The Promised Savior

Prayer

Salvation - So Much More Than Forgiveness of Sins

We’re in the second Sunday of Advent, and in the second Sunday of our sermon series, The Promise of Christmas. We’re taking time each week to look at how Jesus, his coming to us, is the fulfillment of so many of the beautiful promises God has made to us. In Jesus, in this newborn baby, we see the faithfulness of God.

We started last Sunday taking a look at Jesus as the Promised King, the child who will take the government on his shoulders, and establish a kingdom ruled by righteousness and justice, a kingdom that will last forever.

Over the next two weeks we’ll look at Jesus as the Promised Light, the light that shines on a people living in darkness, and at Jesus as the Promised Reconciler, the one who will bring his people back to the Lord - and to one another. The walls of separation torn down.

This morning we’ll be looking at Jesus as the Promised Savior, the one who will save his people from their sins. Which is exactly what we see in Matthew 1:18-25, story of an angel of the Lord coming to Joseph.

Matthew 1:18-25 - This is how the birth of Jesus the Messiah came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit. 19 Because Joseph her husband was faithful to the law, and yet did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly. 20 But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 21 She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.” 22 All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: 23 “The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel” (which means “God with us”). 24 When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife. 25 But he did not consummate their marriage until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus.

It’s helpful to take a moment to consider what a difficult predicament Joseph found himself in - he’s pledged to be married to who he thought was a wonderful young woman, Mary, and then he discovers that she is pregnant. In Jewish tradition, this betrothal was considered to be a far greater commitment than how we consider engagement today, to the point where a divorce was required to break it. Normally, in this scandalous situation, you would divorce the person and expose them to public disgrace. But Joseph was an honorable man, and so decided not to do that to Mary and instead, divorce her quietly.

It’s at this point that an angel of the Lord comes to Joseph in a dream (which is interesting, the angel that came to Mary came when she was wide awake, why the Lord sends this message in a dream, it’s curious). But the angel makes clear that Mary’s pregnancy is of the Lord, and Joseph is to take Mary as his wife and the child she is carrying as his own.

And then, the beautiful promise, vs. 21, “She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.” This child will be the Savior, he will save his people from their sins. The name says it all - Jesus is the Greek translation of the Hebrew name, Yeshua, which means “he saves”, or sometimes translated as “the Lord saves.”

Joseph wakes up and immediately responds in obedience, taking Mary into his home as he wife. And when the child is born, he names him Jesus, he saves. The Promised Savior has come.

Important at this point to take a step back and ask the question, what does that mean, he saves? What is Jesus doing when he saves us from our sins? We use these words a lot - saves, salvation, Savior. I want to take some time to dive into this deeper, because this is one of the central reasons Jesus came to us, what we’re celebrating at Christmas, Luke 2:11, Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord.

Now, right away, we affirm that when Jesus is saving us from our sins, that he is saving us from the ultimate consequences of our sin - death. As James writes in James 1:15, Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death. Eternal separation from God. Hell. Which is huge. When Jesus saves us from our sins, he is saving us from death.

Again, Romans 6:23, For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Jesus, by dying on the cross for us, sacrificing himself, taking the punishment we earned, our “wages” - this is how we can be forgiven. It’s through his amazing act that Jesus can offer us the gift of everlasting life. This is the gospel, the good news.

But its important to recognize that this isn’t all that’s involved in salvation, in Jesus saving us from our sins. Salvation that we are offered in Jesus is far more robust and complete. Bible uses a variety of imagery and language to try and capture the fullness of our salvation.

Typically, when we think about salvation, what comes to mind is what’s known as the penal substitution theory of atonement. This is understanding our salvation in legal, or judicial terms. In other words, because of our sin, we are guilty, we are condemned to death. That’s the just punishment we deserve. But Jesus, out of his deep love, chose to take our place (substitution), taking our punishment upon himself, dying in our place, so that we can be declared forgiven, the charges removed, we now stand innocent before the Lord.

Another way that the Bible describes our salvation is the idea of victory. Jesus was put to death on the cross, but rose to new life, thereby conquering both sin and death, our great enemies are defeated. Through faith in Jesus, we share in that victory over death.

But another way, and the one I want to focus on this morning, is the healing that Jesus brings. Jesus saves us by healing our sin-sick souls. That our sins, and our living in the ways of death, as well as the sins and harm others have done to us, have caused tremendous damage to our heart and our souls. Harm that will require a lot of healing, a lot of Jesus’ saving work in us.

We see this idea proclaimed by Jesus himself when he is questioned by the Pharisees in Luke 5. After Jesus calls Levi (better known by his other name, Matthew), a tax collector, to follow him. Levi leaves everything to do so, and then holds a banquet at his house, inviting his fellow tax collector friends. Of course, all this causes great offense to the Pharisees, who challenge Jesus. Listen to Jesus’ response, Luke 5:31-32, Jesus answered them, “it is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”

We see something similar in Acts 28:27, Paul speaking, quoting the prophet Isaiah, For this people’s heart has become calloused; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn, and I would heal them.”

The use of this language when talking about salvation, that Jesus saves us through healing, is why Jesus has been referred to from ancient times as the Great Physician, the Doctor of the Soul. This is a central part of God’s great promise to us, the promise of a savior, he will save his people from their sins by healing our sin-sick souls.

Jesus Healing our Sin-sick Souls

In order to understand this better, it’s vital that we acknowledge - really, confess - how seriously sick sin has made us. After all, as it says repeatedly in the Bible, our sin leads to death. Thinking about this in medical terms, it means our sickness is terminal. This is not simply a bad cold or achy knee, something that’s just going to take care of itself through rest and a little medicine. Much more accurate analogy would be a serious cancer, sickness deep inside us, and it has metastasized, it’s spread everywhere within us.

Brings us back to some of the teaching from the Practicing the Way course, very helpful to look at sin in this way, especially as we seek to move towards experiencing Jesus’ healing work within us. John Mark Comer describes four layers of sin. This idea that there are aspects of our sinfulness that are more obvious, on the outside, you can readily see. But there are layers of sin that go deeper, far harder to detect. Start with first two layers, the ones that are more obvious.

First layer is gross sin. Gross in the sense of big, significant (as opposed to gross in the sense of disgusting). Blatant acts of wickedness - things such as sexual immortality (adultery, debauchery), and violence or abuse, theft, fraud. When you see lists of vices in the Bible, they are typically describing this first layer of sin, gross sins.

Second layer of sin is conscious sin. Things you do that you know are wrong, but you do them anyway. Gossip. Fudging on your taxes. Looking at pornography. Acting out of anger towards someone, treating them with contempt. Judging others. Sins that we often try to minimize, excuse away, often sins that are too easily tolerated because they’re so common.

As you can see, these are the sins that are easier to recognize, you diagnose them immediately. Type of sin where the cure is pretty straightforward - Stop it. Just stop. Don’t do it anymore. Quit sinning and start obeying Jesus. Now to be fair, that assumes we have much more control of our attitudes and actions then we really do, that we are not enslaved to sin as much as we really are - that sinful habits are not deeply ingrained in us. But at the very least these are sins that are easier to confront within ourselves because we know we’re doing them.

That brings us into deeper, darker aspects of sin - by that I don’t mean that actions and the harm done is necessarily worse (especially compared to gross sins, to blatant acts of wickedness) but in the sense that they are not so obvious. The last two layers of sin are below the surface, hidden, harder to detect. Often signify the true measure of our illness - disease that’s causing all the sinful symptoms. As is so often with an illness, you know something’s wrong, symptoms are there, but you don’t know what’s causing it. Of course the problem here is that if you’re not aware of your sin, it’s hard to seek healing from Jesus for it.

Third layer is unconscious sin. Name itself suggests why these are harder to detect - sin we’re not aware we’re engaging in. Unconscious sin include sins of omission, which are sins of not doing what we should be doing (rather than doing things we shouldn’t do). Often, we think we’re not sinning as long as we’re not doing anything that hurts someone else. But failing to do the good we should do can be harmful as well. Unconscious sin also includes motivation behind our actions, so that good things can be done out of false or selfish motivations.

Some examples of failing to do good, which we often do because we’re living out of fear or selfishness. We avoid or keep distance in relationship - we don’t love as we should. We fail to give of our time, our treasures. We avoid speaking honestly, openly, plainly. We fail to surrender things to Jesus.

When we consider acting out of sinful motivations, this would include doing such things as giving, being generous, but we’re motivated not out of love for others or a desire to please our Lord, but because we want to be seen as generous people. Years ago I spent a week helping out with swimming lessons for kids with disabilities, and I spent most of that time working with a young man who had severe cerebral palsy. Problem was that at some point I realized that I was making sure to mention what I was doing to pretty much everyone I had a conversation with. I wanted to make sure they recognized what an incredible noble person I was. Good deeds can be done out of very selfish motivations - in fact, they often are.

Hope you can see how this layer of sin requires deeper healing. True of the final layer of sin, the deepest - which are our attachments. Biblical word is idol, these are our idols. Things our hearts treasure most deeply. Challenge here is that these can often be good things - family. Accomplishments. Health. Profession, our work. The problem is that we are too attached to them - it’s in these things that we find our identity, our value, our security, our purpose. The very things that can only be given to us by Jesus. And because our attachments are the things that drive us, motivate us - unless we know what they are, we cannot be healed of our idolatries.

And I want to offer a final thought on these deeper layers of sins, because this is where the true healing begins, where the darker aspects of our soul are brought to light and we can experience the forgiveness and healing of Jesus. Where we can be people who are emotionally and spiritually healthy - where we experience the transforming work of the Holy Spirit in us. Where we begin to grow into spiritual maturity, we become people who love.

But this healing can only happen if we are will to come under the care of the Great Physician. If we are willing patients, willing to come to Jesus, allow him to diagnose us, and reveal to us the sickness of our souls. And not just diagnose, but heal us, free us, rescue us from our own sinful desires and attitudes. To let Jesus be the Savior that he is.

This is where great faith is required - because the healing process can be a painful one. It’s painful when Jesus begins to reveal the depths of sin within your heart, how sin-sick your soul really is. I know this from personal experience - it’s not fun to see that you’re not nearly as good a person as you thought - that selfishness, fear, those jealousies and resentments, all that has had a far greater impact on how you behave than you ever imagined. Humbling is very much the word for it. But how else can healing take place, if the disease isn’t diagnosed, if the real issue isn’t revealed?

It’s painful, too, when the healing requires revisiting past wounds - harms that we often still carry around with us. Who wants to bring all that back up?! Yet, here, too, this is the path of healing. And it’s only when we genuinely want the more Jesus can do in us, his saving work in us, that we will seek change. The other day I was talking to someone who is starting (I hope) to make better financial decisions in their life - the comment they made, I’m sick and tired of being broke.

And that’s exactly it, it’s when we’re sick and tired of our sin, of feeling captured by it. Stuck. Of living more out of fear than faith. Tired of being angry so much of the time, or dissatisfied in life - sick of how quickly you get irritated and impatient. That you can’t let go of a grudge. Of hiding the shame of your sin. Of how constantly you judge other people.

That’s when we’ll come to the Doctor of the Soul, when we’ll come to Jesus and say, “save me.” “Heal me.” When we trust that he, and he alone, can bringing healing in our hearts, so that we can become people who experience peace and joy. Who are free to love others, and free to receive their love. People who know the abundant life Jesus came to give.

Spiritual Practices

Discipline of Solitude - willingness to come before Jesus in quiet, posture of openness, surrender, baring of our souls. Come under his care.

Closing Prayer - What do you want to pray to the Great Physician?