I find it interesting that the
first two people that the angel of the Lord made known that the
Son of God was coming, whose name would be Jesus. One was
Mary, a poor young lady, most say 12, 13 years
of age is about all. not from a famous family. Her relatives were not the who's
who in Jewish history. Oh, they could trace their ancestry
back to David. Mary was of the tribe of Judah,
but she was unknown. It's amazing God hides the things
of the Gospel from the wise and the prudent and reveals them
unto babes. And then here's Joseph, a carpenter
by trade, a worker, once again, unknown by the world, but once
again, also of the tribe of David. And yet it's to these two individuals
that the Spirit of God led the angel, the messenger of God,
to come to them, Gabriel, and tell them about the Lord Jesus. And you know, the angels of God
that sang at the birth of our Savior, as in Luke, Chapter 2. Those angels are in many ways
typical of the servants of the gospel, preachers of the message
of our Lord Jesus Christ. This is what God uses in order
to inform His people of that glorious One who is the Savior
of sinners, the Lord Jesus Christ. He uses preachers. It pleased
God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. The
shepherds were also men who were unknown, and we read their story
in Luke, the second chapter. Nobody's, as far as the world's
concerned, just ordinary laborers watching their flocks. The scripture
says, by night. These are the sorts of people
that the messengers of God spoke to. And yet, though not many
wise men are called, there were some wise men who were called. And they were led by a star. And of course, preachers of the
gospel are likened unto stars in the hands of the master. And
those three wise men, if there were three, they came from a
great distance off because they were seeking the Lord. If God
the Spirit ever puts it in our hearts to truly seek the Lord
Jesus Christ, distance, distance will be an irrelevant thing. would be willing to come and
hear Him. How far did those men come from
these? Hundreds of miles, I presume.
Are they worth somebody? But the Scripture says, not many
mighty are called. Not many noble. Not many wise. God's chosen the foolish things
of the world, and that confounds the wise. But He can even take
someone who has natural wisdom and reveal to them that their
natural wisdom is not the wisdom that they need to know God. They've
got to have God-given wisdom to know who the Lord is. Well,
here in Matthew chapter 1, having given to us through the inspired
pen of Matthew. The Spirit of grace has given
us his genealogy, and then he tells us of that which happened
to Joseph. And the angel of the Lord said to
him in a dream, she shall bring forth a son, verse 21, and thou
shalt call his name Jesus. This is His person. This is who
He is. Thou shalt call His name Jesus. There's His person. For He shalt
save His people. That's the second thing I want
to deal with. His people. His person. He's Jesus. Number two, His people. And here's the third thing, for
He shall save His people from their sins. That's His purpose
in coming. Those are the three points of
the message tonight. Very simple. And I hope that
the Spirit of God will enable me to make this very clear. First
of all, let's talk about His person. Who is Jesus? If you ask 50 people out on the
street, you might get 50 different answers to that. And if you went
to various denominations, you'd get various answers from them
as well. People have heard about Jesus
all their life, and maybe there might be somebody here, though
I doubt that you would ask this, but maybe somebody is watching
by way of the internet tonight, and they would say, now Jim,
everybody knows who Jesus is. And my answer is, by nature, nobody knows who He is. And certainly it is incorrect
to say everybody knows who Jesus is. There are a lot of false
Jesuses being preached today, and our Lord Himself warned us. He warned us that the day is
coming when there will be people preaching false Christs. And He says to beware of those
people. He said, in fact, these preachers
who will be preaching a false Jesus, a false Christ, if it
were possible, they would deceive the very elect of God. And even
this day, especially this time of the year, There are multitudes
of men who profess to speak for God who, though they speak in
the religious realm, they don't know who Jesus is. They don't
know who He is. They don't know what He came
to do. They don't know if He accomplished anything. And they
really don't know where He is now. There's a great ignorance
in the religious circles as to Jesus, his person, and his work. So let us be warned. The question
is very important. Who is Jesus? Be warned that
and take inventory, go to the Scriptures and check the Word
of God out, and make sure the Jesus you worship is the Jesus
of the Word of God. I know this, I must know and
believe Jesus as He's revealed in the Scriptures. This is life
eternal, is what the Savior said in John 17. This is life eternal
that they might know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ
whom Thou hast sent. This is eternal life. To have
the wrong Jesus, to have wrong concepts of who He is, to have
a wrong idea of the reason why He came to this world and to
be foggy about what He came to do, to be wrong there is not
good for you because it will lead to everlasting damnation. If I trust a false Jesus, no
matter how sincere I am, I'm still a lost man. And I wouldn't
call into question the sincerity of many people in religion who
believe and follow even a false Jesus. I wouldn't call into question
their sincerity. They're just sincerely wrong. You know, in religion, there are
a lot of people who appear to mean business. Well, Saul of
Tarsus, he was sincere. He meant business. Would you
kill for your religion? He would. That's pretty committed
there. That's being real dedicated.
None of us know anything about that kind of dedication. I'll
throw you and your children in jail if you disagree from my
religious belief. That's what Saul said. But he
didn't know God. He didn't know the true Jesus. He had no idea that that Nazarene
that he absolutely despised was the very Christ of God. Let me
identify the real Jesus. Number one, He's the eternal
Son of God. He's the second person of the
Trinity. There are three that bear record
in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit, and these
three are one. He's God, and He's God who is
manifest in the flesh. In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. All things
were made by Him. Without Him, nothing was made
that was made. He made everything. and the Word was made flesh,
and He dwelt among us. He tabernacled among us. That
man walking along the shores of the Sea of Galilee, who performed
numerous miracles, that man who was kind to the sinful and harsh
to the self-righteous Pharisees, that man is no other than God,
the God-man. God manifests in the flesh. All
the attributes of deity belong to Him. Why? He is the Creator, He is the
Sustainer, He is the Ruler, He is the Disposer of all things. In His eternality, He's the infinite
God. Without beginning of days and
without ending of days. Jesus Christ the same yesterday,
today, and forever. He's the omnipotent One. He speaks
to the sea. Peace, be still. The storm stops. The wind ceases to blow. The waves cease to roar. and that sea of Galilee became
like a mirror. Who can do that but God? All the attributes of God belong
to Him. He's the revelation of God. No man hath seen God at any time. The Scripture says, the only
begotten Son who's in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared
Him. He's told God out. How do we
know what God's like? Jesus Christ is the Son of God. He came down here. That's how
we know what God's like. Look into the Scriptures. Learn
about the Son of God. Learn about the Lord Jesus Christ. If you would know God, you've
got to know Him. Because there's no knowing God
except you know Him in Christ. Why, He's the embodiment of God. For in Him dwelleth the fullness
of the Godhead bodily. What a miracle! What a miracle! I say He's the eternal Son, and
secondly, He's the everlasting substitute. This Jesus, God in
the flesh, He's the sinner's substitute. He always has been
our substitute. He stood before God in the covenant
of grace as our substitute. When He came to this world, He
lived in obedience to God's holy law as our substitute. When He died on the cross of
Calvary, He died bearing our sins in His own body on the tree. He was our substitute. He died
the death that we would have had to have died had He not died. Well, how could the death of
one man, how could that save and redeem and reconcile millions
of sinners? Because of who He is. He's the God-man. Only God can satisfy. Only God
can satisfy God. And only a man can suffer and
bleed and die and endure the wages of sin, which is death. Lo, the God-man came! He came
to save His people. He's the everlasting substitute. He's the effectual Savior. He's the only Savior. He's the
mighty Savior. He is the complete Savior. Because
He is of God, made unto us everything we need. We're foolish. Oh, He's our wisdom. We're unrighteous. He is our righteousness. We're
unholy and unfit for God. He is our sanctification. He
is our holiness. We're in debt to the law of God. We owe a price we can't possibly
pay. He is our redemption. He's all
we need. Once in a while, every once in
a while, I'll hear somebody say, you know, I wish we could hear
something a little different. Well, if the Lord Jesus is all
we need, well, He's all we need to hear. Anything else would
be rather useless. He's all we need. Why, He's the
one who said it is finished. And I'll tell you this, He's
the enthroned Sovereign. Yeah, He's the enthroned Sovereign.
This Jesus who is God, the God-man, He so honored every demand of
God in saving His people that when He died, God then raised
Him from the dead. Our Lord Jesus left our debt
of sin in the tomb, buried, gone forever. And then God said, you
come up here and sit at My right hand. You're in charge of everything. He is the Enthroned Sovereign. And yonder He sits in everlasting glory. My Jesus, my Friend, my Shepherd, my Savior,
my Substitute, there He sits in that body in which he obeyed
God's law and then died under the curse of God's law and was
raised again. He did all of that to save folks
like me and like you. And there he sits in glory. Still
got that body. That's why John says we shall
see him as he is. We won't see him bleeding. We
won't see him suffering. We'll see Him as those disciples
saw Him after His resurrection, in His resurrected body. That's His person, number two,
His people. This glorious person, He's the
Savior of His people. Who are these that the Spirit
of God designates them here in verse 21 as those that would
be saved by Jesus? They're called His people. He
has His people. And notice it doesn't say, it
doesn't say that He will try to save these people if they'll
let Him, and then they'll become His people. No. He doesn't say
these people must decide that they want to be His people. No. He doesn't say they must believe
and then become His people. No. You see, if you read the
Word of God, you'll notice this. They were already His people
when He was in Mary's womb. and they were already His people
before He inhabited Mary's womb. And go back as far as your brain
will take you into eternity, you'll find they've always been
His people. This is not a new thing. They're
already His people. His people. Almost everybody
presumes that Jesus came to save everybody. Well, this verse of
Scripture teaches us right doctrine, good doctrine. He didn't come
to save everybody. If He came to save everybody,
let me tell you something, everybody would be saved. Because He can't fail. Remember
who He is. We're not talking about just
a man. We're talking about the God-man.
And the God-man can't fail. Whatever He set out to do, being
God Almighty forever in His eternal capacity as our substitute and
representative in surety, whatever He came into this world to accomplish,
you could just go to the bank on this. He did it. Because of
who He is. God can't be frustrated. God
can't be defeated. Whatever He came to do, He did.
He came to save some people. And the Spirit of God identifies
them by being His people. His people. That's wonderful
to me. And when I read His people, I'm
one of them. You're one of them. You're one
of them. I'd go around this room and say
to all the believers in here, to those of you who are watching,
you're one of them too. And when He left heaven's glory,
and by the Spirit of God's conceiving power in the womb of Mary, when
His body was formed in her womb, that body was formed for you. Because you're one of His people.
He didn't come down here to, well, try to help us live better
lives and set a good example for us to love one another and
treat one another better and that sort of thing. No, He came
to save His people. He came on a mission. He came
on an errand. God the Father sent Him to do
something. to save His people. His people. Well, I guess the question needs
to be asked is, did He do that? If He's God Almighty, He did
it. His people. Who are His people?
Well, they're identified in the scriptures. At the end of Psalm
22, they're called His seed. Isaiah 53 says, he shall see
his seed, shall be satisfied. He identifies them as his sheep. He said, I lay down my life for
the sheep. For the sheep. And he says, husbands love your
wives as Christ also Loved the church. He loved His bride. And I'll tell you what, in Ephesians
chapter 1, they're called His elect. Who'd He come to save? Everybody
who trusts Him. I can say that. He came to save
everybody who trusts Him. You being a sinner, You being
ungodly by nature. Me too. If the Spirit of God
leads us to bow down before King Jesus, believe Him in the heart. This is the only Savior. This
is the one I need. That's where I find the righteousness
of God. That's where I find forgiveness
of my sins. This is just the Savior I need. You believe Him, that doesn't
make you His people. You believe Him because you are
His people. You're already His people. Who are His people? The ones
the Father chose before the world began, appointed unto salvation. predestinated them unto the adoption
of children by Jesus Christ Himself? His people. His person. He's the God-man. His people. That's who He came to the world
for. And the third thing is His purpose.
What did He come to do for these His people? He came to save them. And there it is wrapped up in
that word. Save is to make us spiritually
whole, free of any spiritual disease. This is deliverance
from sin. This is deliverance from the
penalty of sin. Deliverance from the power of
sin. and one of these days deliverance
from the very presence of sin. He came to save His people, to
deliver His people from sin. Here are three definite acts
of sovereign grace by which the Lord Jesus Christ saves His people. Get a hold to these and you'll
understand right doctrine. Number one, redemption. He came to redeem by His blood. The Son of God came down here
to save His people by a particular, effectual, powerful redemption
of our souls from the curse of God's law. The law of God cursed
us. You sinners! You violated my
law! You've transgressed the law!
You must die!" Christ came to buy us from the claims of the
law, to redeem us, to buy us back. Oh, He already owned us
by creation and by before that election. We fell in at him and
the law of God took hold of us. We keep him in prison until I
cast him into the bottomless pit, as it were. And the Lord Jesus Christ came
down here and said, I'm going to pay the price you demand to
let him go free. He didn't break us out of jail. In Him we served our time. In Him the sentence of God's
law of death has been satisfied. I've already died to the law.
When I died in Christ Jesus, I am crucified with Christ. That's so important. People don't
understand that. I'm crucified with Christ. When
He died, I died. I died to the law. I died to
sin. The law can't come after me anymore. When the law executes a man,
the law says you're guilty. You're going to have to die.
When the law kills a man, the law says I'm done. I can't do
anymore. When the law of God cursed the
Lord Jesus Christ and we were in Him, we were redeemed from
the law. Bought at tremendous price, the
blood of the Son of God. That's how He saved us. I'll tell you something else
He does. on account of redemption, and that's the basis of all of
it, but number two, regeneration. He saves His chosen, redeemed
people from the reigning power and dominion of sins. The Almighty,
irresistible, effectual, it gets the job done. He causes us to
be born again by the power of the Spirit of God. In other words,
He breathes spiritual life into us. And the result is repentance
toward God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. And you hath He
quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins. You see, He redeemed
us. A price has been paid. Regeneration's
got to follow that. It has to follow. You must be born again, is what
the Savior told Nicodemus. In John chapter 5, our Savior
told those Jews, as the Father raiseth up the dead and quickeneth
them, even so the Son of Man quickeneth whom He will. That's called regeneration. Redemption. Regeneration. He
stepped in front of the tomb of Lazarus. Roll the stone away,
he told those fellows. I tell you what, we do what we
can. We preach the gospel. We try to get rid of the obstacles. Roll the stones away. That's
all we can do. Because if he doesn't do anything,
Lazarus is going to stay in that tomb. Because we can't give him
life. But that one who is life, After
those fellows rolled that stone away, he just prayed, Father,
I know you always hear me, but for their sakes I pray. And he said, Lazarus, come forth. And all of a sudden, that man
who was dead, dead for so long, The people who buried him said,
you don't even want to roll the stone away. His body is corrupted. It stinks by now. I'll tell you what, when the
Lord Jesus Christ who redeemed us, when He regenerates us, and
He washes us in His blood, the stink is gone. That smell of
death is gone. Because we're robed in the very
righteousness of God. God said, He's accepted in the
Beloved. In fact, we've always been accepted
in the Beloved. Regeneration of His own will
begat He us with the Word of Truth. Regeneration. Redemption. He did that. Regeneration. He did that. Are you alive to
God? Same One who redeemed you regenerated
you. He quickened you. That's why
you love the Gospel. That's the only reason. That's
why the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, the sovereign Christ,
the successful Christ, that's why you love Him and you base
all of your salvation upon Him because He who redeemed you regenerated
you. He gave you new life. He gave
you a life you didn't have before. And now you want to only hear
this Gospel. That's all you want to hear.
I don't want to hear anything else. Somebody was telling me
the other night, I forget who it was now, but they said something
about they... Oh, I was visiting with somebody, Monday. And a
lady told me, she said, you know, I listen to the music on such
and such a program, Sunday night. She said, but the preacher, he
didn't know anything about Sovereign Grace. But she said, they sing
good songs. They sing good songs. They don't
know anything about Jesus Christ. That's awful. He's charged to
bring against a man, isn't he? He doesn't know anything about
Jesus Christ. He doesn't know anything about the sovereign
grace of God. But we wouldn't either if it wasn't for regeneration. He quickens those whom He's redeemed. And number three, resurrection. Soon the Lord Jesus is coming
to this world. Coming back again. And He's going to raise the bodies
of all of His people. His people. And those of us,
whoever the people of God are, who are living and alive when
He comes back, our bodies will be changed. Not before theirs. Dead's going to be raised first.
Then we're all going to be changed. Corruption is going to put on
incorruption. Mortality is going to put on
immortality. Death is going to be swallowed
up in victory. And then in resurrected bodies, perfect and holy in soul and
in body, we'll bless the name of Christ. That's resurrection. Resurrection. Oh yeah, here's
His person. He's Jesus. He's the Savior. He's God our Savior. Old Testament
name was Joshua. New Testament name, Jesus. Same. Jehovah is salvation. That's
His person. The God-man. And He has His people. How can you identify them? Well,
I can't identify them until they believe on Christ. And you can't
even identify yourself as one of His people until you're brought
to faith. The Word of God will bear this
out, the only evidence that you are one of His people. You believe
Him. And I'll tell you what, if you
believe Him, it's because you've been regenerated, and if you've
been regenerated, you can't help but believe Him. Isn't that right? You can't help but believe Him.
And then one of these days, I know the body's got to, if the Lord
doesn't come back soon, our body's going to get weak, and we're
going to have to die. Our body's got to be laid down
and committed to the ground. I know that. You know that. I tell you what, death doesn't
have a final word. Our Savior has the final word.
Arise! And boy, I tell you what, in
a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, resurrection. Oh, glorious
day. What a wonderful Savior is Jesus
my Lord. Let's sing a closing song. Get
your psalm books. Let's sing 105. That beautiful
name.