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Sermons

"JESUS, SAVIOR OF THE FAITHFUL"
GOSPEL SCRIPTURE TEXT:
JOHN 3:16-17

DAVE RING, PASTOR
LOS ALAMOS 1ST UNITED METHODIST CHURCH
SUNDAY MORNING, DECEMBER 6, 2009

GOSPEL SCRIPTURE TEXT: 16"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him."

MESSAGE: Jesus. Jesus. Jesus! The Name above all names. The Savior. It's really all about Him.
Jesus is unique among all who ever lived. He was God, the Creator and Father of it all. But He intensely loved a tiny, strange, distorted portion of His creation -- on a small planet in an undistinguished galaxy -- to the point of fixation. He loved humanity - He was obsessed, if you will, with our welfare. He saw us continually fighting and killing one another, using our distinctive freedom of choice to abuse and annihilate each other, ultimately sentencing ourselves to an eternity of separation from Him. And He couldn't get our plight off His divine mind.

So God considered - for centuries by our reckoning - how can I save them? How can I rescue humanity from itself? How, without violating the freedom that I deliberately gave when I made them, can I prevent at least some of them from destroying that precious part of themselves which is intended for eternal bliss - their very souls?

Finally, He had it. God said, "I'll become one of them. I'll become a man - in order to save mankind."

And so God became man. That's easy to say, but its implications are astonishing. Almighty God, the Maker of it all, poured Himself - all of Himself - into a frail, finite human vessel. The infant Jesus was God in the flesh. Not a part of God, not a spokesman for God, not an envoy from God - none of those. Jesus was fully and completely God - and fully and completely man.

How that was done is beyond human comprehension. It's a puzzle the learned minds and theologians among us have been trying to solve for two millennia now. But they haven't succeeded yet - and they likely never will. In the mid-20th century, scientists did figure out that all humans are constructed of basic building blocks called DNA - deoxyribonucleic acid. So I guess I'll submit that Jesus was constructed of "GNA" - "God's nucleic acid." That's Dave Ring's lame attempt to explain the mystery of "Immanuel" - God with us. Regardless of "how," the point is - God did it!
Jesus really doesn't need to be explained. Rather, Jesus needs to be experienced. The good news is that Jesus was sent, by God, to save His people from their sins. And the even better news is that, according to John 3:16, God's people are no longer limited to the Jews, the biological descendants of Abraham. Just as God moved beyond human biology to become Jesus, so also God went past human biology to include "the world" in Jesus' loving offer of salvation.

Yes, potentially at least, Jesus is the Savior of the entire world. But it's not "automatic." According to John 3:16, in order to make Jesus your Savior, you must believe in Him. Belief in - faith in - Jesus is required. Christianity is not universalism - we don't teach, because the Bible doesn't teach, that everyone will be saved regardless of who they believe or don't, what they do or don't. You must believe in Jesus; you have to reach out and accept the gift of salvation that God offers through Jesus and Jesus alone. In that sense, Christianity is an unashamedly "narrow" religion. Jesus is the one and only way to God; Jesus is the only possibility for salvation from sin and its consequences -- everlasting death.

On the other hand, John 3:16 and 17 make it plain that God's primary impetus in sending Jesus to earth is not to fill hell with lost souls. God's wonderful motivation, lived out in the flesh by Jesus, is, as I said previously, love. God desires to save as many as possible - and all things, truly, are possible with God. There's no balancing act involved here, no "scales of justice" that we must face. God, in Jesus, is clearly on our side. God's not interested in punishing humans. Rather, He wants to save us - not so much from divine wrath, but more from our own innately sinful, rebellious natures. Jesus loves us, and all He really wants is for us to love Him in return. And He'll succeed - or die trying. Actually, that's precisely what He did - for you, for me. He died on the cross that we might not have to live in hell for eternity.

Why did Jesus have to die on the cross? Why couldn't He simply proclaim that we were forgiven, and leave it at that? I mean, after all, even in human form He was still God, right? Yes -- and because He was God, He couldn't simply overlook sin, for He's ever a God of absolute righteousness. The unrighteousness of sin had to be dealt with -- and rather than make us pay the penalty, He paid it for us.

Little Johnny, age five, was having a bad day. Although his parents repeatedly tried to make him behave, he simply wouldn't. Finally, as they were sitting down to supper, his father warned, "Johnny, if you misbehave one more time, you'll be sent straight to bed without supper." Johnny didn't listen; he immediately threw yet another tantrum at the table. His father therefore picked him up, carried him upstairs and summarily put him to bed. After his father left, in the quiet darkness of the bedroom, Johnny began to cry. He'd never felt so afraid and alone - and he was hungry, too. Not very many minutes later his father came back into the bedroom and crawled into bed with little Johnny. "Son," he said, "I warned you that you'd be sent to bed without supper if you acted up at the table, and that's exactly what you did. I can't overlook your misbehavior, but I can spend the night here with you."

That's not 100% the same as what Jesus did for us, but it's similar. In order to be our Savior, He became one of us. In order to pay the penalty for our sins, the sinless Son of God was crucified on a cross. In order to provide us eternal life, Jesus had to give up His life.

But the story doesn't end there, with Jesus hanging on a cross. Because Jesus was totally and completely obedient to the will of the Father in carrying out the divine plan for human redemption, God raised Him from the dead. How did He do that one? Again, I'm clueless - and so is everyone else. But I don't have to know "how" it was done in order to affirm that it was done. Jesus rose from the dead and, therefore, when my appointed time to leave this earth arrives, He can then show me how it's done. He's "the way, the truth, and the life." He can and does lead me in the way that leads to life eternal; He can and does reveal the absolute truth of God's love for me; and He can and will grant me life - abundant life, in the Kingdom of Heaven with Him for all eternity.
That's what the Savior does. He's not interested in any of His precious human creations needlessly perishing. He loves us so much that He died - and rose from death - in order to grant us eternal life.

The tricky part about "love" is that it's always gentle, always polite, always inviting. Love is never harsh, never compelling, never controlling. If God put a hammerlock on you or me in order to forcibly save us from our sins, that wouldn't be love.

And so God's love, most clearly expressed in Jesus, the Savior of the faithful, can only beckon us. God invites you - and I echo that invitation to you in His behalf - to believe in His Son Jesus.

Believe in God's love for you. Believe in Jesus. Accept Him as Your Savior, and join the faithful people of God - for eternity! Amen.

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