Who is He? The Savior
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Introduction
Introduction
Over two Thousand Years ago a child was born that changed the course of history. This is literally why we have dates like 2021. When was year zero? Though the math was off by a few years when this calendar system was started, the intent was for year zero to be the year the Jesus Christ was born. BC is before Christ. AD is latin “anno Domini” meaning “In the year of our Lord”. Of course, modern scholarsip is attempting to erase that by using the letters BCE and CE, which I’m just as happy to accept as “Before Christ’s Era” and “Christ’s Era”.
The shift to BCE and CE (before common era, common era) reminds of Psalm 2:1-3
1 Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? 2 The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord and against his Anointed, saying, 3 “Let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us.”
Even though the secular world attempts to get away from things that point us to Jesus Christ, they still cannot escape the reality that we are in the year 2021 because Jesus Christ came into the world.
Some of you might be aware that I have a bit of an interesting relationship with Christmas. Going back to my early college days, I took exception to the idea that Christmas was really about Christ. Perhaps it was supposed to be, but culturally, even in our Christian church and homes, we were doing very little to exalt Christ. I had a difficult time squaring the idea that the typical cultural expressions surrounding the holiday were accomplishing the purpose that many offered they were to accomplish. I just could not see how the lights and the trees and the gift-giving, while not sinful on their own, were doing anything to point us to Christ, but rather served to fuel our own selfishness.
If you’re getting worried that I’m about to blast Christmas traditions, I’m not. I think there is freedom in Christ to celebrate or not celebrate how we would choose. I would challenge and caution you to consider what your traditions and celebrations communicate about what you are celebrating, but that goes for every holiday and not just Christmas.
My point is that though I have continue to struggle with squaring the cultural expressions of Christmas with the religious implications and meaning of the holiday, the reality is that there is something to celebrate when we begin to talk about the creator of the universe taking on human flesh and entering into our world. We ought to celebrate that, right? What did Jesus come to do? Save sinners! Hey, I’m a sinner! This is good news! So by all means let’s celebrate Christmas!
And let’s celebrate it for good and godly reasons, with good and godly motives, and with good and godly practices.
I hope these next three Sundays and our Christmas Eve service will help us with that. I hope that over the next serveral weeks as we consider who Jesus Christ is, that we would be refreshed in the Word of God, and filled with genuine joy, not because that’s what we’re supposed to do this time of year, but because we can’t help it when we consider who Christ is and what he was done!
Over the next three weeks we are going to be considering three aspects of who Jesus Christ is, based on the declareations from the angels in Luke chapter two.
This text is up on the Screen now
11 For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.
Over the next three weeks, by God’s grace, we are going to look at the three titles for Jesus in that one verse. What does it means that Jesus is Savior? What does it mean that he is the Christ, the Messiah? And what does it mean that He is Lord?
We will be looking at these a bit thematically, which is not my normal method for preaching, so we shall see how this goes. This week we take into consideration what it means the Jesus is the Savior. Who is He saving? Why do we need to be saved? What are we being saved from? What are we being saved to?
None of the things we are covering are likely going to be new to you. But they are good for us to review and be reminded.
First Things First
First Things First
The concept of a Savior refers to one who saves, rescues, or delivers. A deliverer. A Rescuer. Salvation can spoken of as deliverance or rescue. To save is to deliver, to rescue. I think you get the idea, and those ideas are found in both the Hebrew words and Greek words, be they the nouns or the verbs.
Let’s go back to the book of Genesis.
In Genesis 1 we see the manner in which God created the world. Such display of power. Such display of glory. And at the end of each day, God says that the things that he had made was good.
He creates light, water, dry land, sun moon and stars, plants, fish, birds, and after each creative event we find these words repeated: God saw that it was good, God saw that it was good, God saw that it was good.
Then we come to the sixth day.
24 And God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds—livestock and creeping things and beasts of the earth according to their kinds.” And it was so. 25 And God made the beasts of the earth according to their kinds and the livestock according to their kinds, and everything that creeps on the ground according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.
Again, God saw that it was good. But he wasn’t finished.
26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. 28 And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” 29 And God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. 30 And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so.
But this time, God looks at what he has made, and he doesn’t say it was good. He says it was very good
31 And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.
So God created man in His own image. He commanded man to be fruitful and take dominion over the earth. To rule the world as God’s representatives on the earth.
Man was created without sin. As we come into chapter two of Genesis we see man in the garden. His job was to work the garden, to keep it, to tend it, to work for its flourishing. We see at the end of chapter that there was no shame. It’s an expression of their innocence.
So we see that mankind was created to work in the most noble possible way: to represent God on earth. There was innocence. There was perfect righteousness.
To this point, there is no need for a Savior, right?
What could we be saved from? Perfection?
But we know there is more to the story, don’t we?
Sadly, this is where things take their downward turn.
Eve, being tempted by the serpent, eats of the forbidden fruit and gives to her husband and he eats. All of creation order is turned on its head. Though God has given the mean the role of leadership, he abdicated his responsibility to protect his wife and rebuke the serpent, despite being right there with her, as the text says. Instead of the man and woman having dominion together over creation, they submit to the serpent.
Instantly they experience something they never experienced before: Guilt. Shame. Fear. They know what they have done was wrong, so they feel guilt. They realize they are vulnerable, and are ashamed of their actions. When God comes to fellowship with them they are afraid because of their guilt.
As a result, we find the devastating words from God:
14 The Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field; on your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. 15 I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.” 16 To the woman he said, “I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be contrary to your husband, but he shall rule over you.” 17 And to Adam he said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; 18 thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. 19 By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”
The curse of sin comes upon humanity. This is why work, though still a virtue, is toilsome to us today. This is why we have struggles for authority within our homes, churches, and nation. This is why we seem to be at war with the very creation itself.
And God sent Adam and Eve out of the garden, picture the separation that now exists between man and God.
There may not be a more depressing passage of scripture than this one.
Ambassadors for God who spoke with him face to face. Innocence. Perfection.
To having a broken relationship with God. Kicked out of the garden to work the ground with blood, sweat, and tears.
And every human being born into the world since then is born into a cursed world, and has to bear the consequences of the sins of the first parents.
Now, all the sudden, Mankind needs a savior. We need to be saved from this wretched condition.
Even in the midst of God’s curses on the world because of sin, He gives hope that a savior would one day come.
Look at Gen 3:15, and actually I prefer the NASB on this verse, because of its use of the word “seed”:
15 And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, And you shall bruise him on the heel.”
Hints of the Gospel are present within that verse. A woman doesn’t technically have “seed”. This may be a hint at the virgin birth. A child would one day be born who would be bruised by the serpent. But ultimately, the seed of the woman would crush the head of the serpent. There is a savior coming.
There are hints throughout the Genesis account that make us think that Adam and Eve and some of their descendants realized that they needed a redeemer. They needed a deliverer. We don’t have time to look at all those today, but we will touch on the promise to Abraham.
Turn over to Genesis 12 .
Here we have God calling Abraham out of his nation to go to a land He would show him.
1 Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. 2 And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”
And then later on in chapter 15 confirms and reiterates his promise to Abraham and ratifies the promise in a formal covenant.
We don’t yet find the language of salvation, but we see a glimmer of hope that there would be one who would come through whom the entire world will be blessed.
We know how much of the story unfolds from there. Abraham’s grandson and great-grandchildren find themselves in Egypt during a severe famine where God had providentially established Joseph in order to preserve life. There the descendants of Abraham lived for the next 400 years. They multiplied to the point that the king of Egypt began to fear that they might threaten his rule, so he makes them to be slaves.
It is around this time that we begin to see the theme of rescue, salvation, and deliverance begin to grow.
23 During those many days the king of Egypt died, and the people of Israel groaned because of their slavery and cried out for help. Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God.
So God sends them a deliverer! His name was Moses. When God speaks to Moses to call him to returnt o Egypt, he says to him
7 Then the Lord said, “I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters. I know their sufferings, 8 and I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites.
When Moses comes to Egypt, Pharoah is initially resistant and doubles the work for the slaves, Moses cries out to the Lord “You have not delivered your people at all” (Ex 5:23)
So God makes a promise:
6 Say therefore to the people of Israel, ‘I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will deliver you from slavery to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great acts of judgment. 7 I will take you to be my people, and I will be your God, and you shall know that I am the Lord your God, who has brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. 8 I will bring you into the land that I swore to give to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. I will give it to you for a possession. I am the Lord.’ ”
We know the story, how God rescues them with many signs and miracles.
God has saved the people of Israel from Egypt. But is that all they need to be saved from?
Through Moses God gives the people the Law. The Law served to provide a way for Israel to be in a right relationship with her creator. The Law served to make Israel holy. But looking back we also know that the Law served to reveal the utter sinfulness of the human heart.
God used Moses to deliver the people from the Egyptians. But Moses couldn’t deliver them from their own sin. Even with the giving of the Law, Moses spoke of their need to be circumcised in the heart. External law-keeping wouldn’t save them. And Moses foretold of another prophet like him that would one day come. Another hint at the coming redeemer.
As the people enter into the promised land, we find that because of their failure to remain faithful to their God, they are frequently subdued, enslaved, or oppressed by they neighbors in Canaan. They frequently cry out to God for deliverance, seemingly believing that the only rescue they need is from the Midianites, or the Philistines, or whoever their oppressors were at the time. They failed to see the need to be saved from themselves.
16 Then the Lord raised up judges, who saved them out of the hand of those who plundered them. 17 Yet they did not listen to their judges, for they whored after other gods and bowed down to them. They soon turned aside from the way in which their fathers had walked, who had obeyed the commandments of the Lord, and they did not do so. 18 Whenever the Lord raised up judges for them, the Lord was with the judge, and he saved them from the hand of their enemies all the days of the judge. For the Lord was moved to pity by their groaning because of those who afflicted and oppressed them. 19 But whenever the judge died, they turned back and were more corrupt than their fathers, going after other gods, serving them and bowing down to them. They did not drop any of their practices or their stubborn ways.
The Judges saved the people for a time. But the cycle of the judges shows us that the people were only concerned about their physical safety, and had no concern for their own souls. And so, as the book of judges ends, there is the damning indictment against the people:
25 In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.
Ah! a king!
That’s what they need!
After a time the people thought perhaps if we only had a king! He would go to war for us! He would save us!
So, in a classic case of “be careful what you wish for” God grants them their request. He gives them a king. Saul. Who starts well, but quickly forsakes the Lord.
He gives them David, who was a good king, who was a man after God own heart, but was still a man in need of a savior himself, for he often acted wickedly. Nevertheless, God promises to David that there would be a king who would do for Israel what David could not.
But until then, we see king after king who forsakes the Lord. A few seek to turn the people back to the Lord, but after that king dies, the people return to their pagan ways. Eventually God does what he promised he would do the people if they persisted in their rebellion: he kicks them out of the land. They are exiled into Babylon.
The prophets speak of the need for repentance. Genuine repentance. Not surface level observance of external practices, but genuine heart change. Isaiah Ezekiel speaks of a day when God would take out their hearts of stone and give them a heart of flesh. Jeremiah calls the people to be circumcised in their hearts, once again calling for an inward renewal.
But the people are powerless to accomplish this on their own.
Eventually God raises up men like Zerubbabel, Ezra, and Nehemiah to lead the people back into the land, rebuild the temple, and rebuild the city. Our lessons from when we went through Ezra/Nehemiah are online if anyone wants to listen to those.
Many turn to Nehemiah as a great book on leadership, and there certainly are good lessons on leadership there. But Nehemiah is really a bit of a tragic book.
At first it seems as though Israel has learned her lesson! God is returning her to the land! He is restoring her! The walls are being rebuilt! They were returning to the Law! Nehemiah 9-10 speaks of a covenant they people enter into saying “we promise we’ll keep the law! For real this time!”
And yet, just three chapters later, Nehemiah returns and discovers that in less than one generations time, the people are back to all the old practices that led them to be kicked out of the land in the first place.
They didn’t get it. They failed to realize that they didn’t need to make new promises. They needed a savior…not from Babylon. Not from Persia. But from their own hearts.
That’s how the narrative portion of the OT ends. Though there are other books that come after Nehemiah in our physical Bibles, though there are other prophets who write and speak for God around that time and after, that’s the end of the narrative until John the Baptist comes on the scene, 400 years later.
What was happening in those silent years? World empires rose and fell. The Persians fell to Greece. Greece fell to Rome. The Jews fought gruesome battles and suffer bitter defeat.
By the time we come to the NT, the Jews has some degree of freedom to worship as they please, but they are under Roman rule, which imposes taxes on her and prevents her from governing herself.
Israel is still looking for a deliverer.
Jesus comes on the scene. The angels Harold him as the Savior, who is Christ the Lord. But he is not interested in political revolution. He does not seek to deliver from the Romans. He’s after something deeper.
Through Jesus’ ministry he shows the people that their greatest need is not liberation from her political foes, but liberation of the heart.
The Angel tells Mary that Jesus would “Save his people from their sins”
John records for us how the deeper issue is bondage to sin, and it is from that that we need to be rescued.
31 So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, 32 and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” 33 They answered him, “We are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say, ‘You will become free’?” 34 Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin. 35 The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever. 36 So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.
The son is the deliverer!
The Israelite were slaved in Egypt and God sent moses to deliver them.
More importantly they were slaves to sin, and God has now sent Jesus to delivered them from that!
THis was the issue th entire time with the ISraelites! IT wasn’t the egyptians! Or the Caananites! Or the Babylonians! It was their own sin.
And this is our problem as well. We may live in America where we think ourselves free people.
But our sin keeps us in bondange and we need a savior!
The angel said JEsus would save us from our sins. Why do our sins make us in need of salvation? What are the consequences that we need to be delivered from? Our sin requires the righteous wrath of God, and it is from this that Christ saves us:
Listen to what Paul says in Romans 5:8-9
8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God.
Most fundamentally this is the issue. Our sin drives us out of the garden. We cannot fully fulfill our design as God’s representatives on earth. Our sin corrupts us and makes unable to stand before a holy God.
If we do not have a rescuer, our fate will be as described in Rev 21:8
8 But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.”
But unto you was born a Savior, who is Christ the Lord!
This is the good news of CHristmas! Though we deserve God’s wrath because of our rebellion, “Everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord, will be saved!” as Paul says in Rom 10:9-13
9 because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. 11 For the Scripture says, “Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.” 12 For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him. 13 For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
So we celebrate! And we should! We are far more like the Israelites than we would like to admit. But God has sent us a savior! A deliverer! A rescuer!
All who have faith in him are saved.
There are so many more passages we could look at that speak of this great salvation that we have in Christ.
But for now, let’s rejoice in what God has given us: a Savior