You, young and old alike, and
everything in between, were handed a clipboard. You kids know what
a clipboard is? It's one of those pieces of fiberboard
with a big clip at the top, and you can stick papers in it. You
each were handed a clipboard, a pad of paper, a ballpoint pen,
and on your clipboard, the paper attached to it, were three questions,
and we commissioned you all to go out into this great metropolitan
area and find the first group of people you could find, you
kids, you find fellow kids, you young people, people of your
own age, you adults, people of your age, and we all engaged
in an on-the-street survey with reference to the particular season
into which we've entered. And the three questions you are
to ask are, number one, What is the general significance of
this holiday time called the Christmas season? And I think
if we gathered back here at two o'clock to compare answers, we'd
find that in answer to that question, most people would say that the
general significance of the Christmas season is to be found in looking
at the season as a time of peace and of goodwill. a season in
which we for a time at least forget hostilities and uh... renew our hopes for peace on
earth a season in which all the scrooges of the world and all
the scrooge within us is changed into the spirit of generosity
in the spirit of sharing i think most people would say that's
the general significance of the so-called christmas season and
the second question you are to ask as you do your on the street
survey was this Is there any special religious significance
to this holiday season? And if so, what is it? Well,
a lot of people would answer in the negative and say, don't
even try to spoil the season with religion. But there would
be a goodly number who would say, well, the special religious
significance of this season has something to do in some way or
another with the birth of Jesus Christ. You know all that stuff
about Mary and the manger and Joseph and the shepherds and
the wise men and all that business. The religious significance has
something to do with the birth of Christ. Then you would ask
a third question. And that question would be this.
Granted that there is some special significance and it has a special
relationship to the birth of Jesus Christ, Sir, friend, man,
or however a fellow, a girl, a boy addresses another boy or
girl, whatever term would be proper. Here's your third question.
Why did Jesus Christ come to the world? Why was he born? And if there
would be some difference in the answers to question one, and
even a greater difference in the answer to question number
two. In answer to this third question,
why did Christ come, what we would reveal as we shared our
answers with one another would unfold appalling ignorance, gross
misconception, and unwarranted perversion of the purpose for
which Jesus Christ was born. in Bethlehem's manger nearly
two thousand years ago. Now I'm not going to occupy your
minds this morning with answering question number one, what is
the general significance of the Christmas season? Nor am I going
to occupy myself with question number two, what is the special
religious significance of this holiday season or Christmas season,
and just speak in generalities concerning the birth of Christ.
But I do want to address myself to question number three. Specifically,
why did Christ come to the manger in Bethlehem? And in so doing,
I'm not trying to put Christ back into Christmas. I'm not
sure He was ever there or wants to be put into Christmas. As a holiday that may be legitimate
in itself, I have no concern to put Christ into Christmas.
But I do have a concern to take the occasion of a holiday that
in some way or another is related to Him and use it as an occasion
to proclaim what is a biblical truth, why did Christ come to
earth? And I know a few texts in the
Word of God which more explicitly – that's just a big word, kids,
for clearly – pointedly sets forth the purpose of the coming
of Christ than the text which, by the help of God I shall attempt
to expound this morning, And it is found in Paul's letter
to Timothy, 1 Timothy chapter 1 and verse 15. 1 Timothy 1 and verse 15. He who understands this text,
its words, the relationships of the words to each other, understands
the meaning of those words. can give an answer to that third
question, which can never be improved upon. Why did Christ
come? Here is the answer of God. Faithful
is the saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ
Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief. Now I want to say just a word
about the setting of this great Christmas test. Beginning with
verse 12 and concluding with verse 17, the Apostle Paul is
extolling the grace of God to him. He says in verse 12 that
he thanks the God who has enabled him, even Christ Jesus the Lord. for that he counted him faithful,
putting him into the ministry, and he's amazed that he should
be found in the position of a gospel minister. He says, in the light
of what I once was. a persecutor, a blasphemer, injurious
to the people of God. He says, I am amazed that I should
have obtained mercy and forgiveness and added to that mercy and forgiveness
this wonderful position, being a minister of Jesus Christ. And then, after he makes this
glorious statement of verse 15, he continues to extol the grace
of God to him. Verse 16, Howbeit for this cause
I obtain mercy, that in me as chief might Jesus Christ show
forth all his longsuffering. In other words, Paul has been
contemplating his own experience as an amazing display of the
grace of God to the vilest to the neediest, to the chiefest
of sinners. And in the midst of extolling
the grace of God to him, he makes this declaration, Faithful is
the saying, and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus
came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief. In other
words, He is telling us that what Christ came to do in a general
sense is wonderfully illustrated in His own experience in a specific
way. And what happens to Him as a
specific sinner is consistent with the purpose of Christ in
general to all the sinners whom He came to save. So that, briefly,
is the drift of thought. Now we address ourselves exclusively
to the words of verse 15. And there are three basic divisions
of thought in the text. First of all, the Apostle tells
us something about the nature of this saying. Secondly, the
substance or essence of the saying. And thirdly, the personal application
of the saying. First of all, then, the nature
of the saying. Look at the text. Faithful is
the saying. and worthy of all acceptation. As many of you no doubt are aware,
there are five of these so-called faithful sayings in the pastoral
epistles. Five times when the apostle uses
this same identical construction and says, faithful or reliable
or trustworthy is the saying, and then he quotes what had apparently
become sort of little cryptic statements that were common currency
among the churches at the time that the pastoral epistles were
written. They had no written scriptures of the New Testament.
They had the Old Testament scriptures, but not every believer had a
copy since we didn't have the printing press as we now have
it, and there would be groups of believers who would have the
Old Testament scriptures in scroll form, But much of what they knew
concerning Christ and the work of Christ was embodied in what
then was called the apostolic tradition. It was passed on orally
by word of mouth, and so there was a much greater dependence
upon this word of mouth transmission as a means of edification. That
perhaps will help you to understand such passages as be filled with
the Spirit speaking one to another in psalms and hymns and spiritual
songs. A person could not go home and
open up his New Testament and have his family worship. And
so there was this greater sense of dependence upon mutual sharing
of these sayings that had apostolic approval, that had the imprimatur
of divine authority upon them. Now, one of the sayings that
had the apostolic approval, that was common currency, and which
the people of God loved to share with one another, and of which
they would remind each other, and which would become the basis
of witness to others, is this saying that is before us this
morning. It is a faithful saying. In other words, the apostle wants
us to come to grips with the nature of this saying before
we even examine the substance of the saying itself. And he
tells us two things about this saying that Christ Jesus came
into the world to save sinners. He tells us that it is a reliable
saying and it is an acceptance-worthy saying. A hyphen between acceptance
and worthy. First of all, he says it is a
reliable The emphasis falls upon the quality of the saying. The word reliable comes first
in the original. Reliable is the saying. As we stand on the threshold
of this saying, Viewing it as a large room into which we will
enter and will examine the walls and the ceiling and the floor
and all the furniture that comprise the saying, the Apostle says
you're standing on the threshold of a reliable saying, a saying
that is trustworthy. And why is it reliable? It is
reliable because it is a statement of the God who cannot lie. and
because it is a truth confirmed in the experience of the people
of God. Now, whatever is spoken by God
and confirmed in the experience of the people of God is utterly
reliable. Now, whatever God speaks is utterly
reliable, for the Scripture says, God who cannot lie. So there may be many things which
God has said in his word which we have not verified in our experience
and which no human being has ever verified in his experience.
It is still a trustworthy statement because God has said it. This
is one of those sayings that is not only spoken by God and
is therefore trustworthy and reliable, it has been verified
in the experience of every true child of God. Therefore, it is
utterly reliable because of the veracity of God which stands
behind it and the experience of the people of God which says
Amen to it. And I then do not weary you this
morning with some sentimental notions about Christmas. I would
not bore you or insult you by seeking to pump into you or draw
forth from you some general humanistic spirit of goodwill and graciousness
and kindness. I would not go after you with
the stick of human endeavor trying to beat the scrooge that's left
in your own bosom. No, no. I would stand in your
presence and above all in the presence of God and direct your
attention to a saying that is utterly reliable, a statement
that is utterly reliable because God has spoken it and the experience
of the people of God confirms it. But the nature of the saying
is not only described by the apostle as reliable, he says
it is an acceptance-worthy saying. In other words, it is a saying
that is not only reliable because of what it is in itself, but
the very nature of that saying is so perfectly suited to all
those to whom it comes that it is worthy of nothing less than
complete acceptance. It's not a saying to which you
can simply point and say, oh, that's lovely and that's true.
It is a statement that touches the highest and deepest areas
of your own personal interest. And it touches them in such a
way that nothing is worthy of you and that statement, but absolute
acceptance of that statement and its implications in your
own heart. And notice what he says. It is acceptance worthy
on the part of all. Faithful is the saying and worthy
of all acceptation. I do not come with a saying that
is fitted only for adults or for children or for church members
or for people from a Christian home or for people from a non-Christian
background. It is a statement worthy of acceptance
by all, and so I can say this morning, without any fear of
contradiction, I have a word for you, and you, and you, and
you, you, and it matters not where my finger's pointing and
who feels it's pointing at whom. It is a statement worthy of all
acceptation. That's the nature of the same. Now let's look at the substance
of the same. Here it is. Christ Jesus came into the world
to save sinners. You will notice the first aspect
of this saying focuses upon the person of Jesus Christ. And so the substance of the saying
begins with this person introduced to us as Christ Jesus. And this term, Christ Jesus,
By the time the apostle wrote these pastoral epistles, had
become the most common title by which to identify our Lord
and Savior, Jesus Christ. The word Christ pointed to his
office as Messiah. The word Jesus pointed to his
identity as a person. For instance, when you use the
terms president ford vetoed that weird tax bill and i prayed that
he'd veto it i don't offer into doubt introduced politics but
monday morning in prayer i was constrained to pray lord don't
let the congress be so foolish as to think they can cut taxes
and put no ceiling on the national debt and cut federal spending. It's ridiculous. It's contrary
to every principle of economics taught in the Word of God. It's
a form of thievery by decree. Program inflation into the national
economy. Well, thank God, President Ford
vetoed and Congress, Senate could not, sorry, the House of Representatives
or the Senate, whoever voted on it, didn't have enough votes
to override it. It was the House of Representatives, I believe. But
be that as it may, my purpose is not to speak politics this
morning. It's to open up this text. When we say President Ford
vetoed, President Ford's veto was not overridden. President
refers to what? It refers to office. Ford is
the personal name which identifies the specific person who is in
the office. All right, now look at the text.
The essence of this faithful saying has, as it were, all of
its lines drawn to a person who is first of all introduced in
his distinct office. Faithful is the saying, and worthy
of all acceptation, that Christ came into the world, and the
word Christ has bound up in it, Everything that the Scriptures
teach concerning the long-promised Messiah, the Anointed One who
would be God's final prophet, God's true priest, and God's
exalted King, the One who would be anointed to speak to us the
very Word of God and be the very embodiment of God's truth. the
one who would be the priest who would offer up himself and then
intercede on behalf of his people, who would be the king to sit
upon the throne of David, administering what the Scriptures call the
sure mercies of David, all of the covenant promises made to
the Lord Jesus and to the people of God in him. And so the word
Christ points us to the tremendous richness of all that is taught
in the Word of God concerning all of the offices that Christ
performs as a mediator. And immediately, you see, we're
taken away from the sentimental slush about the babe in the manger
that somehow, in some way or other, is related to peace and
happiness. No, no, no, no. Why did Christ
He came to be the Anointed One, and the moment we think of Him
as the Anointed One, Prophet, Priest, and King, we are knee-deep
in Christian theology. We are knee-deep in the grand
truths concerning God who speaks and who speaks by His Son. God
who is holy and cannot be approached apart from a sacrifice, namely
the sacrifice of His Son. God who is sovereign and who
has planned the course of human history and has committed into
the hands of His dear Son the administration of the entire
moral universe, until such time as the purposes of redemption
are accomplished, and in the language of 1 Corinthians 15,
He shall then deliver up the kingdom to God the Father. That's
what's bound up in the little word, Christ. When the angel
said to the shepherds, unto you is born this day in the city
of David a Savior who is Christ, those shepherds whose minds were
steeped in the truth of the Old Testament understood that that
word Christ meant nothing less than God's anointed prophet,
priest, and king. But He is not Christ in the abstraction. He is Christ Jesus. And Jesus, of course, is the
personal name given to him at his conception in the womb of
the Virgin Mary. You remember the record in Matthew
chapter 1. Joseph, greatly disturbed in
mind as to what his course of action should be upon discovering
that Mary is engaged, beloved one, is pregnant, she's with
child, and he knows not what his course of action should be
because he knows she's not pregnant by him. And as he meditates upon
these things, the angel comes to him and says, Fear not, Joseph,
to take unto thee Mary thy wife, for that which is conceived in
her is of the Holy Ghost, and she shall bring forth a son.
And thou shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall save his
people from their sins. Thou shalt call his name Jesus. That is His personal name, by
which the one who is incarnate in the womb of the Virgin Mary
is identified. And as He goes out into His ministry
again and again, we read in the Gospel records that Jesus went
here. Jesus saw the multitudes and
was moved with compassion. The apostles, in describing His
earthly experience, say, Jesus of Nazareth, whom God anointed
with the Holy Spirit, who went about doing good. It was Jesus
who died upon the cross. It was this same Jesus who came
out of the tomb and was seen ascending into heaven, whom the
angels say shall come in like manner. And so this faithful
saying has as its central issue and its central personage This
glorious person, Christ Jesus. Now, having set the person before
us, look at this description of his activity. Faithful is
the saying, worthy of all acceptance that Christ Jesus came into the
world. The person envisioned is Christ
Jesus. The activity described is that
of coming into the world. Now that little phrase has absolutely
no meaning apart from the biblical truth that he existed in another
realm and sphere before his coming into the world. We may use the
phrase carelessly, so-and-so came into the world at such-and-such
a time, and we use it as a rather loose way of describing someone's
birthday. And it's perfectly proper to
use language in that way, but when the Scriptures say, Christ
Jesus came into the world, it's not using that terminology in
the way that we use it. It is setting before us the glorious
truth that there was a person who existed before entering the
sphere that in this text is called the world. There is a tacit assumption
of his pre-incarnate existence. The one described in John's Gospel,
in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and
the Word was God. The same was in the beginning
with God. All things were made by Him,
and without Him was not anything made that hath been made. In
Him was life, and the life was the light of men. Then John says
in verse 14, And the Word became flesh. That Word who eternally
existed as the second person of the Godhead. who came in some
appearances in physical or visible form, not physical as we know
it, but visible form as the angel of Jehovah, who in every true
sense of the word embodied all the attributes of Jehovah, received
worship and was the object of sacrifice, that personage in
the Old Testament manifesting Himself from time to time as
the angel of Jehovah. That one now comes in a true
humanity, but we cannot understand this faithful saying. Apart from
understanding the meaning of these words that describe His
activity, Christ Jesus came into the world, speaking on the one
hand of the reality of His pre-incarnate existence, and then on the other
of His great humility, He came into the world. Now, the word
world is used with great latitude and great diversity in the New
Testament. It speaks sometimes of a place,
but more frequently of a condition. And here it speaks both of place
and condition. Christ Jesus came into the world. Yes, He came to the inhabited
earth, but He came to an inhabited earth under the curse of sin.
For you see, He came to save. The whole context of this paragraph
is Paul's amazement at the grace of God to him as a sinner. And
when he says, Christ Jesus came into the world, the emphasis
falls not so much upon the terra firma, upon the earth as we know
it, upon the topography of this one globe in our little solar
system which is but a speck in one galaxy which is but one among
many. No, no. He's speaking of Him
coming, coming to the place where sin is a reality, where evil
is an ugly and ever-present thing to contend with, where there
is death and the evidence of Satan's intrusion upon the original
bliss of mankind. And so the humility of Christ
is in focus. Christ Jesus came into the world. It should be a source of amazement
that the eternal Word, the second person of the Godhead, would
come to but one little speck in the mighty, vast universe
of God. But when He chooses the one speck,
as far as we know, where sin reigns, what an amazing thing. What an amazing thing. The activity
is described in the language of these, in these simple words. He came into the world. But now, what was his intention?
This faithful saying not only focuses upon the person, identifying
him, the activity described, came into the world, but what
was his intention? It's expressed so clearly, so
distinctly, that none can mistake it unless he is willfully blind. Look at the text. Christ Jesus
came into the world to give us the greatest example of humility
and self-denial so that following that example we might all become
better people. That's the way some have rewritten
the text and rewritten the whole Bible concerning its doctrine
of salvation. Christ has done nothing more
then come into this realm in order to give us the greatest
example of humility and self-denial, that in beholding that example
and in pattering ourselves after it, the world might become a
better place. That isn't what the text says.
The text says Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners,
and the arrangement in the original is even more forceful. Christ
Jesus came into the world sinners to save. And the emphasis falls
upon the kind of people on whose behalf He came. Christ Jesus
came into the world sinners to save. You see what the Apostle
did? He put Christ Jesus and His coming in the closest verbal
proximity to the people described as sinners. He doesn't want us
to think for a moment of the name Christ Jesus, the activity
coming apart from those whom He came to deal with. Sinners! He wants us to have those things.
I don't know a better word than inextricably. You know what inextricably
is? You can't separate it. It's all bound up. It's tied
together. You can't pull it apart. He does
not want us to pull apart in our thinking Christ Jesus, His
coming, and the needy sinners on whose behalf He came. So the
people embraced in the intention of our Lord are sinners. Now imagine the miracle that
had to occur for this word to be found on the lips and in the
pen of Saul of Tarsus. Sinners! Originally, the man
who wrote this statement thought sinners were Gentiles. Sinners
were people who did not submit to the strict laws of the Pharisaic
sect, as did he. He would never have used that
word concerning himself. And had you ever used it of him,
you would have stirred him to his depths. Sinners, no, he says,
I am the separated one. Yet we find him now saying that
the intention of Christ's coming focuses upon a people who are
to be described as sinners. This is why the Lord Jesus is
called the friend of sinners. And that's what upset the Pharisees,
you see. That's what disturbed them no
end. If only he had stood upon a soapbox and hurled out anathemas
upon publicans and sinners. That is the riffraff, the rabble
of that day. If only he had done that and,
as it were, encouraged them to join the Parasaic crowd, the
separated ones, they would have delighted in the ministry of
our Lord. But the thing that disturbed them was he ate and
he drank and he sat and entered into intimate, loving, concerned
relationship with sinners. And this they could not stomach.
And our Lord delighted. In that image, he said, I came
not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. And the word the apostle uses
for sinners is that basic New Testament word which has as its
basic connotation the sin which is a missing the mark. Christ
Jesus came with an intention that focuses upon people who
have missed the mark, who have not lived up to the standard
of Almighty God, which is the essence of sin. You'll never
understand the meaning of the biblical word sin until you first
of all insulate it from all horizontal implications. That is, take out
of your mind, sinning has to do with one human being robbing
another person another human being's possessions, destroying
another human being's character, taking another human being's
virtue, taking another human being's life, murder, rape, all
of these others. No, no. Set all of those things
out of your mind for a moment. For the essence of sin is to
be understood not in these horizontal relationships, but it's to be
understood in terms of vertical relationships. Almighty God made
you for Himself, made you to know Him, to love Him, to serve
Him with all of your heart. And to be a sinner is to be and
do anything less than that for which God made me. I may never
steal a penny of another man's possessions. No one may ever
be able to point at me as the destroyer of his or her virtue
and purity. I may, like the Apostle Paul
say, as touching the law of God, my external conduct was blameless. And yet this is the man who says
he was the chief of sinners. Why? Because he understood that
sin has to do with your relationship to God. Failure to have Him central
in your life from the moment of your consciousness is to be
guilty of sin. If the first and greatest commandment
is to love God with all the heart, the first and greatest sin is
failure to love Him with all the heart, mind, soul and strength. You see, the people embraced
in the intention, it's sinners. And then what is Christ's purpose
towards such? Look at the text. Sinners to
save. To save. A word that's not very
popular in our day, even in evangelical circles. Worldlings have said,
we don't like this Jesus saves religion. It's too simplistic
for us. We want something more sophisticated.
And poor, insecure evangelicals have jumped. and been scared
away from using this beautiful, this vigorous, this pregnant,
this many-faceted, glorious word, saved. No, no, my friends, we are not
embarrassed to say that the purpose of Christmas is bound up in this
little verb. Christ's purpose is sinners to
save. And what does that word mean
as we study it out in the scriptures? Well, the best summary I've ever
found is found in Hendrickson's excellent commentary on this
text, in which he says basically this. The biblical word saved
has both a negative and a positive side. The negative is it means
to deliver or rescue men from sin's guilt. from sin's slavery
and from sin's punishment. To be saved means to be rescued
from the guilt that is justly mine for not loving God with
all my heart and from breaking His holy law. It's to be saved
from the slavery of my sin. For the Scripture says, Whosoever
committed sin is the bond slave of sin. It's to be saved from
the punishment of my sin, that punishment which consists in
being cut off from God, alienated from God. When Adam sinned, he
is driven out of the garden. That punishment which consists
in the wrath of God, which in turn consists in everlasting
death and separation from God. To be saved means to be rescued
from the guilt, the slavery, and the punishment of sin, but
that's only half of it. As Hendrickson so beautifully
points out, it has its positive side. It means to bring into
the state which is exactly the opposite of what I was in. To
be saved then means not only to be rescued from guilt, but
is to be brought into a state of being righteous. Think of
it. It's one thing for God to declare not guilty. It's another
thing for him to say perfectly right. It's one thing to pardon
the criminal. saying, yes, he has committed
his misdeeds, but for this reason or that reason, we will not press
charges upon him, or the charges proven will now be pardoned.
It's another thing to say the criminal's record is such as
one who has perfectly kept the law. That's what saved means. That's the essence of the biblical
doctrine of justification. It is not only the forgiveness
of all our sins negative, it is the imputation of the perfect
righteousness of God in Jesus Christ. From the state of slavery,
we are brought into the posture of freedom. from punishment to
blessedness. In place of alienation, there
is now fellowship. In place of wrath, there is His
love shed abroad in our hearts. In place of death, there is everlasting
life. From the worst, from the deepest
condition of misery imaginable to the highest heights of privilege
conceivable, that is what is bound up in the little word,
saved. Christ Jesus came into the world
to save sinners. And my friends, if that was not
His intention, then the Incarnation not only remains an impenetrable
mystery in itself, how God and man can become one in one person
forever, that's a mystery. But why there should ever be
that mystery is a greater mystery yet. Why should He come from
that realm in which He was to this realm of sin? There is no
answer. But the answer that He came to
save, and if He is to save from guilt and slavery and punishment
unto righteousness, freedom and blessedness, the Father's justice
had to be satisfied in punishing sin. Therefore, there had to
be One who was one of us. who could stand in the world
where we forfeited life and win it back for us, who could stand
in the world where we sinned and yet be sinless, and in the
world where we deserve the wrath of God, bear that wrath for us.
You see, the Incarnation is a tragedy instead of a glorious mystery,
apart from this purpose, and certainly Gethsemane Golgotha,
Calvary, the darkened heavens, the shrouded face of God, the
agony of those hours that caused Him to cry, My God, My God, why
hast Thou forsaken Me? This makes no sense whatsoever,
unless behind the scene of what mortal eyes can see of Roman
soldiers and mocking scribes and chief priests and all the
rest, unless behind that scene There are profound and yet wonderful
realities being enacted. In the language of the Apostle,
this one Christ is becoming a curse for us. In the language of Isaiah,
it is pleasing the Father to bruise His own Son. My friends,
never forget it. You mock the Son of God by paying
sentimental tribute to Him in a manger. If you are not prostrate,
before the Son of God upon the cross. You mock the Son of God when
you pay sentimental tribute to Him in a manger, if you do not
fall prostrate before Him upon the cross. There was one purpose of the
manger, A body thou hast prepared me, we read in Hebrews. Lo, I
come to do thy will. And what was that will? That
he should lay down his life for the sheep. That's the purpose. The people
encompassed within the purpose, sinners, the purpose to save
them, to rescue them. Now, having looked at the nature
of the saying, it's faithful, it's worthy of all acceptance.
The essence of the saying, now look at the application. The
apostle closes with this statement, of whom I am chief. And again, in the original, the
emphasis is even stronger. Having said, Christ Jesus came
into the world, sinners to save. of whom foremost I am, even I. And that's why he goes on to
say in verse 16, Howbeit for this cause I obtain mercy, that
in me as chief my Christ Jesus show forth all his longsuffering
for an example of them that should hereafter believe on him unto
eternal life. Here the apostle Paul leaves,
may I say it reverently, he leaves theologizing about the intention
of Christ and he speaks out of the depths of his own personal
consciousness and he says, this purpose embodied in this faithful
saying, I know to be true. I have verified it in my own
experience. How do I know Christ came actually
to save sinners, those who missed the mark, who were under a canopy
of divine wrath, in alienation from God? He said, I know it
to be true, because as the chief, the foremost of sinners, He has
saved me. And His reasoning is, If he's
done that for me, as he goes on to say, he set the pattern
concerning what he'll do to any lesser sinner who sees his need
of this almighty Savior. Foremost, I am, even I. Let me illustrate it. Here's
a family of four. They're taking a walk in an area
with which they're not too familiar. And unknown to them, someone
has set a trap for large predatory beasts that might come by that
area. And it's all been covered over, like you see in the jungle
movies. And lo and behold, they don't see it, and they fall down,
all four of them, into this pit. And there's no way out. They
claw up the sides and try to dig. They can't get out. And
along comes a man. He hears their cry, and he offers
to rescue them. And he has a long rope. He looks
down and says, how many are there? They say, there are four of us.
Identify yourselves. Well, Papa says, my name is George
so-and-so. How big are you? 6'4", 250 pounds. And then Mama says, I'm Mama
so-and-so. 5'3", 120 pounds. And then there's
the two kids. One of them weighs 70 and one
weighs 90. And the man says, I don't know if I'm going to
get you all out of here, but one thing I know, if I can get Papa out, I'll get
the rest of you out. So he throws the line down and says, Pop,
you grab hold first. But he calls up and says, I'm sorry, my legs
are broken. I can't help to scramble up the walls at all. I'm dead
weight. I can't. He said, that's all
right. Have your wife tie the rope under your armpits and I'll
get you out of here. Now, if you see Papa safe at
the top of the pit, do you have any question that mom and the
two kids going to get out? If he's pulled out the greater
in size and weight, he's going to have no problem with the lesser,
right? When you say you think I'm stupid, don't press it. Of
course, I see that. Ah, but listen. How stupid we
can be in things that pertain to our soul's salvation. Paul
says in applying this faithful saying, verifying in his own
experience, Christ Jesus came to save sinners, of whom chief
even I am. And if he's pulled out Papa six
four two hundred and fifty, he can pull up his kids and his
wife. That's the logic, that's the logic of the heart, that's
the logic of the work of Christ on behalf of his servant. Now, we're not going to go into
in what sense was Paul the chief of sinners. He obviously was
not the vilest of sinners. That's why I retracted that word
when I used it earlier. Externally, his life was impeccable. He was not abandoned to perversion,
as we read in Romans chapter 1. He was not abandoned to irreligion
in the sense that many are. He wasn't what we would call
a deliberate hypocrite. He tells us in this very context,
chapter 1, verse 13, I obtained mercy because I did it ignorantly
in unbelief. Apart from that, he seems to
be saying he would have committed the sin against the Holy Ghost
for which there is no repentance and forgiveness in this world
or in the world to come, he said, if it were not for the fact that
I did it in ignorance. Unlike the scribes and Pharisees
concerning whom Christ said, look, before I came, before I
came, there was some excuse, but now that I've come and light
has come, you are without excuse. If you believe not that I am
he, you'll die in your sin. Paul says, I did it ignorantly
in unbelief. But nonetheless, he says, I was
a murderer. I was injurious. I was a persecutor. You see, his sin found its highest
aggravation in this. He did not have some darling
lust that was, as it were, his pet lamb that he kept for himself. But he was out after the very
vitals, the very taproots of the whole Christian faith. He
was out to destroy the eternal redemptive purposes of God. He
was out to obliterate from the earth the very name of Christ.
You see, the man who abandons himself to this sin or that sin
is guilty of terrible affront to the law of God. But you see,
the Christian faith will continue to go on and to rescue sinners
and to magnify the grace of God to sinners, but he who obliterates
the name of Jesus He who could, if possible, utterly destroy
the church out of which the name of Christ and the gospel of Christ
is preached, he, as it were, has brought redemptive history
to a standstill. And that's what he was out to
do. And it's in that sense that he says, I was cheap. Let Christ
say. Oh, my friends, as we bring our
study to a close this morning, I want to do so in this way.
Having examined with you this saying that is faithful and worthy
of all acceptance, the essence of the statement which sets this
person before us, his activity, coming, and the intention to
save sinners, I want to ask you, can you put an appendix on the
faithful saying that comes out of your own personal experience. You see, Paul points to the objective
statement of God. Christ Jesus came into the world
to save sinners. Now, is that simply religious
notion in his head? Is it simply good, sound Christian
theology upon his lips and issuing from his pen? No, no. from notion to theology, he says,
of whom I am chief. In other words, he confesses
that this is his deepest, most genuine religious experience. He has tasted and seen that the
Lord is good. He has found that Christ is precisely
what the faithful saying declares Him to be. He is saying that
he has experienced precisely what the text says Christ came
to do, to rescue, to save sinners. And I want to press upon your
conscience that question this morning. Can you take this faithful
saying and add to it the indisputable witness of your own experience?
How do you know that it's a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance
that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. You say,
well, I know it's true because the Bible says that. Good, I
hope so. You say, I know it's true because the Scriptures cannot
lie. Good. But my friend, do you know
it's true because you with Paul have taken the posture of a needy,
helpless, undone, hell-deserving sinner? who has come with no
pleas of personal righteousness and cast himself solely and completely
upon Christ, and you found him to be a willing and an able and
a gracious Savior? Or do you just point to the saying,
well, I know it must be true because I believe the Bible and
it's in the Bible, you see? My friend, that's not enough.
You can go to hell pointing at this text saying it's true. Do
you hear me? You can sink into hell, pointing
to this text, saying it's true, it's true, it's true, it's true,
it's true, it's true! Not until you say it is true
for me. It is true for me! And true for
me, not because I fix myself up. No, no, you don't negate
the statement. The statement is Christ came
to save sinners, not to help sinners save themselves. Not
to show sinners how they may lift themselves up by their own
bootstraps. It doesn't say He came to help
sinners who will have... No, no, no. It says He came to
save sinners. Everything that's necessary to
save them, to rescue them, to take them from the mess they're
in, to bring them to the glory of what God designs in grace,
Christ Jesus does. He does that when helpless sinners
own their sinnerhood. with no tongue in cheek, who
are prepared to say in principle exactly what the Apostle Paul
said. In principle. All distinctions
are swept away and you say with the publican, God be merciful
to me, the sinner, even as he did. At that point there was
only one sinner under heaven in the eyes of the publican who
peed upon his breast and that one sinner was himself. There
was no comparing of his position with others. There was no great
scale of good, bad, not so bad, not so... No, no. Lord, be merciful
to me, the sinner. Now, I ask you, have you taken
that posture? That posture. I am chief, the sinner. Now, you answer. Five minutes. We'll have a closing prayer and
you'll all be gone your ways. But I want you to answer that
question in your own conscience, in the presence of God. Can you append this faithful
saying with the witness of your own experience? Now answer, not
verbally, but answer! Answer, my friend! Answer now! The hour is coming when the answer,
if not affirmative, will be too late. Now, there'll be everything under
the sun in the next few days to help you drive all this out
of your head. You'll meet your friends, you older people, you'll
see your grandchildren, and you'll say it's worthwhile being old
to have grandchildren. I know how you think. I look
at my parents in the presence of their grandchildren. To think
about eternity and God and heaven and hell, awfully hard, isn't
it? Got all the grandchildren around,
all the good food, all the happy times. My friends, listen. All
the gaiety and all of the lightness and all of the legitimate domestic
joys of being with family and friends, don't change the issues
that you've confronted this morning. You've confronted this faithful
saying that Christ Jesus has come not to give us happy times
with our grandchildren and grandparents and relatives, that we might
trample His blood underfoot and throw a little sop at His manger.
Don't insult Him! Don't insult! He's come to save
sinners. There's a sense in which the
only person who has a right To laugh with his grandchildren
upon his knee is the one who knows that all is well between
himself and his God. And the laughter that exists
between him and his grandchildren is sanctified laughter. The only
one who has a right to sit at a Christmas dinner and feast
with joy is the one who knows that his lips will not be parched
in hell. My friend, if you don't have
that knowledge, I plead with you, don't allow the coming days
to be some kind of a narcotic influence upon your conscience. Remember this morning when the
preacher looked you in the eye and pointed his finger and asked
the question, can you append this faithful saying with your
own experience? And for those of you who can,
I trust that the wonder and the glory of what God in Christ has
done for you will fill your soul afresh, will bring anew the sense
of amazement, the sense of wonder. Meditate upon Philippians 2.
Meditate much upon John 1. Think of the glory, the wonder,
that Christ Jesus should come into the world, should come to
the very world that would crucify Him, and He should do so to save
the likes of you and the likes of me. The third question on
our On the Street survey is, if the religious significance
of Christmas has something to do with the coming of Christ,
why did He come? Here's your answer. Christ Jesus
came into the world to say oh my friend if you've not grown
yourself to speak and say Lord Jesus say even me the center
I so to cast yourself upon this morning and you have another
faithful saying from the very lips of the Son of God he said
this him that cometh unto me I will in no way cast out. Let us pray. Our Father, we thank you for
your word, which contains faithful and trustworthy words. Words
that we sinners desperately need to hear and to understand and
to believe. We pray that it would please
you by the Holy Spirit to take this portion of your word which
has been opened in the hearing of this congregation and make
it effectual in bringing sinners to the feet of the Savior who
came to rescue from sin. We pray that we who are your
people may be filled anew with the sense of wonder and amazement
that we should be the objects of this coming of the Lord Jesus
Christ, that when the angel said he shall save his people, that
we were in the very thought and mind of You are God. O Lord, may we never cease to
be amazed. May we never become accustomed
to think of ourselves as the people of God in such a way as
to fail to respond with wonder, with love, and with praise. Renew that sense of holy amazement
and draw out our hearts in loving worship and in all of the fruits
of holy obedience. Hear us, and may the benediction
of your own presence rest upon us and abide with us as we leave
this place. Hear us as we bring our petitions
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.