A Saviour Is What Our World Needs
Notes
Transcript
Intro: We are about to start the Christmas season. Barb and I just bought a Koala Christmas decoration this week. The shops want everyone thinking about lights, decorations, and gifts.
Within churches we think of Christmas far differently. We know that Christmas is about the birth of our Saviour.
Theme: Christmas is about what The Savour brings.
The birth announcement to the shepherds included the fact that He is Saviour.
The birth announcement to the shepherds included the fact that He is Saviour.
For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.
It is the fact that He is born as the Saviour, that He speaks words of salvation, and that He has therefore the thoughts of the Saviour and that He suffers death as the Saviour.
Karl Barth; Geoffrey William Bromiley; Thomas F. Torrance
The world needed a saviour.
There were oppressors on every side.
Religious leaders were suppressing people.
Legalism - rules over relationship - had to be overcome!
The idea that certain classes or groups of people were inherently better than others had to be destroyed. Membership in a group does not make anyone more godly. Knowing and living in a relationship with God is what makes a person more godly.
The government was suppressing the people.
“Do as I/we say” - Power and government force were common in the world in which Christ was born.
give us your money - Spending money of lavish lifestyles for the ruling class was common in the world in which Christ was born.
and control over your life - Any person in the military could force any other person to cary their pack for about 2ks; Herod could just kill everyones male child because he wanted to.
Economic oppression was also a serious problem for all but the elite.
While we might be surprised at their ability to get by with that they had, they did not have much - especially by today’s standards.
The Saviour of sinners knows what it is to be poor.
J. C. Ryle
The oppression from within.
We all know people, family, or friends, who are struggling with their thoughts, struggling with habits or addictions, some are struggling with health or disease. These can be so oppressive! The weight of this oppression can seem to crush and squeeze the life right out of people.
Why are you cast down, O my soul? And why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him For the help of His countenance.
Guilt and shame also oppress people. At FOCUS this week I spent a good bit of time talking with someone about being a Christian. One of her problems was that she though Christians were supposed to always live in guilt and shame.
You have trusted Christ as your dying savior; now trust Him as your living savior. Just as much as he came to deliver you from future punishment, did he also come to deliver you from present bondage.
Hannah Whitall Smith
Sin's oppression demanded a Saviour
Sin's oppression demanded a Saviour
Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”
He preaches pardon to those who know that they have sinned, and confess the same; but those who have no sin have no Savior.
Charles Spurgeon
There was no peace with God.
Sin had robbed that peace!
I will preach on this the first Sunday of Dec.
There was a lack of hope.
When hope is based on what we have or control it is severely limited. When Hope is: “a firm belief that God has the power to do what He has promised to do” it can fly at a whole new level beyond my experience and even existence.
I believe Pastor Filip will preach on this next week
They didn’t understand God’s love.
We did not love God first! He first loved us and proved it by sending His Son to be the saviour of the world.
And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son as Savior of the world.
Pastor Filip will preach on this in Dec.
Sin had robbed all joy.
“These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full.
The joy can only be restored when we abide in Him - vv3-4.
Part of every misery is, so to speak, the misery’s shadow or reflection: the fact that you don’t merely suffer but have to keep on thinking about the fact that you suffer. I not only live each endless day in grief, but live each day thinking about living each day in grief.
C. S. Lewis
I will preach on Joy on Dec 17.
What people desire is found in our Saviour
What people desire is found in our Saviour
But when the kindness and the love of God our Savior toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior, that having been justified by His grace we should become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.
We have an abundant outpouring of all God is (trinity) and perfect- justified - relationship. I was made right and our guilt was completely dealt with when Christ became my/our Saviour.
God’s riches satisfy our true need.
that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
Christ is not only the Saviour but the salvation itself.
Matthew Henry
Financial riches do not satisfy. 1 Timothy and Hebrews both say that contentment is the in financial matters is great gain.
Christmas done the worlds way seeks to promote greed for more. Christmas done God’s way
2120If Christ in his poverty made us rich, what will he do now that he is glorified? If the Man of sorrows saved my soul, will the Man now exalted permit it to perish? If the dying Savior availed for our salvation, will not the living, interceding Savior abundantly secure it?—3.355
Charles Spurgeon
Conclusion: This world needs our Saviour!
Conclusion: This world needs our Saviour!
624Think lightly of hell, and you will think lightly of the cross. Think little of the sufferings of lost souls, and you will soon think little of the Savior who delivers you from them.—12.174
Charles Spurgeon
From here to the end of the year people will be talking about Christmas. I am sure that you will be around many people that are empty and think very little about the connection of Christmas and the Saviour this world needs. Let’s look for those open doors to reconnect our Savour with all that is Christmas. Hope, Joy, Love, Peace, Christ!
Q1 Are we tempted to set limits in our minds on who our Saviour can save?
Q2 When we think of making our Christmas list, will we also spend time making a spiritual Christmas list of what we would like to to know or enjoy of God?
Q3 How can we better express to those around us that our world needs more of our Savour rather than more things?