Christmas time is a time of shopping, frantically going from store to store looking for the best gifts and bargains. It is a time for baking and seeing family and friends that you probably have not seen in a while. What is Christmas about? I recall this from a sermon I heard in the past. It was the week before Christmas. Parking spaces were hard to come by. There were long lines, crowded stores, rude people, and grossly inflated prices. In one long checkout line, one man was heard to say, "They should kill the guy who started Christmas." One wise and godly woman in the line said, "They did- they hung Him on a cross." Its sort of funny, but sadly rings a truth of forgetting what the Christmas holiday is really all about. Jesus Christ.
We, even as Christians tend to forget that Jesus' birthday didnt just happen to be on Christmas Day as in some great coincedence. We need to remember that there was no Christmas until He was born and that He is the reason, or at least the intended reason behind the day that bears His name. Today, Walmart is full of people lining up to return their gifts. But the gift we are going to talk about today is one that you cannot, and wouldn't want to return if you could.
John 3:16, is probably the most known and most quoted verse of the Bible ever. Even the most unlearned Bible students or those who have only attended church a few times in their lives know this verse. For those of you who do not, I will go ahead and read it for you. John 3:16, For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. Many know this verse and that God loves the world, but how many of you know how to receive this love? With all the talk of gifts this time of year, lets look at the greatest gift that was ever given to us as a whole.
John 3:16. That verse is well known and used so much for good reason, it sums up the Gospel in a nutshell. That is, the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The gospel, the good news, translated literally, is the basis of salvation. The means in which to obtain the gift of Gods love.
We see in this one verse that #1 God loves us, #2 that God loves us so much, He gave His only begotten, that is, His direct seed, to die for us #3 that whosoever, that means anyone, anyone that believes in Him will not perish, but have everlasting life, life eternal in Heaven.
Wow. That is true love. Something beyond the comprehension of human thought. God sent His only begotten Jesus, who came to earth in the flesh, who lived a perfect life, to die on the cross for us. Sent His only begotten, knowing He would be torturted and mocked by the world He was there to save. Not only did God the Father willingly do so, God the Son Jesus Christ went willingly.
What love has God for us that He would send His son and what love had the son had that He would go! Knowing what lied ahead, knowing the pain, the suffering, the mockery and humiliation that was going to be put upon Him by the very world He created.
Take that in for a minute. Let your heart and mind try to absorb what kind of love that truly is. Now, after seeing just a little bit about how much God loves you, wouldn't you care to know about how to receive this love? This love that is in the redemption, the salvation offered by Christ.
You might be thinking, well I go to church, that must count for something right? Well, sure, going to church is a good thing, but it isn't the way. Someone else might say, well, I do good things, I recycle, I help the homeless and I donate to save the spotted owls. All those things are nice and commendable things to do, but still not the way. You might have been baptized as a baby by your well meaning parents, but that won't cut it either.
Here is the point. There is nothing you can do good enough, nothing you can earn or work towards to get you to Heaven. You can go to church every single day of your entire life and still be headed on a straight path to hell. You can feed the children, adopt a highway, read to the blind, cure cancer and build a million houses with habitat for humanity, and still be on the way to eternal damnation! By human logic, human reasoning, at first thought, we would seem to think that everything must be earned. That to get something, we must work and often work hard to obtain it. This is not an unnatural viewpoint and in most aspects of life is a respectable view to hold. But it doesn't hit the mark with God. No matter how sensible we may think we are, we cannot comprehend all of God's ways. You see, the Bible says that mans wisdom is foolishness in the eyes of God.
No good deed or deeds done by us will get us into Heaven. The Bible makes this clear. We read in Ephesians 2 verses 8 and 9: For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.
We read here that only by the grace of God, through faith that we can have eternal life in Heaven. That if it were by works, we would surely boast and be puffed up. Even the most humble among us would find it pretty hard not to feel good about earning our way into Heaven. Look at me I did it! Look at all of these grand things I have done. It could not be by works, lest we boast and take the glory from the God who made us and made it possible to share in eternal life in His presence.
Again, at first thought, the idea of getting something so wonderful, so great is that we would have to do something. But think of it this way. God loves us. God, the Father, loves us. Now think of your children. From the day they come into the world, you love them. Have they done anything to make you feel this way yet? No, the second they come you are showering them with your love. Why? Because they are your creation, they are a part of you. God made us, God loved us immediately, God loved us from the beginning. So now that we understand that God loves us and that we also understand that salvation is something that cannot be obtained by our deeds, lets take a look at the simple plan of salvation. We will divide it into 3 steps.
#1 You are a sinner, and there is a price to pay:
First things first, we need to know this. That we are all sinners. That all man, everyone man, woman and child that has walked this earth, except for Jesus Christ, is a sinner. That means me, you, your family and friends, the pope, Obama, Ghandi, Mother Teresa, Billy Graham and even Jesus' mother Mary. We were and are all sinners. You might be offended right about now. You say, remember all those good things about saving the owls I told you about? I don't lie, I don't steal, I never killed anyone before, how dare you call me a sinner! Thats interesting Mr so and so, but remember what we just talked about, that no good works will be enough? The fact of the matter is this. I never met a soul who hasn't lied at some point in their life. Men, your wife ever asked you if that dinner she has prepared looks good and you say yes, even when your thinking you'd rather have what the dogs eating? Dont answer that one. Women, your husbands ever ask you if you like the gift you bought them and you say yes, when your really thinking that this isn't something you would give tou your worst enemy, like your mother in law or something. Those, as harmless and well meaning as they seem, are still lies. You lie, even a little one and you are what? A liar. Have you ever taken anything in your entire life? Even something as small as a stick of gum or a pen from work? If so, as petty as it sounds, you stole. That makes you a thief. You say ha, at least I never killed anyone, and most of you probably havent, but 2 out of 3 , even 1 out of 3 still makes you a sinner. What is sin? Sin is anything that is contrary to the will of God. Anything that is not just in the righteous eyes of God. Lying, stealing, lusting, jealousy, gluttony, murder, idolatry and the list goes on. We are all sinners. The Bible says in Romans 3:23 For all have sinned and come short of the Glory of God. Plain, matter of factly, we see that all, which means everyone, yes everyone has sinned and come short of Gods perfect glory. We all have come short. What does perfect mean? If something is perfect it cannot have even one flaw, even the smallest microscopic flaw would make it imperfect. God is perfect, and no man is. We will never be good enough. In Romans 3:10 the Bible tells us that there is none righteous, not one. Ok, I think we have established that everyone that has ever lived or will live is a sinner. So, sinning in essence is breaking fellowship with God, not following His righteousness, breaking the laws of God. Here on earth, we all know what comes along with breaking the law. We are punished. Whether it be a ticket or jail time, if we break the law, we can expect some form of punishment for that. Likewise, we as sinners, have broken Gods law and are continuously doing so since the time we are born. We are seperated from God and with that seperation comes a price to pay. In the first part of Romans 6:23 the Bible says: For the wages of sin is death. The wages, what we earn for our sin is death. Death, the price we pay for sin, is hell. The Bible says in Revelation 20:15 And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is hells final stop, and those not written in the Lambs, Jesus' book of life, are to be cast into it. Hell, a literal burning fire complete with the devil and all, its not a made up place. It is painfully real. So we see here what our sin earns us, but lets look at how God's love provides for us.
#2 God showed His love:
We read in John 3:16 about how God loved us. How He sent His only begotten to come to earth and die for our sins. In Romans 5:8 we read, But God commendeth His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. God commendeth, God showed His love for us, even though we are sinners, and sent His Holy Son to die for us on the cross. To be crucified at Calvary. Christ willingly came to earth, from a perfect Heaven, to a vile and sinful earth to show His love for you and I. He left His wonderful home in Heaven to come here, be mocked, be scourged, be beaten and have blasphemies hurled at Him, manifested in the flesh, to pay for the sins of the world. He went from a holy spiritual body, to that of a human. He humbled Himself from a mighty King to the place of a servant. Showing compassion and love, while telling the world to repent and believe. Knowing from the beginning what was in store, what pain and discomfort, what humiliation was to come, came anyway. Jesus is God, and was God in the flesh, but also fully a man. A man that felt pain as we would feel, felt sorrow as we would and the agony we would. Falsely accused and ridiculed, the Lord could have destroyed those who sought to harm Him, but He knew His mission, His love was more important. Christ was to be the perfect sacrifice offered up to God for our sins, the ultimate and final sacrifice for all mankind. Severely beaten to the brink of death, Jesus was forced to carry His own cross on the way to Calvary. That would be like someone with a gun to your head, getting prepared to shoot, after beating you for hours on end, making you carry your own casket to the site where he would pull the trigger. What would you do? Run, fight it? I would. The Lord could have easily been saved from the situation by calling on Heaven above. But through His love pressed on. Arriving at the site of the crucifiction, stakes driven into His hands and feet, the Lord, lay dying on the cross. The pain must have been beyond belief, the crowd mocking and ridiculing Christ as He was suffering an unimaginable death. In all this, how easy would it be for anger to arise, how easy for wishing harm on them would it be. I certainly know I would be. But Jesus Christ, with His love and compassion instead prayed to God the Father in Luke 23:34 Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do. What manner of man is this? This man was all man, but also fully God, fully showing His love for the world.
Which leads us to point number #3 How to receive the love God has showed us:
We have heard and learned about the great love of God for us, and the length Christ went to to show this love. But how do we receive it? What must we do? Well, remember we just talked about works? We know there is no good deed, no special repetitious prayer, no amount of self righteousness that can help us in achieving salvation. What is it that is required of us to get this wonderful gift of salvation and life eternal in Heaven? Faith. That is all. You say that sounds too easy! Just faith and I'm in? Yes, faith is all it takes. There are some out there who try to dress up and make this simple way of salvation something more difficult than it really is. That something so good cannot come so easily, they call it easy believism. Well, they are right, the believing is easy, and biblical. In Acts 16, the Apostle Paul and his companion Silas after being freed from jail by an earthquake from God, came out of the jailalong with the Philipian jailer. Fearing and knowing they were from God, the jailer asked a very good question. Sirs, what must I do to be saved. Acts 16:31 And they said: Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. Here it is, straight from the mouth of the Apostle Paul, believe. Lets look at more scripture to show this is no fluke. In Romans 10:9 we read: That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in thine heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. Believe and confess that God sent His son Jesus Christ to die for your sins, be buried and resurected from the dead by the Father and you will be saved. Following verse 9 we read: For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. Believe on the Lord. Call on the Lord to be your Saviour! You might not understand it all, I don't know anyone that truly fully does understand everything about God, but that isnt what is required here. We are just required to believe on the Lord. Put our faith in Jesus Christ for salvation. He is the only way to God and Heaven. The Bible says there is no other name under Heaven given to men in which we can be saved. You ask, what if my faith isn't as strong as it probably could be? The Bible makes no mention of how much faith we are to have, but only to have faith. A good Bible scholar, John Ankerberg put it this way. Realize that in one sense, it is not the amount of faith that saves you–it is in whom you put your faith. The question you should ask: “Is the Savior strong enough and dependable enough to save me when I ask? “
Picture a two-story building that’s on fire. You happen to be on the top floor. The fire is coming up from the bottom and there is no escape. You run to the roof and see a fire truck pull up to the front. Five big firemen get out and unfold a great big net. They look up at you and say, “Jump!”
Your first thought is, “You’ve got to be kidding! I’m two stories up. I can’t jump.”
But the firemen say, “Don’t you have faith? We’ll catch you.”
Now, you don’t have a lot of faith, but with fear and trembling, you jump off the roof. As a result, the firemen catch you. It’s not your faith that saved you, it was the firemen. But they couldn’t save you until you jumped.
Now, let’s change the story a little bit. Picture another person on the roof with the fire coming toward them. This man sees the firemen. And unlike you, he has a lot of faith. He confidently jumps off the roof, only to discover halfway down that the firemen have no net; they are just standing around holding hands. How much will the man’s faith save him then? You better have real firemen holding a real net, or your faith won’t save you.
In salvation, it’s not how much faith you have or how sincere you are; rather, everything depends on the object of your faith. Have you placed your faith in a real Savior? It’s not your faith that saves you, it’s Jesus who saves you. You just need to step off and place yourself in His hands.
The more deeply we believe that Christ did all that is necessary in providing our salvation, the greater our assurance will be when we place our trust in Him. We might begin with a small faith (Christ said that faith the size of a mustard seed is all that is required), but know that in time our faith will grow. But whether our faith is little or much, it must be directed to Christ alone, for God accepts only those who accept His Son.
So you see all you need is faith. The faith that Jesus Christ is all we need for salvation.
Ok, so you believe now. You believe that Jesus Christ is the only way to Heaven. That putting your faith in Him is the only ticket to salvation. How do you confess as we are told to do in Romans 10:9? What better way to confess your belief in and faith in Christ than by telling Him? What better way than by asking the Lord Jesus Christ to be your saviour in prayer? Some call it the sinners prayer, as there is a model in which most give as a guideline when sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It goes something like this: “Dear Lord Jesus, I admit to you that I have sinned. I know that I cannot save myself. Thank you for dying on the cross and being my sin-bearer. I believe that your death was for me and I receive your sacrifice on my behalf. As best I can, I now transfer all of my trust from myself and anything that I would do, to you. I open the door of my life to you and by faith receive you as my Savior and Lord. Thank you for forgiving my sins and giving me eternal life. Amen.”
Realize, a prayer cannot save you. A prayer is made up of mere words, but it is what is behind these words, your faith in Jesus Christ. So now, now you are saved and Heaven bound, but whoops, you sinned again! You are back at home struggling with the same problems from before. The same issues and worries in your life are still there. Can you truly be saved? Isn't salvation a magic wand that takes all of lifes problems away? Unfortunately, our problems and issues will still exist, but rest assured, if you believed in your heart when you confessed your faith in Christ, that was enough. The Lord handled the rest. So how can you be so sure that you are saved? Well, the Bible says in Romans 10:9 that whosoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. If you called out to Jesus in faith, He will save you, and keep you. The apostle John writes in 1 John 5:13 These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God in order that you may know that you have eternal life. You can rejoice and take comfort in the fact that you can KNOW that you have eternal life. In Hebrews 13:5 we read: God had said; never will I leave you; never will I forsake you. You are a child of God according to John 1:12 But as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name.
A holiday is a day set aside for rememberance of something or someone. Remember today the one that died for you and I, the perfect one who shed His blood at Calvary, the Holy One that is at the right hand of the Father in Heaven wanting all of us to join Him. Today we celebrate the birth of our Saviour. For those who are not saved, today is just a day to get and give gifts that will eventually break or fade away, but today you are offered something that will last forever, eternal life. If you havent already, please make today the day you will accept the best give ever offered to you.
I ask you all today, those of you who have not asked Christ to save your soul. That have not put your faith and belief in Jesus, to do so now. If you know you are a sinner, know you are on a straight path to death and hell, know that no name under Heaven is known that can save but Jesus Christ, why not ask Him now? Why not tell the Lord Jesus that you need Him? Come up here and we can help you pray, or stay right where you are, but do not delay the calling of God on your heart. Do not put off what may be your last chance to receive Christ as your saviour. This will be the most critical decision you will ever make in your life.
