?

Hard to feel like we are doing what we are suppose to do.

Feel like we are failing at living up to what God would desire for us.

At times we feel overwhelmed with our sin, to the point we just feel like we are trapped.

If your honest, doesn’t it feel like an overwhelming responsibility?

I think the reason we sometimes don’t like being a Christian is that we don’t understand the gift that Jesus was on Christmas.

He didn’t come to lump on a bunch of guilt, shame, and responsibility,

he cam to free us from guilt and shame, and the burden of working to please God.

remember Jn 3:17

John 3:17 CSB

For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.

He came to fulfill the role the Priests in the OT fulfilled.

The Jewish Priesthood

Established at the base of Mt. Sinai following the Exodus and the giving of the Law, God appointed Aaron and his sons to be priests for the people.

They represented the people before God, almost like a lawyer.

Offer gifts and sacrifices for sin

Intercede for the people before God (in a sense, carry the concerns and the needs of the people to God).

This is the world Jesus was born into.

Once a year, Priests would go into the temple and offer animal sacrifices to God on behalf of the Jewish people.

Before they would go into the temple though, they would have to offer sacrifices for themselves, because they were equally sinful and unholy.

And throughout the year, families would also bring sacrifices to the temple to pay for the sins they had committed without even realizing it.

The reality of their sin and its seriousness was always in front of their eyes.

Imagine if sacrifice was still a part of our practice as Christians.

Every year we would come together as a church to sacrifice goats to pay the penalty for our sins.

In the meantime, we would regularly have days where each family would bring sacrifices to into our gathering to cover the sins of their family in-between the day of Atonement each year.

The reality of our sinfulness would be constantly in front of our eyes and we would constantly be reminded of our separation from God.

This is the world Jesus was born into.

A world of plagued by the reality of sin and in desperate need of a permanent cure.

In need of a priest who could offer a sacrifice that would restore us from the brokenness of sin and reconcile us to God.

And that is why Jesus came, to be that cure.

We hear in the Angels birth announcement to the Shepherds in the field the night Jesus was born this purpose that Jesus came to fulfill.

Luke 2:8–20 CSB

8 In the same region, shepherds were staying out in the fields and keeping watch at night over their flock. 9 Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. 10 But the angel said to them, “Don’t be afraid, for look, I proclaim to you good news of great joy that will be for all the people: 11 Today in the city of David a Savior was born for you, who is the Messiah, the Lord. 12 This will be the sign for you: You will find a baby wrapped tightly in cloth and lying in a manger.” 13 Suddenly there was a multitude of the heavenly host with the angel, praising God and saying: 14 Glory to God in the highest heaven, and peace on earth to people he favors! 15 When the angels had left them and returned to heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let’s go straight to Bethlehem and see what has happened, which the Lord has made known to us.” 16 They hurried off and found both Mary and Joseph, and the baby who was lying in the manger. 17 After seeing them, they reported the message they were told about this child, 18 and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. 19 But Mary was treasuring up all these things in her heart and meditating on them. 20 The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had seen and heard, which were just as they had been told.

I want to focus our attention on the Angel’s announcement in verses 10-14.

As they shepherds looked up in awe and fear, the Angel tells them “Do not fear for I bring you GOOD NEWS of great joy.”

The Greek word translated here as “good news” is “evangelizo” where we get our words “evangelism” and “gospel”.

The Angel had come to bring to the shepherds the greatest news in all of human history.

But our first lesson about the nature of this good news is not in the message, but in the recipients of the message…the shepherds.

These lowly, insignificant men show us that the Good News of Christmas is about an UNCONDITIONAL INVITATION.

Christmas brings GOOD NEWS about…

1) An UNCONDITIONAL INVITATION.

Shepherds were known to be a dirty, stinky, and unpleasant lot.

Because of the nature of their work, they were not considered unclean by the Jewish people.

They were also known to be untrustworthy, considered to be thieves and swindlers.

If there was a bottom in the Jewish social ladder, they shepherds were sure to be on the bottom.

This is what makes Jesus’s birth announcement so striking.

Of all the places and people God could have chose to announce the birth of Jesus too, He chooses lowly shepherds, sleeping in the field with their sheep.

He could have chose Herod, the king of Judah, a man of great power and reach.

He could have chosen the palace of Caesar Augustus, the emperor of Rome and most powerful man in the world, potentially launching the Christian faith across the Roman empire 300 years before Constantine.

He could have chosen the High Priest or a gathering of the Pharisees, the men responsible for the religious teaching and leadership of the Jewish people.

But He instead chose the lowly, rejected shepherds sleeping with their sheep in the middle of a dark field outside the poedunk town of Bethlehem.

There is a message in this:

For those here today who find themselves questioning whether a holy and righteous God would ever be willing to love and accept them, here the message of the Angel:

Luke 2:11 CSB

11 Today in the city of David a Savior was born for you, who is the Messiah, the Lord.

“A Savior was born FOR YOU.” Not just for the one who has never messed up, who has everything figure out, or who knows all the right answers.

No the Savior born on Christmas day was born for the needy, the lost, the rejected, the poor, and the broken.

He came to heal, restore, and reconcile lost and broken sinners, like you and me.

But for those of us who are tempted to find ourselves worthy of such a savior.

Whether we base our worthiness off of our good deeds, our family heritage, or some other worldly factor.

We have to hear the words of the Angel “Good News of great joy FOR ALL PEOPLE.”

We can't think of ourselves ever as worthy of the grace we have been given or we won't grasp the goodness of Jesus coming.

And we will carry the burden of our sin and never enjoy the goodness of an unconditional invitation.

Christmas was a gift to anyone and everyone who receives the invitation to come to Jesus Christ as Savior.

2) The possibility of REAL JOY.

The first description of this GOOD NEWS was that it was joyous news.

Christmas brings the possibility for REAL JOY.

The biblical concept of joy is more than just a feeling that comes from for something we experience.

Joy according to God is an inner contentment and satisfaction that isn’t dependent on the circumstances of life.

Godly joy exists in the messes and difficulties of life as well as the good and glorious situations.

The Angel wasn’t promising the shepherds and easy road, full of health and prosperity, but access to joy that was born with the baby sleeping in the manger.

We really do a poor job sharing the Gospel message with the world oftentimes.

When we share a message that is more concerned with judgement and rejection we are failing to invite people to experience real joy in knowing that Jesus has done what they could never do in killing sin and offering to free us from the guilt and shame that we carry.

When we share a message of self-improvement, focusing on all the things we must do and must never do, we make aren’t speaking the good news of Jesus. Yes a life in Christ calls us to live differently, but not out of obligation, but out of a response of loving appreciation for the Savior who has set us free.

The possibility of real joy is gloriously good news.

For in the dark moments of life, the joy we have in our Savior is the light at the end of the tunnel drawing us out of the darkness.

For the painful situations we face, the joy we have in our Savior is the comfort of knowing that He is good and His love never fails.

For the confusing and frustrating times, the joy we have in our Savior draws us to trust in His wisdom and rest in His power.

Christmas is a gift to all of us who long for joy that perseveres even in the hardest of moments.

3) The confidence in COMPLETE SALVATION.

The climax of the Angel’s announcement is the identity of the one who is the focus of the Good News, the “Savior who is Christ the Lord.”

The name “Christ” can almost be used as a last name for Jesus, but it is actually a very significant title.

It means “the anointed one”, the Messiah, the one that the OT prophets spoke about and the OT practices all pointed to.

Each time the priests would enter the temple to offer the sacrificial lambs on the alter to God, they were pointing out humanities need for a Savior who would offer a sacrifice that was sufficient for all sin.

Every time the priest would burn incense to make requests of God on behalf of the people, they were pointing to the One who would finally and forever bring our requests to God the Father.

Jesus was the Savior, the promised one, and in Him we have the opportunity at complete salvation.

Hebrews 7:23–27 CSB

23 Now many have become Levitical priests, since they are prevented by death from remaining in office. 24 But because he remains forever, he holds his priesthood permanently. 25 Therefore, he is able to save completely those who come to God through him, since he always lives to intercede for them. 26 For this is the kind of high priest we need: holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens. 27 He doesn’t need to offer sacrifices every day, as high priests do—first for their own sins, then for those of the people. He did this once for all time when he offered himself.

John Owen, the puritan preacher from the 1600s, points out that saving us completely means that Christ “will not bring about part of our salvation and leave what remains to ourselves and to others. . . . Whatever belongs to our entire, complete salvation, he is able to effect it.”

Christ does not leave us to ourselves but brings about our whole salvation, from its beginning at moment of our saving faith to its culmination in our physical death.

Christmas is a gift because in Christ Jesus we can be completely saved.

And that complete salvation, coupled with access to real joy, and offered to all unconditionally, is the reason we can, and must enjoy being a Christian.

And if you are not a Christian today, I don’t want to invite you to follow a bunch of rules, commit to a set of moral and beliefs.

I want to invite you to meet a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.

And in Him you can find hope, joy, peace, and love that will last for eternity.

That is really good news.